Chapter 60 Being Watched

What he deserved, Li Yancheng never stood on ceremony about; what he shouldn't take, he never coveted.

These consultation fees were well deserved, so he accepted them very cheerfully. When Luo Yang added that he could still seek help and pay for future consultations if needed, Li Yancheng readily agreed.

Who wouldn't like to earn a little extra cash on the side? Besides, he didn't have to worry about being investigated for this, given Luo Yang's status.

If anyone else had asked him for private medical treatment and offered a consultation fee, he certainly wouldn't have accepted it—he wouldn't even have seen the patient. It wasn't that he was heartless, but one had to be on guard against others; what if someone was setting a trap for him?

With Luo Yang, however, there was no such problem. Given his position, his status would remain secure for the next eight years.

Once Luo Yang left, Li Yancheng breathed a sigh of relief. After seeing him out and returning inside, he picked up the stack of ration coupons to inspect them.

On the very top were twenty coupons for one catty of edible oil each, and underneath them were all one-hundred-catty grain coupons issued by the city of Beijing—every single one of them was high-quality goods.

After counting them clearly, he casually tossed the coupons along with the blank prescription pads on the table into the drawer.

Over the past month, he had constantly run errands to various vegetable markets within a ten-kilometer radius, and his storage inventory had accumulated quite a few good things.

Cabbage, flour, rice, pork, beef, mutton, chicken, eggs...

Whatever he liked to eat and could manage to buy, he brought all of it back, depleting his savings by two hundred.

Nowadays, he cooked three or four meals at home every week, including weekends; the rest of the time, he basically ate at the work unit cafeteria.

The main reason was that it wouldn't do to eat fine flour and stir-fried dishes at home every single day, as he feared questions from the three members of the Jin family that he wouldn't be able to answer.

Their inquiries would stem from concern, worrying that he might make some mistake, and if anyone else caught wind of it, it would spell trouble.

Right now, with plenty of idle people having nothing better to do all day, countless eyes were fixed on other families. The moment anything seemed amiss, people would turn around and file a report. The alleyways, which used to be fairly peaceful, had grown somewhat murky and foul over the past couple of years.

Furthermore, Li Yancheng had noticed that ever since he rejected the Qian family father and son's request to borrow a room, he had spotted members of the Qian family lingering around the alley several times over the past month.

One had to remember, the house assigned to the Qian family by the neighborhood committee was a good two or three kilometers away from here, and none of them worked in this neighborhood. One could only wonder what kind of ideas they were plotting by running over to this area.

Because of this, he had tucked the few ancient books left by the old master away into his storage space, terrified lest someone find something to use against him.

However, being watched like this all the time felt extremely aggravating. There is a saying that while one may be a thief for a thousand days, one can never be on guard against thieves for a thousand days.

"Dacheng."

"Hey."

Just as he was pondering how he might deal with the Qian family and give them something else to worry about, Jin Zhihai's voice came from outside.

He turned and walked into the living room, and Jin Zhihai happened to step inside at that moment.

"When did you get back?"

"Just walked through the door."

"Just got back and instead of going to your own house, what are you doing running over to mine?"

"Tsk... My wife is already asleep. Do you have anything to eat here?"

It was nearly ten o'clock now. In this era devoid of entertainment programs, most people rested very early.

With nothing else to do—especially in winter when the weather outside was freezing and wandering about was out of the question—other than crawling into bed after dark, there truly was nothing left to do.

This was also why nearly every household had at least two children, and some even had six, seven, or eight.

Li Yancheng even knew several pairs of brothers born in the same year, one at the very beginning and one at the very end.

There was no help for it; lacking recreational activities, people could only focus on that.

"You haven't eaten yet? No way, is your work unit that stingy? They don't even provide meals when you work overtime?"

"Sigh, it's not that they don't provide them, but our work group was so busy this afternoon that we missed mealtime. Cut the crap—do you have anything to eat here? Hurry up and fix me something."

