Flip the table and divide the family property! Take his wife and daughter into the mountains and eat

Lin Zixian was silent for three or four seconds.

Immediately following was an extremely arrogant sound of footsteps crunching through the snow, echoing from the depths of the opposite red pine forest.

"Don't be nervous, bro, I'm saving you a bullet."

A young person.

At the breezy spot, a young man in his early twenties swaggered out from behind the shadows of the trees.

The young man was wearing a half-new dog-skin coat, a fox fur hat on his head, and an old foreign cannon slung diagonally across his chest.

He walked with a swaying gait, completely disregarding Zhao Shanhe.

He didn't look at Zhao Shanhe, but walked straight to the wolf he had killed, raised his thick-soled leather boot, and stomped hard on the wolf's head twice.

"Tsk tsk, what a waste of this leather, half of it is ruined."

The young man smacked his lips, then raised his eyelids, his gaze sweeping across the snow-covered ground dozens of meters away. With a forced smile, he raised his voice and said, "Dude, great marksmanship. From this distance, one shot takes down a wolf. That's top-notch skill even in these mountains. Let's get acquainted, my name is Er Kui."

The wind, carrying the stench of wolf blood, swept past, and the falling leaves fell silently.

Not getting the response he wanted, Er Kui chuckled and hefted the old cannon off his shoulder: "Dude, pretty wary, huh? Not even a word. It's not taboo to say hello when you bump into someone in the mountains, is it?"

Zhao Shanhe hid in the shadows, a cold smile playing on his lips, as if he were looking at a dead man.

They really think I'm some newbie who just entered the mountains.

"greet?"

Er Kui thought he had a chance, and quickly put on a smile again: "That's right, having more friends means having more options."

Zhao Shanhe silently pressed down on the hammer of his rifle, the sound as flat as a frozen lake.

"Say hello is fine."

Zhao Shanhe finally spoke, his voice like cast iron polished on sandpaper, radiating a chilling coldness: "But you should at least tell that old dog hiding behind the tree to move his gun barrel away. What, do you have to aim a gun at my skull to say hello?"

Er Kui's smile froze instantly, as if his skin had been frozen to his bones.

"Dude... what did you say? I don't understand." Er Kui swallowed hard, his eyes glancing almost imperceptibly towards the woods on his right.

"Can't understand?"

Zhao Shanhe slowly pressed down on the hammer of the lever rifle with his thumb, the crisp sound of the mechanism snapping was particularly jarring in the cold wind.

He didn't even show his face, but his voice pierced through like an icicle: "At eleven o'clock, behind that old red pine tree with withered vines, there's an old ghost lurking, panting like a broken bellows. He's holding a homemade gun with an extended barrel, loaded with shotgun pellets, isn't he?"

Zhao Shanhe's eyes were icy cold as he sneered, each word dripping with sarcasm: "An old gunpowder gun lurking in a blind spot, and some greenhorn running out as bait to get close. How many years have you two been playing this low-down trick in this forest, a trick even someone like Zhao Shanhe wouldn't stoop to?"

Er Kui's face turned deathly pale instantly, and he unconsciously took half a step back, his fingers gripping the bolt tightly.

Is this guy even human? He stripped the father and son naked from dozens of meters away in the old forest without even peeking out!

Er Kui, like a wildcat whose Achilles' heel had been stepped on, suddenly picked up the old foreign-made cannon in his arms, aiming the sights haphazardly at the big tree where Zhao Shanhe was hiding, his finger trembling on the trigger.

"Er Kui, suppress the gun."

From behind the old red pine tree with withered vines hanging from the eleven o'clock position, a hoarse and dry voice suddenly rang out.

Accompanied by the soft crunch of footsteps on the snow, an old man wearing a tattered sheepskin coat and with a slightly hunched posture slowly emerged from the shadows.

Sure enough, he was holding a homemade gun with an extended barrel, the dark muzzle still firmly wedged against the edge of Zhao Shanhe's tree.

The old man didn't even glance at Er Kui, who was terrified beside him. His squinty, cloudy eyes, though filled with a sharp glint, pierced through the wind and snow as he stared intently at something dozens of meters away.

"Young man, you have sharp ears."

The old man took a couple of puffs of his pipe and exhaled a cloud of white smoke that smelled of cheap tobacco: "My apprentice is impetuous and can't handle things. I'm sorry you had to see that."

Zhao Shanhe leaned against the tree trunk, his left arm completely numb from the cold. He gave a cold laugh:

"The old ones hide in the back and do the killing, while the young ones run out and pretend to be good guys. Your rules are certainly unique."

