Chen Shi discovered something. This marijuana had been air-dried, so it appeared brown. It was probably not harvested that year.

However, these tens of kilograms were enough to qualify for the crime of drug possession, and if he had given them to others to smoke or sell, the nature of the crime would be even worse.

At this moment, the mistress shouted in a sharp voice from above: "Oh no, Officers, he’s going to escape!"

The two rushed up and saw the uncle rushing out from the window. Chen Shi rushed into the courtyard and found that the door couldn't be opened no matter how he pulled. The mistress had already put on her clothes. She sprawled over the window eating an apple. "Shameless old thing has locked the door. You guys should climb over the wall!"

Chen Shi hooked his finger at Lin Dongxue to signal her over and put his hands together. Lin Dongxue stepped on his hands and climbed over the wall.

The mistress happily watched the drama unfold and asked, "Officer, is there a dead person in the basement? Do I get a monetary reward for providing clues?"

"Not only is there a monetary reward, there’ll also be a news article praising you!" Chen Shi said.

"Uh, forget it then..."

There was a clatter coming from outside. Lin Dongxue opened the door. It turned out that the uncle had escaped in a hurry and had just latched the door without locking it.

The two chased after him outside. When they got to the entrance of the village, they saw the uncle and another man sitting in an off-road vehicle. The off-road vehicle had an engine with strong horsepower which emitted a low-pitched roar. The four wheels spun on the ground, creating a cloud of smoke and dust. It rushed out with a rumble and knocked a tax bureau car parked in front of the village committee building into a ditch. Then the off-road vehicle adjusted its direction and prepared to escape out of the village.

"Open fire! Hit the tyres."

However, the rear sight of the pistol didn’t provide enough accuracy. Lin Dongxue shot through the fuel tank from more than a dozen meters away.The gasoline gurgled out and dripped all over the ground.

Chen Shi yelled, "The fuel tank is leaking. Do you all want to die?"

In fact, even if the bullet hits the fuel tank, it won’t explode like in the movies. The uncle obviously doesn’t know this common fact. He poked his head out to have a look and was so scared that he stopped the vehicle. The two men got out of the vehicle and held up both hands as they trotted forward.

"Bang!" Chen Shi simulated the sound of an explosion with his voice.

The two shivered in fright, stopped, and knelt down reflexively.

Lin Dongxue hurried forward, handcuffed them, and asked, "Why did you hit the tax bureau’s car?"

"Huh? The tax bureau's car? I thought you were the ones who drove it here..." The uncle's voice trailed off.

"You’ve really added drama for yourself." Chen Shi walked over, "Escape? That’s adding to your crime, do you know? Who is this person?"

Chen Shi glanced at the young man who was escaping with the uncle. His hair was dyed blonde, he wore earrings, and there were many metal decorations on his vest, giving off an impression of wildness.

"Nicholas."

"Am I asking for his English name?"

"He’s just called this."

Chen Shi glanced at the guy again, and said to Lin Dongxue, "Call for reinforcements!"

The two were taken back to the uncle’s house. As soon as the uncle entered the courtyard, he started quarrelling with his mistress through the window. He even pleaded with Chen Shi, "Leader, I can explain everything. I just have one request. Let me slap this bitch once. Just once!"

"Do you think you’re qualified to negotiate terms?" Chen Shi replied disdainfully.

In order to facilitate the questioning, the two were temporarily separated. The blonde guy was handcuffed to the water pipe in the storage room, and the uncle was temporarily taken to the living room for questioning.

"You should know what’s in your cellar. Don't tell me that you think it’s Chinese herbal medicine." Chen Shi said.

The uncle lowered his head, crossed his arms, and didn’t say anything for a long time.

"If you don't talk, I will. Since you consciously stored and air-dried these things, it means you know what they are and their true value. There’s such a large amount. It’s impossible to secretly conceal all that while supplying the rice collectors. You found out what you were growing in your fields, and you weren’t reconciled to just earning that red envelope. You wanted to make more money, so you planted some for yourself."

The uncle trembled with fright, and then scolded angrily, "This bitch. Didn't I just scold her with a few words in the morning? Now, she has gotten me into real trouble. It's all fucking over!" Then he burst into tears, covering his face.

The two calmly waited for him to finish crying. The uncle tremblingly stretched out a hand to pick up the cigarettes on the table and asked for Chen Shi’s permission with his eyes. Chen Shi asked, "Are you ready to confess?"

The uncle lit himself a cigarette and exhaled a puff of smoke with a sigh. "Haii, I may not be destined to possess this wealth..."

He explained the origin of those things. He had grown Shennong No. 24 for ten years. Like all the other rice farmers, he had also been suspicious about what this kind of rice was and why it was so precious.

One year, he accidentally found that when the rice leaves were lit up and inhaled, they were really fragrant. He wondered if this was used for smoking, so he grabbed some rice leaves and dried them in the sun. He rolled them up and smoked them like a cigar. Fuck, he was in so much bliss, he nearly ascended to heaven!

As a person who has lived for over 40 years, he understood at once that this wasn’t rice, but drugs. Thus, he immediately put it out for fear of becoming addicted.

The uncle's heart stirred, thinking that these were drugs. Every year, they worked hard cultivating them for a few months, and the rice collectors would take them away in a tractor in an instant. At the end of the year, they would be invited to a banquet and given red envelopes of around 50,000 to 100,000. He felt it was very worthwhile at first, but after this was exposed, he realized that he had suffered a great loss.

With these hundreds of kilograms of drugs, how much money can a rice collector earn? Perhaps they could buy several villas every year!

The more he thought about it, the more dissatisfied he became. He couldn't close his eyes for the whole night and was about to become sick from depression. Finally, he made up his mind that a man could not get rich with an extra income. Thus, he started growing and selling it himself!

He found the few other rice farmers in the village and told them about the matter. Everyone agreed to work together and cleared a piece of land on a nearby barren hill to grow this kind of rice. When the harvest came in during winter, everyone was so happy that they grinned from ear to ear thinking about how these were all their own. However after the happiness subsided, they started fretting. The marijuana wouldn’t become bank notes by themselves. They had to be sold.

Who could they sell to in such poor rural areas?

After that, it took them two years to establish a channel. It turned out that there were a few guys who had been in the city and had the necessary connections in Xu Village’s disco. These guys were also addicts themselves. They helped to sell it and smoked it themselves as well. Although the profits were halved, the five rice farmers still made a net profit of 2 million between them. It was wonderful.

"I planned to stop when it was all sold that winter. Everyone kept it secret, as if it had never happened, but..." The uncle sighed, with a look of regret on his face.

"It’s easy to go from frugality to luxury, but going from luxury to frugality is difficult!" Chen Shi looked around the very ordinary living room. His eyes fell on the 95 Royal Prerogative cigarette smoked by the uncle, the branded leather shoes he wore, and his gold teeth. He felt no sympathy for this person at all.

"Who is he?" Chen Shi pointed next door.

"He’s the head of those salesmen."

"In that case, your business must have grown to quite a scale by now, right?"

"You can say that…"

"I XXX, you old XX. You actually betrayed me, I X!" The guy cursed wildly in the next room, rattling the handcuffs.

This group of amateur grassroots drug dealers weren’t well organized and had flawed plans. A mistress’s careless remark got them all arrested. The village entrance would be very lively that night.