Rebirth in 1972: Redemption in Changbai Mountain

"There's still some wine left, and the meat is ready too. Besides what I gave to Xiaohua and her brother, I also sent some to Zeng Ping. There are still several pounds left, enough for tonight."

"Tonight I'll go and call out those lazybones in the village. Right now, those good-for-nothings are probably holed up in someone's house playing cards. I can call them out and they'll be right there."

As Chen Datou talked, he relaxed. He was very familiar with these petty thefts.

Zhou Rui glanced at him, secretly amused by his constant use of terms like "good-for-nothing" and "lazybones."

A few years ago, Chen Datou was someone who would stay up all night at the card table, but now he calls himself a lazy bum and a good-for-nothing, and seems like a reformed and respectable person.

"What do we do after we find the person?" Chen Datou scratched the back of his head.

"Is that even a question? We sneak up behind him in the middle of the night and knock him out with a club, we block his chimney before dawn, we stake out his house every day to dig up dirt on him, we torment him to death."

Zhou Rui tapped his fingers on the rough wooden table, his mind never one to be trifled with, and his ideas were always more insidious than the last.

"Hehe... I just suddenly felt that these underhanded tricks are a bit too much to pull off, aren't they?" Chen Datou rubbed his hands together and laughed.

Zhou Rui glared at him sideways, thinking to himself, "You, Chen Datou, are no good person to begin with, why are you pretending to be an innocent little rabbit?"

"For the next two weeks or so, you should all stay quiet and avoid going out during the day, especially near the village entrance."

"Tell Xiaohua to stop doing the work in the village for now, just stay home and sort the dried medicinal herbs."

Chen Datou clenched his jaw tightly, his brows furrowed into a knot: "I'm a bachelor, and my reputation as a rogue and scoundrel is already well-known. No matter what I do, nobody says anything."

"But Xiaohua is an unmarried girl... Even if she never leaves her home, I'm still afraid that those gossipy old women from the east end of the village will come knocking on my door with their shoe-making baskets and start rambling on about this and that."

Zhou Rui's fingers started tapping on the edge of the table again, and he didn't stop for a long time.

He knew all too well how bizarre the rumors in this mountain valley could be. They could fabricate scandalous stories about things that had no basis in fact, and he couldn't very well take a stick and beat up all the gossipy women in the village.

"How about... I reveal that I went up the mountain to collect herbs? I'll say that I took Xiao Huaihua with me to make a living in the mountains, digging up some herbs to exchange for some money for oil and salt."

Chen Datou kept his voice very low, as if afraid of startling something.

Zhou Rui looked up and stared at him intently, genuinely surprised.

Unexpectedly, Uncle Big Head was really willing to go to great lengths to protect Little Locust Flower's reputation.

You should know that going into the mountains to collect medicinal herbs is a unique and lucrative job these days; if you're diligent, you can earn several hundred yuan a year.

Once this thin veil is pierced, when spring comes next year, the mountains and fields will be full of villagers digging for medicinal herbs, and this little bit of profit will sooner or later be scraped clean, leaving not even a trace.

"It's useless. You can't go door-to-door arguing about how much a pound of dried Schisandra chinensis can sell for, or how many pounds of flour you can exchange for a pound of Polygonatum sibiricum."

"By the time everyone has figured out the costs, the gossip outside will have spread to the point where they've even made up how old your kids are."

"Besides, nobody believed it when it was first said. It wasn't until someone actually used the money from selling medicine to buy two ounces of liquor at the supply and marketing cooperative that everyone belatedly realized and became envious. By then, it was too late."

"Um... let me interject." He Wu, wearing his coat, suddenly raised his hand high, looking just like a primary school student being called on by the teacher in class.

Zhou Rui was amused by him: "We're all brothers, why bother with all this? Just say what you want to say."

He Wu leaned forward and said, "Why don't we find a few gossipy people to spread the word that Chen Datou stumbled upon a badger's den in the mountains a few days ago?"

