074 Good stuff (bug catching)
"Did you hear any noise from the toilet?" Guan Yuehe held her breath, tilting her ear to listen carefully. Was she mistaken, or was something really wrong with the toilet?
Of course, she had recently attended a branch meeting, heard about the various deeds of veteran Party members in the factory, and received ideological baptism.
She is now a staunch atheist and would never suspect something unclean just because she hears something strange, like Chang Zhengyi.
After the fugitive who hid in the toilet was caught, Chang Zhengyi said several times that someone was hiding outside the men's restroom and peeping.
Of course, Chang Zhengyi actually wanted to say that the men's restroom was haunted. But that would be considered feudal superstition and couldn't be said in public, so he used a different phrasing.
But nobody believed him. Everyone thought that if someone was going to peep, they would peep outside the women's restroom; who would peep into the men's restroom? So, everyone thought that Chang Zhengyi was just being paranoid.
She's getting a little agitated. Who on earth is doing something bad behind the toilet?
If they weren't doing something bad, who would be digging and knocking outside in the freezing cold on New Year's Eve? She could tell from the sound that someone was digging behind the toilet!
"Come down first." Lin Yiku's expression was very serious.
"Oh." Guan Yuehe slid down in a flash, tiptoeing over Lin Yiku, but Lin Yiku stopped her again, "Don't be impulsive!"
What if the person hiding behind the toilet is another armed fugitive? Who can guarantee that nothing will go wrong every time?
Guan Yuehe clicked her tongue silently, pulled her hand away, and whispered, "I'm going back to call Police Chief Song! He has a gun!"
She's not some silly girl who just blindly charges into battle!
Song Gong'an is now the director of Changhu Police Station and is armed. Once, Song Xibei sneaked into a room and did something, but Song Gong'an tied him up and beat him up.
That was the first time Guan Yuehe had seen Song Gong'an physically beat Song Xibei; before, he had only threatened him with a stick.
Lin Yi breathed a sigh of relief, and helped her pull her scarf up a bit, saying softly, "Walk slowly."
Guan Yuehe understood that telling her to slow down was to avoid making a loud noise that would scare people away. She winked at him knowingly and hurried into the alley.
When she found Officer Song at Grandpa Chang's house, she saw that everyone in the house was from Courtyard No. 2, so she directly told him about the unusual situation behind the toilet.
They told Officer Song to go out and check quickly, and also told Grandpa Chang and Grandpa Zhang to go to the alley entrance and stop everyone from going out to cause trouble.
Chang Zhengyi excitedly slapped the small table on the kang (a heated brick bed), but with a bit too much force, scattering the peanuts and melon seeds on the kang.
"I knew it! There must be... uh, someone peeping behind the men's restroom!" Chang Zhengyi almost blurted out that there must be something unclean, but Cao Lili patted him on the back in time and he changed his mind.
Auntie Er was so excited that she wanted to go out and catch the thief, but Grandpa Zhang glared at her and made her sit back down.
Guan Yuehe didn't care how the two old men divided the tasks—who would go to the alley entrance to block the way, and who would go to notify the people in the other courtyards. Seeing that Officer Song had gone home to get his gun, she quickly followed him.
"Go and see, but don't be reckless," Officer Song cautioned.
"I know!"
Guan Yuehe stood guard at the intersection leading to Changhu Street with a stick in her hand, while Song Gong'an and Lin Yiku flanked from both sides of the toilet.
A short while later, a series of banging sounds came from behind the toilet, standing out in the alley that had become unusually quiet.
People from each courtyard in Ginkgo Hutong went to notify the residents, who were then gathered together by the courtyard's caretaker to prevent them from wandering off.
Those in the courtyards closer together could hear more clearly, and everyone was feeling uneasy.
"Could it be that the fugitive's accomplice has come to report back?"
"There was shooting outside. Are Officer Song and the others alright?"
The usually quiet Mr. Li said at this moment, "It wasn't a gunshot."
"Oh, at least it's not gunfire, that's good. It's kind of scary."
Jiang Guiying suddenly remembered and asked, "Did Yuehe and Yiku go to Courtyard No. 2, or did they go for a walk?"
Lin Sitian was also stunned. In her excitement, she forgot about her childhood friend and her own brother.
