After being reborn, the young master returned to his village and led his wife and daughters to prosp

The village chief may not have thought of this before, but when he heard Lin Fan's hints, his eyes suddenly widened in surprise.

He frowned and slowly said, "What you're saying makes some sense."

"Anyway, I've lived forty or fifty years, and this is the first time I've encountered something like this, or even the first time I've ever heard of it."

"But there are indeed wolf-like footprints in Li Er's sheepfold, and so much blood. If it was stolen by a person, why would there be bloodstains left behind?"

This is also an important reason why Uncle Li hadn't thought about this before.

Actually, theft is still quite rampant these days. However, in everyone's impression, thieves are usually cautious and careful, afraid of leaving any clues. It's not like the whole village knows about it. Does that seem like something a thief would do?

"Village chief, I went to Uncle Li's sheepfold and checked it out, but don't you think the footprints there are a bit strange?"

"Imagine a small sheepfold. When a wild animal breaks in, the sheep will instinctively huddle in one of the four corners of the sheepfold. Even if the wolves carry all the sheep away, there will inevitably be one corner where only the hoofprints of sheep will be visible, and there will be no traces of wild animals."

"On the other hand, in Uncle Li's sheepfold, the wolf footprints were scattered very evenly, almost everywhere."

"Moreover, the bloodstains inside the sheepfold stretched outwards for a while, but suddenly stopped at a certain point, as if the sheep had been swallowed by wolves. But the village chief should also know that this is impossible."

“If a sheep is injured during hunting, the bloodstains will extend intermittently to a great distance. We can often find the wolf pack by following these bloodstains, but we found nothing. The clues went cold in the village. Isn’t that strange?”

The more Lin Fan spoke, the more Village Chief Wu felt that it made sense.

Even the parts that seemed reasonable before turned out to be flaws after Lin Fan pointed them out.

Yes, it's just like killing a chicken. After killing the chicken and draining the blood, if you hold it upside down in your hand, the remaining blood will still drip all the way down the road.

How come when the wolves carried off the sheep, they only left bloodstains in the sheepfold and a short stretch of road, and then suddenly disappeared?

Lin Fan knew that his words had alerted the village chief, so he pressed on, asking, "Village chief, have any outsiders appeared in or around the village recently?"

The village chief thought for a moment and then said, "We don't have any in our village, but it seems a group of people from the neighboring riverbank village have come to collect sheepskins and lambs."

"They're still driving three-wheeled vehicles, carrying sheep, but I heard the price isn't very high, so they haven't collected many."

As soon as the village chief finished speaking, he seemed to realize something and looked at Lin Fan in surprise, saying, "You mean, it might have been those people who did it?"

Lin Fan frowned and said, "It's hard to say, but I don't think it could have been stolen by people in the village. After all, it wasn't just one or two. If someone stole them, there would be nowhere to hide them, and they would be easily discovered."

"Only outsiders, and those with suitable means of transportation to take the sheep away, could possibly be the group of sheepskin collectors you mentioned."

In rural areas, you'll often see groups of people driving three-wheeled motorcycles, using iron cages to collect lambs and sheepskins.

Every summer, after shearing the wool, some of it is kept at home to make several wool quilts and sweaters, while the rest of the wool is sold to sheepskin collectors.

Of course, this is just the practice of people who raise sheep at home; most households consume their own wool.

Village Chief Wu paced back and forth in the house, his old cloth shoes making a clattering sound.

"If they really did it, what should we do?"

"Should we send someone to surround and search those people now?"

That's obviously unrealistic. They're just buying sheep, so it's normal to have dead sheep on their truck. Your sheep weren't labeled or marked, so how can you prove they're yours?

Therefore, there is only one way to deal with this kind of situation: catch the perpetrator red-handed.

But now that things have escalated so much, even a fool would know that everyone in their village will be on guard for the foreseeable future, just like Wu Ge's family, who simply pulled their carts into the sheepfold and slept with the sheep.

Those people might not make another move.

Lin Fan looked at Village Chief Wu, frowned, and began to think.

A moment later, an idea came to him.

"Village chief, how about this? You spread the word that wolves have sneaked into our village, and all the men in the village should take torches and go up the mountain to chase the wolves away overnight. We must drive them out and kill them all!"

"We must make a big show of it, at least to make those sheep thieves believe that they are really going up the mountain to find sheep and drive away wolves. We will deliberately expose our weaknesses, and they will definitely not let go of this excellent opportunity. By the time we go up the mountain to drive away the wolves, only some old, weak, women and children will be left in the village."

"If they come to steal sheep again then, their success rate will be very high, and they can steal a lot, unlike last night when they only managed to steal seven or eight."

“They all drive cars. All we need to do is block the road on the only way out of the village. Once they’ve finished stealing, we can catch them red-handed as they leave.”

Lin Fan briefly explained his thoughts.

After hearing this, Village Chief Wu's eyes lit up, clearly thinking that Lin Fan's idea was good.

However, he then looked at Lin Fan and hesitated, saying, "What if our speculations are all false? What if there really are wolves, and not people? What then?"

"Moreover, if we set up roadblocks on the road and wait until they have stolen the sheep before we make our move, the sheep will definitely be killed by them. Who would be willing to bear this loss? Even if we were to discuss implementing this plan with the villagers, I doubt anyone would agree!"

Lin Fan looked at the village chief and said in a deep voice, "Village chief, if our speculations are all false and there really are wolves, we can go out and drive them away. The people and sheep in the village will be safe and nothing will happen. The outcome won't be worse than this."

"As for the loss of sheep you mentioned, if no one is willing to take the risk of catching these sheep thieves, then just pretend I didn't say anything. After all, our Lin family doesn't raise sheep, so even if they steal them, they can't steal them from me. If you want to catch people, someone has to be willing to pay the price."

Actually, there was something Lin Fan didn't say: once those people were caught red-handed, the police could naturally demand compensation from them.

Lin Fan was somewhat dissatisfied with the village chief's self-serving attitude. The matter originally had nothing to do with the Lin family, but he was willing to come and help. If everyone was still considering their own interests at this time, how could the problem be solved?