Chapter 297: The Old Man Isn't an Evil Ghost

"Hehehe, are you exhausted?"

When Li Daoyun isn't scolding, his voice is still very kind. With his gray beard, longevity brows, and deep fish-tail wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, he has a lot of presence. If not for the faded and patched cotton jacket he wore, he could almost be described as having the demeanor of a celestial being.

Li Taigong's seniority is undeniable.

Under normal circumstances, even if there were conflicts with the Li family, a few people would still have to respectfully call him "Master" when they saw him.

But now, with the three of them already furious and feeling deeply insulted, they didn't care about this formality at all. Upon seeing Li You's father, Li Xian's grandfather, their expressions were naturally unfriendly.

"You old lantern, exhausted? You know how tired I am?! Look at the mess your offspring have caused! I've been hauling big barrels all morning, and my back is about to break!"

"Li Daoyun, go back and tell Li You and Li Laosi that I'm done serving them! From now on, whether I'm here or not, they'll be on their own at the Eight-Nine Forest Farm! Don't think just because they've played the grandiosity card they're invincible. If we don't stand with them, let them try and see what they can accomplish at the farm!"

Sun Fula and Cong Gui immediately started cursing.

Li Daoyun, however, wasn't angry at all. 

He leisurely squatted in front of the three of them, pulled out the pure copper tobacco pipe that he always carried, filled it, and lit it.

With the crackle of the match and a whiff of sulfur, a cloud of irritating smoke blew into the faces of the three men.

"What? So much resentment? You don't want to do this job?"

Seeing the smiling Li Daoyun, the three of them snorted coldly in unison.

Cong Gui and the others did not respond. Li Daoyun raised his eyebrows.

"Cong Gui's kid, Sun's kid, Zhang's kid. I'm seventy-six this year."

"Old coffin lid, what does your seventy-six or eighty-six have to do with me?" Zhang Dayou hammered his sore arm and cursed.

Li Daoyun chuckled, "When a person gets old, others think they're useless, deaf, and blind. Sometimes, they don't even have to work hard. Over the years, I've been around the forest farm every day, and I've heard a lot. Do you want me to teach you a thing or two?"

The three of them were taken aback upon hearing this from the old man.

"What… what have you heard?"

Seeing the uneasy expressions on their faces, Li Daoyun simply sat down cross-legged in front of them, looking enthusiastic. "Let's start with the year before last, July 1991. The forestry department asked every forest farm to submit a list of people in need of low-income support. The first to apply from our farm was the Ma Changjiu family, right? The old mother of Ma Changjiu was paralyzed and needed help with everything. The Ma Changjiu family only had a small piece of land and couldn't support the family. At that time, the farm said the application was not approved. Later, Ma Changjiu was forced to leave for work, and just a few months later, his mother passed away."

"So what are you telling us this for?" asked Sun Fula, the women's director, waving her hand, puzzled.

"Let him speak!" On the side, Cong Gui and Zhang Dayou looked frightened and stopped Sun Fula.

Li Daoyun smiled, "But later, I heard from Gao Dayi and Cong Gui's kid that the low-income support was approved. Ma Changjiu was a filial son. If he had received the support back then, he could have stayed at home to take care of his mother and would have at least seen her one last time. In other words, if there had been this support, his mother wouldn't have gone without medicine for two months and might have lived a few more years! Cong Gui's kid, do you think Ma Changjiu would want to kill you if I told him about this?"

"Master! Master!" Cong Gui and Zhang Dayou were panicked!

Li Daoyun ignored them and turned to Sun Fula, who looked like he had been caught embezzling money.

"Fula, you've been the women's director for seven years, right?"

Sun Fula was taken aback, "Yes, what's the matter?"

Li Daoyun nodded, "Liu Chunli from Yinyang Village, the widow Liu. She's been married to that man Lei Laowu for five years, right?"

"Yes."

"I heard from others that Lei Laowu was introduced by you?"

"Cough!" Sun Fula seemed a bit nervous, "Well, facilitating new families for widows is also part of my duty as the women's director!"