Just then, someone outside the alley shouted, "It's alright! They caught two manure thieves!"
"What? What are you stealing?"
People from all the courtyards rushed out to see what was going on and received an accurate reply: "There are two thieves stealing manure, saying they want to take it back as fertilizer!"
Everyone wore expressions that suggested something was amiss; they opened their mouths, but didn't know what to say, so they silently closed them again.
During the Lunar New Year, they're doing all sorts of inexplicable things!
"Let's call it a day, let's call it a day."
But no one was willing to give up. A group of people rushed to the public toilet outside the alley entrance. They had to see who was stealing the fertilizer!
"Yuehe, you're here too. What's the story with that fertilizer thief?"
Guan Yuehe scratched her head. "He's from a production team in the suburbs. He said he came to the city to visit relatives. He saw that the public toilet was unattended, so he thought he would wait until night to steal some, uh, fertilizer."
This whole thing is... sigh!
"Remembering the bitter past?" Jiang Guiying hurriedly asked Guan Yuehe.
"He helped Officer Song and sent the person to the police station."
After learning the whole story, the neighbors began to sympathize with the caught thief, saying, "That's so unlucky! It's just some fertilizer, right? It'll have to be disposed of anyway, so let them take it. It doesn't have to be sent to the police station, does it?"
Every day, a special manure truck comes to collect the waste and dispose of it properly.
In the past, this would have been contracted out to farms and production teams as fertilizer. Later, as hygiene knowledge became more widespread, it was believed that this could easily spread diseases, so it was discontinued. But in the countryside, it is still used as fertilizer.
Chang Zhengyi finally breathed a sigh of relief when he learned that the two men who came to steal the fertilizer were both men.
See? His suspicions were wrong, but there really was someone watching outside the men's restroom! Now we can't say he's just paranoid all the time, can we?!
After watching a lively scene on New Year's Eve, everyone's conversation turned to whether or not those two people should be arrested and punished.
Guan Yuehe didn't wait for Lin Yiku to return, so she went home to sleep.
The next morning, the neighbors were still discussing it, and even people from other alleys and nearby residential areas came to inquire about what happened last night.
"You caught another thief in your alley? It wasn't Guan Yuehe who caught him again, was it?"
"Hey! No way! What kind of thief is that!"
The people of Yinxing Hutong explained the specifics, but the story spread outside and within a day it became: something good was buried under the public toilet in Yinxing Hutong!
"What are you doing circling behind the women's restroom?" Jin Hongchang helped Wu Erni out to use the restroom and saw several strangers lingering behind it. He shooed them away menacingly.
The second aunt, who was also going to the toilet, helped Jin Hongchang scold the people away, saying that if they went to wander around again, she would report them to the police station for trying to peep on women using the toilet!
"Who in their right mind would bury something under the toilet?!"
Aunt Niu, who lives in the east wing of Courtyard No. 1, said: "That's not necessarily true. There used to be a corrupt official living near our public toilet. Look, that piece of land in front used to be a big courtyard, but it caught fire and burned down, and was leveled. Later, single-story houses were built on it. Even the storefronts on Changhu Street were all on the land of that big courtyard."
"Really? This toilet has been here ever since I moved into Ginkgo Hutong. It used to be a bit small, and it was rebuilt once, but it hasn't been changed."
The second aunt was skeptical. Her family had moved here the year the People's Republic of China was founded, and they were originally from Beijing. How come she had never heard of it?
Aunt Niu rolled her eyes. "My family has lived in Ginkgo Alley for generations. Do you know better than I do?"
Almost all the houses in Yinxing Hutong are public property, owned by the Wuxing Automobile Factory. However, a small number of houses are privately owned.
Among them, the house belonging to Aunt Niu is hers.
Aunt Niu said that if her father hadn't been addicted to opium and squandered all the family's wealth, her house wouldn't just be two and a half rooms in the east wing of No. 1 Courtyard, but the entire No. 1 Courtyard!
After Aunt Niu said that, the rumor that there were good things buried under the public toilet spread even more widely.
"That's for sure! Otherwise, why would they come to this public toilet to steal fertilizer? It's cold now and not the time to compost, but they chose this time to steal it? It doesn't make sense! They must know there's something good down there!"
Guan Yuehe truly never imagined that things would turn out this way!
