The Entire Mountain Is My Hunting Ground

Yong’an Village.

On a small path in the village, Jin Xiaomei gripped Li Ruhai’s wrist, hurrying him home. She grumbled as they went, "You leave the house and just disappear. Honestly, I’ve been looking all over for you this whole morning!"

"Why were you looking for me?" Reluctance was written all over Li Ruhai’s face. He stumbled along as Jin Xiaomei dragged him, saying, "I wasn’t talking about our family’s business this time, so why’d you stop me?"

"I’m not stopping you." Jin Xiaomei pulled Li Ruhai around a corner and saw their house was just ahead. Zhao Jun was standing in the middle of the path.

Jin Xiaomei looked back at Li Ruhai and said, "It’s your Brother Jun. He needs to see you about something."

"Huh? Brother Jun!" Upon hearing this, Li Ruhai also spotted Zhao Jun pacing back and forth a short distance ahead.

Seeing the mother and son approach, Zhao Jun hurried over to meet them. "Where’d you run off to all morning, kid?" he asked Li Ruhai.

It was a rhetorical complaint, not requiring an answer. After he spoke, Zhao Jun took Li Ruhai’s wrist from Jin Xiaomei’s grasp and said, "Let’s go. You’re coming with me!"

"Huh?" Li Ruhai froze for a second, then asked, "Brother Jun, where are we going?"

"You’re coming with me to the Forest Farm," Zhao Jun said. "We have some business to attend to!"

"I’m not going!" Li Ruhai refused immediately, shaking his head. "I have to go to school today!"

"Oh, give me a break!" Zhao Jun scoffed, and started dragging Li Ruhai away. Seeing this, Jin Xiaomei paid them no mind and simply turned to go home.

Under normal circumstances, a parent wouldn’t condone their child skipping school. Jin Xiaomei was a normal parent; the abnormal one was Li Ruhai.

The boy was in his first year of middle school, yet he never even brought his textbooks. The moment he got to school, he’d just shoot the breeze with every student and teacher there.

Out of the two-hundred-some people at Yong’an Middle School, there was nothing he didn’t know and nothing he wouldn’t try to find out.

With such a major event having happened last night, how could he be satisfied with only spreading the news around the village? Li Ruhai, who hadn’t even eaten breakfast, had decided today would mark his first time not being late for school in all of 1987.

"I’m not going! I have to go to school!" After being dragged for over a hundred meters, Li Ruhai planted his feet, sank his weight, and stubbornly refused to move. Even as Zhao Jun pulled him until he was leaning forward, he wouldn’t take a single step.

If an unknowing passerby had witnessed this scene, they might have thought it was some poor family forcing their child to drop out of school.

"For crying out loud!" Zhao Jun was at his wit’s end. He kept a firm grip on Li Ruhai with one hand to stop him from bolting, put the other on his hip, and said, "You *have* to go to school? You think I don’t know what you’re really going for?"

"I still have to go to school!" Li Ruhai yelled, struggling with all his might.

The shouting made Zhao Jun’s ears ring. Grabbing Li Ruhai’s arms with both hands like in a game of tug-of-war, he tried to reason with him. "How many people are at your school, anyway? Do you have any idea how many are at the Forest Farm? Whatever you’ve got to say, wouldn’t it be so much better to say it there?"

The moment Zhao Jun’s words were out, Li Ruhai instantly stopped struggling. He straightened up from his defiant posture, looked at Zhao Jun, and asked, "Brother Jun, can I really go?"

"Why not?" Zhao Jun laughed. "Come on, we’ll take a ride over!"

"Deal!" Li Ruhai nodded, wriggled out of Zhao Jun’s grasp, and gestured forward with a sweep of his arm. "Let’s go!" Now he was the one in a hurry.

"Slow down!" Zhao Jun called out as he caught up to Li Ruhai. "You didn’t eat breakfast this morning, did you? Want to grab a bite first?"

"No time!" Li Ruhai said. "I wasn’t planning on eating today anyway. If my mom hadn’t come looking for me, I would’ve gone straight to school from where I was."

"But you’ll still have to eat lunch, right?" Zhao Jun grabbed Li Ruhai, pulled some money and meal tickets from his pocket, and stuffed them into the boy’s hand. Then, he took an aluminum lunch box from his satchel and gave it to him. "Go with Second Brother directly to their transportation team. If anyone asks why your brother didn’t show up for work, just tell them everything that happened last night."

Li Ruhai didn’t know the full story. He had only heard bits and pieces from Li Baoyu while looking after him that morning. As a result, he was unaware that Zhao Youcai had extorted five hundred yuan from Zhang Zhanshan.

Furthermore, Li Ruhai hadn’t been home earlier that morning when Zhao Jun went to deliver the money. Therefore, in the story he was telling, the Zhao and Li families came across as completely righteous.

This was the plan Zhang Yuanmin had devised: have Zhao Jun take Li Ruhai to the Forest Farm and use the boy’s silver tongue to air the Zhang Family’s dirty laundry for all to hear.

It was far more dignified than parading Zhang Laibao through the streets!

However, Zhao Jun felt this plan might not be very effective. Li Ruhai usually did his "reporting" in the village or at school, where he was familiar with everyone and could easily strike up a conversation.

At the Forest Farm, however, the only people Li Ruhai knew were the ones from Yong’an Village. He didn’t know most of the workers there. He couldn’t just grab a random stranger and start spilling the beans, could he?

So, Zhang Yuanmin proposed that Lin Xiangshun first take Li Ruhai to the transportation team. When the team members asked why Li Baoyu hadn’t shown up for work, Li Ruhai could seize the opportunity to interject.

Then at noon, Li Ruhai would go eat at Cafeteria Number One, where Zhao Youcai would introduce him to the kitchen staff. From there, he could start in the kitchen and let the story spread out into the main dining hall.

But after Zhao Jun relayed Zhang Yuanmin’s plan to Li Ruhai, the boy was uncharacteristically silent. "What’s wrong, Ruhai?" Zhao Jun asked. "You don’t think it’ll work?"

"It’s not that it won’t work." Li Ruhai was perfectly calm now. He waved a hand dismissively. "It’s just... this approach is pretty lame."

"What?"

Zhao Jun was taken aback. Li Ruhai continued, "If you really want this story to make an impact, you have to go to Cafeteria Number Two. Isn’t that Zhang Zhanshan a cook there? I’ll go right to his territory and spread the news."

"No!" Hearing this, Zhao Jun grew anxious. He quickly pulled Li Ruhai aside. "Ruhai, don’t you dare do anything reckless!"