Break out of the courtyard

"Damn! We lost a TV and two bicycles. What a loss!" After the bearded man entered the toilet, he said to the other three accomplices who were also dressed in rags, "The door is locked and everyone has left. We'll hide here for a while and climb over the wall from the open space behind the toilet when it gets dark."

"Brother Qiang, how about we go eat first and come back later?"

"Eat shit, do you have any money?"

"Brother Qiang, don't you have a few dollars for bus fare? I'll give you a few more dollars after we finish this job tonight!"

"No!" The bearded man flatly refused. "To enter the pigeon market, we have to pay a management fee. What if we can't sell those things tonight? What if we come back after eating and this family also comes back?"

……

After nephew Zhang Yi and niece Zhang Ting finished talking on the phone with their parents who were far away in the capital, they returned the mobile phone to Zhang Heping and ran back to their seats and sat down.

At 6 o'clock in the evening, it was so cold in the capital that one had to wear a cotton-padded jacket and a military overcoat, but in Hong Kong Island, one only needed to wear a coat, and one could even see the fiery red sunset in the sky.

Zhang Heping had just hung up the phone when Tang Ren, who was also on a cell phone, walked over to his father Tang Ming and whispered, "The second son said he has something else to do at the company and won't be back for dinner."

Tang Ming nodded, then called everyone, "Let's eat!"

When the second sisters-in-law saw that the old man had ordered dinner, they looked at each other, and the fifth concubine took out her cell phone and called Tang Yi.

After a while, the fifth concubine of the second son's family hung up the phone angrily and said, "He has no conscience. He must have gone to some nightclub to fool around again. I heard a woman singing next to him!"

The other four wives of the second son were speechless. He didn't even go home for the New Year's Eve dinner. What a man...

The second wife of my eldest brother-in-law Tang Ren looked at Tang Xin, who was sitting at the same table, and said with a smile: "My brother-in-law is still the one who takes care of the family. He is at home most of the time. The key is that he is so rich, but he doesn't go out to mess around with other girls."

Tang Xin smiled and said nothing, so as not to make those sisters-in-law feel uncomfortable.

The fourth concubine of the second son's family said in dissatisfaction, "Humph! He has only been getting better in the past few years. More than ten years ago, how many days was he at home throughout the year? Was he around when Ah Xin gave birth to the children?"

"At that time, if you sneaked into Hong Kong Island from the mainland, you would be shot if you were not careful." Tang Xin pressed Chen Shuting's thigh with his right hand, and frowned slightly.

"In those years, Heping risked his life to come to Hong Kong Island to see us every year. I was very satisfied. I never thought that he would be at home every day now."

Chen Shuting raised her lips when she heard this, and she retorted to Tang Xin, "Our husband is not at home every day. He went to the capital twice last month. Who knows, he might have gone to the capital to meet one of his female classmates."

"I heard from his female classmate Huang Wenli that..." Chen Shuting didn't notice that her husband Zhang Heping glanced at her from behind, and leaned forward to gossip quietly:

"When he was in Banna Prefecture, he was very popular with women. When he passed by the river, a group of pretty girls in the river would often ask him to go down and take a bath with them!"

"You don't know how the girls over there take a bath, do you?" Chen Shuting's thigh was pinched by Tang Xin, but she didn't take it seriously and continued to talk to a group of old girls who were not very interested in this topic:

"When the girls there go to bathe in the river, they all wear straight skirts. After they walk into the river, they roll up their skirts at their ankles and walk towards the deep water until the water reaches their shoulders and their skirts are rolled up to their heads..."

"Brother-in-law, tell us the truth. When you were in Banna, did you peek at little girls bathing by the river?" The fourth concubine of the second son's family suddenly shouted towards the main table, making Chen Shuting so angry that she didn't even dare to look at Zhang Heping behind her.

"You don't need to peek over there. As long as you are thick-skinned, you can chat with the girls bathing by the river while watching them bathe." Zhang Heping smiled calmly, "There is a wall painting covered by canvas at the Capital Airport. The painting on that wall is a picture of Banna girls bathing."

