Siheyuan, my new life

After a few drinks, the atmosphere at the table gradually became lively. The men who liked to drink kept raising their glasses to toast, taking the opportunity to indulge in their drinking addiction. You know, during the New Year and other festivals, you can only buy a few taels of loose wine from the supply and marketing cooperative to satisfy your cravings, but tonight they were drinking Mianzhu Daqu wine, which cost more than one yuan per bottle.

The women and children almost never stopped using their chopsticks, taking bites of snow-white steamed buns or delicious meat dishes. No one had time to talk, they just kept eating with relish.

Fortunately, today's chef had foresight and cooked dishes of sufficient size. Each table was filled with four large porcelain bowls. Although they were all home-cooked dishes, today's dishes were full of oil. Not only were there slices of fat the size of a child's palm, but even the soup was greasy.

Many half-grown children from Tongjiadong who were sitting at the square table had never eaten such a sumptuous meal since they were born. There were not only pots of meat and vegetables with tempting aroma, but also white steamed buns that were almost as big as a child's head, and a large pot of white rice. When the old village chief announced that the meal was about to start, the children immediately stretched out their chopsticks to the fat slices they had been eyeing for a long time, and then took a bite of the white steamed bun and a bite of the meat and vegetables, chewing non-stop with their little mouths opening and closing.

The dinner ended only when all the villagers' stomachs were full and they could not eat another bite of food.

After a short rest, the aunties and grandmas began to clean up. Although almost all the villagers were already full, there was still some food left on the table. In today's rural areas, no one would be willing to throw away these leftovers. The women's director was responsible for distributing all the leftovers to each household according to the number of family members. As for Tong Gouzi, who had not appeared yet, no one thought of him at all.

After the drying yard was cleaned up, the old village chief warmly invited Zhou Xuan and Zhou Huang to stay at his home tonight, but Zhou Huang refused directly: "Old village chief, your home is not spacious enough, so we won't go. We will sleep in a tent on the drying yard tonight. We have a military tent in our car."

How could the old village chief agree to let the distinguished guest from the capital stay outside? Just as he was about to dissuade him, Zhou Xuan interrupted him and said seriously: "Old village chief, call the militia captain over now, and be careful not to attract other people's attention. I have something very important to tell you."

Seeing the other party's serious expression, the old village chief had no choice but to turn around and look for the militia captain Tong Dalong.

After a while, the two returned to the drying yard. With the help of the still burning campfire, they saw two grass-green tents more than one meter high and two meters long placed on both sides of the campfire, with four small canvas stools of the same color next to them.

Zhou Xuan waved at the two men, motioning them to sit on the small stools, took out a box of Mudan cigarettes, opened it, handed each of them a cigarette, and then said in a serious tone: "Old village chief, Captain Tong, before dinner today, I specifically asked you to count the villagers who did not come. In fact, the real reason is that my colleague discovered something unusual."

Zhou Huang continued, "When you were discussing the construction of a brick house at Tong Laoer's house, I came out to get some fresh air and accidentally saw a dark and thin young man sneaking into the forest with a machete. At that time, most of the villagers in our village gathered outside the courtyard wall of Tong Laoer's house to watch the excitement. The abnormal behavior of this dark and thin young man caught my attention. So I followed this man from a distance, trying to find out what he wanted to do. After tracking for less than half an hour, I found that this dark and thin young man would look for a nearby tree trunk every two or three hundred steps. What are you looking for? After careful observation, I found that there were marks left by a machete on the tree trunks where the thin black young man had stopped, which looked like some kind of mark. I was a scout in the army. Without alerting the thin black young man, I went around him and walked in front of him. I followed the marks to the mouth of a canyon and was surprised to find that due to frequent people coming and going, a path had been trampled out that led directly to the canyon. I carefully entered the canyon and saw four people with long guns standing guard at the mouth of the canyon. There were also two light machine guns on the ground facing the outside of the canyon. "

Zhou Huang glanced at the old village chief and the militia captain, who were already looking unhappy, and continued: "Later, I tried every means to sneak in and investigate the situation in the canyon, and finally concluded that this was a group of vagrants who were defeated by our army. It is initially estimated that there are at least 70 or 80 people. They not only have light machine guns and other guns, but also heavy weapons were found in the cave where the leader lives. Analyzing from the current situation, the Tong Gouzi in your village is most likely the spy of this group of vagrants. Tongjiadong was poor before, so those guys didn't set their sights on you. This time, we came, not only to send condolences to several martyrs' families, but also to build brick and tile houses for their families, so the Tong Gouzi set his sights on us."

Hearing this, the old village chief quickly spoke up: "Comrades Zhou, I never thought that Tong Gouzi would be such an ungrateful person. The situation is urgent now. You should drive to the county to report the case immediately. Since those guys have both light and heavy weapons, the township government cannot deal with them by summoning a few village militias. We have no choice but to ask for help from the county."

After hearing the old village chief's words, Zhou Xuan and Zhou Huang looked at each other and saw a hint of relief in each other's eyes. If the old village chief had not expressed himself in this way just now, but instead grumbled and complained about Zhou Xuan and the others bringing disaster to Tongjiadong, then Zhou Xuan and the others would have dealt with that bunch of vagrants and left after leaving the money for building a brick house. They would not give too much to those who did not know how to be grateful.

Zhou Xuan smiled and said, "Don't worry, old village chief. We have contacted the nearby troops and we estimate that we will eliminate the remaining defeated soldiers tonight. We asked you to come here, in addition to telling you about this matter, we also want to inform you that Tong Gouzi is colluding with the bandits and I'm afraid he won't be able to come back. I hope you can be mentally prepared in advance."

Militia captain Tong Dalong spat heavily and cursed in a low voice: "Even if that bastard can come back, I will kill him with my own hands. He eats Tongjiadong's food, but he actually does things that collude with bandits. It's simply a disgrace to our village. If this gets out, how can the young and old men of Tongjiadong face people?"

Zhou Xuan smiled and said: "Since you already know about this matter, I remind you not to tell anyone else before the superiors officially announce it. As for that Tong Gouzi, it would be best if he died in the crossfire. In this way, no outsiders would know his identity, and there would be no news that would affect the reputation of our Tongjiadong."

The old village chief had experienced so many ups and downs over the years, so of course he had heard the other party's implication. They were planning to have the troops shoot the beast directly, and then throw him into the pile of bandit corpses. Who would know about Tong Gouzi's existence? Moreover, the troops would never be merciful to the bandits entrenched in the mountains and forests. As long as the bandits were all eliminated, no one would know that Tong Gouzi had colluded with the bandits.