Around 3 p.m. on the first day of the Lunar New Year, Guan Yuehe finally met Lin Yiku. She noticed a dark circle under his eyes and learned that he had been helping out at the police station the night before and hadn't gone home to rest. He had only slept for four hours that morning.
"What did those two say? That there really is something good buried under the toilet?"
Lin Yi shook her head. "I don't know. The Municipal Bureau took him away, and Officer Song doesn't know the situation either."
Guan Yuehe's eyes lit up, which meant it might be true!
"They were really unlucky; they ran into the two of us while they were digging a toilet."
Otherwise, someone like Chang Zhengyi would just assume it's something evil and run away, or think it's a peeping tom trying to warn him. Who knows, if they dug long enough, they might actually find something!
Lin Yiku felt it was hard to say who was really unlucky.
They finally had a rare chance to be alone last night, but the romance lasted less than three minutes before turning into them having to go to the bathroom to catch each other.
Guan Yuehe was still talking about this, sighing, "Our Ginkgo Alley is going to be famous again! Tonight, someone might even come and dig up the toilets. Are we still going to catch the thief?"
She looked eager to try, but Lin Yi angrily pulled her scarf up, covering her face and head, so he wouldn't be bothered if he couldn't see it.
Guan Yuehe cursed him under her breath for being so clumsy, and took advantage of his inattention to grab his scarf. With a forceful tug, she pulled him a step closer, but she didn't calculate the distance and force properly, and their foreheads bumped.
"hiss!"
Lin Yiku's anger dissipated, and she chuckled as she patted her forehead, "It's not my fault, you were the one who did it."
Seeing that her face was puffed up with anger, Lin Yiku immediately took the initiative and asked, "Who said they wanted to go to the movies with me tonight?"
Oh, it's Section Chief Guan, who got two movie tickets from the factory manager.
"Is catching the thief more important tonight, or watching a movie?" Lin Yiku asked again.
"Battalion Commander Lin, your ideological awareness is outdated! If the masses need us, of course we should stay and help..." Guan Yuehe rambled on with a serious face. Lin Yiku couldn't stand it anymore and reached out to cover her mouth. Guan Yuehe dodged while laughing out loud, stopped teasing him, and asked him what time he was leaving.
"Now." So that she wouldn't think about catching the thief tonight again.
In fact, Director Ma of the neighborhood office has already arranged for people to take turns guarding the area, just to prevent anyone from secretly digging toilets at night.
The movie didn't start until six o'clock. They took a detour, first going to a department store to buy batteries, before leisurely strolling to the Five Star Automobile Factory's movie theater.
When she arrived at the movie theater, Guan Yuehe ran into several acquaintances, including people from Wuxing Automobile Factory and Zhuoyue Garment Factory.
It was a bit of a surprise to see the man buying melon seeds for Xu Xiaomei.
Lin Yiku followed her gaze and saw a handsome, fair-skinned man. "Do you know him?"
After asking, I realized that the man standing next to me was Xu Xiaomei from the same courtyard.
"I've met her a few times. She and my sister were announcers together at a car factory."
These two actually got along well?!
They seemed to be having a good conversation. The man even peeled sunflower seeds for Xu Xiaomei, then handed her a soft drink, and then took out a lunchbox from his bag, which looked like it contained dumplings.
She was so busy looking at others that she didn't notice where Lin Yiku had gone. A moment later, she touched a straw to her lips.
She looked down at the soda that had suddenly appeared, then looked up at Lin Yiku in front of her. Although she didn't really like the soda that the car factory produced itself, she still forced herself to take a sip.
"Is the soda produced by our car factory really this good now?" Guan Yuehe asked in surprise.
Lin Yiku picked up her bottle, took a sip, and found it still tasted sickeningly sweet, unchanged.
He even doubted whether there was something wrong with his sense of taste, never imagining that Guan Yuehe was just talking nonsense.
Xu Xiaomei, who had noticed them earlier, rolled her eyes when she heard this. "When has the soda produced in the factory ever tasted good?"
Guan Yuehe took a closer look and realized that Xu Xiaomei was drinking Arctic Ocean soda. No wonder she was enjoying it so much!
Xu Xiaomei's boyfriend, Cheng Peng, kindly reminded them in a low voice, "The person carrying a bamboo basket outside the movie theater is carrying Arctic Ocean soda; they don't need tickets."