"Oh," Li Daoyun puffed on his pipe and calculated with his fingers, "But, when I once went to Yinyang Village, I heard Widow Liu crying in the middle of the night, saying she was pregnant and didn't know what to do. Later, within half a month, she married Lei Laowu. Ten months later, she gave birth to a child, who looked a lot like her mother. But you know, I can calculate. I know that Lei Laowu was destined not to have children and was supposed to have a miserable life. It's quite strange that he had a biological child. I heard on TV that hospitals can do something now… paternity tests? Do you think I should let Lei Laowu take the child for testing?"

"Master! Master! No! Please don't!"

Thud.

Sun Fula knelt down!

Seeing the three men trembling in fear, Li Daoyun smiled, seemingly enjoying the conversation, and continued to share more "hearsay" incidents.

By the time he finished, Cong Gui, Sun Fula, and Zhang Dayou were all kneeling on the ground, shivering in unison.

"Master! Master, you are magnanimous and we were wrong, we were wrong! From now on, we'll definitely do our best to follow Director Li and do our jobs properly! Whatever he says, we'll do it! Is that okay? Is that okay?"

At this point, Li Daoyun's pipe was out of tobacco. He tapped the pipe on the sole of his shoe, cleaned out the ash, and looked at the three men who were trembling on the ground with no smile on his face.

Hmph!

With a cold snort, he swung the pipe and brought it down with lightning speed!

The motion of swinging the pipe was reminiscent of a knight wielding a sword.

Smack! Smack! Smack!

Three muffled thuds landed on the kneeling Cong Gui and his companions, making them roll on the ground covering their faces!

"Little scoundrels, I'm going to beat you to death! Cursing my son, cursing my grandson, and even saying I had a bunch of useless offspring. Are you tired of living?!"

Watching the three men rolling on the ground like worms, Li Daoyun sneered, revealing his glaring teeth, "Cong Gui, didn't your father Cong Que tell you how he ended up with a lame left leg? I bet he didn't dare tell you, or his right leg would have been lame too. It's not a secret—during the land reform, your father tried to harm me. I came to his bed at night and gave him a beating with a saber."

He then looked at Sun Fula, "Fula, you're now acting like a chicken running amok at the forest farm, just like a mule that hasn't been gelded, flirting with young girls. But I remember your mother, back in 1961, to get me to hunt deer for your family, she came into my bed probably seventeen or eighteen times in one winter. I still remember those three plum-blossom moles on her backside."

"I'm seventy-six now and don't like to bother with you little brats. I've been a bandit, eaten army rations, and have at least eighty lives on my hands. I've cut off seventeen or eighteen heads from living people. Forty years ago, if you acted like this, I would have killed you all!"

Hearing these never-before-heard stories, the three men on the ground were too scared to shiver.

Seeing them like this, Li Daoyun finally exhaled a breath of foul air.

As he exhaled, his anger dissipated instantly, and his celestial demeanor reappeared in front of the three men.

"Hehehe…"

He smiled so kindly, "Didn't you just say that you'd do whatever I asked?"

Seeing Li Daoyun's smiling face, the three of them shuddered, "Yes! Yes!"

Noticing that the three of them seemed completely terrified, Li Daoyun pretended to be angry and made a fierce face, "Tsk! You three little brats, why are you shivering when you see me? I'm not an evil ghost."

With that, he helped the three men up from the ground, dusted them off, and asked with concern, "Is there anything in the forest farm that I don't know about? Do you need to tell me proactively?"

"I'll say! Master, I'll say!" Cong Gui grabbed Li Daoyun's leg, "Previously, the report about Li Qingchao was actually from Liu Accountant's younger son! Liu Accountant is in charge of the main accounts, but he also has a side ledger with Gao Dayi! I know where that side ledger is!"

"Oh?"

Li Daoyun raised his longevity eyebrows and leaned in to listen.

A few minutes later, Li Daoyun lit his pipe again. "What you've said is correct."

