In 1992, a small village owner became the richest man in the village by owning a car.

Chapter 1 Catching the Thief
[This story is purely fictional. Any resemblance to actual events or persons is purely coincidental.]

(This book is dedicated to Master Yu, who has wasted most of his life!)

----

December 20, 1992, late at night.

The north wind howls.

Icicles that had formed under the eaves outside the window were broken off by the strong wind and clattered against the windowpane. In the chicken coop at the base of the wall, ducks and chickens huddled together, shivering. A thick layer of snow covered the tall pile of firewood in the garden.

At that moment, he was hiding in the woodpile, wearing a thick military overcoat, holding a hunting rifle in his hand, and aiming at the half-finished barn in the south garden.

Before this, the warehouse was filled with corn cobs covered with two layers of plastic sheeting. Now, it contains agricultural machinery that he bought with a loan at high interest rates.

This was also the investment that Yu Dawei regretted most in his previous life.

As a result, starting in 1992, he was burdened with a debt with an interest rate of 4% for the next ten years, causing his wife and children to struggle with him for ten years!

In 92, in the villages of Northeast China, every household still lived on adobe houses. A few wealthy families built brick and tile houses. Every family used candles at night because there was no electricity. The roads became muddy as soon as spring arrived. Almost every household raised cattle or horses, and only a very few could afford a tricycle that ran on oil.

Yu Dawei wasn't sure if he had actually returned to 1992, but he wanted to find out who the thieves who stole his equipment were!
More than two hours had passed, and his beard and eyelashes were covered with a layer of frost. His fingers, toes, and cheeks were already frozen stiff, but his eyes were firm and his body remained motionless.

The big white dog at his feet lay beside him, trying its best to keep him warm so that he wouldn't freeze to death in the frigid weather of minus thirty degrees Celsius.

In the darkness, a beam of light pierced through the wooden fence outside the yard. After the farm tricycle stopped outside the warehouse, two men got out. The taller one ripped open the plastic sheet covering the warehouse and jumped inside, followed closely by the slightly shorter one.

Yu Dawei could see those two figures clearly at that moment.

Less than thirty meters away in the pile of firewood, his heart pounded, his right hand tightened its grip on the shotgun, and he exhaled more white breath.

He recognized the tricycle from the village. He also recognized the two men; they were the Gao brothers from the village.

The tall one is called Gao Jun, and the short one is called Gao Qiang. They usually greet me warmly as "Brother Dawei".

He truly never expected that the guy who came to steal his family's belongings would be someone he grew up with in the village.

He had initially thought that the boss who sold him the equipment was cheating him, and he had cursed the boss his whole life. Now that the truth was out, he felt more angry and guilty towards the boss.

The Gao brothers carried out a brand-new diesel generator from the warehouse.

After carefully placing it on the back of the tricycle, the two looked around and then returned to the warehouse.

Yu Dawei suppressed his anger and didn't fire. He was waiting for the two brothers to carry the bigger thing out of the warehouse.

The big white dog beside them seemed to understand, lying silently beside its owner without showing its teeth, but staring at the two figures in the storeroom with unusually fierce eyes.

Before long, the two brothers worked together to lift an air compressor weighing over 500 kilograms to the side of the tricycle and were trying to figure out how to lift it onto the tricycle.

Without further hesitation, Yu Dawei fired two shots at the two men, then rushed out of the woodpile shouting, "Dabai, bite these two sons of bitches to death! They've got some nerve!"

The gunshot startled everyone who was fast asleep in the village. Not many families in Yujiatun owned guns, so if someone was firing a gun in the middle of the night, something must have happened.

