dognovel Chapter 1 Catching Spies?
Chapter 1 Catching Spies?
"Pay enough to the state, keep enough for the collective, and the rest is yours."
Zhang Beichuan stared blankly at the whitewashed slogans painted on the earthen wall in front of him, wondering if he had been playing games all night and his eyes were playing tricks on him.
He had only heard his grandparents mention the matter of paying grain taxes when he was a child, and that the matter had been stopped for 20 years.
The next second, a woman carrying water appeared on the path behind her, and she carefully examined the person with his back to her.
The person was wearing a cotton short-sleeved shirt and black shorts that just went past the knees, with bare calves and a pair of shoes that she had never seen before.
The shoes were black and white, with thick white soles and a swoosh logo on the heel. They weren't Liberation Shoes, White Mesh Shoes, or any of the kind that had ever been displayed at the supply and marketing cooperative counter.
The carrying pole slipped off Lan Xiuying's shoulder, and the iron bucket fell to the ground with a clatter.
Hearing the noise, Zhang Beichuan subconsciously turned around and looked back, then froze on the spot.
He recognized the face so well; it was exactly like his grandmother in her youth in an old family photo. From her eyebrows and eyes to her short, ear-length hair and her heroic air, it was as if she had stepped right out of the picture.
This is definitely his grandmother. How could Zhang Beichuan mistake his own grandmother?
From childhood to adulthood, he was raised by his grandparents. His parents went to work in other places when he was one year old and did not return until he was thirteen.
Before he could figure out what was going on, Lan Xiuying shouted the next second.
"Guards! Arrest the spy!"
Catching spies?
Zhang Beichuan's mind went blank for a second, then he was about to step forward to explain that he was not a spy, but her own grandson!
As Lan Xiuying watched the young spy walk forward, she picked up the carrying pole from the ground and held it in front of her. Her hands trembled slightly as she held the pole, her heart pounding with excitement.
The town offers a 100 yuan reward for catching a spy or providing a confirmed lead on a spy. The family was short of money for house repairs, and God delivered such a good thing to their door early in the morning.
"Stop right there! Don't move!"
"Grandma..." Zhang Beichuan's heart skipped a beat as he only got halfway through calling out the word "grandma." The grandmother in front of him was only in her thirties, while he was twenty-six.
If I were to say that I am her grandson, would she hit me with a carrying pole?
Could it be that I've traveled through time? — This absurd thought popped into Zhang Beichuan's mind.
In the half-minute he was stunned, several young men who heard the shouts came running over carrying carrying poles and, without saying a word, pinned Zhang Beichuan to the ground.
The pebbles on the dirt road hurt Zhang Beichuan's face, and he kept shouting with his neck red.
"Comrade, it's all a misunderstanding, I'm really not a spy!"
"Stop talking nonsense and behave yourself!" The young man kneeling on one knee on Zhang Beichuan took out a rope and tied his hands. "Whether you're a spy or not, we'll find out when we get to the team."
Without any understanding what was happening, Zhang Beichuan was mistaken for a spy by his grandmother and the villagers, tied up, and forced to walk towards the team.
Hearing the commotion, the nearby children, as if it were a festival, ran ahead shirtless, glancing back at the excitement as they went.
The village committee building is a row of blue brick houses, with most of the whitewashed walls peeling off. A wooden sign hangs at the entrance: Shihe Village Committee. The black characters have been repainted many times, and the paint is uneven in thickness.
On the wall next to the village committee gate, there is a propaganda document about family planning, dated 1986!
"Xiuying, that's impressive! You really caught the spy! Tell us how you discovered him!"
"What a stroke of luck! Whether he's a spy or not, we'll have to wait for Secretary Shi to arrive to find out. It's still uncertain," Lan Xiuying said with a beaming smile.
Zhang Beichuan, who was locked alone in a small room in the village committee, listened to his grandmother talking to someone outside and felt speechless.
It's absurd enough that the absurd thing about time travel in novels happens to you, but what kind of good person would be mistaken for a spy by their own grandmother, tied up, and sent to the village committee as soon as they time travel?
Even novels wouldn't dare to write something like that, okay?
Zhang Beichuan, squatting in the corner, was speechless, but then he became anxious. He was a living, breathing person who had run into 1986, but what if his 2026 self disappeared? How could he go back?
The moment the thought of going back crossed Zhang Beichuan's mind, everything went black, and the surrounding scenery completely changed.
He was no longer standing in front of the Shihe Village Committee, but in his familiar rented room. On the computer desk in the corner, the computer screen was still displaying the results of Teamfight Tactics.
手机还在桌上充电，旁边的闹钟显示着2026年3月21日 7:35，他站在洗手间门口。
Immediately afterwards, Zhang Beichuan looked at himself in the bathroom mirror with his hands tied behind his back, and his pupils contracted. Could he possibly run away from both places?
As soon as this absurd thought came to mind, he tried to recall the scene he had just witnessed. The next second, the rented house disappeared, and he was back in front of the village committee hut made of blue bricks, with the outside still noisy.
Zhang Beichuan immediately became excited. Was this the legendary cheat code?
Before he could even feel happy for two seconds, the door was opened from the outside.
A middle-aged man in his early fifties, with wrinkles on his face that looked like they were carved by a knife, walked in with his hands behind his back.
Villagers gathered at the doorway to watch the spectacle, curiously observing Zhang Beichuan, who was dressed in an androgynous manner.
The middle-aged man glanced at Zhang Beichuan, feeling that he looked somewhat familiar, but he couldn't quite place him. He turned to Zhang and said, "Erwazi, search him."
"Secretary Shi, no problem!"
The young man called Erwazi stepped forward, and Zhang Beichuan didn't dodge, racking his brains to think of a way to deal with the situation.
The short-sleeved shirt had no pockets, but two things came out of the pocket: a pack of cigarettes labeled "Little Panda" and a small purple plastic gadget.
Shi Tiezhu took the things handed to him by Erwazi. He first looked at the brightly colored and exquisitely crafted green cigarette box over and over. When he opened it, he saw that there was still more than half a box inside.
Considering that this person might be a spy, and who knows if the smoke inside might be poisonous or something, he resisted the urge to try it and carefully examined the purple plastic contraption again.
With a "pop," a flame suddenly shot up from the plastic contraption, almost igniting Shi Tiezhu's eyebrows, startling him so much that he tilted his head to avoid it.
"An automatic fire?" someone in the crowd exclaimed.
This was the first time Shi Tiezhu had ever seen such a high-tech self-heating fire, which didn't even require kerosene. This made him even more suspicious that the person in front of him was a spy.
"Where did you come from? What's your name? What are you doing here?"
"He's from the provincial capital, Zhang Dehua, back to acknowledge his ancestors," Zhang Beichuan said without batting an eye.
"Recognizing your ancestors?" Shi Tiezhu looked at him suspiciously, pondering the somewhat familiar name Zhang Dehua. "Whose ancestors are you recognizing?"
"Zhang Dequan's family."
Lan Xiuying, who was also watching the commotion from the doorway, was stunned for a moment. In the team, only her husband was named Zhang Dequan.
"Nonsense, we don't know anyone like you!"
Zhang Beichuan felt embarrassed, but he smiled as he looked at his grandmother when she was young. If he didn't have a legal identity, he would really be treated as a spy and have his household registration permanently cancelled.
"Zhang Dequan is my third brother, and I am Zhang Dehua, the youngest son who ran away from the Zhang family."