The old man was neither angry nor annoyed by the mockery. Instead, he grinned, revealing a set of old teeth yellowed from the smoke of tobacco.

"In this old forest, the rule that allows you to breathe and live until tomorrow is the best rule."

The old man, dragging his slightly lame right leg, took two steps forward unhurriedly and precisely positioned himself in a blind spot where he could create a crossfire with Er Kui.

"Young man, since you've made your point clear, this old man won't beat around the bush either."

The old man pointed at the wolf carcasses scattered on the ground with the hand holding his pipe, his tone turning cold and hard: "You were all alone, just fought that one-eared old ghost to the death, and you're covered in blood. The snow in this forest has melted in early spring, and the meltwater is seeping into your bones. It's almost completely dark, and when the cold wind blows, your soaked clothes will immediately freeze solid."

He paused for a moment, seemingly enjoying the feeling of his prey being cornered.

"You're hiding behind that rock, too afraid to show your face, too afraid to light a fire, and you can't even move around to keep warm. At most, you'll make it to the middle of the night, and the little bit of sweat on your body will freeze into ice crystals, making your fingers holding the gun as brittle as dry tree branches."

The wind picked up, whipping up the loose snow from the ground and striking the tree bark with a sickening rustling sound.

The old fox reveals his cards one by one, gradually stripping away his prey's hope:

"We've got dog-skin coats and hot knives, we'll take turns keeping watch on you. What are you going to use to stall us? Slide that rifle across the snow and throw the knife away. You and your two dogs can get lost, and all these wolf pelts are ours."

The old man's voice drifted into Zhao Shanhe's ears on the cold wind, like a death warrant:

"Paying money is better than getting into trouble. This deal will save your life; you won't lose out."

The snow-covered land returned to its deathly stillness.

Seeing that his master had quelled the situation, Er Kui's previously pale face regained some of its arrogance. Holding his gun, he chimed in, "Did you hear that? If you know what's good for you, throw out your rifle right now! Otherwise, you bastard, you'll freeze to death tonight!"

Zhao Shanhe rested one hand on the cold rock and glanced down at the black dragon and the green dragon clinging to his legs.

The two dogs' paws were in the cold mud, their fur already soaked with blood and snow, but they remained silent, their muscles taut.

Instead of panicking, the madness that had been suppressed by the cold wind in his chest began to boil over completely.

"Old dog, you're quite the schemer."

"Throw the gun away?"

"If I were to lose this fire poker in my hand, wouldn't I become a piece of meat on a chopping board, at your mercy?"

The blood vessels in Zhao Shanhe's eyes bulged out one by one, and his tone revealed a frenzied madness, as if he were risking his life: "Fine, you want to train the eagle, huh?"

"Then let's just wait and see!"

"Didn't you just say you had a leather cloak and a hot knife, and that you'd take turns lighting a fire and keeping an eye on me?"

Zhao Shanhe rubbed the cold hammer with his thumb, and through the snow dozens of meters away, his words were like knives: "Once it gets completely dark, I'll be watching from behind this tree with my eyes wide open."

"As long as even the slightest spark dares to ignite in your forest..."

"The bullets left in this lever rifle of mine will definitely follow the flash and smash your skulls one by one!"

He gasped sharply, drawing in a chilling breath, and roared, "Let's see if I'll freeze to death first, or if you'll all get shot first!"

These words were thrown at him.

The woods opposite fell into a deathly silence.

Er Kui's arrogance, which had been hanging on his face, seemed to have been shattered by a slap.

He swallowed hard, his fingertips trembling uncontrollably.

He realized what was happening.

Zhao Shanhe is right.

Once it gets dark, whoever lights a fire becomes the brightest, most visible target in the darkness.

Their old-fashioned cannons took forever to load gunpowder before firing a single shot, and their range and accuracy were nowhere near those of the other side's rapid-fire rifles.

But if they don't light a fire to avoid bullets, the cold winds of late spring will blow, and even if the father and son are wrapped in dog-skin coats and lie in the snow all night, they will freeze to death!

This is not about training a hawk.

This is like locking both sides in an ice coffin, just to see whose life is more worthless!

Behind the crooked pine tree, the old man's hand, which was holding a pipe, suddenly froze.

A piece of burnt cigarette ash fell and burned the back of his withered hand, but he seemed not to feel the pain.

The composure of a cat playing with a mouse finally faded from those cloudy, squinting eyes, replaced by a deep sense of apprehension.

We've encountered a real ghost.

This young man is no pushover; he's a living Yama who's willing to risk his own life and drag others down to hell with him.