"Master, does this mean you can let us off? Please don't expose these matters! If you do, we three will be stabbed in the back!" Cong Gui was still kneeling on the ground.

Li Daoyun chuckled, "What are you talking about? As long as you behave, I'm seventy-six years old. Can I still deal with such drastic measures? I'm not an evil ghost."

Hearing this, Cong Gui and the others let out a long sigh of relief.

"However," Li Daoyun's tone shifted, "the work my grandson assigned to you has to be done well."

"We know! We'll go get all the big barrels from the entire forest farm right away!" The three immediately expressed their commitment.

"Just moving the barrels isn't enough." Li Daoyun cleaned out his pipe and tucked it back into his waist. "You need to perform well. Those barrels are filthy; clean them up. This task is now assigned to you three. Remember, I'll be watching how you perform."

As he said this, Li Daoyun's smile suddenly turned fierce.

Seeing the unusually sharp gaze that was different from their previous impression, Cong Gui and the others felt cold sweat soaking their clothes!

Previously, when Li You had collected large barrels from the villagers for the pickled cabbage factory, every household in the forest farm had a few barrels. However, these were all used in daily life, and there weren't any spare ones.

Most of the barrels collected were pickled cabbage barrels and sauce barrels that had been in use.

Since it wasn't time for pickling cabbage yet, these barrels had been left unused all summer. They were so foul that the smell could be described as a mix of sour, stinky, fishy, and bitter.

An old saying goes: it's better to eat in a stinky toilet in winter than to be near pickled cabbage in the heat of summer.

The smell was unbearable!

However, compared to the soybean sauce barrels, the pickled cabbage barrels were still relatively better.

What about the soybean sauce barrels?

In spring, people crushed the soybean sauce blocks, put them in barrels with salt and water, and then fermented them throughout the summer.

During this process, if the sauce barrels weren't properly maintained, they would grow maggots.

Maggots in soybean sauce were a common occurrence, and almost every household's sauce had maggots. Although maggot-infested sauce could still be used and wasn't harmful to the body, it was unpleasant to look at!

Thus, there is a saying in Northeast China: "Maggots in the sauce barrels don't bite but are annoying."

This saying usually refers to people who are irritating. The famous and controversial bestseller writer Bai Yang, in his book The Ugly Chinese, compared Chinese people to maggots in a sauce barrel, saying they crawl around in their small world and bother each other.

Regardless of how one views Bai Yang's writing or character, this saying certainly reflects real-life experiences.

Maggots grow to a certain length and then crawl up the walls of the sauce barrels… The scene is beyond description.

Unfortunately, late October is the peak time for maggots in the sauce barrels.

Cleaning the soybean sauce barrels at this time requires considerable courage.

Those who are faint-hearted, prone to nightmares, have poor appetite, irregular menstruation, or don't vote for their favorite books, simply can't handle this job.

On the small square in front of the club, seeing the barrels emitting a terrible stench, Cong Gui and the others, bruised and swollen, gritted their teeth.

"Ah!!!"

After a collective yell, they put on masks and charged at the barrels with brushes!

Half an hour later, the three of them were drenched in stinky pickled cabbage juice and covered in foul soybean sauce. Fat maggots had crawled into their collar and sleeves. The smell was so bad that even the stray dogs around avoided coming close.

"Ugh!"

Finally, Cong Gui couldn't hold it anymore. Since becoming the deputy factory director, when had he done such work?

Unable to suppress his urge to vomit, he rushed to the nearby bushes.

Seeing him vomit, the other two also covered their mouths and ran to the bushes.

"Ugh!"

After throwing up what felt like the umpteenth time, his stomach was empty, and what came out was green bile.

"You old bastard… I hope you die soon! Damn it! Ugh!"

In front of the bushes, Cong Gui, tears and snot streaming, wiped his mouth, sniffled, and squeezed out these words.

"What's wrong with you?"

As Cong Gui was about to vomit again, a voice came from the depths of the bushes.

Then, a head with gray hair emerged from the bushes.

The owner of the head was none other than Li Daoyun, who had supposedly already left but had somehow returned!