Jin Zhihai had already walked over to the dish cabinet and was rummaging through it. Unfortunately, there were only raw ingredients inside, which would take ages to cook.

"Stop rummaging. There's nothing in there you can eat right now. How about I cook you a bowl of hand-pulled noodles and poach two eggs in it?"

"Fine, fine, fine."

By now, his stomach was so empty his eyes were starting to see green light. Forget poached eggs; he could eat plain broth noodles just as well.

"Big Brother Dacheng, I want to eat too."

The sudden voice startled the two grown men in the room, and they turned their heads toward the front door in unison.

There was little Jin Wenning, her head poking through the gap in the door curtain just like before.

Realizing she had apparently frightened her two older brothers, she bared her two little canine teeth and giggled.

"You little girl, why aren't you asleep yet at this hour?"

Jin Zhihai stepped forward, grabbed his younger sister by the ear, and hauled her into the room.

"Hiss... Brother, it hurts, hurts, hurts..." Jin Wenning raised a hand to swat away her brother's hand, rubbed her ear while grimacing in pain, and said with a wronged expression, "I was already asleep, but why did you shout for Big Brother Dacheng the moment you came back, and so loudly too? You woke me up."

"Oh, give it a rest." Jin Zhihai wasn't about to be fooled by his sister, and he reached out to flick her forehead.

"I've only been back for two or three minutes. Even if I woke you up, could you have gotten dressed so neatly and run out this fast? Who are you trying to fool?"

"Uh..."

Little Ningning lowered her head to look at the clothes on her body. One look made it obvious she hadn't even undressed yet, let alone been asleep.

"Hehe... I don't care, you woke me up anyway. Big Brother Dacheng, I want noodles too."

"Go ask your sister-in-law if she wants any. She's the key protected person in your family right now."

"Is my sister-in-law asleep already?"

"She definitely isn't asleep yet, go ask." Knowing that his wife wouldn't be able to sleep soundly until he returned, Jin Zhihai patted his sister's back to signal her.

"You got it."

Over by the stove, Li Yancheng had already lit the fire, taken a bundle of hand-pulled noodles from the lower cabinet, and pulled out six eggs. Placing a pot on the stove, he picked up the kettle and poured water into it.

"Why did you take out so many eggs?"

"Are two eggs each for the three people in your family too many?"

"One each should be plenty." Looking at the six pinkish eggs, Jin Zhihai felt a pang of heartache and picked up three of them, preparing to put them back in the cabinet.

"Put those down right now." Seeing this, Li Yancheng quickly stopped him.

"Just sit over there and watch, stop talking nonsense."

"You guy, I'm trying to save you a bit and you're not even happy about it."

"It's going into people's stomachs, it's not being wasted, what's there to save?"

"Aren't you eating?"

"I'm not eating, I don't have the habit of having a midnight snack."

Before the water on the stove had even boiled, Xing Lihua came over accompanied by her sister-in-law. No matter how close the two families were, showing up in the middle of the night to have someone else cook for them made her somewhat embarrassed, so she began complaining the moment she stepped inside.

"I left food for you, and Dacheng even gave us meat balls this afternoon. Since you didn't come home, why did you run straight over here to look for food?"

"It's fine, just treat it as the three of us coming over to keep him company so he won't be lonely."

Her remark earned her three pairs of rolling eyes.

However, those words did remind Xing Lihua of something.

"Dacheng, it's already been a year, you should be pretty much adjusted by now. Aren't you planning to find someone? Just like Zhihai said, having someone to keep you company and talk to you at night would be nice."

"Stop right there. When I want to find someone and can't find a suitable match, I'll definitely ask you guys to introduce someone, but for now I don't have that thought." Li Yancheng flatly refused.

"Big Brother Dacheng, what do you think of Nana's paternal aunt, Sister Weiyu?"

The little girl at the side rolled her eyes and suddenly spoke up.