They'd said they would leave in half an hour, but between the father and daughter chatting here and tidying up there, it was an hour later by the time they'd both changed into outdoor clothes and were ready to go.
The pair each carried a basket, and one also had a yellowish-green satchel slung across their shoulder. Xu Changqing, who was a step behind, thought for a moment, then backed up two steps, turned around, and grabbed a lock to hang on the door of the outer room.
This way, anyone could see that no one was home—that everyone was out working, and that there had, in fact, been a burglary yesterday. As for the courtyard gate, that couldn't be locked.
For one thing, there was a well over ten meters deep in their courtyard. Several nearby neighbors who lived far from the Hundred Sons River to the west would come to their house to draw water when they were too busy to fetch it from the river in the morning.
