Finally, they made their way out of Wang Family Village.
Yu Zhen crouched low, the Red Armband members following behind him.
The whole group held their arms bent in front of their chests, treading carefully along the field ridges, looking for all the world like a pack of wild monkeys stealing crops.
At the village entrance stood an old locust tree, a bronze gong and a wooden stick hanging from its branches.
That gong was the signal for starting and finishing work.
A gust of wind blew,
Clang, clang, clang...
The sudden sound of the gong ringing was utterly startling.
Yu Zhen jumped three feet in the air, his right hand instinctively reaching for his waist.
With a "shing," he drew his service pistol, its dark muzzle pointed straight at the locust tree branches.
"It's an ambush!"
He bellowed.
The Red Armband members behind him—some fresh graduates from the county town middle school, others technicians from the factories—had ever seen such a scene?
Clatter-clatter~~~
A chaotic noise erupted as the sounds of rifle bolts being pulled echoed one after another. Someone, in their nervousness, even fumbled and dropped a bullet, which rolled into the mud with a "gulu gulu" sound.
Behind a haystack, a big yellow dog was deep in a dream about gnawing a bone, jolted awake by this commotion.
It dashed out with its tongue lolling, barking "woof woof" furiously at these uninvited guests.
"Hit the dirt!"
As if trained, the Red Armband members all flopped down into the mud with a "swish."
Yu Zhen moved the quickest, though his direction control was off—his cap fell from his head.
It rolled a few times and landed right in a nearby pile of cow dung.
Yu Zhen's forehead twitched violently.
This was his brand new cap, leather, cost over twenty yuan!
A quick-thinking Red Armband member picked it up for him.
Only, the brim was now coated with a thick layer of something yellowish and sticky, as if adorned with a rim of "boundless gold."
Yu Zhen: "..."
"Report, Team Leader!"
A bespectacled Red Armband member, lying prone on the ground, shakily raised a telescope. Its lens had spiderweb-like cracks and was smudged with mud.
"N-northeast direction, suspected enemy agents... are, are catching snakes!"
Somewhat nearsighted, Yu Zhen squinted in the direction he pointed.
Good grief.
In the center of the village, countless water vats were stacked neatly, like soldiers in formation.
Many people, wrapped in blue cloth headscarves, were holding long, brown snakes, slowly stuffing them into the vats.
At first glance, there had to be at least several hundred.
Why was Wang Family Village raising so many snakes?
Could it be to deal with them?
That was highly likely.
Last time, that wretched girl Shen Nanchu had used snakes to scare people, hadn't she?
"It's a trap! They're definitely setting a trap!"
Yu Zhen slapped his thigh, splashing mud all over his face.
"All units, take cover! Maintain observation!"
Many Red Armband members, like dumplings dropping into a pot, "plopped plopped" all dove into the nearby rice paddies.
Some Red Armband members looked at each other, puzzled; they distinctly saw brown pickled vegetables? But if the big leader said they were snakes, then they must have seen wrong.
They too jumped into the rice paddies one after another.
The mature rice stalks were pressed down, unable to straighten, startling a swarm of frogs that fled in all directions with "ribbit ribbit" cries.
One bold frog even jumped onto Yu Zhen's head, puffing its cheeks and croaking.
Zheng Tongwei, shouldering a hoe on his way to the fields to drain water for the upcoming harvest, saw this strange spectacle from afar.
He watched as these Red Armband members, bottoms in the air, lay prone in the rice paddies, pointing and gesturing at the pickle vats on the drying ground.
He felt a small sense of relief.
Fortunately, he had seen the light and switched sides.
Otherwise, mixing with these pigs, his intelligent self would surely turn into a fool sooner or later.
After some thought,
Zheng Tongwei pulled out a crumpled little notebook from his pants pocket, rubbed the pencil stub against his ear, and began to record,
"10:30 AM. Red Armband squad lurking in rice paddy. Target: pickle vats. Suspected intention to steal pickles???"
When the sun had climbed to bamboo-pole height,
and seeing no movement,
Yu Zhen made a hand signal, indicating the danger was over and they should proceed.
Yu Zhen, covered in mud, led the group forward.
Not long after,
the bespectacled young squad member stopped.
His gaze fell on the chicken coop at the east end of the village. It was where Cripple Wang's speckled hen laid eggs, a wall built of stones with a thatched roof.
The squad member studied it for half an hour, his face changing dramatically.
"Bad news, discovered a pillbox!"
Hearing this, Yu Zhen immediately looked in the direction pointed by the bespectacled Red Armband member.
Good grief, he directly spotted three, four, five "pillboxes," distributed in different locations around the village.
"All units, attention!"
"Hit the dirt, advance by crawling!"
Yu Zhen took the lead, and all the Red Armband members dared not disobey.
Thus, Zheng Tongwei witnessed another miraculous scene.
A group of people, like caterpillars, inched forward.
He felt his brain capacity was a bit insufficient.
What on earth were these people doing?
Could this posture allow them to see a different kind of scenery?
Unable to figure it out, Zheng Tongwei took out his little notebook and continued recording,
"11:20 AM. Red Armband squad crawling on the path. Suspected desire to see different scenery???"
When the sun was directly overhead, the Red Armband members were so hungry they saw stars.
Yu Zhen didn't dare ask for food in Wang Family Village, afraid of being poisoned.
So, he sent two agile Red Armband members to "gather supplies."
As it turned out, these two fellows sneaked into Wang Laizi's courtyard and stole most of the sweet potato strips drying on a bamboo tray.
Now, who was this Wang Laizi?
He was the least clean person in all of Wang Family Village.
The sweet potato strips he dried were comparable to biochemical weapons!
The unsuspecting Yu Zhen and the Red Armband members, hiding behind Wang Laizi's backyard, wolfed them down, even though the strips were salty and a bit sour.
In less than half an hour, the group of grown men were clutching their stomachs and turning in circles, the successive sounds of flatulence startling sparrows from the trees.
The men couldn't hold it anymore.
They scrambled to find hidden spots to relieve themselves...
Plop~~~
Plop~~~
Several loud splashes later,
Yu Zhen and several Red Armband members slipped and fell straight into the manure pit, only their heads showing above.
Just then, a passing cowherd boy shouted loudly,
"Someone fell into the latrine!"
Yu Zhen struggled to lift his head, his old face flushed red, covered in manure, yet he still managed to yell,
"Don't talk nonsense! We're conducting biogas exploration!"
In the end, two passing villagers fished them out with carrying poles.
They couldn't have been more disheveled.
Zheng Tongwei, who had been secretly following, added a new entry to his little notebook,
"1:00 PM. Red Armband members collectively sneaked into Wang Laizi's house. Then, jumped into manure pit. Wang Laizi's house and manure pit have treasures???"
Zheng Tongwei closed his little notebook.
Yu Zhen and these Red Armband members were too abnormal.
No, he had to report to Shen Nanchu immediately.
Zheng Tongwei went to the village committee office and cranked the military phone.
"Nanchu! You better come back and take a look! Our village has a bunch of idiots... no, a bunch of Red Armband members, led by Yu Zhen, doing all sorts of strange things in the village."
Shen Nanchu on the other end of the line, "What?"
Yu Zhen brought a bunch of Red Armband members here?
This was serious!
"I'll rush back right away."
"You keep watch!"
"Record carefully what they do?"
...
