In 1992, a small village owner became the richest man in the village by owning a car.

Chapter 37 "Murderer" Yao Jinfu
Around 1 p.m., after returning the empty dog ​​bowl to the old man's house, Yu Dawei headed towards Xinglong Village in Heshan Township.

Go find your long-lost tagalong, Yao Jinfu.

Xinglongtun is located northwest of Jiatun. If you take the main road, you have two options: one is to go west, which will pass through the fifth team of villages, and then go north until you see the supply and marketing cooperative, which will lead you to the first team of Xinglongtun.

Another option is to go west to a rural crossroads, then north, passing through three villages, and continuing to turn left and right. In any case, you'll eventually reach the supply and marketing cooperative first, and then Xinglong Village.

However, most of the people in Yujiatunzi follow the Maodao (a type of road).

Mao Dao is a path that emerges from the ground; it is very narrow, only wide enough for an adult to walk on.

Outside each village, there is a small path leading directly to Heshan Primary School.

Every summer when the corn grows in the fields, the school organizes students from different grades and the same village to line up on the playground at noon. A captain is chosen to lead the students in that line through the tall cornfield and back to their homes.

Besides being used for school, Mao Dao was also very convenient to walk to the market or to the supply and marketing cooperative.

Yu Dawei took this path that he hadn't walked for many years.

In other people's fields, the furrows are re-erected every year to plant crops, so the furrows are uneven. Children can take one step at a time, one furrow at a time, but for adults, taking small steps is uncomfortable, and taking big steps risks pulling their crotches, which is quite a dilemma.

It took Yu Dawei more than forty minutes to finally see the supply and marketing cooperative in the distance.

Outside the crumbling whitewashed wall, withered weeds grew everywhere. To the south was a small gate, a fence made of a few wooden strips that could be lifted and pulled to the left to open.

The supply and marketing cooperative in Heshan Village was very large, a brick and tile building with nine rooms. In the middle were two large red wooden doors with long door handles made of pure iron. The base paint had long since peeled off, leaving behind a layer of yellow and green residue of inferior paint.

Yu Dawei thought that since he was already at the supply and marketing cooperative, he should buy something before going there. It wouldn't be good to come empty-handed after not seeing it for so long.

He remembered that both doors opened without any problem, whether opening outwards or inwards, and they would automatically close again when he let go of them.

When he was a child, he often came here to buy things, and then he would play with his younger brothers at the gate.

Upon opening the door, the floor was paved with red bricks. It must have been a long time ago, as the bricks were not only cracked, but their surfaces had also been worn smooth.

He looked up and saw that the glass cabinet stretched from the far east side of the house to the far west side, with a break in the middle and a small wooden arched doorway.

The large red door behind me swayed back and forth, and the decorative rings on the doorknob jingled and clanged.

In the empty house, a man came out of a separate room on the far west side: "Buying something?"

The literature of empty pleasantries.

“Yes, I’m here to buy some things,” Yu Dawei replied with a nonsensical remark.

"Take a look, buy something." The man walked over slowly, opened the small wooden door in the middle of the cabinet, and went inside.

Now that small shops have sprung up in every village, the role of supply and marketing cooperatives has become increasingly less important. If it weren't for their comprehensive selection of goods, they might have closed down long ago.

However, there are very few people nowadays. If they really want to buy something, the villagers like to go to the market. Even those who live far away will drive tractors with the back full of people, and the whole village will go together.

"Let's pick some fruit, apples and oranges, please." Yu Dawei glanced at the items in the supply and marketing cooperative. Shoes, thermos flasks, needles and thread, pots and pans, all kinds of snacks for children... There were more things than many years ago, but the smell of all these things in the air had not changed.

If you listen carefully and smell it closely, you can even distinguish the rubber smell of new shoe soles.

"You look so familiar," the man said, handing the fruit to the other man. "You are... Yu Dawei!"

"You are..." Yu Dawei was bewildered. The man in front of him was tall and thin, with a face full of freckles, and looked both strange and familiar.

"Oh dear! How come I don't recognize this old classmate? We sat side by side in elementary school, with Cui Ting'er between us." The man's face was full of smiles, but his tone was somewhat speechless. "Ma Ziliang."

"Slug!" A long-forgotten image in Yu Dawei's mind suddenly became clear, slowly merging with the tall, thin man in front of him!

That's right. When I was a kid, every winter, I would have two colored snot sticking out of my nostrils, sometimes going in and sometimes out... My teachers were always at their wits' end with me.

Once, when we went to the school well to fetch water together, when this guy bent over, his snot was hanging in the air. Yu Dawei was afraid that the snot would fall into the water in the iron bucket, since everyone was going to drink the water.

Looking at the fruit he was offered, Yu Dawei suddenly changed his mind and didn't want to buy it anymore.

I don't know which brilliant person brought this kid to the supply and marketing cooperative.

"You're really something, you've even managed to get a stable job. Wait a minute, didn't you drop out of junior high and go to the south?" Yu Dawei suddenly remembered.

“Sigh, don’t even mention it. I went to the south with a few older guys from the village, and I almost got sold by human traffickers.” Ma Ziliang shook his head and sighed. “Later, I couldn’t make a living outside, so I came back and worked at the supply and marketing cooperative. A few years ago, my master retired, and now I’m the only one left at the supply and marketing cooperative.”

"That's great, a secure job."

"Hehe, if it were a secure job, I wouldn't have to worry. Now there are basically small shops in the village, but apart from kids coming here to buy things, very few other people come. I don't know what to do in the future." Ma Ziliang looked worried. "By the way, didn't you go to Hohhot to study? When are you coming back?"

“I’ve been back for quite a while now. I just heard that Axe is back, so I was thinking of going to see him.”

Ma Ziliang's expression changed, and after hesitating for a long time, he finally spoke: "You probably don't know, but I heard people say that Fu Zi made money mining outside. I only found out after I came back this year that he committed a crime and was arrested."

“They say it’s illegal mining, but my kids come here to buy things every day. They say it’s murder.” Ma Ziliang sighed. “I don’t believe it, but this kid is a bit of a simpleton. Who knows if he might accidentally stab someone?”

"I didn't mean anything by it. I just wanted to let you know that everyone in the village is avoiding him now, afraid of getting into trouble. I know you two were close when you were little. I just wanted to remind you. Whether you go or not is up to you."

Yu Dawei gave him the change, picked up the fruit, smiled, and said, "Thanks."

Then he didn't say anything more, turned around and left.

When a wall falls, everyone pushes it down; when a drum is broken, everyone beats it. Ma Ziliang and Axe had never gotten along since childhood, and he knew that.

However, we can't say that they necessarily had bad intentions. So many years have passed since they were kids, what is there to be upset about?

Yu Dawei felt a tightness in his chest. Whether it's the future internet era or the present era, public opinion is always a terrifying thing.

Yu Dawei still had to go find Yao Jinfu, not only because of his excellent excavator operating skills—after all, if his skills weren't good enough, he wouldn't have been noticed by the black mine boss—but also because of the feelings he had for Yao Jinfu since childhood.

(End of this chapter)