After Wang An finished speaking, Wang Dazhu gave him a sidelong glance and said
"If I don't farm, what am I supposed to do? Just sit around every day with my mouth open waiting for a pie to fall from the sky?"
Hearing this, Liu Guilan chimed in
"Your father and I aren't old yet. If we don't farm and just stay idle every day, how could we stand it? Besides, if we don't farm, we'd have to buy all our grain. Do you know how much that would cost?"
Wang Dazhu added
"Having a fortune in the bank is worse than earning a penny a day if you're just eating away at your savings. How can it work if you don't do any labor?"
Liu Guilan: "Exactly. Even though you've earned a decent amount of money, we old folks can't just rely entirely on you."
Wang Dazhu: "..."
Liu Guilan: "..."
And so, the old couple launched a round of alternating attacks, effectively silencing Wang An.
There was no helping it; the couple's philosophy on farming was deeply ingrained and couldn't be changed in a short time. Furthermore, they executed the concept of "not being a burden to their children" with absolute thoroughness.
Fortunately, Wang Dazhu and his wife were still quite young. One day, when the couple realized that their annual income from farming was less than the money made from selling a few deer, they might slowly change their minds.
Finally, seeing that Wang An remained silent and speechless, Liu Guilan summarized like a triumphant rooster
"Alright, hurry up and go do whatever you need to do. Tomorrow, that person—Huang Baoguo and the others—aren't they coming? We won't need you for these crops anymore. With the people we have, we can get everything harvested and brought home in six or seven days."
No one knows a son better than his mother; Liu Guilan knew all too well that Wang An hated farm work.
However, although Wang An was unwilling to farm, his speed of making money was simply too fast, and Wang Dazhu and his wife didn't want farm work to become a shackle for him.
Just as Wang An was wondering where to buy a harvester, Wang Li strolled over.
After greeting his family, Wang An sat in the sidecar, and Wang Li rode the motorcycle, the two of them heading straight for Shiqiaobao.
The village of Shiqiaobao was under the jurisdiction of LQ County, but geographically, it was closer to the county seat of DJ County. Therefore, the people of Shiqiaobao often went to DJ County to buy things or handle business.
It was less than thirty li in total, and Wang An and Wang Li arrived quickly.
To their surprise, Shiqiaobao was actually quite large—larger than Sujia Village. Moreover, there was a river running through the middle of the village, dividing it into East and West.
The two of them rode the motorcycle around both the East and West sections, discovering that the village housed over 300 households.
But the most frustrating part was that after circling the village and asking several locals, none of them had heard of anyone selling a cow.
Parking the motorcycle by the bridge, Wang Li stared with wide eyes and asked Wang An
"Fourth Brother, what do we do now? Where are we supposed to find that old woman's house?"
Wang An pulled out some cigarettes, gave one to Wang Li, and lit one for himself. After taking a puff, he looked left and right at the large village and said helplessly
"There's no other way. Let's wait a while. Once people come out, we'll ask house by house. We'll find them wherever we find them."
In truth, what Wang An worried about wasn't failing to find the old woman, but rather that after so many days, the cow might have already been bought by someone who knew their value, or it might have died of illness.
It was noon, and since it was the busy autumn harvest season, there were very few people on the village streets. Most were seizing the time to rest at home to prepare for the heavy physical labor of the afternoon.
After finishing his cigarette, Wang An noticed a few children playing *pian-ji* not far away. He turned to Wang Li and said
"Come on, let's go over and ask those kids if they know."
*Pian-ji* was a local term; in some places, it seemed to be called *fang-bao*. Essentially, it was an object made by folding two pieces of paper.
The way to play was very simple: one person would use the sole of their shoe to flatten a small patch of ground and place a *pian-ji* there, ensuring the edges of the *pian-ji* were flush with the soil.
The other person would take another *pian-ji* and strike the one on the ground with force. If they flipped the *pian-ji* on the ground, they won.
If it didn't flip, their own *pian-ji* had to be left on the ground, allowing the opponent to pick it up and strike the one left behind.
Ultimately, whoever flipped the opponent's *pian-ji* won.
Wang An had played it quite a bit during his school days and was actually an expert, having won many of these from his classmates.
Seeing Wang An and Wang Li approach, the group of children didn't think much of it. Mainly, in the Northeast, people who dared to enter a village to kidnap children were extremely rare.
It wasn't that it had never happened, but anyone who dared to do so met a grim end—they were either dead or crippled.
Yes, dead or crippled, because if they were caught, they would be beaten—beaten to death. Even if the police arrived, it was useless unless they arrested the entire village.
The situation with Huang Li was relatively special.
The reason Huang Li was forcibly taken away was, on one hand, because Huang Baoguo had already agreed to it; it wasn't "wrong" for someone to come, pay money, and take her.
On the other hand, those human traffickers weren't exactly stealing or robbing; their pretext was to find a wife for an old man, and they were paying a truly large sum of money.
Three hundred yuan was indeed a large sum in this era.
Of course, the primary reason was that the drifters were poor and had no guns. If Huang Baoguo's family had possessed a gun—even a homemade one—those traffickers would likely have scrambled away in fear.
Often, even if there was only one bullet in the gun and the other party knew it, it was still enough to scare a whole group of people from stepping forward.
There was no helping it; whoever stepped forward died. That was the reality.
Wang An walked up, stood for a moment, and said to a boy of about ten
"Hey, hey, hit it from this side. There's a gap here. Trust me, hit it from this side and you'll flip it instantly."
"Gap" didn't mean a trick, but a lift—meaning a part of the *pian-ji* was slightly off the ground, creating a space that made it easier to hit.
However, the kid was stubborn and refused to listen to Wang An. He struck the *pian-ji*, but instead of flipping the opponent's, he left his own *pian-ji* with a gap.
Wang An immediately guided another child
"Trust me, hit it from the downhill side. The gap on the uphill side is larger, but you can't put any power into it because there's a bump blocking you."
The child looked at Wang An, then hesitantly followed his guidance.
Sure enough, with one strike, the child flipped the previous boy's *pian-ji*.
(End of Chapter)