Guan Yuehe was shocked. She had always thought that the person brought the bamboo basket to collect bottles to exchange for money. After all, there are always generous people who are too lazy to go to the supply and marketing cooperative to exchange bottles after finishing their soda.
But Guan Yuehe didn't let Lin Yiku buy another bottle in the end; she couldn't let what she had go to waste.
Lin Yiku wanted to peel sunflower seeds for his girlfriend like other people do, but Guan Yuehe thought he was too slow, so she grabbed a handful of sunflower seeds herself and started cracking them open.
Lin Yiku slowly let out a long breath, deciding to give up on learning how to make her partner happy from anyone.
Guan Yuehe munched on some melon seeds for a while, then secretly glanced back at Xu Xiaomei and her boyfriend, her gossipy nature written all over her forehead.
If Lin Sitian were here, she would have already explained the whole situation of that guy to everyone.
But Lin Sitian didn't go out with them; she went ice skating with Zhou Jinghang.
Meanwhile, Xu Xiaomei was also asking Cheng Peng, "You know Guan Yuehe too?"
Cheng Peng frankly said, "I used to be her sister's announcer partner. I met her at the entrance of your alley before."
If Guan Yuehua hadn't called out to him, he wouldn't have been able to tell from a glance that Guan Yuehe was Guan Yuehua's younger sister.
He could have said that he met Guan Yuehe at the Canton Fair awards ceremony last year. But he did have feelings for Guan Yuehua before, and that's how he met her. He never intended to lie to his partner.
Xu Xiaomei didn't press the matter further. She snorted and reached out again, "Peel some more for me."
"Here you go." Cheng Peng poured the sunflower seeds he was holding into her palm and asked softly, "Should I come to your house as a guest tomorrow?"
"Let's wait until next Sunday. Tomorrow the courtyard will be full of people visiting relatives, there will be a lot of people."
"Okay! I'll do as you say!"
After the movie, Guan Yuehe glanced at the two people following not far behind, immediately patted Lin Yiku, and urged him, "Ride faster, leave them behind!"
She really couldn't stand the way the two people behind her were all lovey-dovey.
Lin Yiku thought to herself: That's good. She wants to compete with everyone to see who can ride a bike faster, but she's not targeting him specifically.
Xu Xiaomei glanced at the two people riding in front and told Cheng Peng to slow down, as she didn't want to see those annoying guys ahead!
“Okay!” Cheng Peng thought to himself, “If we ride slowly, we can spend more time together.”
When Guan Yuehe returned to Ginkgo Hutong, she found several police officers guarding the public toilet.
Upon inquiring, it was discovered that of the two men who came to steal fertilizer last night, one genuinely intended to steal the fertilizer, while the other was after the good stuff under the toilet.
Nobody knows exactly what good stuff it is yet. But the public restroom has been fenced off, and people aren't allowed to go in to use it.
That's going too far!
This is the only public toilet in Ginkgo Hutong that's close by. To get to other public toilets, it would take more than ten minutes to walk or even a few minutes to cycle.
While everyone was curious about what they had bought downstairs, they were also cursing the person who suggested fenced off the toilets and preventing people from entering.
On the second day of the Lunar New Year, unlike in previous years when people came to visit relatives in Ginkgo Hutong, they didn't stay for most of the day. Instead, they came, sat for a while, and then left.
When Guan Yuehua returned home for dinner and learned the whole story, she was speechless and asked Guan Yuehe, "Why are you so hung up on that public toilet?"
"Why did I have to fight against it? It's always causing trouble, and I just happened to run into it. What could I do?"
Besides, if we're talking about who's really going to the trouble with the public toilet at the alley entrance, it's definitely Chang Zhengyi!
A little while later, her aunt and uncle came to visit. Guan Yuehe only stayed for a short while before sneaking back to her own home.
Just as I was about to lie down on the kang (heated brick bed), my older sister and brother-in-law came over.
The eldest sister's expression wasn't good; she guessed it immediately. "My aunt wouldn't be asking you for help, would she?"
"Not only that, you're involved too." Guan Yuehua chuckled lightly and said, "Arrange a job for educated youth to bring Hongwei back. According to her, I'm not just a deputy section chief, I should be a deputy factory director!"
