Chapter 9

Zhou Zhuo suddenly narrowed her eyes and glared at Lu Tinglan. "You're awfully protective of him. Don't tell me you're his new sweetheart? Little sister, let me give you some advice: you can't choose a man just for his face."

"Some people look spotless on the outside, but who knows how disgusting they are in private..."

Before Zhou Zhuo could finish, the friend behind her gave her a vicious pinch.

"Ow! What did you pinch me for?"

Li Qing was speechless at her friend's fury. It was bad enough that Zhou Zhuo was picking a fight with Jiang Xingnian; did she have to drag an innocent bystander into it too?

The girl was an unfamiliar face, but who didn't know the woman standing behind her? Zhou Zhuo had even lashed out at the village chief's daughter. She was turning a dispute she might have won into one she couldn't.

An ordinary young girl might have blushed and shrunk back after being berated like that. But Lu Tinglan was no ordinary girl. The longer the confrontation went on, the fiercer she became. There were only three of them on her side, yet they gave no ground to the crowd opposite them.

"That's enough. If you have a problem, take it up with me." Jiang Xingnian naturally wouldn't let a young girl stand in front of him. "Auntie Xiuhong is here to witness it today, so let's settle this properly."

"I'm not the thief."

"You're not?" Zhou Zhuo laughed so hard she bent over. "Then after being falsely accused for so long, you must have some idea who the thief is, right?"

That stopped Jiang Xingnian cold. He knew there had been rumors about him at the Educated Youth Compound, but since moving into the little house alone a year ago, he had paid them no attention. He had thought that would clear his name. He hadn't expected them to keep suspecting him.

Asking him to name a suspect now was a shot in the dark. There were twenty or thirty people at the Educated Youth Compound, and Jiang Xingnian could barely put names to faces. How was he supposed to play detective?

Lu Tinglan steadied her racing heart and searched her memory of the story. That can't be right. Jiang Xingnian is a future big shot, after all. He barely appeared in the early part, but surely the author wouldn't gloss over something this important.

I feel like I'm missing a plot point.

Hearing her thoughts, Mother Lu and Jiang Xingnian both grew tense.

What plot point was she missing? Hurry up and remember!

Zhou Zhuo kept pressing him. "Nothing to say? And you still dare to shout 'thief' when you're the thief? Huo Qi, don't stop me. If you try to smooth things over again today, I'll count you as an accomplice!"

Huo Qi hadn't been trying very hard to stop her in the first place. He gave Jiang Xingnian an apologetic smile, then retreated into the crowd.

Huo Qi!

The name seemed to open a blocked passage in Lu Tinglan's mind. In an instant, inspiration struck.

No one had exchanged names earlier, so Lu Tinglan had assumed the greasy man was some nameless extra. She hadn't expected him to be someone named in the book—

Lu Tinglan shouted in her mind, Jiang Xingnian isn't the thief. Huo Qi is the real thief!

In her urgency, her thoughts had grown louder. The only two people present who could hear them both suffered for it.

Mother Lu stepped back a few paces and rubbed her ears.

Jiang Xingnian went blank for several seconds, as if the noise had stunned him.

Yes, yes, I remember now. Huo Qi was cannon fodder in another novel, there to build up the male lead's reputation and achievements early on. His family needed money, so he planned to steal one last haul before washing his hands of it. Instead, the male lead caught him red-handed.

No wonder Jiang Xingnian later thought so highly of that male lead... But what matters now is getting him out of this. I've found the thief, but I don't have a shred of evidence. Even if I accuse Huo Qi outright, no one will believe me.

Exactly...

Mother Lu had realized that too. She believed her daughter, but the many people at the Educated Youth Compound who were watching like hawks might not.

Enough voices could melt gold. If Jiang Xingnian couldn't get past this, the best he could hope for was a thief's reputation and everyone in the village turning against him. At worst, they might send him to a farm deep in the mountains for reform, where he would struggle to get out.

While they thought, a quick-footed educated youth had already gone to fetch the village chief. Zhou Zhuo even looked at Lu Tinglan and said pointedly,

"I won't go easy on a thief. If the village dares cover for him, I'll take this to the Revolutionary Committee!"

The matter was growing bigger by the moment, with pressure mounting on every side. They needed a way out of the immediate crisis. Lu Tinglan's mind raced. Then she saw the tea bowl on the table, and her eyes lit up.

I've got it!!!

There was something wrong with the tea Huo Qi offered. He said it was Silver Needle Tea, but at least a third of what's in this bowl is Sparrow Tongue Tea with tender buds. Sparrow Tongue Tea costs more, and Huo Qi loves to show off. If he knew his Silver Needle Tea had Sparrow Tongue Tea mixed in, he'd boast that it was all Sparrow Tongue Tea. Since he didn't, he must not know the difference between them. The Sparrow Tongue Tea must be stolen too!

