Siheyuan: tomb robbing? I am serious about hunting.

, folded it and stuffed it into the pocket of her blue shirt. Her fingertips touched the cardboard in her pocket. It was the cover of an old book she picked up from the scrap yard yesterday. Inside the book were a few pages about silkworm breeding techniques, which she had not had time to read carefully. Last night, the production team's radio was still repeatedly shouting "stabilize the collective economy and resolutely resist speculation and profiteering." The loudspeaker was hung on the old locust tree at the entrance of the village. The sound spread throughout the village, and even the aunties washing clothes by the river were talking about it. But in the threshing ground at the foot of the back mountain, someone had secretly set up bamboo baskets to sell homemade mulberry silk medicine. That was Aunt Wang Er from the village. Her husband fell seriously ill a few years ago, and the family owed a lot of debts. She had no choice but to think of making some mulberry silk medicine and selling it secretly. When Late Autumn passed by the threshing ground last night, she saw Aunt Wang Er from a distance. She hid the bamboo basket behind the haystack. Only when someone came to ask about it did she dare to quietly drag the basket out, her eyes full of nervousness. Wanqiu tucked the corner of the newspaper away and was about to stand up when she heard the ringing of a bicycle bell from the riverbank. "Ding-ling-ling—ding-ling-ling—" the crisp sound carried far in the morning mist. "Wanqiu! Lin Wanqiu!" A hoarse voice, wrapped in moisture, drifted over. It was her cousin Lin Jianguo. Wanqiu looked up and saw Lin Jianguo riding a half-worn "Forever" brand bicycle. A cloth bag hung from the handlebars, and in the bamboo basket on the back seat dangled an unfamiliar army-green shoulder bag with a red five-pointed star printed on it. It looked like something only a city dweller would use. Lin Jianguo rode to the edge of the mulberry orchard, jumped off, set up the bicycle, and shouted to Wanqiu, "The captain asked you to go to the warehouse to reconcile the accounts. He said it's urgent!" Wanqiu responded, patted the dirt off her hands, and took another close look at the mulberry tree wrapped in plastic rope before following Lin Jianguo to the village warehouse. On the way, Wanqiu couldn't help but ask, "Cousin, whose army-green satchel is that in the bamboo basket? It looks quite new." Lin Jianguo scratched his head and said, "I don't know. I saw it on the captain's table just now when I went to his house. He didn't tell me what it was, but told me to take it, saying I'd need it later." As they chatted, they soon arrived at the warehouse. The warehouse was an old building in the village, its walls peeling, revealing the yellow earth beneath. The paint on the wooden door had almost completely faded, leaving only mottled marks. Lin Jianguo pushed the door open, and it creaked with a harsh sound. The warehouse was dim, and the air was thick with a fine layer of silkworm feces, which was a bit choking when he breathed it in. In the middle of the warehouse stood an eight-person table. The top was dark red, the edges worn, and the legs were tied with wire, giving it a rather worn look. Captain Zhou Tiezhu sat in a chair beside the table, puffing on a pipe. The smoke enveloped his face, making it difficult to discern his expression. Seeing Wanqiu coming in, Zhou Tiezhu took the pipe out of his mouth and knocked it on the table leg. The ashes fell to the ground with a "bang bang" sound. "Wanqiu is here, sit down." Zhou Tiezhu pointed to the small stool beside the table, and then pushed the account book on the table in front of Wanqiu. The cover of the account book was blue, a little yellow, and the corners were curled up. "You check the account of last month's mulberry silk harvest to see if there are any mistakes or omissions." Wanqiu sat down, picked up the account book, took out a pencil from his pocket, and began to check the accounts carefully. The words on the account book were written by Zhou Tiezhu, and they were crooked. Some numbers had been corrected, and it looked very laborious. Wanqiu read and calculated on the draft paper, stopping from time to time to ask Zhou Tiezhu a few questions, and Zhou Tiezhu answered them one by one. After Wanqiu checked the accounts and confirmed that there were no mistakes or omissions, Zhou Tiezhu said, "The technician sent by the county agricultural science institute will arrive in our village tomorrow. You will be responsible for taking him to see the mulberry garden and introducing him to the silkworm breeding situation in our village." Wanqiu was stunned for a moment and looked up at Zhou Tiezhu: "Captain, let me take the technician? I... I'm afraid I can't explain it well." Zhou Tiezhu frowned, put his pipe on the table, and raised his voice: "You are the best silkworm breeding technician in the village. If you don't speak, who will? Don't always think about your "unconventional way". This time the technician comes "It's the authorized technology that was passed down to our village. You should learn it carefully and stop messing around with those messy things. If the village's silkworm harvest is delayed, can you bear the responsibility?" He paused, his eyes glancing at Wanqiu's patched cuffs, a hint of dissatisfaction in his eyes. "Look at you, you've been tinkering around in the mulberry garden all day, and you haven't come up with anything good. Last year, you used a kerosene lamp to incubate silkworm eggs. It's still a laughing stock in the team. Have you forgotten?" Wanqiu clenched the corner of the newspaper in her pocket, her fingertips wrinkling the edge until her knuckles turned white. Last spring, the village suffered a frost that killed most of the silkworm eggs. Seeing that this year's mulberry silk harvest was in vain, Wanqiu was so anxious that she couldn't sleep. Later, she found an old book at a scrap yard that described how to incubate silkworm eggs with a kerosene lamp. Deciding to give it a try, she secretly used a kerosene lamp in her own woodshed to incubate silkworm eggs. During that time, she spent every night in the woodshed, adjusting the brightness and distance of the kerosene lamp, fearing the temperature would be too high and damage the silkworm eggs, or too low and prevent the silkworms from hatching. Ultimately, due to her lack of experience, the survival rate of the silkworms she did hatch was very low, and they all died after just a few days. When the villagers learned of this, many laughed at her, calling her "fantastic" and "overestimating her abilities." Even Zhou Tiezhu criticized her, accusing her of wasting resources. Wanqiu lowered her head, her voice a little aggrieved. "Captain, I had no choice at the time. Seeing the silkworm eggs were freezing, I figured it was better to try than not..." "Try?" Zhou Tiezhu interrupted. "Even if you try, you have to follow the rules. You can't just try blindly! This time, when the technician comes, you have to learn the proper techniques and stop using those useless 'adventures'." Wanqiu fell silent, only nodding silently. She knew that Zhou Tiezhu was also doing this for the good harvest of mulberry silkworms in the village, but she was still a little unconvinced. She felt that the method written in the old book was not necessarily wrong, but she just didn't master it well. After leaving the warehouse, Wanqiu did not go home directly, but went to the mulberry garden again. She wanted to take another look at the mulberry tree wrapped with plastic rope, but when she got there, she found that the circle of silver-white plastic rope was gone, leaving only the bare branches of the mulberry tree, as if nothing had ever been wrapped around it. Wanqiu was puzzled. It was still there when she left just now, how come it disappeared in such a short time? Who took it away? She looked around the mulberry tree but couldn't find the plastic rope.