Guan Yuehe was puzzled that they actually wanted to bring Hongwei back from his rural assignment in Northeast China. "I never had this idea before."
She thought they wanted the two sisters to help her aunt's cousin find a job. Although she was still a bit young, who doesn't give prior notice when asking someone for a favor?
“Hongwei has taken a liking to a local girl and wants to marry her. His aunt is not happy about it and wants to transfer him back to the city.”
Guan Yuehe spread her hands, "I can't do anything about it. Our factory has no recruitment plans this year. Even if we did, they would be reserved for veterans or their families."
"Anyway, don't do anything that violates the rules," Guan Yuehua emphasized seriously and repeatedly.
Before they left, Gu Mannian reminded Guan Yuehe to be meticulous and careful in her work and to avoid making mistakes.
"I've always been very serious!" Guan Yuehe found his reminder inexplicable and quickly asked if something was wrong.
Gu Mannian stated directly: "Wei Shanhe."
Wei Shanhe was parachuted into the publicity department of Zhuoyue Garment Factory as deputy section chief. In order to make it easier to get to work, he found someone to change his house and now he has moved to the house next to Lao Baotou's.
The young couple, who had been reminded by the old man to keep their voices down during the night, were overjoyed to switch rooms with someone else and happily moved out.
Therefore, Wei Shanhe is now a neighbor of Gu Mannian in the same building.
"Him?"
Guan Yuehe had received several reminders from people telling her to be careful of Wei Shanhe.
It's impossible for Wei Shanhe to be after her. At most, she's just a stumbling block for him to climb the social ladder. Whether he kicks her aside or goes around her is unknown.
Guan Yuehe could only think optimistically, "I just got promoted and they've already assigned me a supervisor position. Looks like they're trying to push me to become a full section chief!"
"It's only a matter of time." Gu Mannian sighed and joked, "Sis, it's a bit difficult for your brother-in-law to climb the corporate ladder on his own. I'm just waiting for you to become a factory leader so you can give me a hand."
Without saying a word, Guan Yuehua behind him grabbed his ear and twisted it, saying, "What are you trying to do? If you can do it, then do it. If you can't, then stay put!"
"Ouch, ouch, ouch! Honey, I was wrong!"
Guan Yuehe laughed incessantly.
Her sister's uncompromising and impartial personality makes her perfectly suited to be a supervisor. Oh, she'd also be ideal as a quality inspector in the workshop; if anything isn't done well, it's sent back for rework on the spot.
With her aunt present, Guan Yuehe called out to Lin Sitian over the courtyard wall, and soon Lin Yiku came over.
As expected of a best friend of over twenty years, Lin Sitian knew without asking that the person she was looking for was Lin Yiku.
Let's go out to eat!
Lin Yiku can still receive her salary as usual, but she doesn't receive any ration coupons or subsidies. When they go out to eat, she pays for the tickets, and he pays for the food.
The meal was eaten in a hurry because they had to rush back to see what good things they could dig up under the public toilet.
Lin Yiku was too lazy to correct her; it was clearly only she who wanted to rush back to see the excitement!
To get a better view, she brought out a long, tall bench and stood on it. The two of them were already tall, and standing on the bench made them look like pillars on either side of a street corner.
Standing on higher ground, they had a clear view of the excavation. Those below, unable to see even on tiptoe, grew anxious and came to ask them what was going on.
"We dug out a large box," Guan Yuehe reported the situation truthfully.
"What is it? A big box, is it full of yellow croakers? Or jewelry?" The person behind her asked excitedly, urging her to tell her what it was.
"What?! A whole box of yellow croakers and a whole box of jewelry?!" exclaimed the people further back.
Guan Yuehe: "..." Why can't some people understand what I'm saying? When did she say she dug up a box of large yellow croakers and a box of jewelry?
"Stop asking! Go home and bring out a stool to see!" Guan Yuehe said impatiently, ignoring the questions from the people behind her.
It wasn't that the people at the back didn't want to bring their chairs, but apart from the first two or three rows, everyone from the fourth row onwards was standing on chairs to watch. Unless they brought a ladder, they couldn't see anything at all!
A moment later, people in the first row gasped in surprise.
Guan Yuehe couldn't help but exclaim in surprise when she saw it.
