Reborn in 78, I made my fortune by working in the mountains, supporting three families on my own.

"I clearly remember putting it in the cupboard in the main room, but when I checked this morning, it was completely gone."

With a buzzing sound.

Jiang Xinyue's expression tightened instantly, and her face suddenly darkened.

The strange noises last night, the scurrying of mice, the barking of dogs late at night, the unlocked main room door...

A series of unusual scenes instantly flashed through his mind.

He finally realized what was happening.

It wasn't a rat at all last night!

Someone has broken into the house!

Jiang Xinyue immediately told Zhao Lei about what had happened to her the previous night.

Upon hearing Jiang Xinyue's words, Zhao Lei was immediately shocked, his face turning ashen.

"What? A thief broke in?"

"That's impossible. There's a whole family living here. How could we not notice any noise at night?"

Jiang Xinyue's expression was solemn as she spoke earnestly: "I was woken up by the barking of dogs in the village last night. I got up and went out to check, and I found that the latch on the main room door was not locked at all."

Qin Yuchan, who was standing to the side, felt a pang of anxiety and immediately turned around to pull her eldest daughter, Zhao Yupei, in front of her.

"Peipei, Mommy's asking you, did you lock the main room door yesterday evening? Did you latch it properly?"

Zhao Yupei opened her clear, big eyes, thought carefully for a moment, and then said in a clear voice, "I locked it, Dad, Mom, and Second Aunt. I made sure I locked the door yesterday."

Jiang Xinyue stared at the child, her tone gentle yet serious: "Peipei, think it over carefully again. Are you really going to lock the door completely?"

"It's really closed!"

Zhao Yupei nodded firmly without the slightest hesitation.

At that moment, Zhao Lei, Jiang Xinyue, and Qin Yuchan exchanged glances and instantly made up their minds.

It wasn't that the child was careless; someone really did break into the house last night!

Suppressing his anger, Zhao Lei ordered in a deep voice, "Everyone, quickly split up and check inside and outside the house to see if anything else is missing besides the musk pouch."

Jiang Xinyue was the most anxious, as he had always been in charge of managing the family's finances and accounts.

He immediately hurried back to his room, reached into the crack in the wall where the money was hidden, and carefully counted it.

After confirming that not a single penny was missing, he quickly came out to inform Zhao Lei.

"The several hundred yuan in cash at home is still there; not a single penny is missing."

Zhao Lei frowned even more deeply, filled with doubt.

The cash wasn't stolen, and the rest of the items in the house were just ordinary household items, worthless, and no one would steal them.

Suddenly, a thought flashed through his mind, and he slapped his forehead.

"Oh, right! And the car!"

He strode out of the yard and carefully checked everything.

The tricycles, men's and women's bicycles, were all parked in their original positions, with no damage to the vehicles and no signs of being moved.

Zhao Lei was completely dumbfounded.

"Strange, really strange."

He stood in the courtyard, pondering to himself. He hadn't taken the money, moved the car, or touched any odds and ends. Everything in the house was intact, except for the three musk sachets.

Jiang Xinyue stood aside and calmly analyzed, "Lei Zi, in my opinion, this person didn't just randomly break into a house to steal."

"He came specifically for the musk pods."

"Wanqing once said that a musk sac can sell for five or six hundred yuan, and three sacs together are worth nearly two thousand yuan. This is the most valuable thing in our house right now."

Zhao Lei suddenly realized.

That's right!

Half of the thieves who break into homes will only steal cash, food, and valuable large items.

This person, however, was extremely precise in his target, heading straight for the musk deer's sac; his purpose was too strong.

He quickly calculated in his mind.

Very few people knew the value of the musk sacs or that he possessed three top-quality musk sacs.

My own family, Qin Bowen, and then there's Fatty Chen who was haggling over prices at the supply and marketing cooperative yesterday!

Apart from that, no other outsiders knew about it!

Zhao Lei was not giving up, always feeling that he might have misremembered the storage location.

He hurriedly went inside and rummaged through everything, searching through the cabinets and corners in the main room.

No matter how hard I looked, it was always empty.

The musk sac has indeed disappeared.

Just as he was feeling extremely agitated and confused, he heard footsteps outside the courtyard.

Qin Bowen got up early and finished getting ready. After waiting for a long time without seeing Zhao Lei come over, he became anxious and decided to go to his door to find him.

Upon entering the courtyard, seeing the house ransacked inside and out, he was immediately filled with confusion.

"Brother-in-law, what's going on? I've been waiting for you at the village entrance for ages, and you still haven't come. I thought you were still sleeping."

As soon as he finished speaking, he saw Zhao Lei's gloomy and ugly face and immediately realized that something was wrong.

"Brother-in-law, what happened? Why is the house such a mess?"

Zhao Lei looked up at him, his tone heavy, tinged with suppressed anger.

"Bowen, something's happened! Our three musk pouches have been stolen."

"What?!"

Qin Bowen's pupils shrank suddenly, his face filled with disbelief, and he exclaimed in surprise.

He never imagined that the things he had kept safely at home would be stolen in the middle of the night!

Qin Bowen was completely stunned, and his face turned deathly pale instantly.

"It got stolen?!"

His mind raced, and he instantly grasped all the suspicious points, blurting out the answer immediately.

"Brother-in-law! The fact that we have musk deer sachets and other good stuff is known only to our family and to Fatty Chen when we went to the supply and marketing cooperative to negotiate the price yesterday!"

"The price negotiation fell apart yesterday, and we had a huge argument on the spot. That night, things were stolen from my house. Who else could it be but him!"

Qin Bowen grew angrier the more he thought about it, his anger rising in his chest. He immediately rolled up his sleeves, ready to rush out.

"I'm going to confront him! That fat guy is definitely up to something!"

Zhao Lei stood there, his brows furrowed, his mind racing as he reviewed the whole incident.

That's right.

Time, clues, insiders—all the suspicious points point to Fatty Chen.

This matter is absolutely related to him.

"Walk!"

Without further hesitation, Zhao Lei and Qin Bowen each rode a 28-inch bicycle at breakneck speed, heading straight for the commune's supply and marketing cooperative.

It's still early, just past nine o'clock.

The supply and marketing cooperative's gate was tightly closed, the door panels locked securely, and Fatty Chen hadn't even come to open it yet.

Looking at the tightly closed door, Qin Bowen's anger flared even more, and he couldn't help but swear.

"Damn it! It's this late and he's still not at work! Brother-in-law, do you think he just took our stuff and ran away?!"

Zhao Lei, a cigarette between his fingers, his face grim, shook his head in a deep voice: "Probably not."

"How is that impossible!"

Qin Bowen stamped his feet in frustration, "That's over two thousand yuan!"

"He's just a supply and marketing cooperative employee, his fixed salary is only a few dozen yuan a month. Even if he works himself to the bone all year, plus a little extra for the price difference on the goods, his income is at most a few hundred yuan!"

"Two thousand yuan is equivalent to several years' income for him! Who wouldn't be tempted?"

"And I specifically asked my dad about it last night!"

Qin Bowen gritted his teeth and continued, "My dad said that this Fatty Chen looks like he's always smiling and welcoming, but he's actually very cunning and greedy. He has a dirty record from his time in Huangshi Township!"