Chapter 35

  Li Tie has recently become obsessed with horse riding. Since there's nothing to do in the mountain cave base and he wasn't allowed to bring Hu Li into the Second Dog Squad Leader's sweep operation, this little guy's important daily task is now... horse riding.

  His Mongolian horse had become very familiar with him. In fact, the animal seemed to have forgotten its original owner and spent all day carrying Li Tie around, sometimes even running to the edge of the base.

  As the autumn has already begun, but it's not yet time for harvest, and the crops in the fields no longer need to be managed, ordinary people can temporarily put down their farm work. However, there is another task, which is to cut green grass to prepare fodder for cattle and sheep for winter.

  At this time, most of the villagers go to the mountain slope every day to cut the green grass in the wasteland, dry it and stack it up to feed the livestock in winter. Almost no one goes to visit relatives, even if they do, it's usually because there's something going on at their relative's house and they're going to help out. Generally, they leave early and return early, coming and going hastily.

  Li Tie rode his horse to a hillside, which was an extremely ordinary hillside, with the surrounding terrain being all like this. The hillside had too thin soil and was not suitable for farming, and even the grass grew very little, only sparsely growing some drought-tolerant and barren-resistant plants such as sour jujube trees.

  Li Tie got off his horse, picked a few small dates from a date tree and put them in his mouth. A sour-sweet flavor immediately filled Li Tie's mouth.

  It's really delicious, this is purely natural and non-polluting stuff. Li Tie picked some more, eating while picking, when suddenly a figure flashed by in the mountain valley.

  This mountain valley is not close to the village, nor does it have a store behind it. Generally, ordinary people do not come here unless they come to cut sour jujube trees for firewood in winter. Now even if they come to cut grass, they won't be able to cut much anyway.

  Li Tie threw down his horse and walked over to the mountain valley.

  Arrived at the edge of the ditch, a young man, who looked like he was only in his early twenties, was sitting there resting.

  This is a young man, twenty-one or two years old, wearing a tattered jacket commonly worn by locals, black trousers and a pair of black cloth shoes.

  Black cloth shoes? This person is not a farmer.

  Although black cloth shoes are commonly worn by local people, they also require women to work hard to make a pair. Generally, no one wears them on hot days. The local people mostly wear a kind of "grass shoe". However, this "grass shoe" is not made of grass, but is made of the same rubber as car tires for the sole, and then several shoe pieces are nailed to the front with small nails, and the heel is nailed to the back, and then tied to the foot with a rope. This kind of shoe is durable and cheap, and it usually takes about two years to wear out a pair. Moreover, this kind of shoe is not afraid of water or mud, and if it gets dirty, it can be washed with water, and if the shoe piece breaks, just find a small nail to fix it. Cloth shoes are only worn on special occasions, such as visiting relatives, getting married, or when it's too cold, as "dress shoes". When working, people absolutely do not wear cloth shoes.

  It's scorching hot today.

  What is this person doing here?

  The man sitting on the edge of the ditch never thought that someone was peeping at him here.

  He took off his cloth shoes and rubbed his sore feet by himself. This mountain valley is really hard to walk through.

  Li Tie saw clearly in the grass thicket by the ditch. This person's foot was different from ordinary people: there was a large gap between the big toe and the second toe, and there was a thick callus.

  This guy is Japanese! This was Li Tie's conclusion. Because in China, people generally don't wear wooden clogs, even if they do wear shoes with wooden soles, they won't tie a rope around the wood, but instead sew it together with cloth like regular shoes. But the devils wore wooden clogs ("xia dan") before they were equipped with military boots, and there was usually a big gap between the big toe and second toe, and often the strap on the "xia dan" would rub against their skin and cause blisters.

  This is an important indicator for identifying Japanese people.

  What did the devils come to this desolate mountain for?

  Li Tie decided to follow this guy and see what he was up to.

  The ghost walked in front, and Li Tie followed carefully behind, keeping a distance that was neither too far nor too close.

  After walking for half a day, I didn't meet anyone, and in front of me was just a small village.

  There is a militia organization in the village, and there are also children's teams standing guard at the entrance of the village.

  The little devil arrived at the village entrance, where he was stopped by a young sentinel who seemed to be asking him for something, probably a password.

  The little devil pulled out a note from his pocket and showed it to the young pioneers, who then let him go.

  At that time, there was no advanced printing press, so the so-called "road tickets" were printed very roughly, and it was simply too easy to counterfeit.

  Seeing the little devil enter the village, Li Tie also wanted to follow him into the village, but he was also blocked by the children's team:

  "Sorry, please show your ticket." The young conductor was all business.

  Li Tie really didn't have a pass, he went in and out of the base every day, everyone in the whole base knew him, his face was a pass, who would ask him for a pass?

  However, as the place expanded and the population increased, it's normal for there to be people who don't know him.

