Courtyard houses: Those who are capable are rewarded, and many children bring many blessings.

While Niu Dazhuang was eating inside the house, the two sisters were also busy. They set up a broken iron pot in the yard and boiled water to pluck the feathers off the wild pheasants.

Niu Dazhuang isn't made of iron. He tossed and turned half the night last night, got up early this morning, ate breakfast, and went to bed to rest and recharge. Tonight, a beautiful older sister-in-law is waiting for him to conquer.

Qin Huairu said enviously, "With such good hunting skills, your Dazhuang has no worries about making a living! Once the road is open, you should send two wild pheasants to your fourth uncle's family..."

He gave Xue Ru a knowing look.

"Sister is right. Once the road is open, I'll go back with you."

The three wild pheasants were quickly prepared while the two sisters were talking. One was stewed with mushrooms for dinner, and the other two were placed in a bamboo basket hanging in the west wing.

At dinner, the two sisters drank without being urged to, one cup after another, until their tongues were stiff from drinking.

It's good to be drunk; it's not embarrassing.

From her initial secret anger to her current half-hearted acceptance, Qin Huairu delighted Niu Dazhuang.

That night, Niu Dazhuang became the burly blacksmith again, the clanging and banging of his tools echoing for half the night…

This time, Qin Huairu stopped complaining about going back and stayed for seven or eight days straight.

Niu Dazhuang and Qin Huairu became acquainted, and Niu Dazhuang no longer deliberately avoided going out.

"Xueru, you really can't stay here any longer. The road to Qinjiawa is now open. If you stay any longer, your aunt will worry about you."

"That's right. Let's go back together tomorrow. You can bring two wild pheasants with you. Dazhuang, you don't mind, do you?"

"What complaints could I possibly have? I caught over twenty of them during this heavy snowfall!"

"Alright then, it's a deal. Neither of us is allowed to drink tonight, or we'll be too tired to go back to our parents' house tomorrow and people will laugh at us." Qin Huairu had already given in. After Niu Dazhuang had been working on her for three days straight, Qin Huairu surrendered.

The three maintained this tacit understanding in a strange way. They all understood what was going on, but none of them said it out loud.

Nothing happened that night. The next day, Niu Dazhuang carried a basket on his back, containing four wild pheasants and two wild rabbits.

The snow on the mountain ridge was unswept and unused, so the three of them had to take a detour to Qinjiawa.

As the two sisters were about to part ways, Qin Xueru whispered a few words in Qin Huairu's ear.

When the young couple arrived at the bride's parents' home, they saw Qin Defu, Niu Dazhuang's father-in-law, swinging a large axe and chopping firewood.

Niu Dazhuang quickly handed the basket to his wife and went over to help.

"How did you manage to get through such thick snow on the road?" Qin Defu asked.

"When we brought Sister Huairu back, Dazhuang caught a few wild pheasants and brought you two as well, along with two wild rabbits."

Hearing the voices, Qin Ningru came out of the house first and saw that there were two wild pheasants and two wild rabbits in the basket.

He jumped up excitedly, "Great! We can finally eat meat again! My brother and his two idiots have been trying for seven or eight days and they've only caught three or four rabbits."

"Ningru, why don't you come back with me for a few days? I'll make sure you have meat to eat every day," Qin Xueru invited.

Qin Ningru's earlier excitement had vanished. "I already told my mother, but she disagreed. She said I shouldn't interfere with your life as a young couple."

At this moment, Qin's mother also came out to greet them: "Come in quickly, it's terribly cold outside."

Once inside, the mother and her two children got onto the kang (a heated brick bed).

"Mom, I brought back two pheasants and two rabbits this time. Go and call my brother over so they can have a treat too."

"Hey, you're already ordering your mother around after just getting married! Ningru, go call your buddies!"

Ningru was about to get up when Xueru stopped her, saying, "Mother, you go ahead. I have something to say to Ningru."

"What can't you say to my face?" he said, but still got off the heated kang and went out to call someone.

"Ningru, what do you think of your brother-in-law?" Qin Xueru began to subtly probe her sister's attitude.

"Brother-in-law is great! He's the most capable man in our area. I even heard Sister Yueru complaining after her blind date. She said that if she had known it would turn out like this, she would have preferred to marry him. That Niu Deshui is no match for him at all."

"So, when you look for a man in the future, how about finding someone like your brother-in-law?"

"Of course it would be great, but unfortunately I'm not as lucky as you. Our father has met all the young men in the surrounding villages, but none of them are satisfactory. Sister, what exactly are you trying to say?" Qin Ningru wasn't stupid. Xue Ru came back today and asked about this matter, even sending her own mother away. There must be something going on here.

"As long as you don't dislike your brother-in-law, that's fine. I'll talk to you again when the conditions are right."

"Sis, you're so annoying, you always leave things unsaid."

No matter how much Qin Ningru made a fuss, Xue Ru just wouldn't say what she was going to say next.

Before long, his three brothers-in-law arrived. With many hands making light work, the four of them took turns chopping firewood in the yard.

The lunch was quite satisfying. The whole family didn't have to go to work, and there were good snacks to go with the drinks. The three brothers-in-law kept urging the family to drink.

In the end, all four of them drank quite a bit, and when they left, Niu Dazhuang was even staggering as he walked.

The day after returning to Niujiazhuang, the village began brewing wine. While brewing, Niu Youcao started assigning young people to stand guard at the village entrance at night.

With such heavy snow, wild animals will surely be unable to find food and will start coming down the mountain to prey on livestock.

Their main defense was against wild wolves. They worked in groups of three, carrying their homemade rifles every day. The rifles they used on the last hunting trip had long been returned.

Three days later, Niu Dazhuang returned with a basket of sorghum liquor, poured it into his own wine jar, exactly one hundred catties, sealed the jar with yellow mud, and planned to drink it after two or three years.

The 23rd day of the twelfth lunar month is traditionally a day for the Little New Year in northern China, but Niu Youcao has gathered all the young people together.

"I just came back from a meeting at the commune. The snow was particularly heavy today, and many villages reported wolf attacks. There were even casualties in a few villages."

The commune decided to organize its members to help themselves, and our brigade also organized a wolf-hunting team. The brigade leader specifically asked Dazhuang to lead the team. How about it, no problem?" Since they were all family, Niu Youcao didn't waste any words and got straight to the point in the meeting.

"I'm fine! The problem is, how do we divide the loot when we hit the wolves?" We can't afford to mess things up at this crucial moment.

"The guns and bullets are provided by the brigade; whoever hits one keeps it."

Upon hearing that whoever hunts it gets to keep it, the young people became excited. A good wolf pelt can sell for around ten yuan. There are so many wild wolves, why not hunt four or five? That would be forty or fifty yuan.

After a year of hard work farming, you might only get a hundred or eighty yuan in dividends by the end of the year. That's equivalent to half a year's income, no wonder young people are so excited.

Unlike the enthusiastic response from the young people of Heniujiazhuang, the young militia members of Qinjiawa responded positively.

"Look at yourselves, so pathetic! All that training was for nothing!" Captain Qin Youde said, exasperated by their lack of ambition.

"Captain, no matter how many people from our village go, we'll just be there to make up for the people from Niujiazhuang. We're not as fast or accurate as Niu Dazhuang when it comes to shooting. Their ancestors have been doing this for generations, what about us!"