"However, that painting was created out of the painter's imagination. It was too unrestrained. When the Banna girls came ashore after taking a bath, they would turn their backs to the men and lower their skirts from their heads to cover their bodies."

Zhang Heping was explaining the old customs of Banna, but the fourth concubine only heard "you are thick-skinned" and thought that Zhang Heping was scolding her. She was immediately unhappy, but she didn't dare to retort because her husband was not there.

Everyone was surprised to hear this. The third nephew Tang Qiang even asked, "Uncle, is what you said true? People in the mainland are so conservative. There really is a girl who takes a bath in front of you."

"It happened more than a decade ago!" Zhang Heping said without hesitation, "But after we, the educated youth who went to the countryside, instilled some common sense of etiquette in the locals, and that kind of thing gradually became less common."

A boy from the second brother's family asked, "Uncle, among those educated youth who went to the countryside, were there any who couldn't control themselves and jumped into the river to bathe with those girls?"

"Yes!" Zhang Heping looked at his brother-in-law Tang Ren who stood up and scolded him, and said with a smile: "A small number of those educated youths still stayed in the local area as farmers; most of them chose to divorce, abandon their wives and children and fled back to the city."

"If it were me, I wouldn't be a farmer either!" the kid who was making the noise replied.

Then, he was morally criticized by people around him.

"Tang Zuo, if you dare to abandon your wife and children, I will ask your father to cut off your pocket money!"

"If you don't want to be a farmer, you can take your wife and children to the city. How can you do such a conscienceless thing!"

"Mom, I guarantee that Tang Zuo wouldn't do that! At most, he would get a girl pregnant and then dump her!"

As everyone chatted and joked, the atmosphere of this New Year's Eve dinner became completely relaxed.

boom!

As soon as it got dark, a red firework exploded over Victoria Harbour, followed by several, then dozens of firework explosions, lighting up the sky and illuminating everyone's faces.

Zhang Heping picked up the ringing mobile phone on the ground and asked, "Hello?"

The next second, Zhang Heping frowned and left his seat, "Are you injured?"

When the fireworks show at the foot of the mountain ended, the people who were watching the fireworks at the edge of the plain returned to their seats, and then found Zhang Heping walking back and forth in front of the villa while answering the phone.

After Zhang Heping made several phone calls and walked around for half a day, everyone realized that something was wrong.

"Honey, what happened?" The concubine Chen Shuting thought it was a business matter, so she went over but Zhang Heping waved his hand and signaled her not to speak.

"Deputy Director Zhou, you said..."

"It's good that the person is not dead. Please help me advance the medical expenses. I will pay you back when I come back tomorrow."

"Yes! Please thank the dean of the Third Hospital for me. As long as those two thieves are alive, I will sponsor 100 computers to their hospital after the New Year, and I will also help them build a network system!"

After Zhang Heping hung up the phone, he called his home at No. 7 Courtyard, North Bank of Houhai.

"Sister, I asked the Third People's Hospital, and they said the two thieves won't die, so it's not a big deal! You just need to tell the truth that the rifle is mine, and I took it out in a hurry to defend myself against the thieves."

"Relax, I've asked someone to say hello to the dean of the Third Hospital, and I'll be back as soon as possible!"

After hanging up the phone, Zhang Heping called Director Qi back to inquire about the situation in the local police station.

As more and more people gathered around Zhang Heping, they gradually understood that there was a problem with the Zhang family in the capital.

Ma Xiuzhen, the mother, suddenly grabbed Zhang Heping's hand holding the phone and asked anxiously, "Heping, tell me, is there something wrong at home?"

"My eldest sister and her family went out for New Year's Eve dinner, and thieves broke into the house. My second brother-in-law used my rifle to injure two thieves, but no one died, so it's not a big deal!" Zhang Heping gave a brief explanation and started making phone calls to confirm.

The main reason why he calls so frequently is that it is Chinese New Year and everyone is on holiday!

Zhang Heping called a circle of people, and that circle of people had to call other people, and those other people had to call the people on duty, and the people on duty had to contact other people.

After searching around for a long time, he didn't even get to watch the Spring Festival Gala tonight...