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

Zhao Shanhe felt as if his soul had fallen into an abyss.

All around was an endless expanse of black, cold and icy, without a trace of human warmth.

He didn't know how much time had passed when a wisp of pungent, acrid pine smoke forcefully entered his nostrils, burning down his trachea and causing a violent spasm in his chest.

He instinctively wanted to cough, but a sharp pain, as if he had been cleaved in two, immediately shot through his ribs, causing him to break out in a cold sweat that soaked through his undershirt.

A jumble of noises began to drill into my brain.

The crackling of burning firewood, the rustling of leather shoes crushing ice shards, and the deliberately suppressed sounds of arguing.

Li Baotian's voice betrayed his unconcealed panic: "Uncle Sun, we really can't add any more firewood to the fire. This cliff is full of the smell of blood, and with all this smoke, we'll attract all the wolves and blind men in the forest."

Old Sun's hoarse voice rang out, accompanied by the dull thud of a slap on his leather hat: "What do you know? Make the fire burn brighter so the thick smoke can mask the stench of tiger blood."

"Although the Mountain King is dead, his tiger might remains. Those scruffy beasts outside are so frightened by the smell of smoke and tiger stench that their legs go weak and they dare not venture any deeper. If you put out the fire, you will truly be guiding the wild beasts."

Old Sun exhaled a puff of his pipe, his voice deep and menacing: "Hold onto the fifth and sixth stances firmly, keep a close eye on that dead tiger, and don't tremble."

That voice is so familiar.

Rough, tough, with the lingering smell of dry tobacco that one can never give up.

But when Zhao Shanhe heard the words "dead tiger," his turbid consciousness jolted.

The danger is not over yet.

The old hunter's survival instinct instantly overwhelmed the excruciating physical pain.

Before he could even open his eyes, his right hand was already frantically groping across the cold, rough gravel beach, guided by instinct.

His fingernails dug deep into the blood-stained frozen earth, scraping his skin raw without him noticing, until his palm touched the deer antler hunting knife stained with dried tiger blood.

"Hey! It's moving! Uncle Sun, look! The mountains and rivers are moving!"

Li Baotian let out a startled cry, his voice trembling, and hurried footsteps immediately approached the fire.

Zhao Shanhe gripped the knife handle tightly with his five fingers, his tense muscles instantly engorged with blood, forcefully prying open his eyelids covered in blood scabs.

The bright red flames shot straight into his eyes, making them sting.

His vision gradually cleared, and he could see the dark cracks in the rocks above him, as well as the two anxious faces covered in soot beside the fire.

Old Sun was pressing down hard on his shoulder, while Li Baotian knelt beside him with a gun in his hand, his eyes red as a rabbit's.

Zhao Shanhe's fingers, which were gripping the knife hilt, loosened slightly, and his spine, which had been taut like a fully drawn bow, gradually collapsed.

He turned his head with difficulty, as if coarse sand was grinding in his throat, and the words he uttered were dry and hoarse: "How...how did you find us?"

Looking at his miserable state, Old Sun's eyelids twitched violently twice, and he cursed irritably, "If we hadn't come, you'd be so hard now that even a wild dog couldn't bite you."

Li Baotian wiped away his tears, laughing and crying at the same time: "Shanhe, you're finally awake! Qinglong led us all the way here following the scent, and you killed that mountain king, you really killed it!"

Zhao Shanhe ignored Li Baotian's agitation.

He took a deep breath of the pine-scented smoke, enduring the tearing pain in his lungs, and stared intently at the dark shadow in the corner of the boulder, past the two men.

"Black Dragon...Is Black Dragon alright?"

Old Sun stuffed a pinch of tobacco into his pipe, took a couple of puffs, and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke: "Luckily, I've stitched up the gash in my stomach and applied medicine. Just like you, I'm still hanging on by a thread."

Upon hearing this, Zhao Shanhe finally felt the pent-up frustration that had been building up in his chest dissipate completely.

He collapsed back onto the gravel beach, exhausted, and stared at the dark night sky above the cliff, cut by the wind and snow. A smile that looked more like a grimace stretched across his face.

"If the King of Hell won't take you... that's good."

Old Sun's expression didn't soften at all when he heard this.

He stared at Zhao Shanhe for a long time, then suddenly raised his hand and slapped the gravel next to Zhao Shanhe.

"Stop spouting this nonsense."