"Thinking that Xiaohua and her brother hadn't had meat in a long time, we asked her to help carry the game, but we were blocked by the militia halfway down the mountain."

"They saw the badger meat and wanted to steal it all, but Chen Datou protected it with his life. Zhao Changshan and his gang didn't get any benefit, so they spread lies everywhere and smeared the two of them."

"You, Chen Datou, only wanted to help the two orphans of the Chen family because you felt sorry for them, but instead you were bullied by the militia."

He Wu got more and more excited as he talked, and almost turned this into a drama about a tyrant robbing people of their property.

"You mean Zhao Changshan and his gang spread this rumor? I knew it! Why wasn't this rumor circulating before? I just refused their demands for the badger today, and the gossip started spreading this very evening."

Chen Datou slammed his hand on the table and stood up, his voice instantly rising eight octaves.

Zhou Rui quickly pulled him down to sit: "Keep your voice down, don't wake my kid."

"And you've missed the point. He Wu didn't say that Zhao Changshan spread the word."

"Then just now..." Chen Datou looked at Zhou Rui in surprise.

"He Wu is pointing out to us that the people in this village love to join in the fun and gossip."

"We can't silence everyone, so let's just throw out an even more sensational story and stir up this mess completely, so that in the end no one can tell which statement is true and which is false."

He Wu stared at Zhou Rui as he slowly finished speaking, his eyes practically gleaming with light, and gave Zhou Rui a big thumbs up.

He only had a vague idea in his mind, but Zhou Rui straightened out all the steps perfectly. He was truly impressed by Zhou Rui's quick thinking.

"Then...can the villagers believe that?"

Chen Datou was having second thoughts. If he dragged the militia into this mess and the story didn't spread, but instead completely offended Zhao Changshan, then he would have really lost more than he gained.

Zhou Rui closed his eyes and went through the details in his mind, then said firmly, "Yes, definitely."

"First of all, you and Xiaohua are within five degrees of kinship. According to seniority, you are her cousin. It is more reasonable for a cousin to help his orphaned niece than for those scandalous rumors. The villagers will not think of anything inappropriate in the first place."

Secondly, Zhao Changshan was used to being a bully in the village. He had bullied many people, relying on his position as militia captain. It was said that he was greedy for badger meat and used his power to forcibly seize it; no one in the village would be surprised by that.

"When the villagers start talking about it, and his own old house catches fire, he won't have time to care about you."

"Okay, I'll head home now and stew the rest of the badger meat."

"Call over my old brothers and tell them that I risked being tied up by the militia to snatch this meat from Zhao Changshan, and almost didn't even get a drop of oil."

Chen Datou knew best how to stir up these people's emotions. Once he said that, those thugs would definitely be able to come up with seven or eight versions of the story the next day, and it would spread faster than the wind.

"So... should we continue investigating the person who's spreading rumors behind our backs?" Chen Datou asked weakly.

What he initially thought would require a great deal of effort to resolve could now be suppressed simply by fabricating lies. He suddenly felt that his previous plan to find the person in question was somewhat unnecessary.

"Investigate, we must investigate."

Zhou Rui's voice was chilly in the night: "If you don't find out who's hiding in the shadows watching you, can you sleep soundly when you go into the mountains to gather herbs?"

"Investigating this person isn't about venting anger; it's about finding out who's been watching you and Xiaohua all along."

"If these eyes remain hidden in the shadows, your path to making money by digging for medicinal herbs in the mountains will eventually be cut off."

Chen Datou's hurried footsteps disappeared outside, and Zhou Rui and He Wu blew out the oil lamp in the main room, preparing to go back to the inner room to sleep.

He Wu, wearing his coat, walked to the threshold and suddenly asked out of the blue, "You're willing to offend the militia to help those two, but you don't get any benefit in return. What's the point?"

Zhou Rui didn't stop walking. With his back to He Wu, his voice was deep: "Chen Datou saved my younger brother and sister's lives."