Jiang Xingnian had nearly given up. He hadn't expected such a sudden turn—or that there might still be a way to save himself.

He gave Lu Tinglan a long look, then quickly asked the young man whose tea had gone missing, "Do you know what variety your tea was? Or do you have any left?"

Zhou Zhuo gave a loud snort. "Now that you're cornered, you want to make amends? Even if you find out the variety and replace what was lost, we won't let you off!"

Huo Qi saw it differently. Why had Jiang Xingnian suddenly brought up the tea? His eyelid twitched sharply, and he immediately stepped in to muddy the waters.

He addressed the assembled educated youths with feeling. "Xingnian only took a wrong turn for a moment. We educated youths are one united, caring family. As long as he pays back the money, there's no need to make this so ugly."

With those words, he tried to gloss over the matter and fix Jiang Xingnian's guilt as fact.

Jiang Xingnian kept his eyes on the man who had lost the tea. "Lend me some of your tea. I'll help you find the real thief."

Seeing the sincerity and urgency in his eyes, Wang Hui found himself believing him. Compensation could wait. That was good tea from his family's old tea tree; his parents had gone without it to send it to him. Wang Hui didn't want their kindness ending up in a thief's mouth.

He really did bring an oil-paper packet out of the room. Some of the tea had been stolen, but he drank it sparingly and still had a little left.

"Is this enough?"

Even to catch the thief, he was stingy, pinching out just a few leaves and dropping them into a clean bowl.

"It's enough." A smile of certainty touched Jiang Xingnian's lips. Those few leaves were all he needed.

Scalding water poured into the bowl, and every gaze in the room converged on it.

Lu Tinglan stared at what Jiang Xingnian was doing, dumbfounded.

He thought of the same thing I did! Are we twins or something? How are we so in sync?

He didn't want to reveal that he could read minds, but this time, he really did feel like a thief stealing someone else's idea.

Zhou Zhuo watched him askance. "We're here to catch a thief, not watch you brew tea. Stop playing tricks to buy time. I'm telling you, no one can save you today!"

Jiang Xingnian didn't even spare her a glance. "I'm not buying time. One look will tell us who the thief is."

Huo Qi's heart tightened, and his gaze kept darting to the tea bowl on the table. He could only reassure himself: didn't all brewed tea leaves look the same? What could Jiang Xingnian possibly find?

The tea took neither long nor short to steep, but to Huo Qi, it felt like a century.

"That'll do." Jiang Xingnian found a sheet of paper and fished the steeped leaves from the bowl. Then he took a few leaves from Lu Tinglan's tea bowl and laid them out in a row for comparison.

Jiang Xingnian knew a little about tea. Rather than keep them guessing, he went straight to the point. "Everyone, look. The leaves in Wang Hui's bowl and this one both came from Fu Province. One consists of tender buds, the other of mature leaves. Even if they came from the same tree, their prices would differ severalfold."

"And the owner of this bowl of tea is Huo Qi. Auntie Lu can attest to that."

Mother Lu didn't hesitate. She stated the facts plainly. "It was Educated Youth Huo who brought out the tea. He said it was a rare, fine Silver Needle Tea."

Everyone crowded around. Tea was a rarity, and if Jiang Xingnian hadn't pointed it out, none of them would have thought the leaves on the paper were two different kinds.

Wang Hui came to his senses and added, "When Huo Qi bought tea from the county, he let me try some. It was the most ordinary Silver Needle Tea. There definitely weren't any tender buds mixed in!"

As someone from Fu Province whose family had made tea for generations, Wang Hui knew tea varieties by heart.

Huo Qi stuck out his neck and argued, "You must be remembering it wrong. I bought the tea at the supply and marketing cooperative. Maybe some got mixed in from the batch beside it. Jiang Xingnian, you're so desperate your backside's on fire, aren't you? You think a few lousy leaves are enough to pin the blame on me?"

A mocking smile appeared on Jiang Xingnian's face. He said unhurriedly, "This is Yu Province, not the capital. Yu Province grows its own tea. It's rare enough that you could buy tea from Fu Province here, let alone something as fine as Sparrow Tongue Tea."

"Huo Qi, do you take yourself for a fool, or do you take all of us for fools?"

Jiang Xingnian pulled the oil-paper packet Huo Qi hadn't yet had a chance to put away from his pocket, opened it, and handed it to Wang Hui beside him.

Wang Hui picked the distinctive leaves out of the packet one by one. Sparrow Tongue Tea made up a full third of it. That was far too much to explain away as a few leaves accidentally mixed in.

Looking at the two sorted piles of tea, no one needed more evidence. Huo Qi was, without a doubt, the thief everyone at the Educated Youth Compound had been looking for.