Yan Fei was even more straightforward: "Don’t wait until later, with this little bit of work, I don’t need your help anyway. There’s a bicycle outside, you can ride it to go find someone to send the message home. This way, you won’t be left high and dry once the market disperses and you can’t find anyone."
This time the young man hesitated: "I can just run. There’s no need to ride a bike."
Heizi chuckled on the side: "Brother Fei isn’t even afraid you’d take his bike, what are you afraid of? Just ride it!"
Once the youngster left, Heizi exclaimed excitedly: "Brother Fei, off to sell cows again! Are we going to the county town?"
This guy just couldn’t be cured, he’s had trouble twice when we went to the county town. Now, just hearing about selling cows excited this mischief-maker.
Yan Fei gave him a stern look: "The four cows we bought right before school started have been bred for three months now. They’re not going to turn out to be Breeding Bulls no matter how much longer we keep them. We might as well sell them and get some new ones. We had some money left over from the last time we bought cows, if we can buy more this time, we’ll bring back a few more heads. Don’t we have an extra coolie now?"
At the mention of the reformed convict, Gao Rui, Heizi immediately caught on and started laughing with him.
After laughing, he said: "I almost forgot if you hadn’t brought that up, you know what’s funny? One of the two men he killed was Zhang Laosi. That’s right, the brother of Zhang Laosan whom you killed, and the brother of Zhang Laowu."
Yan Fei was greatly surprised: "Really? Can it be such a coincidence?"
"Yes, it was such a coincidence! I found it very amusing when I heard him talking about it yesterday. He’s not innocent but he’s definitely down on his luck, having spent so many years in jail. I heard him say that Zhang Laosi, along with several others, set up a trap to swindle people out of their money. This guy, having trained in Kung Fu, was sharp-eyed and not only did he avoid getting tricked, but he also won their money. Zhang Laosi wasn’t happy about it and began to fight!"
"So you’re saying he’s just unlucky and not necessarily unjust? Wasn’t he just being bullied?"
"He was fighting against a few people, all of them were minor troublemakers. He fought back hard, and when he knocked one of them to the ground, his head just happened to hit the curb and he died." Heizi explained to Yan Fei. "This guy panicked a little when he saw that he had killed someone and he tried to leave in a hurry. But Zhang Laosi pulled out a knife and didn’t let him go. In the end, he snatched the knife and stabbed Zhang Laosi. When the others saw that one of them had been killed, they stopped fighting. Zhang Laosi couldn’t argue that he was in the right, he already had a substantial criminal record, and he was the one who started the fight. He could only be considered to have gone too far in self-defense."
Hearing this, Yan Fei finally understood.
Heizi was merely trying to paint Gao Rui in a good light with his comments about his bad luck. Even if he didn’t know that the games they play on the streets were scams, he should have been able to tell that these people were up to no good — most people would keep their distance from such individuals, even if they didn’t report them to the police. But he went ahead and tried to win their money, wasn’t he just looking for trouble doing that?
It was a pity that he didn’t know the law back then which led to his downfall. At that time, Gao Rui was probably in his twenties and panicked when faced with trouble. It served Zhang Laosi right, bumping into such a tough character. He assisted in his own death by handing over the knife for his killer to stab him.
The two finished their work and when the young man who went to the street to find someone to send a message home returned, Yan Fei let Heizi take him to the cattle farm.
When no one was around, Yan Fei could finally get busy.
He had to quickly sort out the skin of the Sarcosuchus king. As he couldn’t possibly consume so much meat, he decided to skin it first and ask the No.1 Coolie, the stinky tanner, if he knew how to tan crocodile skin.
If he does, this skin of the Sarcosuchus king would be a treasure. He could craft anything with it. Even if he only made a bulletproof vest, it would still be a marvelous piece!