The large white dog rushed forward and bit the tall man's injured thigh, causing him to howl in agony. Meanwhile, Yu Dawei fired a burst of bullets, knocking the shorter Gao Qiang unconscious, then turned and straddled the tall man!
"You son of a bitch! If it weren't for your father, I wouldn't have suffered so much! If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have been away from home for ten years! Being chased by debt collectors every day! You bastards!" Yu Dawei punched the other man in the face again and again, venting the resentment he had accumulated throughout his life before his rebirth! But in the end, he didn't shoot the Gao brothers dead, not because he was kind, but because the world had changed, and he couldn't let his excessive emotions cause his unborn eldest son to be fatherless.

"What's going on! Why did Dawei pull out a gun?!"

"Hey, aren't these the two brothers from the Gao family? What are they doing in someone's granary?"

"Dawei, stop hitting him! You'll kill someone if you keep going!"

In Yujiatun, Northeast China, it gets dark around 4 p.m., but now something happened suddenly at 8 p.m., and every household opened their doors.

One by one, the villagers, wrapped in cotton-padded coats, ran out of their houses and gathered in front of Yu Laonian's house, following the sound.

Yu Laonian is Yu Dawei's father. The father and son separated their family at the beginning of the year. Yu Dawei bought an old, dilapidated house in the village. Two of the three mud-brick rooms had collapsed, so the couple squeezed into one room to cook and sleep.

Although Yu Dawei was the eldest son in the family, he knew that he was not favored by his father. Tonight, he was the one who secretly took the old man's hunting rifle and guarded the garden alone.

"Oh dear, someone's been killed! Someone's been killed!" A short, stout old woman, about 1.5 meters tall, ran up to the Gao brothers, knelt on the ground, patted the snow, and her disheveled hair made her look like a madwoman: "Old Yu! Your son almost beat my son to death! You old geezer, why don't you say something!"

"Everyone, you saw it too. The two brothers from the Gao family came to my warehouse in the middle of the night and stole my equipment! I'm being lenient by not killing them! I even spared their breath." Yu Dawei panted heavily, pointing with his right hand at the two people on the ground, one unconscious and the other howling.

Everyone around remained silent. The people who had just spoken were all from outside the village. The uncles and elders from the same clan in Yujiatun were just watching the show and did not stop them.

"What's going on?" A calm voice rang out, causing the outsiders in Yujiatun who were about to speak to immediately swallow their words.

The man was thin and wrinkled, wearing a cotton-padded jacket and a dog-skin hat. He looked like an ordinary old man from the countryside, but no one in the group dared to underestimate him. When they saw that Old Man Yu had really come, even Old Woman Gao, who was throwing a tantrum on the ground, didn't dare to be presumptuous anymore.

After all, Yu Laonian had been the richest man in the village for half his life.

Yu Dawei saw his father frown again, his eyes redden, and tears streaming down his face in the cold wind.

"Say what you mean, tell the truth." Old Yu patted his eldest son's shoulder calmly, but a strange feeling also arose in his heart.

My eldest son is usually the type to shed blood but not tears, so why did he cry in front of so many people today?

Yu Dawei fought back tears and briefly recounted the events.

"Old Yu, don't be so sensible! It was your son, Yu Dawei, who almost shot my son to death. Even if it's stealing, you can't kill someone!"

Of course, Old Lady Gao on the ground was unwilling. Holding her tall, wailing son, Gao Jun, she cried out, "What a heartless wretch! Our Gao family has been your Yu family's slaves for generations. Now that everyone is equal, you still treat our Gao family so aggressively! Our Gao family has truly committed sins for generations!"

During the Republican era, Yujiatun was a self-contained place. Later, it took in three families surnamed Zhang, Gao, and Wang who had come from Northeast China. They always paid wages for their work and lived in harmony with each other.

Even after the land was distributed to individual households, the older generation in Yujiatun did not owe them a single penny of wages and settled all old debts.

Old Lady Gao's behavior made the people around her, who all had the surname Yu, somewhat unhappy.

Old Man Yu went even further and said directly to Dawei, "Call the police, don't hold back. Old Lady Gao, the world has changed. This kind of right and wrong is not something we ordinary people can decide."

(End of this chapter)