Professor Dong prepared a feast for Suihe. For lunch, he fried fennel and meat dumplings, crispy on the outside and tender and fragrant on the inside. Suihe hadn't eaten since last night and was starving, so he gobbled up the dumplings and everything else on the table.
After eating for a while and feeling a little full, he slowed down his eating and talked about what Zhang Zhiqing had told him.
When Fifth Grandpa heard that Guan Ping'an was Zhang Zhiqing's superior, he slammed the table in anger, cursed loudly, and trembled with anger. He wanted to kill this old traitor immediately. Everyone immediately comforted him.
Guan Huashu has the memories of the original owner, recalling Guan Ping'an's unusual behavior before the family split up. Deep in the original owner's memory, Old Man Guan occasionally went up the mountain, or sometimes to the county town, but he didn't know what he was doing there. When Old Man Guan's eldest son was 14, he fell seriously ill and was hospitalized for over a month before his life was saved. When he went to the hospital, the third and fourth twins were just over three years old. Old Mrs. Guan was worried about leaving the twins at home, so she took them away too, leaving only the seven-year-old second son behind, under the pretext of keeping house.
It's likely that the three missing gold bars from the kang chest on the mountain were used by Guan Laoda for medical treatment. Feeding the Guan family annually is a significant expense, and all the children are still able to go to school. They all work from the land, and their annual income is limited. Even if Guan Laoda was very capable, he couldn't afford it. And the betrothal gifts for his sons' wives are always reaching new highs. Even if Guan Laoda and Guan Laoer were very capable, they would have been exhausted supporting the whole family. How could they possibly save that much money?
Guan Huashu casually talked to Fifth Grandpa about the suspicious places in his memory. These past events really could not withstand analysis. No one cared about them before, but now when they were taken out one by one and connected together, the abnormalities were too obvious.
They couldn't arrest Guan Laotou based solely on Zhang Zhiqing's confession; they had to have solid evidence to arrest him. The three of them discussed their next move, ready to lead him into a trap.
The next day at noon, Suihe came down the mountain and headed straight for the brigade headquarters. On the way, he met the village chief and several others returning home. He quickly told the village chief that a body that had been bitten to death by a wild beast was found on the mountain.
Soon the whole village knew that Suihe had seen someone bitten to death while hunting in the mountains. The village chief went to every household to check which family had been missing someone in the past two days.
The people at the educated youth site said that Zhang Zhiqing had disappeared the night before. They all thought that Zhang Zhiqing had asked for leave from the team and went home. The village chief gave them a lecture and told them to find him in time if there was anything unusual in the future.
Guan Huashu pretended to be anxious and followed He to lead a few militiamen, carrying tools to go up the mountain to get the man back. After going up the mountain, they did not go to the deep mountains that Suihe said, but hid near a cave halfway up the mountain, waiting for Guan Lao to fall into the trap.
Speaking of Old Man Guan, he found out that Zhang Zhiqing was not there when he went to work yesterday. He waited for a whole day but still didn't see him. He planned to observe for another day today. If there was still no one, he would go to the county to report to his superior tomorrow.
He'd just heard from the children that someone had been found dead in the mountains, mauled to death by wild animals. Combined with Zhang Zhiqing's sudden disappearance, he immediately suspected it was Zhang. His previous combat experience had told him it would be safest to wait another day before heading up the mountain, but today, for some reason, he'd been gripped by a wave of panic. Ever since he'd learned of the body, he'd been wondering: if it was Zhang Zhiqing, given the lack of recent missions, why would he be in the mountains? Or had someone discovered the base and tried to silence him, only to have him killed? Old Man Guan couldn't figure it out, and he gave up trying. He simply got down to the ground, put on his shoes, and prepared to head up the mountain. He needed to check around the base and return only if there were no unusual signs, or he'd be worried.
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