After being reborn, I have seven older sisters.

"Brother Chunren, hang in there, I'll come back and help you!"

Chunsheng shouted to his cousin, put the bamboo basket he was holding on the ground, and turned to run home.

"You're back so quickly? Where's the basket?"

Liu Yan'e was talking to Song Mantun in the front yard when she saw Chunsheng rushing back in a hurry, his basket gone. The two of them immediately became curious.

"Mom, we can't throw those poisoned rats in the garbage dump. If the village dogs eat them, they'll definitely get poisoned too. My fourth cousin is chasing those dogs away from the garbage dump right now!"

Upon hearing this, Liu Yan'e and her husband immediately frowned.

They all knew that those dogs were not a pack of stray dogs, but rather dogs kept by the villagers themselves.

They usually roam the streets and alleys, running around everywhere. When they get hungry, they will go to the garbage dump at the entrance of the village to look for food.

Whenever a stranger comes to the village, the dogs, though they won't bite, will bark wildly at the stranger, deterring the outsider from doing anything bad.

Over time, the villagers gave those stray dogs that wandered around all day a nickname: "Song Family Guards".

The name may sound somewhat playful, but it immediately reveals their status in the village:

Those weren't just ordinary stray dogs; they were warriors capable of protecting the village and its inhabitants.

Liu Yan'e immediately said, "Father, take your tools and go help Chunren. We can't let the dog eat the dead rat."

Soon, Chunsheng and his parents left the house with their farm tools and headed straight for the garbage dump.

At this moment, Song Chunren was sweating profusely as he waved the wooden stick in his hand, afraid that the pile of dead rats behind him would be snatched away by the dog.

Upon seeing Chunsheng arrive with his parents, Song Chunren immediately called out, "Second Uncle, Second Aunt, what brings you here too?"

"Come help you! How can you manage just the two of you, Chunsheng and me!"

As Song Mantun spoke, he shoveled the dead rats on the ground into the bamboo basket that Chunsheng had brought over.

"We need to get rid of these dead rats and bury them somewhere, otherwise they'll poison the village dogs sooner or later!"

Liu Yan'e immediately asked, "Chunren, do you know who threw these dead rats on the ground?"

"My dad and I!" Song Chunren said. "My dad threw some out first, and then he found a few more in the house. When I came back to throw them out, I saw these dogs looking at the dead rats. One of the dogs even stuck out its tongue and licked it several times."

"Did it eat it later?" Chunsheng asked quickly.

Song Chunren: "No, not at all. If I had come any later, it might have been different!"

The dogs, facing Song Chunren's attempt to drive them away, thought that if they held on and refused to leave, they might still have a chance to eat the rat meat.

But when Chunsheng and his family of three arrived with farm tools to help Song Chunren deal with them, the dogs were instantly overwhelmed.

Especially when a dog was hit by Song Chunren's stick and howled in pain, the pack of dogs immediately lost their patience and scattered.

Song Chunren wiped his sweat and said with a wry smile, "We finally chased them away. It's a good thing Chunsheng called you two elders over, otherwise I really don't know how long I would have had to keep going by myself!"

"Second Uncle, you just said these dead rats needed to be buried, so you dug a hole next to the garbage dump and buried them, is that alright?"

Song Mantun said thoughtfully, "It works, but it only solves the immediate problem. Once the villagers wake up, they'll all come and throw away their dead rats, and we won't be able to bury them here anymore!"

Song Chunren nodded. "That's how it is. Our two families alone have a whole basket full of dead rats. With so many households in the village, there must be at least several thousand!"

Song Mantun was immediately amused. "How could there be so many? The number you mentioned is more than the number of people in our village, but it probably won't be too few either. There must be at least three to five hundred."

"However, today is only the first day of the rat extermination campaign in the village, so it's normal that there are more dead rats. I estimate that there will be fewer and fewer as time goes on."

Song Chunren agreed with Song Mantun's point of view, so he immediately asked, "Second Uncle, what do you think we should do?"

Song Mantun thought for a moment and said, "Here's what we'll do. Your second aunt and I will stay here. You go to the village head's house, your Uncle Qinghe's house, and tell him what's going on here. Tell him to come over as soon as possible."

"Okay, I'll go now."

After Song Chunren left, Song Mantun said to his wife and son, "I'm enough. We don't need to all stay here. You two should go back. Chunsheng has to go to school soon!"

"What if those dogs come back? Can you handle it?"

Song Mantun looked at Liu Yan'e and laughed, "Don't worry, they were all chased away just now, how could they possibly come back!"

"What if! What if it comes back and bites you?"

Before Song Mantun could retort, Liu Yan'e immediately said to Chunsheng, "Your father and I will stay here and guard this place. You can go back by yourself!"

As soon as Chunsheng got home, he told his two older sisters about the garbage dump. Without thinking, Chunzao and Chunmiao each grabbed a hoe and went out to find their parents.

When Chunsheng went out, a large crowd had already gathered around the garbage, and almost everyone had a basket of dead rats at their feet.

Faintly, you could hear people arguing.

Chunsheng thought his parents were arguing with someone, so he quickly ran over.

When they got closer, they discovered that it was team leader Song Qinghe arguing with a group of villagers who were throwing rats.

He knew the reason without even thinking: the villagers wanted to save trouble by throwing the rats in the garbage dump, but Song Qinghe wouldn't allow it, which led to the conflict.

When he met his parents and asked, it turned out to be pretty much what they had guessed.

Just then, a tractor drove up from a distance.

Song Qinghe immediately shouted, "Alright! Everyone be quiet. In a bit, dump the dead rats from your baskets into the tractor, then go home. Remember to come to the brigade headquarters this afternoon to get today's rat poison!"

As soon as the tractor pulled up and stopped, everyone immediately raised their baskets and dumped them into the tractor's cargo basket.

A moment later, the tractor basket, which had been empty, was now completely filled with the corpses of rats.

At this moment, Hongqin had just walked out of the city gate and was instantly stunned by the scene before her.

"I thought only our house had so many dead rats, but it turns out every house has quite a few!"

Chunsheng couldn't help but laugh, "I heard that anyone whose house is near the city wall had at least a dozen rats die in their house last night."

Hongqin's eyes flickered, and she said with a wry smile, "My mom told me that 25 rats died in our house last night, half of which were just fully grown, and their heads... weren't even as big as my palm!"

As the tractor drove away, the bumps caused the dead rats on the truck to wriggle up and down as if they had come to life, making Hongqin shudder.

"Let's go, Chunsheng. If we keep watching like this, I probably won't be able to eat anything today!"