  Li Tie never thought he would need a road pass in the base, so he never brought one with him. After all, he was often the one giving others road passes.

  Now, without a road, you can't enter the village, and if you can't enter the village, it's very likely that you'll lose your target.

  "Little friend, I am a soldier of the Eighth Route Army. The person who just went in is a devil."

  "I think you're a devil or a traitorous Han spy. The road permit of that person just now, if you can't produce the road permit, then you're a spy. You're not allowed to enter the village."

  It seems that the vigilance of the masses on the ground is still very high, but I really have no way out.

  。

  "Little buddy, I'm really a bandit, look, I still have a gun."

  Li Tie pulled out the gun from his waist and showed it to the little guy.

  It's better not to look at it; once you take a look, it's terrible.

  The little guy immediately raised the red bayonet, with the gun tip pointing at Li Tie. "I think you're a spy, the Eighth Route Army's guns all have red tassels, but your gun has nothing. Dog Egg, go report to the captain quickly, I'll keep an eye on this guy, you're not allowed to move."

  The little guy said something to another accomplice, and the other little guy ran away in a flash.

  Li Tie couldn't help but laugh and cry at the same time. What kind of thing is this, with red flags on the guns? What theory is this? Wait a minute, maybe someone I know will come.

  In this way, the little guy's red cherry gun was pointed at Li Tie's chest, while Li Tie leaned against the village chief's house at the entrance of the village, waiting for the captain to arrive.

  No big deal, this little guy called Dog Egg indeed brought a few people. Each of them carried rifles on their backs.

  It just so happened that the young man in charge, Li Tie, was actually someone he knew. Although he couldn't recall his name, he had trained him at the brigade headquarters before.

  Seeing the red scarf gun still pointing at Li Tie, the team leader quickly took it away and held Li Tie's hand, saying repeatedly: "Sorry, sorry, the children didn't know Commander Li was coming here, please come in quickly."

  So Li Tie was invited into the village, to the militia company's office - a very simple small thatched cottage.

  A big bowl of iced tea made Li Tie feel refreshed from head to toe. He had been running around all morning and hadn't even had a chance to drink a few sips of water.

  Through self-introduction, Li Tie learned that the person in front of him was the captain of the militia regiment composed of this village and several nearby villages, also surnamed Li.

  Li Tie briefly told Li Lianzhang about his following the ghost and asked him to investigate where the ghost had gone and who he had contacted.

  Li Lianchang agreed and immediately arranged a team of militia to gather information. At the same time, Li Tie told Li Lianchang that his horse was on a nearby hillside and asked him to send someone to bring it back. One of the team members volunteered to go without being ordered.

  。

  It was noon, and Li Lianchang and others had not eaten yet. So, Li Tie was pulled by Li Lianchang to his home for lunch.

  Li Lianchang's home was in this village, a small courtyard not far from the office, with a new thatched roof, no different from other farmhouses. There were a group of chickens in the yard, probably raised by themselves to lay eggs.

  As soon as they entered the courtyard, before Li Tie could react, Li Lianchang quickly grabbed a chicken, twisted its neck and threw it to the ground, letting his wife clean and stew it.

  Li Lianchang and his wife had no children yet, they just got married, and this house was newly built for their marriage.

  Two people were talking in the room, exchanging stories while drinking tea. The tea leaves here are all self-roasted mountain tea, which tastes particularly good.

  In a short while, Li Lianchang's wife had finished cooking the meal. A steamer of mushroom stewed chicken was brought to the table. Li Lianchang somehow managed to produce half a bottle of wine and insisted on drinking with Li Tie.

  Li Tie repeatedly declined, only then did he stop. Li Tie knew his own capacity for liquor; let alone this old boiled wine, even ordinary white dry wine, if he drank two liangs of it, that would also take half a day to sober up from. Drinking this pot of old boiled wine, in the afternoon, forget about catching devils, it's possible that devils would catch him instead, and that would make this devil rich, having caught an Eighth Route Army regiment commander, who was especially important.

  After dinner, Li Lianchang's wife had just finished washing the bowls and chopsticks when the militiamen who were on sentry duty arrived.

  He told Li Tie and Li Lianchang that this devil had entered the village and arrived at Li Sanlian's home.

  Li Sanlian is a relatively well-known landlord in this area. He has two sons, the elder son works with him in the village, and the younger son used to study outside but later joined some troops and became an official. However, it's said that he came back recently.

  It seems that Li Sanlian's second son is quite unclean. He even joined the puppet army without saying a word.

  Li Tie inquired about some things related to Li Sanlian in detail.

  Li Lianchang told Li Tie that since this Li Sanlian was a relatively enlightened landlord, he didn't have any excessive behavior towards the tenant farmers and often helped some poor people. He even adopted some homeless children and did some good deeds, so they didn't carry out dictatorship against him. His eldest son seemed to be similar to him, usually very low-key and gentle with others. As for his second son, he had never seen him before, only heard about it.