Courtyard House: Drunk and barging into the Xu family's house, I woke up numb.

"I never expected something like this to happen. How are you? Are you alright?"

Yi Zhonghai hurriedly pressed for an answer.

"Yeah, is Shazhu alright?"

As soon as Yi Zhonghai finished speaking, he heard the sound of running behind him.

Immediately afterwards, He Yuzhu rushed over in a panic and went into his house without even acknowledging anyone.

Upon entering the house and seeing it burned beyond recognition, He Yuzhu nearly went mad.

He ran out of the house and yelled at the crowd at the door.

"What happened? Who set my house on fire?!"

Yi Zhonghai had initially thought that Sha Zhu had accidentally started the fire, but he was shocked to hear this.

"Shazhu, how do you know someone else started the fire?"

He Yuzhu pointed to the bedding on the ground, which was almost completely burned away.

"Isn't it obvious?"

"I didn't make my bed this morning, and now the bedding is all lying on the floor."

"This wasn't done by human intervention. Could it have grown legs and run onto the ground on its own?"

Yi Zhonghai walked into the room and looked around.

"Could it be that when people were putting out the fire, they deliberately pulled the blanket down to prevent it from spreading elsewhere?" 930

Cao Xu smiled.

"That's even more impossible. If it had really been pulled off during the fire, the fire on the blanket would have been put out immediately. How could it have been left to burn like this?"

"If it was already burned like this, how could it have been moved to the ground so intact?"

"So, the bedding was obviously set on fire on the ground."

As Cao Xu finished speaking, Yan Jiefang arrived with the police station. The officers breathed a sigh of relief when they saw that the fire had been extinguished.

Although the fire was extinguished, it was still necessary to understand the situation, so the police officers from the local station began to interview the people at the scene to find out what had happened.

Police officer Yang Zitao knew this was He Yuzhu's house, so he stepped forward to ask him something.

"Where is Bang Geng? Where is that kid Bang Geng?"

Before he could even speak, Sha Zhu uttered a single sentence and dashed off.

He barged into the Jia family home and, seeing no sign of Bang Geng, asked Xiao Dang, who had just entered.

"Xiao Dang, where's your brother?"

Xiao Dang shook his head.

"I don't know, I haven't seen my brother since he went to the bathroom."

"I ran out with the locust flowers after the fire started, and I don't know where my brother went."

Just as He Yuzhu was searching for Bang Geng, Bang Geng, who had started the fire, realized he had made a huge mistake.

He's the arsonist, and even if there were any accidents, he'll still go to jail if he's caught.

Having been to a juvenile detention center before, Bang Geng didn't want to go to jail, so he took advantage of the chaos to gather some valuables, packed his schoolbag, and ran away.

After arriving on the street, Banggeng boarded a bus bound for Fengtai Railway Station, beginning his escape.

Chapter 183 A Banger's Unfounded Father, Encountering Danger Upon Arrival in the Mountain City! [Please Subscribe]

Banggeng sat in the last row of the bus, took off his backpack and hugged it tightly to his chest, not daring to doze off even once during the journey.

At the beginning of the year, pickpockets are a common sight on trains, long-distance buses, and public buses.

This bag contains all his belongings; if he loses it, he'll probably be starving.

The last time he ran away from home, he wandered around the capital for several days. Although he didn't have much money, he didn't go hungry either.

But this time it's different; he committed arson, and it probably won't be long before the police find him.

At that point, they might search the entire capital for him. How could he possibly dare to stay in the capital then?

So he made up his mind: he would take the train to another city. He hadn't decided where to go yet, but he knew he couldn't stay in the capital any longer.

After a leisurely hour, the bus crossed the South Moat and arrived at Fengtai Railway Station. Banggeng got off the bus and went straight to the ticket office.

Bang Geng had only ever traveled by car, never by train. By car, you just buy a ticket based on the distance, but trains are quite different.

At that time, train stations were nothing like those before the implementation of real-name ticketing in later generations, where one could simply exchange money for a ticket.

In those days, the checks for taking the train to other places were even stricter than in later times. First of all, you needed a letter of introduction; without one, you couldn't even buy a ticket.

