Chapter Ten: No One at Home

  Li Meng said goodbye and returned to his own place. Zhao Neng was busy helping with the cleanup and didn't pay attention to him. Li Meng went back to his shabby hut, took out half a pancake from his pocket, scooped some cold water with a ladle, and slowly chewed and swallowed it. This was something he had bought in Fengmang Town. In modern times, Li Meng had never thought that white flour could be so fragrant and sweet. It's hard to say whether this can really be called white flour, as the color is somewhat dark.

  But for Li Meng, the food in his mouth was truly a delicious and satisfying treat. After eating half of the pancake, he managed to get through the night.

  The wailing outside was clearly audible, making the sweet pancake somewhat hard to swallow. For Li Meng from modern times, Mu Xun's tyranny and oppression of the people were unbearable. The people of Xuejia Village were all kind and honest, and it was these villagers who had raised Li Meng with kindness since he was five years old, after his mind was traumatized.

  Today's encounter with the salt bandits on the small road, and the village being looted at night. The memories of the previous owner of this body, as well as Li Meng's experiences since arriving in this era, all demonstrate that these Mu Xun inspectors and salt bandits are completely man-eating beasts!

  In the troops, in financial escort companies, they are all highly militarized and closed collectives, with very orthodox ideological education. Li Meng's personality is not too fond of playing around, every day strictly following the company's regulations to exercise his body and study military skills (the rules of financial escort companies are like this), and he is also relatively simple-minded.

  It's really unbearable for what I've seen. Those two families who had their women taken away, how will they go on living in the future?

  Others may be crying at home, but Zhao Neng still had a delicious meal at home, and the slightly greasy food was a rare treat for him.

  Just as everyone finished their breakfast, Chen Liu Zi pushed open the door of Zhao Neng's house with a gloomy face. Behind him was a companion who had gone with him yesterday, a child from Old Wang's family in the east of the village, named Wang Hai, who was the youngest among the salt traders yesterday and seemed to be carefree all day long.

  At this time, he followed behind Chen Liu's back, with a mournful face. Chen Liu politely greeted Zhao Neng's mother and then called Zhao Neng into the courtyard. Zhao Neng's mother was doing needlework in her room and didn't bother with these young people.

  Chen Liu Zi called out Zhao Neng and closed the courtyard gate, then turned around and coldly said to Wang Hai:

  "Haven't you told Zhao Da Ge about your good deed yet?"

  Wang Hai was a thin and dark-skinned young boy with no mustache, but after being scolded by Chen Liu Zi, he looked at Zhao Neng's expression and suddenly let out a "wow" and burst into tears. This crying made Chen Liu Zi even angrier, and he raised his hand to slap Wang Hai, but was caught by Zhao Neng, who said in a deep voice:

  "What's wrong, Wang Hai? Don't be afraid, just say it."

  After some kind words of advice, Wang Hai finally calmed down and told what had happened in the past few days. This time when they went to Mang Town to smuggle salt, each person carried one or two hundred kilograms of salt, which wasn't something that could be taken out at a moment's notice, but rather required prior preparation. However, on a daily basis, they still needed to send some salt to the salt yard for sale, otherwise it would attract too much attention.

  On weekdays, the salt farm often shortchanged the amount of salt collected and lowered the price, and they had frequent quarrels with people from various Wei Su villages. However, these poor salt-selling families did not dare to offend the salt farm people. This time, Wang Hai sent salt again and got into a quarrel with them, almost leading to a fight.

  Wang Hai, in his youthful vigor, blurted out "In the future, we won't even bother selling salt to you, we'll sell it ourselves!", and then he regretted it, hastily returning home.

  I thought this matter would pass, but who would have thought that on the way to deliver salt, I was intercepted by Salt Ding. Yesterday, our village was searched by Mu Xun's inspection team. Last night when I returned home, although I handed over the pastries and silver coins I earned to my parents, everyone in the family was delighted, but Wang Hai became more and more afraid, thinking that his words might have implicated everyone. He didn't sleep well all night and came to find Chen Liu early this morning.

  After hearing this, Zhao Neng had the urge to hit someone, but he was older and more stable, so he said to Chen Liu Zi:

  "Go ask those brothers who went with you yesterday and see what they have to say."

  Chen Liu Zi responded with a sound, turned around and went out the door. Zhao Neng slowed down his voice and asked:

  "Xiao Hai, you didn't say where we're going to sell or when we're going, did you?"

  Wang Hai thought for a moment and replied very affirmatively:

  "I regretted it as soon as I said it and didn't say anything else!!"

  It's come to this, what can be done now? Zhao sighed and patted Wang Hai's shoulder saying:

  "It's all right, you can go back now. Remember, don't mention yesterday's incident to anyone, or else we'll both be in big trouble with the family."

  Wang Hai nodded silently, wiped away tears and turned to leave. Zhao Neng stood in the courtyard thinking for a while, but couldn't come up with any plan. After thinking for half a day, Zhao Neng slapped his own forehead, realizing that there was someone next door who understood things clearly. Why bother thinking wildly here? Yesterday Li Meng's performance had been brave and wise, finding him to make decisions was the right choice.

  As a result, he went to the door and took a look. The door was closed, Li Meng's home was shabby, there was nothing inside. Even if there was a door and a courtyard, they were just for show. Zhao knew that Li Meng's gate and house door were both slightly ajar, acquaintances could directly push the door open to enter, anyway, it wasn't locked.

  Zhao Neng pushed open the broken door without any politeness, and if it were in the past, he would have directly rushed into the house. But now Li Meng had already established a reputation among these military dependents, and Zhao Neng was no longer as casual as before. He stood at the entrance of the courtyard and shouted:

  "Li Meng, Li Meng..."

  No one answered, and after calling out a few more times, there was still no response. Zhao Nai shook his head and went to push the door open. The door creaked as it swung open, but there was no one inside.

  Zhao Neng only then remembered that this morning, Li Meng didn't come over to eat as usual. According to their previous habits, Li Meng always had breakfast at his place. With so many things happening yesterday, he thought Li Meng would sleep in a bit later and didn't go to call him, but who knew the person was gone.

  Thinking about what happened yesterday, Zhao couldn't help but wonder if he had run away, but then he saw the silver money, knife and iron ruler that Li Meng had left neatly arranged on the bed board. The important things were still there, so it was likely that the person wouldn't be far away either. After all, this wasn't the old foolish Li Meng anymore, he must have done things according to his own intentions. Zhao walked into the room and cursed with a smile:

  "These things are left here and won't get lost."

  He walked forward and stuffed the silver money and weapons into the corner, thinking that it wouldn't be too late to ask when Li Meng came back. However, he didn't notice that there was one less knife on the bed.

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  The competition on the new book list is indeed fierce. I still need to work hard to appear on the homepage, and of course, I also need everyone's support. This is today's third update, please recommend, collect and support.