Chapter 29: The Robber

Forties? So old? My thoughts were in turmoil, and I could hardly contain myself from asking, “What is your situation? I mean, are you just old in appearance and strength, but your life span is the same? Or is it that even… even your life span has become short?”

The old man… no, I don’t know what to call him now. He’s clearly only in his forties.

He looked at me with a wry smile. “Are you that old? How old do you think you’ll live to be? Very few of us live past fifty! This town… In fact, there are only a few people left. In the past, when it was prosperous, there were always thousands of people, but now it’s like this. Those who have left are either crazy or half-crippled like us.”

“Half-crippled?” I didn’t quite understand this term.

“Old so quickly, almost thirty years old, after the loss of the ability to work, what is not half-crippled?” The old man said sarcastically, did not want to say more, just a deep sigh, and then walked ahead, taking us to continue.

But my heart could not be at peace at this moment. Longevity, fate, luck, and other things are almost things that are predetermined by heaven. That is a taboo that humans cannot interfere with. The so-called inability to interfere is like an exam. You cannot get good grades by cheating. That is against the rules.

However, if you have reviewed your homework in advance and achieved good grades, that is definitely allowed under the rules of heaven.

For example, if a person is kind, upright, and generous, the Dao will give you a good grade, or reward you with longevity, or change your fate for the better, or make your luck smoother… But if you use other methods, such as the forbidden Taoist methods, the price of being discovered is that your original grade will be reset to zero, which is a great sin.

I really can’t think of anything that would be so brazen as to steal the lives of so many people, and by what method would they steal the lives of others? Taoism certainly has the technique of borrowing longevity and fortune, but this kind of grand gesture, I’m afraid even my master would not dare to do it if he were resurrected.

These thoughts shocked me. At this time, looking at this passage with a lit oil lamp, my mood suddenly became extremely heavy… Looking at the backs of these two men, I also felt inexplicably sad.

The corridor was not long, but there were about ten rooms on either side of it… all of them were single rooms, wide open, but no one was there. The footsteps of the two men were not in any of the rooms, but they were walking straight towards the end.

How could there be no one? Although I was puzzled, I still followed the two men to the end of the corridor, holding back my doubts.

There was a single room there. When I reached the door, one of the men said to me, “Uncle Wei Jun is inside. When we came back yesterday, we explained some of the situation to him. He has been waiting for you with great effort.” While he was talking, he also knocked on the door.

He waited for me? Is Liu Weijun’s condition very bad? I calculated the time myself. The story that Mr. Ge told happened in the 1950s. At that time, Liu Weijun was the youngest son of Liu Er and had not yet married (people at that time generally married early). In other words, he was at most 20 years older than me, which means he was in his 50s. In the end, almost everyone who talked about him said that his condition was very bad. How serious was it?

Could it be that he, like these people, had been deprived of his life span?

I was thinking about this when the door to the room opened. It was Grandpa Liu standing at the door. When he saw me, he smiled a little, showing his very old face, and said, “I saw you downstairs. Hurry, come in quickly.”

The three of us walked into the room in silence, only to discover that this room was a bit different from the others. It wasn’t a large single room, but a suite with a closed door in the middle and a small living room on the outside, which was crowded with people at this time.

There were about twenty people, both men and women. Looking around, I saw that they were all elderly people. The youngest looked like they were in their sixties, and they all looked frail.

There was no furniture in the living room, just a thick layer of mats. The people silently walked around the wall and sat on the mats. In the middle was a large pot, boiling something. An old woman was stirring the pot, very focused.

The room was filled with a pungent smell, because the bottom of the pot was a coal stove, not natural gas. In this crowded, cramped room, even with the windows open, it was naturally filled with the smell of coal.

“You’re laughing at me, but our health is not good. Cooking on a fire is a burden for many of us. It’s not realistic for each family to cook their own food… We can only eat together. Would you like to eat something?” Seeing my surprised look, Mr. Liu explained a few words to me.

When he said that, I noticed that everyone sitting against the wall was holding a bowl and a pair of chopsticks waiting.

I couldn’t help but glance at the pot. It was a kind of porridge, with some sweet potatoes and maybe a few tiny pieces of meat. It didn’t look like there was much of it, and I felt inexplicably sad. I looked up and asked Grandpa Liu, “Is this… enough for everyone?”

Mr. Liu sighed and said, “Yes, there isn’t much rice, but there are still some sweet potatoes and the meat is even more difficult to come by. We don’t have much physical strength, and you know that the people in the town are unwilling to sell anything to us. Besides, we don’t have any labor… so where do we get the money to buy food and drink? This is support from outside, and it’s brought by people from the town every once in a while. In addition, we have a few plots of land behind the building where we grow food.”

I stood up in silence and walked to the window. This is the side of the building that faces away from the street. I saw that there were indeed about ten neat vegetable plots downstairs. The vegetable plots were surrounded by a fence, and three old men were standing outside the fence, as if guarding the vegetable plots.

At a glance, I understood that they were guarding against people in the town from destroying the vegetable fields, which were their treasure!

At the same time, I felt a little sad. Looking at the fence, I thought they must have worked hard to build it. I glanced into the distance and saw the Yellow River rushing by. I suddenly thought of a possibility and asked, “Do you live here because it is close to the outskirts of town and you can grow vegetables?”

“Not exactly. The outskirts of town are less affected by the damage. After all, we live in the town, and there are two groups of people who can’t stand each other. We are few in number and weak, so even if we have the protection of the guards, we can still hide.” Mr. Liu said very calmly.

But Ru Yue, who was standing behind him, had already had tears in her eyes and couldn’t help but say, “If it’s so difficult, why don’t you leave here? Why do you insist on living like this here?”

Grandpa Liu was silent, and didn’t answer us for a while. After a long time, he said, “This town still needs people to guard it, and to wait… There are also reasons why we have to stay. The guards will tell you all the reasons later.”

Liu Weijun? I just remembered that I hadn’t seen Liu Weijun since I entered the house. Could it be that he was in the locked room?

“Can we see Liu Weijun now?” The room was so depressing and heavy, and my mood became inexplicably anxious. If I could, I would really like to know everything immediately, and then save the town, save the children who were sent to an unknown place, and these poor old people.

“No, Wei Jun can’t see you now, but he’s been waiting since morning. But unfortunately, you came at this time, and Wei Jun can’t…” Mr. Liu didn’t finish his sentence, moved his lips, looked a bit bitter, and then said, “But fortunately, you can see Wei Jun in about forty minutes. Eat first… eat.”

I looked up at the ceiling, trying to hold back my sadness, but my body didn’t move. We hadn’t eaten anything since we got up in the morning, and we were a little hungry, but I couldn’t bear to eat their pitiful rations.

Similarly, Chengxin and Ruyue did not move. Ruyue even had tears in her eyes. She bit her lower lip and suddenly said, “I’m going out for a while. Brother San, Brother Chengxin, you come with me.”

Then she said to Grandpa Liu, “Wait for us for a while. We’ll be back before Liu Weijun sees us!”

After that, she took me and Brother Chengxin out of the house without giving me a chance to say anything.

On the way down the stairs, I couldn’t help but ask Ru Yue, “What are you going to do?”

Chengxin sighed and said, “Chen Chengyi, you’re really slow. With her acting like this, she’s going to buy things for these people!”

“But can they sell it to us?” I couldn’t think of a reason why the people in this town were friendly to us.

“If they won’t sell, then we’ll just have to buy it. I don’t mind being a robber for once.” Ruyue’s voice echoed throughout the stairwell. I suddenly laughed, laughing very happily.

I never thought that one day I would be a robber, and that I would be happy to be a robber.