Chapter 135: Bad Habits

“Brother Kun, are we really walking all the way back?” Cheng Hao asked, scratching his head in disbelief.

Smack.

Lu Kun swatted him on the back of the head.

“You idiot. We’re walking to the town. We’ll take a vehicle from there,” Lu Kun said irritably.

“Then what about this vehicle...”

“Why do you care so much? It isn’t ours,” Cheng Yuan scolded, tugging at his younger brother’s sleeve.

Cheng Hao thought about it and realized that his brother was right.

The driver: “...”

...

“What the hell kind of rotten road is this? We’ve barely gone anywhere, and my trouser legs are already covered in yellow mud,” Li Changfu cursed.

“Keep moving. The old man wouldn’t let us stay the night. Pick up the pace, all of you. If we dawdle any longer, it’ll be dark,” Lu Kun said, turning toward the few people lagging behind.

Country roads made of mud became terribly difficult to travel after every rainfall.

...

By the time they reached the town, dusk had already deepened into darkness.

“Awooo...”

The expressions of several people changed.

“Could that... be a wolfhound?” Driver Xiao Wu asked nervously.

“Shut your mouth!” Li Changfu snapped, rolling his shoulders and glaring fiercely at him.

Wolfhounds were generally the offspring of wolves and dogs, retaining much of the wolf’s ferocity.

They were formidable fighters.

An ordinary adult, without a suitable weapon, would likely meet a miserable end in a hand-to-hand struggle with one.

More frightening still, once a wolfhound began howling, dogs from several miles around would come running. It was much the same as a wolf king summoning its pack to hunt and fight.

The countryside in that era was, in fact, a dangerous place.

The greatest source of danger came from these large wolfdogs.

Sometimes, when a wolfdog went mad, it would even snatch away a child from the village, and then...

Of course, such incidents were exceedingly rare—one in ten thousand, if that.

“Don’t talk nonsense. Nobody would have the nerve to let a wolfdog loose,” Lu Kun barked at Xiao Wu.

The dog-killing campaigns Lu Kun remembered most vividly had taken place during the 1980s and 1990s, but such campaigns had actually begun much earlier.

In the early years after the founding of the nation, although the main forces of the reactionaries had fled to Taiwan, many enemy agents still remained hidden on the mainland, carrying out acts of sabotage.

Most of them concealed themselves in alleys, crowded residential compounds, or private courtyards. They usually kept one or several vicious dogs in those courtyards. Whenever anyone entered, the dogs would lunge forward, tear at them, and raise the alarm.

This created enormous obstacles for the public security officers hunting down enemy agents.

To eliminate those agents, protect the newly established government, and support the soldiers fighting in Korea, the first large-scale dog-killing campaign was launched.

By the 1980s and 1990s, outbreaks of canine disease had appeared in certain areas. The thunderous dog-killing campaigns spread across most of the country, and the “storm against dogs” grew ever more violent.

Lu Kun was not what later generations would call a “dog lover.” He could not say that the phrase “dog-killing” offended him, nor could he claim to support it.

What he detested even more was the word “campaign.”

One wound after another had made people tremble at the very mention of campaigns.

“A few years ago, they were killing dogs everywhere. How come they didn’t kill this vicious one? Just listen to how fierce it sounds,” Xiao Wu muttered.

Everyone stared at him as though he were an idiot.

“What?” Xiao Wu asked, rubbing his head. He found the way they were looking at him rather strange.

Everyone else: “...”

...

The harmful habits of mass campaigns could not be completely changed overnight.

In the years that followed, various campaigns continued spreading into different fields, growing ever more intense.

The dog-killing campaigns were the clearest embodiment of those who loved launching campaigns.

The campaign mentality seemed to be the ultimate solution to every difficult problem, as though only through mass action could the people understand the government’s kindness and good intentions.

There were clearly more practical and workable solutions, yet they were simply abandoned.

If an epidemic appeared in one region, was it really necessary to wipe out every dog indiscriminately in areas untouched by the disease?

Canine epidemics were not the same as avian influenza.

Diseases transmitted by dogs were mainly rabies, and rabies could be prevented and controlled in advance. A simple vaccination program would solve the problem.

Mobilizing huge numbers of people for a mass campaign did nothing but waste manpower and wound the people’s feelings.

In Lu Kun’s eyes, the word “campaign” was practically synonymous with grandstanding.

An old man driving a yellow ox cart stopped in front of Lu Kun and the others.

He began speaking in a rush of incomprehensible sounds.

“Brother Kun, what the hell is he saying?” Cheng Hao asked. The others turned to Lu Kun as well.

Lu Kun felt awkward. He could not understand the old man either.

In his previous life, Lu Kun had visited Guizhou. Back then, he had discovered that the people of Guizhou were terribly unfriendly.

Because they did not speak Mandarin.

Well, one could endure their refusal to speak Mandarin.

But the consequences were even worse when they did try to speak it.

Their Mandarin was enough to drive anyone mad.

Lu Kun had once heard an old man speaking Mandarin on the phone.

“Are you Old Luo? I’m over here by the five-six-four turn, X￥@%#%. I wanted to talk... talk to you a bit! Tell your people not to make so much noise. All right, Old Luo, I’ll come out and talk to you. I’m in the house. They... they’re talking nonsense, I’m telling you...”

Without subtitles, there was absolutely no way to understand what they were saying.

“All right, the old man says we can get on and he’ll give us a ride,” Xiao Wu announced happily after communicating with the old man for a while.

They climbed onto the ox cart.

“Xiao Wu, you’re not a local from Guizhou, are you? You can actually understand the old man’s Guizhou dialect,” Lu Kun said, sounding somewhat impressed.

Xiao Wu: “...”

“No, he was speaking Mandarin,” Xiao Wu replied blankly after a moment.

Everyone was drenched in cold sweat.

The old man: “Ee-ee, ah-ah...”

Everyone turned toward Xiao Wu, waiting for him to translate.

“The old man says he can understand us speaking Mandarin. We need to reach the bus station as soon as possible, or we might miss the last bus,” Xiao Wu said truthfully, transforming himself into a remarkably capable interpreter.

The old man had a very good temperament and was extremely talkative. Although he knew perfectly well that Lu Kun and the others could not understand him, his enthusiasm never diminished, and he chattered animatedly the entire way.

At the end of the journey, Lu Kun handed the old man a ten-yuan note, but the old man immediately pushed it back.

“Boss Lu, the old man says he won’t take any money,” Xiao Wu explained quietly from the side. The old man nodded vigorously.

“This...”

The men exchanged glances.

In the end, the old man could not outstubborn Lu Kun and accepted the handful of small bills Lu Kun pressed into his hand.

Although it looked like quite a lot, Lu Kun estimated that it amounted to only two or three yuan.

In places where the people were simple and honest, troublesome nonsense was always less common.

“Uncle, we’re leaving now. Perhaps we’ll meet again if fate allows!”

Lu Kun and the others waved to the old man.