Chapter 9: The Reversal, Did She Really Dig the Pine Nuts from the Mountain?!
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“Pine nuts?!” The villagers stared at her in shock, their mouths hanging open. None of them could believe it.
“Second Aunt Sun, are you sure you didn’t see wrong?”
“You’d better be certain. If you’ve made a mistake, there’ll be no way to clean up the mess later,” someone said doubtfully.
At that, Sun Xiao’e snorted and thumped her chest. “If I’m wrong, I’ll pluck out my own eyes and hand them to you!”
“I saw it as clearly as I see you now. That cart was absolutely loaded with pine nuts!”
Sun Xiao’e sounded so certain that the villagers were already eighty percent convinced. Immediately, voices rose all around them.
“It’s freezing cold, and the twelfth lunar month is almost here. Where would there be pine nuts on the mountain now?”
“Could that boy be some kind of magician? Did he conjure pinecones out of thin air?”
“I say he must have secretly hidden them during the autumn harvest, when the production team was gathering pinecones!”
That guess quickly won the villagers’ approval, and everyone became furious.
Sun Xiao’e rolled her eyes and watched them discuss the matter with a sinister smile.
You little bastard, you dare challenge me? Today I’ll bring people over and skin you alive!
Seeing that everyone was already worked up, Sun Xiao’e decided to add fuel to the fire.
She threw out an even more explosive detail to support their suspicions.
“I went to that little bastard’s house today because I wanted to persuade him to turn himself in to the village committee.” Sun Xiao’e wore an expression of someone utterly disappointed in a wayward child.
“But not only did that bastard refuse to repent, he even hit me and told me to go ahead and report him to the village!”
“You have no idea how arrogant that brat was. He didn’t even bother to hide what he was doing.”
“He sold the pine nuts everyone had worked so hard to gather, then brazenly sat in his own courtyard eating meat-filled buns…”
Sun Xiao’e told the story with such vivid detail that the villagers’ eyes grew red with anger, and they clenched their fists one after another.
In those days, the villagers’ lives could not simply be described as hard. They were nearly starving to death.
Normally, forget meat—even a taste of grease was something most families enjoyed only a few times a year. What family could afford meat-filled buns?!
For a moment, the villagers’ hatred of Qin Feng reached its peak.
He had not stolen mere pine nuts. He had stolen the fruits of everyone’s blood, sweat, and labor.
A great throng surged into the village committee compound.
The village chief, Zhao Xicheng, had gone to the township for a meeting with the accountant and had not yet returned. Only Zhao Liu’hai, the production-team captain, remained behind to keep watch.
After hearing the villagers’ accusations, Zhao Liu’hai flew into a rage and led them straight toward Qin Feng’s home.
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Qin Feng had been prepared long ago. He lounged beneath the eaves, basking in the sunlight.
When Captain Zhao Liu’hai stormed into the courtyard, murder in his eyes, Qin Feng showed not the slightest trace of panic.
“Qin Feng! I heard you went to the county yesterday to sell something?” Zhao Liu’hai was furious, but he did not immediately do anything to Qin Feng.
When he first heard the villagers’ accusations, he had been enraged.
But on the way there, he had gradually calmed down. He felt that things might not be as simple as they appeared.
Stealing goods from the production team, selling them so openly, and acting as though he had no fear of being discovered was extremely suspicious.
Zhao Liu’hai had not become production-team captain by being an ordinary man. He was not so easily incited.
Most importantly, even if someone wanted to sell the goods, there had to be someone willing to buy them.
Without a certificate of origin issued by the village committee, the supply and marketing cooperative would confiscate both the goods and the person carrying them.
Anyone who wanted to sell privately could only go to the clandestine black market.
A boy like Qin Feng could not possibly have found such a channel so easily.
“Yes. I went to the county with Liuzi yesterday,” Qin Feng answered honestly.
“What did you sell? Was it really pine nuts?” Zhao Liu’hai asked with a frown.
“Yes, that’s right. The day before yesterday, I happened to dig some up in the mountains, so Liuzi and I took them to the county and sold them.”
Qin Feng’s words caused an uproar among the crowd.
What had originally been mere speculation had now been admitted by Qin Feng himself. What else was there to investigate?
“You happened to dig them up in the mountains? Why don’t you just say they fell from the sky!”
“You little brat! You stole from the production team and still dare to act so arrogantly. You must be tired of living!”
“Arrest him! Take him to the township!”
For a time, the crowd seethed with fury, and questions and curses rang out one after another.
“Do you take me for a child? It’s freezing cold, so where would there be pine nuts on the mountain?”
“Tell us the truth. Where did those pine nuts come from? Did you steal them in the summer and hide them in the mountains?!”
Seeing how Qin Feng refused to yield, acting like an unbreakable slab of meat, Zhao Liu’hai lost his temper as well.
“I already told you. I dug them up in the mountains,” Qin Feng replied calmly.
“Go dig up your mother’s—!” Sun Xiao’e stood among the villagers, pointing at Qin Feng’s nose and cursing him.
The villagers were equally furious and joined in with a barrage of abuse.
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When Dong Qiufen heard that people were making things difficult for her son, she grew anxious and tried to come out of the house, but Qin Feng held the door shut with all his strength.
“Don’t worry, Mom. Nothing will happen to me,” Qin Feng reassured her through the door.
“Come with me to the team headquarters and explain yourself properly!”
“Today you are going to tell us exactly where those goods came from! Don’t give me that nonsense about digging them up in the mountains!”
“Even a three-year-old child in the village wouldn’t believe that!” Zhao Liu’hai ordered coldly.
Qin Feng remained where he was, thinking resentfully that Liuzi was utterly unreliable. Why had he still not returned with Zhao Xicheng?
The villagers had long since grown impatient to see Qin Feng punished. Faces dark, they stepped forward to seize him and drag him to the village committee.
“I believe him!”
Suddenly, a voice came from the direction of the gate.
Everyone turned to look.
The village chief, Zhao Xicheng, walked into the courtyard, with the accountant, Zhao Shugen, and Liuzi following behind him.
“I believe him! I believe what Qin Feng said!”
“That batch of pine nuts really was dug up by him in the mountains!” Zhao Xicheng’s face was glowing.
He had just returned from the township meeting, where he had been praised. He was in an exceptionally good mood.
“Chief, what exactly is going on?” Zhao Liu’hai asked, staring at Zhao Xicheng in confusion.
“The pine nuts Qin Feng sold in the county were dug up on the mountain,” Zhao Xicheng announced loudly.
“Moreover, on the very night he and Liuzi brought the goods back from the mountain, they informed Shugen and me.”
“Shugen can testify to that.” Zhao Xicheng pulled the accountant, Zhao Shugen, to his side.
“After the pine nuts were divided among the village, I issued Qin Feng a certificate of origin.”
When Zhao Xicheng finished speaking, the previously clamorous courtyard fell utterly silent.
A scene that had begun as a righteous beating of a shameless thief had somehow turned into the wrongful persecution of an innocent man.
Incited by Sun Xiao’e, the villagers had become accomplices. One by one, their earlier fury faded away.
“That foul-mouthed hag, Sun Xiao’e! Where is she?!” someone suddenly shouted from within the crowd.
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