Rebirth in a Courtyard: I Am a Little Hunter

"Hey! Wei Chen! You're off work? Wow! Good heavens!" Uncle Yan Bu, the third uncle, arrived before Wei Chen himself, exclaiming exaggeratedly. He had already moved to the front of the bicycle, almost pressing his face against the basket, pointing at the game in the basket with his finger. "Look! This pheasant! How beautiful its feathers are! This rabbit! It's so fat it's dripping with oil! Where did you hunt it? This luck is unbelievable! That old forest behind the mountain?" He clicked his tongue in amazement, his mouth practically watering.

"Third Uncle." Wei Chen gripped the brakes, braced himself on one foot, and greeted him politely.

"Wei Chen," the third uncle rubbed his hands, his face beaming with a smile as bright as a blooming chrysanthemum, his expression a mixture of shrewd calculation and undisguised desire, "Look at you, with pheasants and rabbits, how much trouble is it to clean them yourself? And you end up with your hands smelling fishy! Why did you have your third aunt clean them for you?"

She's an expert at this! Peeling, skinning, gutting—she's incredibly efficient and clean! I'll make sure you're spotless; you can just put it in the pot to stew tonight! How about it?" He stared intently at Wei Chen, his meaning crystal clear—helping was just a pretense; his real intention was to get a share of the offal, scraps, or even a free meal of broth.

Wei Chen knew exactly what this "calculator" was thinking. He chuckled inwardly, but put on a perfectly timed apologetic expression: "Third Uncle, I appreciate your kindness. But there's really no need to trouble Third Aunt."

He pointed to the basket on the bike, "These are the ingredients for our gathering in the yard tonight. Sha Zhu will be back to cook in a bit. You know his skills; he's the best at preparing these kinds of wild game. Just leave it to him."

"A gathering?" The old man's eyes darted around, his smile widening, tinged with the excitement of finally getting his chance. "A young people's gathering is great! Lively! Energetic! Well... I don't have anything urgent to do tonight," he puffed out his sunken chest, "I still have half a bottle of Erguotou at home, genuine Red Star! I'll bring it and come over for a couple of drinks with you guys? To liven things up? And to keep you young people from drinking without knowing your limits!" He tried to force his way in, his reason sounding perfectly legitimate.

"Uncle, really, there's no need!" Wei Chen quickly declined, his tone gentle but firm. "We're just a bunch of young lads fooling around, getting together to brag and chat, saying all sorts of vulgar things. If someone as respected as you sits there, we'll definitely feel uncomfortable, not even daring to breathe loudly. How can we have fun then? Next time, next time there'll be a chance, I'll specially invite you for drinks and have a good chat with you." He completely shut down the conversation, leaving no room for negotiation.

The old man's smile froze instantly, like a chrysanthemum frozen in time, a fleeting hint of embarrassment and disappointment crossing his face. He chuckled dryly, trying to hide his awkwardness: "Oh...hehe...I see...Alright, alright! You young people have fun! Have a good time! Next time, next time for sure!"

He gave the tempting game in the basket one last, lingering look, as if trying to etch their images into his mind, before reluctantly turning back, glancing back every few steps, muttering to himself, "Silly Zhu's skills... cleaning game... good stuff..."

Wei Chen didn't delay any longer. He pushed the cart through the gate and, just as he entered the moon gate of the courtyard, he saw Xiao Shitou squatting in the shadows by the wall, holding a sharp-edged piece of broken tile in his hand. He was intently scraping something on the frozen ground, his little face red from the cold.

"Little Stone!" Wei Chen called out.

Little Stone looked up at the sound and saw Wei Chen. His dark eyes lit up instantly, like a nimble little raccoon. He jumped up in a flash, dropped the tile, and ran over. His eyes were immediately drawn to the wild game in the basket of the cart: "Brother Wei Chen!" His voice was clear and bright, with the unique excitement of a child.

"Little Stone, do me a favor." Wei Chen parked the car and carefully bent down to lift the two pheasants and a heavy rabbit out of the basket. The pheasants' bright feathers stood out against the gray winter yard.

"Take it back and have your grandma clean it. Remove the fur and take out the innards. Same old rule," he emphasized, "you don't need the chicken or rabbit giblets, consider it a tip for your trouble. Have your grandma make you a hot pot of offal soup. Once it's cleaned, bring the cleaned meat to my yard, okay?"

Upon hearing this, Little Stone's eyes widened, his mouth slightly agape, his gaze fixed intently on the succulent game. Especially when he heard "chicken giblets and rabbit offal are yours," he swallowed hard with a "gulp," nodding vigorously and puffing out his chest: "Okay! Great! Don't worry, Brother Wei Chen! I'll take it back right now and have Grandma clean it! I promise she'll keep it spotless, not a single hair left!"

He stretched out his two small hands and carefully took the prey, still carrying the scent of the mountains and forests, from Wei Chen's hands as if holding rare treasures, afraid of dropping them.

