Early the next morning, Su Changshun was rubbing his sore, swollen eyes when he saw Li Qingxiang walking into the compound gate looking travel-worn and weary.
The Shandong native still carried the exhaustion of a sleepless night. Though his old, military-green uniform was smudged with dust and his stride retained a soldier's stiffness, his brow was locked in a tight frown.
"Brother Qingxiang! You're back? The person…?" Su Changshun hurried over a few steps, lowering his voice with genuine concern. In truth, one look at Li Qingxiang’s expression told him everything.
Li Qingxiang stopped, shook his head, and wiped the sweat from his face. "We didn't catch him. That little bastard slipped away too fast! He knows these alleys inside and out, sticking to low rooftops, crumbling walls, and small openings behind dead ends. The comrades from the joint defense team and the neighborhood police station combed every nearby alley, and we couldn't even find a hair of him."
He paused and added, "A limp in the left leg, short and thin—the description is locked in, and I’ve made it clear to the police station. It'll be posted on the wall bulletin today!"
Su Changshun cursed silently to himself, but wore a face of complete understanding. "Brother Qingxiang, you've really suffered through the night! And your men worked hard, too! As long as everyone's safe, that's what matters!"
"Yeah," Li Qingxiang nodded. "This might not be over. Keep your eyes open going to and from work, and shout if anything happens." After offering a few words of caution regarding security, he dragged his exhausted body toward his own home.
With Li Qingxiang gone, Su Changshun didn't go back inside. His gaze swept coldly toward Yi Zhonghai’s place in the Middle Courtyard.
Yi's double doors were shut tight as if welded shut. From the dark of night until now, broad daylight, they hadn't cracked open a single millimeter! Even Chen Guihua, who usually made a habit of getting up early to sweep and empty the nightsoil bucket, hadn't dared show her face this morning! Talk about "the thief calling himself innocent."
"Heh! Old Dog Yi, playing the ostrich now? Bury your head in the dirt and pretend your filthy deeds didn't happen?" Su Changshun sneered inwardly, a mocking curl at the corner of his mouth.
"Don't worry. Today, your young master is going to pile on the firewood himself! I'm going to blow your little shut-in world wide open!"
He turned and went back inside his room, hurriedly shoving down a few bites of leftover cornbread from last night. He glanced at the old calendar pasted on the wall—March 13th, a most auspicious day for "delivering warmth."
Pushing open his door, he headed straight for Shazhu’s place in the Middle Courtyard.
Shazhu was already up, squatting by the water spigot outside his door, cupping freezing cold water to splash his face. The bone-chilling water shocked him into letting out a couple of yelps, which served to wake him up.
Seeing Su Changshun approach, Shazhu pulled his head out of the basin, wiped his face haphazardly, and sent water droplets flying everywhere.
"Changshun! You're up early! What was all that racket in the middle of the night? Sounded like a blown-up camp, kept me awake half the night." Shazhu yawned, clearly writing it off as routine neighborhood trouble.
"You really are a blockhead, Shazhu. Your heart is bigger than the sky!" Su Changshun drew out his tone, half-smiling. "Your buddy here almost left you an orphan last night!"
Shazhu froze, nearly dropping the water basin. "What the hell? An orphan? What are you talking about?"
"I'm saying last night, some blind cat burglar came specifically for my room! Picked the door latch with a thin blade!" Su Changshun pointed toward his own door, then repeated the thief's description that Li Qingxiang had just given him.
Suddenly raising his voice without any fear of Yi Zhonghai hearing him, he continued, "Know why he came after me? Because today you and I are going to the post office to check the accounts, and someone panicked! Scared out of his mind and driven to desperation, he tried to trap me in my room so you, you idiot, would never find out the truth about your old man's money!"
The sleepiness on Shazhu's face vanished instantly, as if doused in boiling oil! He remembered Su Changshun's words about dog-training from the previous evening. His chest heaved violently, and his clenched fists cracked and popped.
"Was it him?" Shazhu roared rather than spoke. "It's definitely that old bastard pulling the strings! He's scared! He's scared we'll catch him by the tail!"