That was close!
The people behind were extremely anxious, constantly asking what had been dug up. Soon someone replied, "A box of bombs, a box of guns!"
"Good heavens! Thank goodness we haven't been allowed to set off any firecrackers these past two years. If some brat had thrown one into the toilet, half of Ginkgo Alley would have been blown to smithereens!"
The toilets in Ginkgo Hutong were dug up completely, and five boxes of munitions were finally unearthed, all of which had been buried in the open space behind the toilets.
Guan Yuehe wondered if the fugitive from four years ago kept running towards the toilet to dig out these guns and bombs for use.
The more I think about it, the more terrified I become.
Of course, she wasn't the only one who thought of this.
Four years later, Guan Yuehe was summoned to the police station again for questioning and to cooperate with the police investigation.
Also summoned was Chang Zhengyi, who had initially been suspicious.
But they've said everything they could, and it's not much different from what they said four years ago, so it's not very useful.
On her first day at work, many people came to Guan Yuehe to inquire about the situation. They were even more shocked to learn that what had been unearthed were guns and explosives, not gold and silver jewelry.
"Section Chief Guan, you've done another good deed, haven't you?"
"No, not at all." Guan Yuehe hadn't even considered what kind of merit she could have made.
During the excavation of the public toilets in Yinxing Hutong, half of the men's toilet collapsed and is now being rebuilt.
The public toilets weren't even finished yet, and Lin Yiku had to set off back to school.
Perhaps it was the continuous correspondence over the past six months that deepened their familiarity. The awkwardness they felt when they first started dating was eliminated during this time. Guan Yuehe believed that Lin Yiku and Guan Yuehe got along very well when Lin Yiku returned this time, and it suited her taste perfectly.
Knowing they would meet again, Guan Yuehe felt no reluctance this time. She openly waited for Lin Yiku at the entrance of Courtyard No. 3 as he was about to take the bus, and stuffed two apples and several boiled eggs into his backpack.
Speaking of boiled eggs, she remembered her college roommates and laughed, then told Lin Yiku a funny story from back then.
She was laughing happily, but Lin Yiku's laughter became more and more bitter. "I couldn't bear to finish them all at once, and two of them went bad."
"Ah! I should have given you two less, otherwise we would have had just enough to share!"
Lin Yiku was so angry that he picked up his luggage and started to leave, but walking is not as fast as riding a bicycle. Guan Yuehe caught up with him after a couple of pedals and tugged at his white scarf. "Lin Yiku, you still haven't told me you'll see me next time."
Staring into her clear, bright eyes, Lin Yiku suddenly asked, "Where did you learn all these tricks for coaxing people?"
It couldn't be Si Tian; his sister couldn't handle Guan Yuehe's straightforward and passionate nature.
Huh? How did she start comforting people?
Guan Yuehe, not understanding, replied irrelevantly, "I'm going to work."
So you need to tell me right away!
"Okay, Yuehe, see you next time."
Guan Yuehe saw him off to the bus stop with a satisfied heart, then hurriedly rushed off to work.
At the end of February, I received a reply from Chunmei.
Chunmei wrote in her letter: Everyone knew you were dating the neighbor's son! I didn't expect you to confess now!
Chunmei also said that everyone was afraid she would let something slip at school and affect her graduation, so they all pretended not to know and didn't talk about dating while in school. They thought she would come clean with it when she graduated, but they didn't expect her to keep it a secret for so long, only revealing it a year and a half after graduation!
What a beautiful misunderstanding!
However, this misunderstanding allowed Guan Yuehe to feel the care and love of her roommates again a year after graduation.
After reading the letter, I couldn't help but laugh and want to refute, "She didn't secretly date anyone," but I also couldn't help but burst into tears.
Her greatest gain was the excellent teachers and helpful friends she made during her two and a half years of study at the Workers, Peasants and Soldiers University. She gained guiding lights and partners to progress together.
It was rare for Guan Yuehe to indulge in such sentimental remarks, but after writing her reply, she felt awkward. So she replaced that sentiment with a German sentence.
She has been studying German for half a year and has just barely gotten to the basics. In fact, she is not sure if what she wrote is correct.
That's the gist of it; let Chunmei translate it!
Guan Yuehe chuckled mischievously as she packed the envelopes.
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