Another night passed. Lü Qingqing did not sleep soundly that night, as she kept thinking about Hu Jia, who was sitting in the main hall.
By the time she got up, Hu Jia had already left.
"Little friend, you drink so much cold water, be careful your stomach hurts." Hu Jia was talking to a young boy from the village.
"Don't worry, I haven't had such a satisfying drink of water in a long time." The little boy patted his stomach.
"How can that be? Don't you have adults at home to fetch water for you to drink?" Hu Jia teased him.
"No!" The little boy looked sad. "I usually drink rainwater."
Drink rainwater?
This child is really strange.
...
After the little boy left, Hu Jia thought more and more that something was not right. The village was not short of water, so why did that child say he rarely drank water?
Watching the villagers carrying water back and forth, Hu Jia vaguely felt he had touched upon something.
Hu Jia spent the whole day wandering around the village, visiting one house here, greeting another there.
He also followed the villagers to the fields when he had nothing else to do.
"Brother, I see the mud is cracking, it's been dry for many days. Look at this soil, it's so hard." Hu Jia said as he helped the villagers irrigate the fields.
"That's right, if we don't water it soon, we probably won't have any harvest next year." The farmer, sweating profusely, poured bucket after bucket of water into the fields.
"Why didn't you water it earlier? Look at that seedling, it's already dried to death." Hu Jia asked.
"Hehe!" The farmer chuckled and didn't answer.
Hu Jia asked a couple more times, but the farmer became impatient. "I was busy a while ago and forgot!"
Busy?
Forgot?
You forgot by yourself?
Did the whole village forget?
Hu Jia watched as lines of people carried water to irrigate the fields, realizing the farmer was hiding something.
...
While Hu Jia had been wandering in the fields for half a day, Ouyang and Lü Qingqing were also searching for clues related to zombies.
"Sister-in-law, do you still remember what I told you last time?"
What he told her last time?
Go to the criminal investigation department?
Speaking of this, Lü Qingqing became interested. "I see you and Hu Jia have a good relationship, why did he remind you to stay away from him, and why are you always poaching people from his special task force?"
"You've seen his condition, I don't want him to be a police officer." Ouyang said.
As expected, that was the reason.
As long as Hu Jia was not involved in the case, he would not overthink.
"However, he has a strong obsession with solving cases. It's unlikely he'll give up being a police officer." Although she hadn't known Hu Jia for long, Lü Qingqing understood this clearly.
"If I can't persuade him, I can only start with the people around him." Ouyang muttered, cursing under his breath, "Those brats, not only do they not help me persuade him, but they also help him hide from me."
Lü Qingqing smiled, knowing that Ouyang Wen was referring to Li Yang and the others.
"Sister-in-law, why don't you help him?"
"How do I help?"
"Get married quickly. A man might change when he has a family."
Lü Qingqing rolled her eyes. Get married?
I'll burn that notebook sooner or later.
Lü Qingqing felt it was necessary to explain her relationship with his second brother, Hu Jia, to Ouyang.
But just as she started, Hu Jia and Luo Wenwu appeared. The two were walking and chatting. Seeing Lü Qingqing and Ouyang, Hu Jia waved to Luo Wenwu, who quickly disappeared from sight.
"What? You sent him away as soon as we arrived?" Ouyang pretended to be displeased.
"It's nothing, let him go verify something." Hu Jia looked at the fields in front of him. "Haven't you noticed that this village seems to be short of water?"
"Short of water?" Lü Qingqing glanced around. "That's not true, look, every water bucket has water."
Hu Jia smiled and didn't dwell on the issue, instead looking at the two in front of him with confusion. "Why are you two together?"
His question confused Lü Qingqing.
Can't she be with Ouyang?
Ouyang Wen, on the other hand,'s expression darkened. "What do you mean?"
Hu Jia ignored him and pulled Lü Qingqing over. "We need to stay away from him, he's good at poaching people."
Lü Qingqing chuckled. She wondered what outrageous things Ouyang Wen had done to make someone with periodic amnesia always remember to stay away from him.
Ouyang Wen wasn't angry, instead, he looked at them with a suggestive gaze.
That look made Lü Qingqing's skin crawl.
Do these two brothers have a serious problem?
"Yes! They are indeed a match!" Ouyang Wen said with an "auntie smile." "Look at how they are holding hands."
This remark startled Lü Qingqing.
No wonder Ouyang looked so strange. Hu Jia had been holding Lü Qingqing's hand the whole time.
As if electrocuted, Lü Qingqing yanked her hand away from Hu Jia's, her expression unnatural. He had something to say, why was he holding her hand?
Ouyang Wen burst into laughter, thinking Lü Qingqing was shy.
Only Hu Jia, looking silly, said, "Haven't we held hands before?"
Hold your—
Seeing Lü Qingqing's embarrassed expression, Ouyang became even more smug. "Alright, I won't disturb you any longer. Sister-in-law, remember what I said."
...
After Ouyang left, only Lü Qingqing and Hu Jia remained.
The atmosphere was a bit awkward.
"What did you mean about the village being short of water?" Lü Qingqing tried to find a topic to ease the tension.
"The night we arrived, Old Man Lu's family couldn't find a single drop of clean water, but now, all the water缸s in the houses are full."
Hearing this, Lü Qingqing recalled washing dishes with the rag water.
It seemed that in the past two days, while she was busy investigating the case, she hadn't noticed such a big change in the house.
"What does that prove? Doesn't every household store water?" Lü Qingqing asked, confused.
"They aren't storing water routinely, but rather in retaliation." Hu Jia said. He had explored almost every corner of Xiajiezi Village in the past two days and found a very strange phenomenon.
The only well in the village was next to the reservoir. From morning till night, women and children were queuing to draw water. And the reservoir, almost all the men in the village were drawing water to irrigate their fields.
In fact, this was not unusual. Chongqing's summers were hot, and drought in the fields was common. But he found that the village fields were not just thirsty, many crops were almost dried to death. One must know that farmers valued their fields the most, how could they allow their crops to be drought-stricken?
The only explanation was that the fields were not watered at all on a daily basis.
Also, on the day Manager Zhong died, almost the entire village was carrying water.
After watering the fields, they carried water from the well.
Recalling Old Man Lu's attachment to water, Hu Jia observed carefully and found that almost all households had empty water缸s.
Some children, upon seeing the clear well water, even rushed to drink it.
They were clearly parched.
"Adults can keep their mouths shut, but children can't." Hu Jia implied that he had confirmed with several children in the village that, despite the presence of a stream and a reservoir not far from the village, the villagers had not had a satisfying drink of clean water for two to three years.
Just like the boy who drank rainwater earlier, he had said, "I like rainy days the most, only on rainy days can I drink a full bowl of water."
But why would Xiajiezi Village be short of water? After all, there was a reservoir and a well here.
Water, the water watcher, the dead water watcher...
This indeed suggests something is amiss.