Unable to buy a train ticket, Bang Geng had no choice but to walk out of the ticket office.

After he came out, he looked at the crowd queuing to enter the station and suddenly had an idea.

His idea was to sneak in and get away with it. He squeezed into the crowd with his backpack on, and when he saw an older man enter the station, he chased after him.

The ticket inspector saw him trying to pass through and immediately stopped him.

Why are you running so fast? Where's the ticket?

Bang Geng pointed at the man who had just passed by.

"My dad has the ticket. We hadn't seen it while we were queuing. I went to the restroom, and when I came out, the train station had already started to open."

As he spoke, he shouted to the people in front of him.

"Dad, over here!"

Perhaps it was just good luck, but the person turned around and looked this way.

Seeing this, Bang Geng boldly waved at the man, who reciprocated by waving back.

Seeing this, the ticket inspector stopped Bang Geng, because the man did indeed have two tickets, but since one person was missing, they only checked one.

It seemed the man was waiting for this little boy. After putting the stick in, the man moved on to checking the next person's ticket.

As for why they didn't go after the man to check his ticket, it was simply because there were still a lot of people queuing behind them, and it was too cold to bother going back and forth.

So, by sheer luck, Banggeng managed to sneak in.

After approaching the man, he politely thanked him, leaving the man completely bewildered.

After Banggeng went inside, the man kept looking back at the ticket gate every three steps, but he still didn't see the person he was waiting for.

"Sigh, it seems this child is determined not to come back with me."

After randomly boarding a train that was about to depart, Banggeng went into the restroom with his schoolbag on his back.

When they got to the restroom, Banggeng took out the money he had collected from home from his schoolbag.

After counting it over and over again, he confirmed that all the money he had was 632.5 yuan.

He unbuttoned his cotton-padded coat and used a small knife he had prepared beforehand to pry open a seam.

He stuffed the six hundred bills into the lining of both sides of his cotton-padded coat, and then he took out a needle and thread to sew the opening closed.

After finishing everything, Bang Geng clapped his hands, smiled, and walked out of the bathroom with his backpack on.

Sewing money into one's underwear was a common practice for many people in that era, and Bang Geng naturally understood this.

In this way, even if he loses or has his money stolen, he doesn't need to worry, because the money in his clothes is his last line of defense.

He had already calculated that even if he ate only wheat flour every day, it wouldn't cost him more than a dollar a day, and the six hundred dollars would be enough for his expenses for two years.

As for what to do two years from now, we'll talk about that in two years. We'll live one good day at a time and not worry about anything else.

Two hours after the train started moving, they began checking tickets, and Banggeng managed to slip through by going to the toilet.

After he returned to his seat, the person next to him told him that after the train crew finished checking the next carriage, they would come back to check his ticket and told him not to wander around.

Bang Geng was horrified when he heard this. He didn't have a ticket, and if he got caught, he'd be sent back to the capital.

So, Banggeng picked up his backpack and changed to a carriage that had already had its tickets checked, but the carriage was full and there was nowhere to sit.

Left with no other choice, Banggeng found a spot on the side and crawled under the seat to lie down.

In those days, train journeys took a long time, and sitting was very tiring, so Bang Geng wasn't the only one who crawled under the seats to lie down and sleep.

By evening, Banggeng was caught by the train conductor again. Banggeng lied and said that his ticket was with his father and that he didn't have it on him.

His father went to the toilet and probably won't be back for a while.

Seeing that the next station was approaching, the train conductor was no longer in a hurry and just stood there waiting for Banggeng's father to return.

This left Bang Geng completely dumbfounded. Wasn't this a sign that they were targeting him?

The train swayed and pulled into the station. The conductor asked the doors to be opened, and he told Banggeng that he would come over to check his and his father's tickets in a little while.

Banggeng verbally agreed, but his feet were restless as he walked to another carriage and ran out when the door opened.

Upon reaching the exit, Banggeng used his old trick to slip out of the station.

After exiting the station, Bang Geng realized where he was. He had arrived in a place he had never heard of before—Shancheng.