Liu Yu had spent over half a month tucked away at home after the New Year, passing his days in utter idleness.
While everyone else was busy visiting relatives, he had no family left to call on. As for the Liu family, they were best ignored, and his only surviving maternal uncle had moved his entire household away to a distant county town.
Yet Liu Yu was quite content with the freedom. He ate and drank to his heart’s content, passed the time teasing the village cats and dogs, and tinkered with his cooking in the kitchen.
He rarely ate the dishes he prepared himself, as most of them ended up in the stomach of that glutton Liu Wensheng.
On the eve of the Lantern Festival, Liu Yu received yet another parcel sent by Zhou Yu from J City.
This time, it contained the usual snacks and powdered milk. The only difference was that the letter inside felt bulging and thick. When he opened it, he found two thousand yuan tucked right inside.
The letter explained that Zhou Yu was very pleased to learn that Liu Yu had opened his own shop, and this money was capital to support the development of his career. Liu Yu could only laugh ruefully. What sort of career could a breakfast stand possibly be called that it required outside investment? Most likely, Zhou Yu worried that he had spent all his savings on renting the shop and was living in straitened circumstances, yet feared that sending too much money directly would make Liu Yu too proud to accept it.
Liu Yu couldn’t be bothered to write a letter sending the money back anyway. He planned to visit J City before long, and at worst, he could just cook all sorts of delicious meals for Brother Zhou every single day when he got there.
To wealthy people like him, a few thousand yuan probably couldn’t even compare to a single meal cooked to his liking.
On the sixteenth day of the first lunar month, Liu Yu finally unlocked his shop door.
The shops along the street had opened their doors bright and early, leaving only Liu Yu to take his time without a shred of urgency.
Seeing him, the crowd immediately swarmed into the shop, chattering all at once:
“Oh, Little Boss, you’re finally here! Not being able to buy your spring rolls has driven my son crazy. He throws a tantrum every single morning until he gets them.”
“Little Boss, you’re not eager to make money at all. Your ideological stance has some serious room for improvement!”
Liu Yu had no proper response, so he could only flash a good-natured, sheepish grin at everyone. Was he supposed to admit out loud that he was simply being lazy?
The plump aunt’s son had accompanied him over that very morning, and he proved to be exceptionally diligent, always spotting chores that needed doing. The moment he arrived, he swept away the thin layer of dust that had accumulated inside and out.
Aside from acting as the cashier, he proactively took over the task of serving and ladling out the large-bone soup, saving Liu Yu a tremendous amount of trouble.
Liu Yu figured that once the lad grew a bit more practiced, he could easily find someone else to take over the tasks he currently handled himself, and then he could just sit back and collect the earnings.
He had fantasized about such a blissful life for quite some time. During the Spring Festival, Aunt Guifang had even come to ask him about the method for making steamed buns. Liu Yu had given her some baking soda, and the buns she made looked hardly any inferior to his own.
Besides, this was her first time making them. Once she grew more skilled, she would likely bake them even better.
At that moment, a sneaky thought began to brew in Liu Yu’s mind once again. He wanted to bring Aunt Guifang into his shop to take over his duties.
He had thought it through carefully. Liu Wenyu was studying in town and would enter his third year of middle school in the second half of the year, which was precisely the time when academic pressure mounted and serious effort was required.
Not only was the school cafeteria unpalatable, but the nutritional value of the meals was always lagging behind. The village chief and his wife placed immense importance on their eldest son’s education. One could tell just by how every weekend when Liu Wenyu returned home, he was treated to meat dishes at every single meal. They might not say much out loud, but they cared deeply in their hearts.
If Aunt Guifang could come work at his shop, she could cook a proper, nourishing midday meal for her son every single day, and heading back in the afternoon wouldn’t delay her farmwork either.
Liu Yu could even offer a higher wage. People in the countryside lacked money, land, and grain, but they were never short on physical strength. During the busy farming season, a bit of cash could easily hire laborers to work an entire day.
