Chapter 24

Clack.
Clack.

Shen Mo’er glared at the window, thinking to herself that if she weren’t so brave, she probably would’ve already fainted from fright by now. She had no idea who was outside, deliberately trying to scare her in the middle of the night or what they were up to.

Whether it was a person or a ghost, she had to figure out what was going on. Otherwise, there was no way she’d get any sleep tonight.

With that thought in mind, Shen Mo’er gently slid the latch on the window aside. She was just about to open it suddenly and catch the person off guard when, as soon as the window cracked open a sliver, someone outside noticed. Shen Mo’er heard a deliberately hushed voice speak quickly:

“Someone’s stealing bricks from your house.”

Almost simultaneously, there was the faint rustle of footsteps gradually fading into the distance.

When Shen Mo’er opened the window fully, she saw the skinny figure of someone quickly darting toward the backyard of the production team’s office in the darkness of night.

Although the voice had been quiet, the night was so silent that Shen Mo’er had clearly heard what was said. She stood by the window for a moment. The place where they stored the bricks was on the other side, not visible from this window. But maybe it was just her imagination—Shen Mo’er thought she really did hear some faint noises.

Besides, there was no reason for someone to go through the trouble of sneaking over just to mess with her in the dead of night.

Shen Mo’er quietly closed the window and quickly went into the outer room to shake Shen Shaoyuan awake. In a low voice, she told him what had just happened. Shen Shaoyuan, who had been a bit groggy, snapped awake the moment he heard someone was stealing bricks. He immediately got out of bed. “Let’s go check it out.”

They walked to the front gate. Shen Shaoyuan picked up two wooden sticks from the side, handing one to Shen Mo’er and keeping one for himself. In a low voice, he instructed, “If there are only a few people, hit them. If there are too many, run.”

Shen Mo’er: “…”

As expected of her dad.

Using the top of her foot, Shen Mo’er lightly nudged the door open almost noiselessly. In the faint moonlight that leaked through, the father and daughter exchanged a glance. Then, taking advantage of the moment when the clouds briefly covered the moon, Shen Mo’er quietly slipped out, holding her stick.

Shen Shaoyuan waited a bit before following behind as quietly as he could. His footsteps were heavy, and if he followed too closely, the thieves might hear him.

Behind the Shen family’s new house, on the vacant land, several thousand bricks were stacked neatly. Shen Mo’er crouched by the corner of the wall and glanced over, immediately noticing something was off—the pile was clearly shorter than it had been that evening.

Just as she was about to go over for a closer look, she heard low murmuring from that direction: “Almost done… If we take more, they’ll notice… Let’s go…”

The voice was very soft and intermittent, but Shen Mo’er could generally understand the meaning: they were saying they’d taken enough, and if they took any more, her family would notice by morning.

Another voice replied, “You’ve got the guts of a louse. You’ve already taken them, what’s there to be afraid of? If they find out, even better. Let them see—don’t act so smug.”

This person was clearly more brazen and careless. Their voice was louder than the first, and Shen Mo’er could hear them almost perfectly.

Then, a third voice chimed in: “Hurry up, hurry up. Just one more basket and we’re done.”

While the three were industriously collecting bricks, Shen Mo’er quietly crept a little closer and finally got a clear look at the three people on the other side of the brick pile.

The moonlight was like silver, illuminating the quiet earth and allowing Shen Mo’er to clearly see the faces of the three individuals.

“So it’s them.”

Shen Shaoyuan had somehow silently come over as well. He spoke five words in a near whisper.

The father and daughter didn’t make a sound, nor did they follow through with their original plan of rushing out to beat the thieves. Instead, they squatted side by side, watching the three people struggle to load bricks into their baskets with great interest.

One, two, three, four, five, six—six baskets in total.

Fortunately, they had already loaded five baskets before this; the last one didn’t take long. Once they finished, each of the three men used a shoulder pole to carry two baskets and left.

After the three had gone a fair distance, Shen Shaoyuan couldn’t help muttering, “Truly as stupid as pigs.”

Though bricks were hard to come by in these times, stealing them was a whole different level of stupidity. Bricks were heavy—stealing something like this was just asking for pain.

And if they were going to steal bricks, shouldn’t they at least come prepared? They could’ve tried borrowing a donkey cart or, at the very least, a handcart. But these three idiots actually decided to use baskets?

No wonder Shen Shaoyuan had to insult them—”as stupid as pigs” was putting it lightly.

In fact, even pigs might be insulted by the comparison.

And another thing—what were these three thinking, stealing bricks and then heading into the village instead of away from it? Sure, things had been calm in the village lately, and the militia patrols had become a bit lax. Maybe there was no patrol at this hour, but there was still the chance someone might get up in the night and catch them. Carrying baskets in the dead of night—anyone who saw them would know something was fishy.

Shen Shaoyuan couldn’t help but recall something his imperial brother used to say: “Being stupid isn’t the worst part. The worst is when stupid people are outrageously bold.”

Yes, that was how his brother had ended up executing those incompetent, corrupt officials who embezzled funds and oppressed the common people.

Still, their stupidity worked in his and Mo’er’s favor—saved them a lot of trouble.

The father and daughter quickly followed after them. Then, at a fork in the road, Shen Mo’er veered off onto a small path.

That’s just how it was in the countryside. Besides the main village roads, there were all kinds of footpaths in front of and behind people’s homes, connecting in all directions. Shen Mo’er was now familiar with the village’s layout and quickly took a route that allowed her to circle ahead of the three.

Then—bang bang bang bang!—she knocked on several neighbors’ doors in quick succession.

She didn’t even wait to see if anyone responded. After knocking, she immediately ran back, reaching the fork again just in time to see the three men approaching, each shouldering their loads.