The little boy, so earnest and serious, seemed to have received an incredibly glorious yet arduous task. Clutching the heavy load of game, he took tiny, quick steps and dashed towards their low-roofed hut in the backyard, shouting as he ran, "Grandma! Grandma! Look! Wei Chen gave us some good stuff!"

In the backyard, in Grandma Li's perpetually dimly lit little house, a faint smell of mildew and herbs filled the air. She was hunched over, sitting on a low stool, mending the worn-out cotton trousers on Xiao Shitou's knees by the dim light filtering in from the doorway.

Hearing her grandson's excited, distorted shouts, she looked up, her cloudy, old eyes struggling to focus. When she saw Little Stone enter carrying two brightly colored pheasants and a plump gray rabbit, she was so startled that her hand trembled, and she almost pricked her finger with the needle. "Oh my little darling! Slow down, slow down! Where...where did these come from? You...you can't just take other people's things like that!" she cried out in alarm.

"It was given to me by Brother Wei Chen!" Little Stone carefully placed the items on the cold ground, his face flushed from exhaustion, but he was so excited that he danced around. "You helped me clean it up! Brother Wei Chen said that all the chicken and rabbit offal are ours! We'll make soup with it tonight!" He pointed to the game on the ground, his face full of pride, as if he had hunted it himself.

Grandma Li looked at the three incredibly plump wild animals on the ground, then at her grandson's face, red from the cold but brimming with excitement and anticipation. A surge of warmth welled up in her heart, followed by a heavy weight of gratitude and a deep sense of unease. "This child... how can this child be so kind... at noon he gave me so many fresh radishes and cabbages, piled up like a small mountain... and now... and he's giving me meat..."

She murmured to herself, her rough, tree-bark-like hands unconsciously rubbing against her faded apron, her eyes uncontrollably reddening, a thin layer of mist rising around her. Wei Chen's repeated acts of kindness were like a blazing charcoal fire in the dead of winter, warming her cold, lonely, almost forgotten corner time and again, soothing the bitter days of the grandmother and grandson struggling to survive.

This bond is too heavy.

"Grandma, Brother Weichen said they're having a party tonight and they need meat! He wants you to hurry up and get ready!" Little Stone urged anxiously when he saw his grandmother staring blankly, his eyes shining brightly as he stared at the fat rabbit, as if he could already smell the aroma of the meat.

"Okay, okay, Grandma will do it right away." Grandma Li suddenly came to her senses, blinked hard to wipe away the tears in her eyes, and stopped thinking about it.

She stood up shakily, dragged a large wooden basin with blackened edges from the corner of the wall, which had been used for who knows how many years, and walked to the small stove made of bricks. She scooped boiling water from the steaming iron pot and poured it into the basin.

Next, she took a gleaming old kitchen knife and a sharp little knife from the nails on the wall. She skillfully grabbed a pheasant by its wing and claws, and with a clean, swift motion, slit its neck with the knife; the blood gushed out with a "plop" and dripped into a broken bowl she had prepared beforehand. Then came the second pheasant, and finally the rabbit.

Boiling water was poured into the wooden basin used for plucking feathers, and white steam rose up. Grandma Li rolled up her sleeves, revealing her thin but strong arms, and while the water was still warm, she quickly ran her hands over the chickens and rabbits, and large patches of feathers fell off.

Little Stone squatted obediently beside him, carefully plucking the fine downy hairs and stubborn fuzz with his little hands, his face tense and focused.

"Stone," Grandma Li said earnestly to her grandson as she deftly scraped the remaining grease and tendons from the rabbit skin with a knife. Her voice sounded somewhat faint in the rising steam, "Your brother Wei Chen... is a great benefactor to our family, a kind-hearted person sent by a living bodhisattva. He gave us so many top-quality vegetables at noon, and such precious offal for dinner... We're poor, we have nothing to repay him with..."

Her hands moved without stopping, the blade scraping against the skin with a soft rustling sound. "You've grown up now. You must remember people's kindness, engrave it in your bones! Be a decent person, be grateful, and repay kindness... No matter how successful you become in the future, you must not lose this spirit..."

"Yes! Grandma, I remember!" Little Stone nodded vigorously, his childish voice carrying a solemnity beyond his years. "Brother Weichen is the best person in the world! When I grow up and earn money, I will buy lots and lots of meat buns for Brother Weichen! I will buy a whole roast chicken!" He looked up, his eyes pure and firm, filled with the simplest gratitude and promise of a child.

Looking at her grandson's sensible little face, Grandma Li finally managed a bittersweet smile on her wrinkled, dried-out face, like a dried orange peel. Her hands and feet became increasingly nimble; years of life's trials had made her incredibly skilled at these tasks.

Soon, two clean, white, and smooth pheasants, and a skinned rabbit revealing its pink, lean muscles, were neatly arranged in a large wooden basin, emitting a faint meaty smell.

She carefully sorted out the offal, such as chicken hearts, gizzards, livers, intestines, rabbit livers, and kidneys, and placed them in a small, chipped earthenware pot next to her. Although it wasn't much, it was an unimaginable delicacy for the grandmother and granddaughter who rarely ate meat.