"Scared? That goes without saying." Su Changshun's tone was icy as he patted Shazhu's tense arm. "Now's not the time for cursing. The thief ran off last night, leaving us with vague clues. If we try to hit Old Man Yi with just this right now, that old fox will definitely deny it. But we still have heavy artillery in our hands that we haven't used yet!"
His eyes were as sharp as blades. "Let's go! We're going to the post office right now! We'll dig out those ironclad stubs in black and white! Then, with all this anger of yours, we'll march straight to the po! lice! sta! tion! We'll take down the whole nest at once! Let his precious apprentice Jia Dongxu, whom he holds so dear, watch his master sing the prisoner's blues!"
"Let's go!" Finding the only outlet for his overwhelming rage and humiliation at being trained like a dog, Shazhu snapped, "I want to see just how black that old dog's heart really is! If I don't get him locked up, write the three characters He Yuzhu backward!"
Right now, he had only one thought in his mind: drag out Yi Zhonghai and make him pay!
The two of them stormed out of the Quadrangle Courtyard, bristling with murderous intent.
Behind the deathly quiet door of the Yi family home in the Middle Courtyard, Yi Zhonghai stood deathly pale, leaning against the cold wall.
Every word Su Changshun spoke had pierced clearly through his door—police station, take down the whole nest, prisoner's blues. Every single term was like a poisonous needle, stabbing fiercely into his heart!
***
Arriving in front of the old post office, Su Changshun pulled back the fuming, stiff-necked Shazhu just a bit and stepped forward first.
He squeezed out a polite expression for the white-haired elderly man behind the counter who was wearing reading glasses and leisurely gumming envelopes. "Comrade… Uncle! Sorry to bother you. We're from the Red Star Quadrangle Courtyard, and we'd like to check a remittance slip! From quite a few years back! The recipient's name is He Yuzhu or Yi Zhonghai!"
The elderly clerk raised his head. His eyes, peering over his reading glasses, swept past Su Changshun and landed on Shazhu standing behind him, whose bloodshot eyes clearly radiated suppressed fury. The clerk muttered inwardly to himself, "Here to nose around again? The one in the back looks ready to throw punches."
He asked sluggishly, "What are you looking for?"
"It's like this," Su Changshun cleared his throat, organizing his words. "We want to check if, starting around 1951, there were any remittance slips sent from Baoding to Nanluoguxiang Compound No. 95, where the recipient was Yi Zhonghai or He Yuzhu, and the sender was named He Daqing."
He even turned slightly to point at Shazhu beside him. "This comrade right here is He Yuzhu."
Shazhu gave a stiff nod to acknowledge his identity.
The clerk furrowed his brow and tapped his fingers on the desktop. "Well… that was quite a few years ago. Three or four years, at least. Checking those stubs is going to be a lot of trouble; we'll have to dig through the old archives. It won't be easy."
The implication was clear: it was a hassle, and he wasn't too keen on bothering.
"Hey now! Old comrade, please just do us a favor and take the trouble!" Hearing that it wasn't easy, Shazhu instantly grew anxious. Disregarding Su Changshun's attempt to stop him, his voice shot up with a reckless edge, "Our family's matter can't wait! Someone embezzled years of life-saving money sent by my father for me and my sister! This is a big deal! It's a matter of whether my sister and I starve to death! Have some pity and go check it right now!"
The few scattered people handling business in the post office cast sidelong glances over.
Su Changshun let out an inner sigh. This blockhead Shazhu really was ready to go off at the slightest spark.
He quickly nudged Shazhu in the waist from behind without making a scene, signaling him to tone it down, then offered an apologetic smile to the clerk. "Old comrade, please bear with us. The situation really is special, and important matters are involved. How about this—take your time to help us out, and we'll wait patiently. We promise not to rush you."
The old man pushed the half-glued envelope aside, stood up sluggishly, and unlatched the wooden counter gate whose paint was nearly all peeled off. That revealed a massive old wooden filing cabinet inside—large enough for a person to lie down in—with layer upon layer of drawers.
The old man muttered under his breath, "Too many years ago… let's go find it…" His movements remained as slow as a snail's.
This time, the wait seemed exceptionally long. Shazhu paced anxiously in front of the counter, rubbing his fists in agitation, his eyes locked on the elderly clerk who was digging through the files, as if he might rush over and help at any second.
