Taoyuan Village

Ding Shi left Aunt Li's house in a fine mood. It was already four in the afternoon. He was thinking of dropping by the village chief's house for a while when a half-grown boy came running up. "Uncle Ding, the chief's looking for you." Quest: Go see the village chief. With nearly twenty dao on him, Ding Shi wasn't all that keen on seeing the chief—he would have been happy to simply leave the instance. Unfortunately the quest had a countdown, and he had no idea what happened if a quest failed, so in the end he went to see the chief. The chief's house was close by, and four sturdy men stood in the yard, each with a red armband on his left arm that read "night patrol." A few questions told him that Li Si had neither reported to the village office at noon nor eaten there. Since Ding Shi was still playing mahjong, the chief had sent the night patrol out to look for the man, but they had searched for hours without catching sight of him. The only thing they had picked up was a report that Li Si had been seen heading southwest of the village. The southwest of the village lay at the foot of the mountain. Twelve households lived there, a natural village under Taoyuan Village. Quest: Find Li Si. Clearly this quest was not one the system had set up in advance. It could be understood this way: Yita World was a world that could be shaped by the players' actions. The chief gave Ding Shi a bicycle and a flashlight, told him to be home for dinner at seven, and said a room had been tidied up for him as well. If you want to find a missing player, you first have to find the players. Ding Shi's first stop was Haitang's house near San Niang Temple, due south, where he found Zhang San teaching Haitang to write a letter. Zhang San was astonished to hear that Li Si was missing and said he was worried, but he refused to go searching with Ding Shi on the grounds that Haitang was about to cook dinner and, as a man, he had to lend a hand. The second stop was Grandma Wang's house, to find Zhao Liu. Zhao Liu had left Grandma Wang spreading fertilizer on the vegetable plot and was splitting firewood for Cuihua, the young widow next door. His swings were clumsy and heavy-handed, but with Cuihua giggling so sweetly, it was plain that Zhao Liu was enjoying the work. Ding Shi drew him aside and explained the situation. Zhao Liu said, "Li Si came to see me at ten this morning and said players ought to take the initiative. I asked, what kind of initiative? He said, gather materials, dig up information. Best of all, get hold of a couple of weapons—he said some of the villagers live way out of the way." Ding Shi asked, startled, "He wants to break in, rob, and kill people?" Zhao Liu spread his hands. "He didn't say that, but he didn't seem too cheerful. I turned him down, of course. He went on and on about how the first instance is the growth phase, how important that is, and said he had already stolen some money without the villagers noticing. When he saw he couldn't talk me round, he went off on his own." Zhao Liu changed the subject. "You're busy?" "My quests never stop," Ding Shi said. Curious, Zhao Liu asked, "What do quests pay?" "Point two dao each," Ding Shi said. "You?" Zhao Liu grinned. "Mine's counted by the day, one dao a day. Keep at it, brother." He patted Ding Shi on the shoulder and walked back to Cuihua's yard. As Ding Shi was leaving, he heard Cuihua say, "Brother Zhao, bar the gate, or stray dogs will run in." Was that aimed at me? Ding Shi had meant to look for Sun Qi next, but then he saw Sun Qi trudging along a field ridge looking so worn out that life seemed to hold nothing for him, and he turned around on the spot. Sun Qi's job was surely no easy one; problems like children dropping out of school came down to the adults, and it was hard to talk a grown man into anything. Ding Shi thought he could help Sun Qi out if he had the time—if Sun Qi came to him and was willing to pay. He was not a man who set much store by money, but after that morning's experience of wiping himself with leaves, he now treasured money more than usual. Ding Shi rode along the road toward the Southwest Natural Village. The area was relatively cut off, which made it the best place for Li Si to burgle and rob. The wooded hills not only blocked the sightline between the natural village and Taoyuan Village, but inside the natural village the households lived quite far apart. A dozen or so households were scattered without pattern along the gentle slope at the foot of the southwest mountain. Taoyuan Creek had its source in that mountain: spring water ran down the slopes and formed a small ditch that wound its way toward Taoyuan Village, taking in several tributaries along the route, and by the time it reached Taoyuan Village it had become Taoyuan Creek. Ding Shi stopped his bike at the junction and looked out over the Southwest Natural Village, where four of the houses were visible. A main road about a meter wide branched like a tree, throwing off dirt paths of varying width that ran out to every household. On both sides of the ditch were stretches of terraced fields, with people working in them. Ding Shi went first to the household nearest the junction. An old woman in her seventies and a woman of about forty were at home; the younger was tending the vegetable plot, the older doing needlework indoors. The family kept chickens, and chicken droppings were everywhere, so Ding Shi did not want to go in; he walked around the side of the house and spoke with the woman over the wall, in his capacity as the village chief's assistant. He came away with some information. First, the household had three able-bodied men and was comfortably off; all three were out working the fields. The men came home to eat at half past ten, and went back out at three. Running through the timeline, Ding Shi noted that Li Si had been surrounded in the village over the theft a little after nine, had found Zhao Liu at ten, and after that no one had seen him again. Suppose Li Si had set off for the Southwest Natural Village at once; on foot it would have taken him at least forty minutes. He would have arrived just as this household's men were coming home to eat and escape the blazing sun. That explained why Li Si had not touched this household. Second, most of the Southwest Natural Village's people worked small terraced plots. Such fields took a great deal of labor and were unsuitable for growing tobacco. Third, there was a villager in the Southwest Natural Village named Zhao Datou who did not farm. He often rode his Jialing motorcycle around buying up tobacco leaves. Growers delivered their tobacco leaves to the purchasing station, and the staff there would confiscate part of the poorer-looking leaves on the grounds of unacceptable quality. The growers got wise to this and kept the uglier leaves at home. Men like Zhao Datou went to the growers' houses to buy the better-looking leaves, paying about the same as the station, sometimes even paying twice the station's price to take the leaves outright. Those leaves would be sent to counterfeiting operations and made into fake cigarettes. For a time the authorities cracked down only on the fake cigarettes without touching the source. Only later, when they began strict controls from the growing stage on, were fake cigarettes kept out of the market. Men like Zhao Datou were shrewd, but the villagers classed them as ne'er-do-wells, so when Ding Shi asked whether there was anyone in the village who kept to himself, the woman thought of Zhao Datou immediately. Zhao Datou's old mother had passed away last year, and now he lived alone. He often stayed out overnight and frequently brought home women dressed in the height of fashion. Ding Shi pushed his bike straight to Zhao Datou's house. It was already half past five, and he had to get this damn quest out of the way so he would not have to go out looking for someone late at night. Resting his hands on top of the wall, Ding Shi peered into Zhao Datou's yard. No chickens or ducks, no vegetable patch; the yard looked reasonably clean, with a good deal of firewood neatly stacked around it. According to the woman, Zhao Datou bought all his firewood, something the villagers particularly despised. The Jialing was still parked in the yard, so the man was almost certainly home. Ding Shi slapped the wooden gate. "Datou! You in?" No answer. Ding Shi knocked again, harder, and at last a burly young man with tousled hair came out of the house and shuffled to the gate in slippers, looking as if he had just been asleep.