Liu Yu considered his plan foolproof, but whether it would actually work out depended entirely on what the other party had to say. He hadn’t discussed the matter with Aunt Guifang yet, having only dropped subtle hints to Liu Wenyu twice.
Liu Wenyu was extremely sharp. After being probed twice, he caught onto what Liu Yu was plotting, straightaway scolding him as a complete sluggard who found even earning quick money too exhausting.
Liu Yu resorted to the favorite tactic Liu Wensheng used so often, making a fuss and rolling around on the ground. Unable to take it, Liu Wenyu finally relented and promised to bring the matter up with his mother.
In truth, he secretly hoped his mother would go work at Liu Yu’s shop as well. Although Liu Yu constantly complained about being tired, those chores were practically a vacation for countryfolk accustomed to heavy farm labor.
The shop’s business was booming. While it was busy, it wasn’t overly taxing. Strictly speaking, the actual heavy work occupied half a day at most, and more importantly, it came with a generous wage. Where else in town could one find such a sweet deal? Liu Wenyu even began to feel that if his family turned down this opportunity, they would simply be lacking in common sense.
Knowing the weight Liu Wenyu’s words carried in the village chief’s household, Liu Yu felt confident that this arrangement was practically set in stone.
He blissfully envisioned the scene of his future retirement after a hard day’s work.
Little did he expect that upon unlocking his front door, his entire world would come crashing down!
Before his eyes lay clothing and bedding tossed all across the floor in utter chaos.
Instead of rushing to clean up, he stepped over the mess and hurried straight to the wardrobe.
The lock on the wardrobe was completely undisturbed, showing no signs of forced entry, but a massive hole had been smashed into the side of the wooden cabinet.
Liu Yu pulled out the key he kept on his person and unlocked the door, only to find the interior completely empty. The snacks and candies Zhou Yu had sent, along with the box containing his cash, were entirely gone.
Clearly, the intruder had rummaged through all his belongings, tossing aside the useless clothes and bedding while making off with everything of value.
Bloody hell!
His own savings, combined with the two thousand yuan Zhou Yu had sent and all those imported foreign goods, had a total value exceeding three thousand yuan.
What did three thousand yuan represent? A senior skilled technician in a county town would have to work seven or eight years without eating or drinking to save that much.
Liu Yu wasn’t well-versed in the laws of this world, but he guessed the penalty wouldn’t be light. Theft amounting to three thousand yuan easily qualified as an enormous sum. Once caught, three to ten years behind bars was guaranteed.
Yet he wasn’t concerned with how many years the thief would serve. His sole concern was whether his money could be recovered.
With a grim expression and making sure no one was watching, Liu Yu relocked his front door and hurried around the back of the house toward the village chief’s residence.
He tapped softly on the back door of the village chief’s house. “Uncle, Aunt, something terrible has happened. My house has been burglarized!”
At that hour, Zhang Guifang was generally preparing dinner in the back kitchen. Hearing Liu Yu’s urgent cry, she immediately flung the back door open.
Zhang Guifang asked anxiously, “Heqing, what’s going on? Your house was broken into?”
Liu Yu replied in a low, heavy voice, “Everything was stolen, altogether worth over three thousand yuan.”
“What?! Over three thousand!” Zhang Guifang’s kitchen knife slipped straight from her hand onto the floor. She had never laid eyes on that much money all at once in half a lifetime. Startled out of her wits, she bolted out of the house and ran toward the field ridges. Within minutes, the village chief hurried back with her, looking frantic.
He wheeled out the bicycle he usually reserved for attending meetings in town. “Come on, this is no petty theft anymore. Before we alert the culprit, let’s hurry to town and report it to the police.”
That was precisely what Liu Yu had in mind, which was why he had chosen to approach the village chief’s family in secret.
Taking advantage of the gathering darkness, the two of them pedaled around the main village road and headed straight for the town police station.
“Don’t panic. Please lay out the specific details for us.”
The police officer seemed to instinctively assume the adult accompanying the youth was the victim, keeping his gaze fixed entirely on the village chief.