Li Baotian was startled and quickly looked at him.

Old Sun ignored him, staring intently at Zhao Shanhe's pale face, his voice low and harsh.

"Do you know you almost died this time?"

Zhao Shanhe's eyelids twitched, but he didn't speak.

Old Sun grew increasingly furious, pointing at the blood and mud on his body and cursing, "Look at the grotesque state you've become! A hole in your leg, broken ribs, you've thrown half your life away on this cliff."

"You killed that mountain king."

"But you almost lost your life too!"

Zhao Shanhe's throat bobbed, his voice becoming terribly hoarse.

"no way."

"You can't fool me by offering less!"

Old Sun abruptly interrupted him.

"I don't care if it's for the Red Star Factory or for that broken machine. Zhao Shanhe, you remember this: you're not a bachelor."

"You're a married man with children!"

"Do you know what your wife has been like these past few days while you were gone?"

"Lin Xiu stood at the foot of the mountain, clutching your old cotton-padded coat, her face as white as paper. She wanted to follow you into the mountains to find you. If I hadn't stopped her, she would have crawled into this dark forest tonight."

Old Sun sneered and pointed to the dark cracks in the stone outside.

"What if she really comes in, slips and falls into a ditch, or gets spotted by wild animals in the woods?"

Zhao Shanhe's fingers tightened little by little as he gripped the deer antler hunting knife.

Old Sun didn't stop.

"And Niu Niu."

"How old is that child?"

"What does she know? All she knows is that Dad went out and he'll come back."

"If you really die on this cliff, what will Lin Xiu say when Niu Niu asks her mother where her father is?"

The fire crackled.

Zhao Shanhe's face was already pale, and now it looked even paler.

Old Sun stared at him, his voice hoarse.

"Zhao Shanhe, if you're so brave as to gamble with your life, I won't say a word to you."

"But you must remember, your life is no longer just your own."

"Your death isn't something that can be ended simply by closing your eyes."

"Those people behind you will all collapse as a result."

Li Baotian stood to the side, head down, his eyes reddening again.

Zhao Shanhe remained silent for a long time.

He waited until a small section of the pine firewood in the fire had burned down before he slowly exhaled.

"I've got it."

Old Sun looked at him with a cold face.

Zhao Shanhe's voice was hoarse as he said, word by word, "This time... I was too overconfident."

Old Sun's cheeks bulged out twice.

He originally wanted to point his finger and curse a few more times, but seeing Zhao Shanhe's miserable state, with barely breathing and his face covered in mud and blood, he swallowed the harsh words that were on the tip of his tongue.

He sighed deeply, squatted down, and used his rough fingers to press hard on the strip of cloth soaked in black blood around Zhao Shanhe's thigh.

"Good to know."

Old Sun's voice was deep and heavy.

"Even if the sky falls this time, you have to stay on the kang (heated brick bed) and rest properly. Go back and recuperate for a while. No matter what messy things happen at the factory, even if the factory manager comes to your door in person to ask you to get involved, you are not allowed to do anything about it."

He picked up the tobacco pouch that had been knocked off from the ground, tucked it into his belt, and stared intently at Zhao Shanhe with his cloudy old eyes.

"Did you hear that? Nothing is more precious than life. Stay home and take care of your wife and kids. Make sure you've recovered from this near-death experience before we talk about anything else."

Zhao Shanhe twitched the corner of his mouth, which aggravated the scabs on his face, causing him to gasp in pain.

He didn't try to force himself any longer, and just nodded very slightly.

Seeing that the atmosphere had eased, Li Baotian, who had been kneeling to the side, quickly slung the Type 56 pistol he was holding behind his back, rubbed his frozen hands, and stepped forward.

"Uncle Sun, what do we do now? Brother Shanhe is so badly injured, and Black Dragon is half-dead too. How are the two of us going to get them and the dog down the mountain?"

Old Sun stood up, looked up at the dark crack in the stone above him, and felt the cold wind blowing in, chilling him to the bone.

"It's still dark, and the mountain path is covered in black ice. If we try to carry them down the mountain, they'll definitely fall and die."

Old Sun looked around and his gaze fell on a slightly sheltered hollow at the foot of the stone wall.

"Don't rush off. Let the fire burn brightly, and you keep your gun ready at the mouth of the ravine. Once it's fully light and the sun has melted the frost on the road, we'll figure out how to make a simple sled and drag them down the mountain."