Rebirth in a Courtyard: I Am a Little Hunter

"Brother Wei, you scared us to death!" Liu Guoqing rubbed his frozen ears.

"That's right, Team Leader Liu has been like a cat on a hot tin roof these past few days, smoking so much that he's almost set his office on fire!" Hu Songnian joked with a smile, trying to ease the tension.

"Comrade Wei Chen, it's good that you're safe!" Jin Dong nodded steadily.

"Brother Wei, did you... get the stuff?" Wu Xiaojun, the youngest, asked, his eyes filled with anticipation and a hint of trepidation.

Liu Yuan finally calmed down a bit from his excitement and looked at Wei Chen: "Brother, you said there's something, where is it? Is the quantity... enough?" His voice trembled slightly, and his eyes were filled with hope and immense pressure.

Wei Chen didn't speak, but tilted his head towards the back of the watchtower ruins, a meaningful smile on his face: "We got the stuff, but... there's a lot. Brother Liu, why don't you get everyone to come and lend a hand?"

"A lot?" Liu Yuan was taken aback for a moment, then called to everyone, "Come on! Let's go take a look! Brother Wei said the stuff is behind the watchtower!"

With a mixture of doubt and anticipation, the group walked around the broken half of the wall.

Then, time seemed to freeze at that moment.

The wind was still howling, stinging their faces. But everyone seemed frozen in place, their eyes wide open, their mouths agape, wide enough to fit an egg. Even their breathing had stopped.

What came into view were two mountains of flesh, made up of huge, ferocious wild boar carcasses, exuding a strong stench of blood!

One had twenty heads, and the other had eight! Like two fortresses built from death and savagery, they crashed into everyone's retinas with a primal and violent visual impact!

"Oh my god... good heavens..." Driver Wang Aiguo was the first to utter a sound, which seemed to be squeezed out from the depths of his throat, carrying a kind of horror and bewilderment as if he had seen a ghost. He subconsciously took a step back and almost tripped over the snow under his feet.

Liu Guoqing opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, making strange "hoarse" sounds in his throat, but he couldn't utter a single word. He just stared blankly at the mountain of flesh, his fingers trembling.

"This...this...this..." Hu Songnian's smile froze completely, turning into extreme shock. He rubbed his eyes hard, as if he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "Wild...wild boars? So many? My God! How many...how many are there?! Are they all...are they all from Wei Chen?!" He turned his head sharply to look at Wei Chen, his eyes filled with awe as if he were looking at a monster.

Jin Dong gasped, the icy air making him cough, but he ignored it, his eyes fixed on the mountain of prey. Even his usually composed voice trembled as he asked, "Comrade Wei... Comrade Wei Chen... these... these are all...?" He couldn't imagine how one person, or rather a group of people, could hunt so many ferocious beasts in the deep, icy mountains!

Wu Xiaojun was completely stunned. He felt his legs go weak. Looking at the wild boar carcass, which was bigger than a water buffalo, especially its huge tusks and congealed blood, a chill ran from the soles of his feet to the top of his head. His stomach churned and his face turned deathly pale.

Liu Yuan reacted the most violently. He was struck as if by lightning, his body trembled violently, his eyes instantly became bloodshot, and he stared intently at the two mountains of flesh, his eyeballs almost bulging out.

Immediately, a tremendous, indescribable ecstasy surged from the depths of his heart like a volcanic eruption! This ecstasy was so intense that it overwhelmed his anxiety, exhaustion, and fear of the past few days, making his blood boil!

"I... I'll fucking mad!" A rough roar, completely out of character for him, suddenly burst from Liu Yuan's throat. He took a step forward and rushed to the pile of "gunshot wound" wild boars. He stretched out his hand, which was trembling violently with excitement, and forcefully slapped the cold, stiff back of a wild boar covered with thick bristles and blood scabs, making a dull "bang bang" sound.

"Good! Good! Wei Chen! My good brother! My dear ancestor!" Liu Yuan turned around, grabbed Wei Chen's arm with terrifying strength, his bloodshot eyes flashing with an almost frenzied light, his voice hoarse but filled with unparalleled excitement and gratitude.

"Twenty-eight! A full twenty-eight! And every single one of them is a behemoth weighing over three hundred pounds! Wei Chen! You saved my life! You saved the lives of our Group Three! You saved the lives of tens of thousands of mouths at the steel mill!"

The immense pressure was suddenly relieved, followed by ecstasy and a feeling of exhaustion from escaping a desperate situation, leaving Liu Yuan, a usually composed man, somewhat incoherent.

He shook Wei Chen's arm violently, spitting as he spoke: "You...how did you do that?! This...this is fucking divine! Are there really that many wild boars in the mountains? Your hunter friend...is he a mountain god?!"

Wei Chen was somewhat exasperated by his shaking and could only explain, "Brother Liu, calm down. There are indeed quite a few wild boars in the deep mountains. My friends have been hunting for generations, they have connections and skills, and there's a large group of them. They've also stockpiled some. Plus, I was lucky enough to hunt a few myself."

He pointed to the eight wounded wild boars, "Look, I got these eight myself, and the other twenty were raised by my friends. They took a big risk, which is why I'm in a hurry for you to come and take them away. The longer it goes on, the more things might go wrong."