Su Changshun, by contrast, leaned against the counter, tapping his fingers rhythmically on the edge while humming an out-of-tune version of "Katyusha." On the surface he looked leisurely, but his eyes were just as cold as a hunter waiting for a fox to walk into a trap.
Every second stretched out so long it made people anxious to the point of torment!
Finally! From the very depths of a drawer, the old man let out a "Hmph!" and laboriously pulled out a thick stack of yellowed stubs bound together with staples!
He flipped open the top few pages, carefully checking dates and names, his finger sliding slowly down…
Suddenly, the old man's small eyes behind his cloudy reading glasses lit up!
"Hah! There really is one, and the handwriting is quite neat!"
The old man pulled out a stub with the darkest color and brittle, yellowed paper, and slapped it down on the counter!
"Take a look! Is this it? July 15, 1951! The first remittance sender: He Daqing! Baoding West Street, XX Alley—the sender wrote this name. Baoding… yeah, the address matches too. Amount: Ten silver dollars flat!" The old man read out, "The recipient is even more interesting—Nanluoguxiang Compound No. 95 Quadrangle Courtyard, forwarded by Yi Zhonghai to be received by He Yuzhu!"
"Forwarded by Yi Zhonghai to be received by He Yuzhu! Heh! Acting as a transfer station, were you? Ten yuan every month! Like clockwork! Starting from July 1951, it's all in black and white, and the stubs are right here!"
Shazhu felt a roaring in his head! All the blood rushed to his face! He snatched the light yet seemingly heavy stub of paper right off the counter!
His eyes were nailed to those words.
*"Forwarded by Yi Zhonghai to be received by He Yuzhu"*
Seven characters!
Like seven red-hot branding irons!
Searing fiercely! Searing straight through! Burning right into his eyes! Burning through his heart!
Next to the slip, the words "Ten yuan flat"—the amount wasn't huge, but it felt like an icy boning knife, slicing his last remaining scraps of self-comforting, wishful illusions about the First Uncle into mincemeat!
"Yi… Zhong… hai…" Shazhu squeezed those three names out from between his teeth. His whole body's muscles were taut like a drawn bowstring, and his heavy, terrifying breathing sounded jarringly harsh in the quiet post office.
Right now, he just wanted to smash that old bastard's dog head to pieces! Right now! Immediately!
More than four years! A full forty-five months! Four hundred and fifty yuan! Black on white! Ironclad evidence! Every single remittance was the last shred of conscience his old man left behind when he abandoned the two of them!
Every single penny should have been the food rations that allowed him and Yushui to breathe a little easier, sparing them from struggling over a single piece of cornbread! Every single penny should have been the foundation that allowed him to raise his sister properly!
But what was the result?
All of that money had gone straight into the pockets of that sanctimonious old bastard Yi Zhonghai, who put on a facade of elder-like care in front of them every single day!
It became the dirty money he used to buy people's loyalty and decorate his hypocritical reputation! It became his capital for playing the good Samaritan by selflessly helping neighbors—capital exchanged for the hunger of him and Yushui!
Su Changshun leaned in to look as well, sneering inwardly: "Tsk tsk, Old Dog Yi, your old fox tail has finally been dragged out by my own hands and hung up in the street for everyone to see today, hasn't it? 'Forwarded,' my foot! You forwarded yourself straight to nowhere!"
He quickly reached out to steady Shazhu, who was on the verge of exploding on the spot and rushing out to dispense justice the next second. "Steady, Zhuzi, rushing to beat up scum isn't a matter of a single second! Come on, take this thing—we're going!"
Su Changshun yanked the stub—which Shazhu was gripping so hard it crinkled—right out of his hand, clutching it like some precious treasure, while using his other hand to drag Shazhu by the elbow. "Target! Nanluoguxiang Police Station, let's go report the crime and beat the crap out of him! Let Old Dog Yi taste what the iron fist of serving the people feels like!"
Disregarding the elderly post office clerk shouting from behind, "Hey! That slip! That's archival stub material! You need to return it…"
The two of them had already rolled like a wind of fury, clutching that destiny-defining stub as they burst out of the post office doors and charged with murderous intent toward the neighborhood police station not far away!