They weren’t walking slowly, but carrying such heavy loads naturally meant they couldn’t move very fast. The shorter of the three glanced around nervously and whispered, “Did you guys hear something just now?”

“What kind of sound could it be? There aren’t any babies in this area, everyone’s sound asleep. Even if someone got up to use the bathroom, they wouldn’t be wandering outside. I already scouted all of this beforehand,” said the tallest of the three.

“That’s right. Xiaohui, you’re just too timid. Brother Hong is such a clever person. When he does things—”

Before the other could finish his sentence, he suddenly felt a gust of wind behind him. Then, with a loud smack, something struck him hard on the back. He lost his balance and fell forward, landing face-first on the ground.

Almost simultaneously, the other two received the same treatment. Out of nowhere, they were knocked flat onto the ground.

“Ahhh! Who’s behind us?!”

“Damn it, who the hell dares to hit me?!”

“Shit, run! Quick, run!”

At least one of them still remembered they were in the middle of stealing something and scrambled to escape. But just as he tried to get up, he was promptly hit again. The other two, now reminded, also tried to flee, only to be rewarded with the same blow.

Just then, lights started turning on in the nearby houses.

The three, still struggling to get up, suddenly heard a voice wailing from behind them:
“Murder! Robbery! Theft!”

Immediately, the households that had turned on their lights flung open their doors. Some held kerosene lamps, some had brooms in hand, and others wielded hoes. Within moments, a crowd had gathered around them.

“What’s going on? Where’s the murder?”

“Where? Who’s robbing people? Robbing someone in our Yangliu Brigade? They’ve got some nerve!”

“Oh my goodness, what’s in these baskets? Bricks?!”

“Why the hell would anyone carry this many bricks in the middle of the night?”

“Hey, aren’t those… isn’t that Xiao Hong from the old Shen family? And Li Hui and Min Bing too?”

At first, no one dared get too close—after all, “murder” and “robbery” sounded like serious business. No one wanted to get stabbed by some ruthless thug. But they soon noticed something was off: though several baskets lay scattered across the ground, there were no weapons, no blood—nothing that resembled a murder scene. Then they spotted the bricks in the baskets and the terrified expressions on the faces of the three young men. People began stepping closer.

At that moment, two figures came running over from not far away. The one in front was panting heavily and shouted:
“Catch those three thieves! They’re stealing our bricks—they’re trying to kill me!”

The one behind had a sob in her voice:
“They’re horrible! Just awful! Why would they steal our family’s bricks…”

With the crowd surrounding them and many holding kerosene lamps, the entire village path was now lit almost as bright as daytime. Everyone could clearly see it was Old Shen’s seventh son and his daughter, Shen Mo’er.

…Well, this was awkward.

In that moment, quite a few sharp-minded villagers thought the same thing: What the hell kind of situation is this?

Lying on the ground were the three culprits: Shen Hong, eldest son of Shen Jianping from the eldest branch; Shen Lihui, eldest son of Shen Jian’an from the same branch; and Shen Minbing, eldest son of Shen Jianye from the second branch… All three of them were Shen Shaoyuan’s grandnephews.

And the truth was obvious. These three had nothing better to do in the middle of the night, so they went to steal bricks from their great-uncle’s new house. The worst part? They got caught and chased here.

Shen Shaoyuan stumbled over and fell down beside a basket with a thud, then gingerly picked up one of the scattered green bricks. He hugged it with one hand while grabbing the basket tightly with the other, wailing:
“My bricks! I almost never saw you again! If they had taken you away, how could I go on living—”

Everyone: “…”

Seriously? Sure, almost losing your bricks is sad… but do you have to cry like your wife was nearly kidnapped?

That kind of grief was extremely misleading!

“Dad, it’s okay, really. It’s okay. Thank goodness you heard something when you got up in the night and rushed out with me. And it’s lucky that all these uncles and aunties and big brothers and sisters were so alert and helpful—they actually helped us catch the thieves. Look, our village really is full of good people. The bricks are all still here, all of them!” Shen Mo’er held her father’s arm and comforted him.

The three men on the ground immediately looked up and swept the crowd with furious, hateful glares.

They hadn’t fallen by accident—they had been attacked. Clearly, whoever had taken them down was in this crowd.

Getting involved in the middle of the night like this… it was beyond hateful.

Sneaky ambushes in the dark—so shameless and underhanded!

The others in the crowd looked confused at Shen Mo’er’s words. Yes, they had indeed rushed out after hearing the noise and had helped surround the culprits. But by the time they came outside, the three were already lying on the ground. Technically… it wasn’t them who had caught the thieves.

But someone murmured,
“Well, technically she’s not wrong. Even if they did fall, if we hadn’t come and surrounded them, they probably would’ve gotten back up and run away, right?”

Someone else’s eyes lit up,
“Exactly! That means we did help!”

These days, doing good deeds and standing up for justice was something to brag about.

They’d done something honorable!

Everyone silently puffed out their chests with pride. After all, they had rushed out at the first shout to help. Subjectively, they had wanted to help; objectively, they had prevented the thieves from escaping. By any rough estimate, they had helped catch the thieves.

Someone said,
“Even if the thieves were stupid, we still helped. You could say we added bricks to the wall.”

The trio on the ground: “…”

Fine, getting caught was bad enough… but now people were insulting their intelligence?

They weren’t stupid—they just lost a fight! Not the same thing at all!

Then someone else asked,
“Old Shen, these three are your own grandnephews. What do you plan to do about this?”

Shen Shaoyuan hugged the green brick and sobbed:
“No way. There’s no way I could have such stupid, rotten grandnephews!”

The trio: “…”

They had been ambushed! This wasn’t about being stupid—not stupid at all! Ahhhhh!