Liu Yuan followed Wei Chen's finger and looked over the eight wild boar carcasses with unusually clean and neat wounds. His pupils contracted again.

He didn't understand archery, but he could tell that the wound was terrible and precise, something no ordinary hunter could do! Considering Wei Chen's hidden "kung fu", his awe for this young colleague deepened even further.

"Understood! Understood!" Liu Yuan took a few deep breaths of the cold air, forcibly suppressing the turmoil in his heart, and regained his competence as a team leader, but the excitement in his voice was still hard to hide.

"Say no more! Brother Wei, I'll remember this favor for life! Brothers!" He whirled around and yelled at his team members, who were still in a state of collective stunned silence, "Stop standing there like idiots! Load the truck! Load it now! We have to get back to the factory before dark! Leaving so much meat in this desolate wilderness is just inviting wolves! Inviting thieves! Inviting disaster!"

"Yes, yes, yes! Load it! Load it quickly!" Wang Aiguo suddenly realized what was happening and rushed to the back of the truck, frantically trying to untie the ropes securing the tarpaulin.

The others finally recovered from their extreme shock, and the immense joy and the ensuing tension instantly overwhelmed their fear.

Looking at the mountain of meat in front of them, which was enough to make their entire purchasing team three a great success and even affect the meals of all the factory workers, everyone became excited as if they had been injected with chicken blood.

"Let's go for it!" Liu Guoqing rolled up his sleeves, revealing his lean arms, and was the first to rush towards a slightly smaller wild boar, trying to grab its hoof.

"My God, how... how do we get this up there?" Hu Songnian looked at the truck bed that was taller than him, then at the wild boars that looked like a small mountain on the ground, his fat face full of worry and bewilderment after the shock.

Jin Dong remained the calmest. He quickly surveyed the terrain and the truck's position: "Team Leader Liu, we need to back the truck up as close as possible! Then, we need to find something to stand on, or build a ramp! Trying to lift it by hand won't get us many trucks up!"

Wu Xiaojun ran to the eight wounded wild boars, staring at the clean, fatal wounds. He couldn't help but swallow hard, his eyes filled with admiration as he looked at Wei Chen: "Brother Wei... Brother Wei, you... you killed all of these with a single arrow? You're... you're amazing!"

Liu Yuan immediately adopted Jin Dong's suggestion: "Old Wang! Back up! Push the back of the car as close to the pile of meat as possible! Guoqing, Xiaojun! Go to the watchtower and see if there are any usable broken pieces of wood or bricks! Songnian, Jin Dong, come with me and move the smaller ones closest to the car a bit! Wei Chen, you... just keep an eye on things and give directions!" He subconsciously didn't let Wei Chen do the heavy work. At this moment, in his mind, Wei Chen was already a meritorious hero who had made tremendous contributions and an "inhuman" existence.

The difficulty of loading the truck far exceeded expectations. The tailgate of the Jiefang truck was as tall as a person, and lifting the hundreds of kilograms of stiff, cold wild boar carcass onto it was like ants moving a mountain. Even though Liu Yuan and his six companions (including the driver Wang Aiguo) were all young and strong, they were exhausted.

They first placed a few broken bricks and rotten wood that they had dug out from the ruins of the watchtower under the back of the truck, barely managing to build a low mound.

Then, in groups of two or three, shouting rough chants, they used all their strength to drag, pull, carry, and lift the heavy wild boars up the low slope. Each move was accompanied by heavy breathing, deep chants, and the sizzling sound of the boar carcass scraping against the snow.

"One! Two! Three! Up—!" "Hey! Give it your all! Almost there!" "I can't...I can't...I need a break...my back is killing me..." "Hold on! Old Hu! Give it a little more effort over there! To the left! A little to the left! Good! Push!"

Sweat quickly soaked through the lining of their cotton-padded jackets, then rapidly turned icy cold in the wind, sticking to their bodies and causing extreme discomfort.

The icy pigskin made my fingers numb, and the strong smell of blood and wild beasts assaulted my nostrils, making me dizzy. The wild boar's rough bristles and huge tusks were even more troublesome; if you weren't careful, you could easily tear your gloves and cotton clothes, or even scrape your skin.

Wei Chen didn't stand idly by. He was the strongest and most steady. He volunteered to lift the largest and most difficult-to-lift wild boars.

He walked up to a giant pig that weighed over 400 pounds, took a deep breath, his powerful internal energy surged, his arm muscles bulged, and with a low shout, he actually managed to hoist the behemoth onto his shoulder!

The heavy weight left deep footprints under his feet, but he walked steadily, quickly reaching the low slope. Using his back and waist strength, he pushed with both arms, steadily lifting the massive object onto the edge of the truck bed, where the people on top pulled it in. This feat left the onlookers speechless with astonishment and utter admiration.

"Brother Wei... your strength is terrifying!" Wu Xiaojun gasped for breath, wiping the mixture of sweat and snow water from his face. Lij exclaimed sincerely.

"Brother Wei, you are truly a genius!" Hu Songnian, exhausted, slumped on the snow and gave Wei Chen a thumbs up.