Liu Yu explained with a helpless sigh, “Hello, Uncle Police Officer. I am the victim filing the report. Around four o’clock this afternoon, when I returned home, I discovered my house had been burglarized. The total value of the missing cash and items is just over three thousand yuan. The crime must have taken place sometime between six in the morning and a little past four in the afternoon.”
Realizing the complainant was merely a child, the officer felt a brief moment of surprise. But upon hearing that the stolen sum reached a staggering three thousand yuan, his expression instantly turned grave.
He immediately picked up the telephone to contact the county public security bureau, requesting backup to assist with the investigation.
Handling cases under these conditions was cumbersome. Every household used kerosene lamps and extinguished them to sleep as soon as night fell, meaning inquiries could yield no results until morning.
The two of them returned to the village along the same path, and Liu Yu spent the night at the village chief’s house.
He slept on Liu Wenyu’s bed, right next to Liu Wensheng’s cot.
Unaware of what had happened after school that afternoon, Liu Wensheng was still chattering excitedly, expressing his delight at having Liu Yu sleep in his room for the night.
“Big Brother, why aren’t you saying anything?” Liu Wensheng asked, puzzled when the other remained silent.
“Brother? Big Brother!”
Liu Yu finally snapped back to reality. “Go ahead, I’m listening.”
“At noon today, Guobin, Shunzi, Little Dog, and I got into a fight with some guys from the neighboring village.”
“There were four of us, and they started with four too, but one coward bolted on the spot. Four against three, we had those guys howling.”
Young children loved sharing trivial daily occurrences with those close to them, and indifference would only leave them feeling hurt and dejected.
With no other choice, Liu Yu forced himself to muster some energy and asked, “Oh? Why did you get into a fight with them?”
Liu Wensheng said indignantly, “Hmph, because they’re no good! At school, they constantly bully the girls and younger students, and they always borrow things without returning them. They never usually come to our village anyway, and our village certainly doesn’t welcome them!”
Of poor character? They never usually come to the village, yet they just happened to show up today?
A sharp glint flashed in Liu Yu’s eyes as he caught the anomaly in that detail.
Liu Yu immediately prompted, “Wensheng, tell me more about them! That way I can watch out for them if I run into them next time.”
“At school, they’re usually tight with Liu Gui. But before, Liu Gui was always the one going over to hang out with them. Today, they were probably here looking for Liu Gui anyway. Whenever you see anyone hanging around Liu Gui, you’re better off staying far away.”
Now everything clicked into place for Liu Yu. The burglary at his house likely had a direct connection to this group.
Early the next morning, three police officers arrived in the village and headed straight for Liu Yu’s house.
Uniformed in standard military-green police attire, they frightened the villagers passing by into hushing their voices, though curiosity compelled many to tail along behind them.
“Uncle Police Officer, I obtained a new lead last night that should be useful for solving the case.” With that, Liu Yu nodded toward Liu Wensheng, who was standing nearby.
Liu Wensheng chimed in eagerly, “Uncle Police Officer, I have a clue to report! Yesterday afternoon, I saw four people from Sunjiachuang come into our village. They were acting all sneaky and suspicious. Little Dog, Shunzi, Guobin, and I can all vouch for it.”
The previous night, Liu Yu had mentioned the burglary to him, and Liu Wensheng had instantly concluded it had to be the work of those exact individuals.
That morning, refusing to go to school, he bluntly told his father he needed to act as a witness for Big Brother Heqing. The village chief had simply patted his head without raising any objections.
Shunzi, who was lurking among the crowd trailing behind the police to gawk, instinctively covered his face with both hands upon hearing his name, then peeked out timidly through a gap between his fingers.
Seeing his good friend glaring at him with an accusatory expression, Shunzi finally blurted out in a single breath, “I can vouch for it. We even got into a fight in the village yesterday!” He immediately clapped his hands back over his face.
How embarrassing, he thought. If he had known, he wouldn’t have stubbornly skipped school.
Liu Wensheng added, “Right, Liu Gui definitely knows about this! Those guys hang out with Liu Gui all the time at school!”
“He does not!”
A sharp, shrill voice rang out from the back of the crowd.