Rebirth in a Courtyard: I Am a Little Hunter

Yi Zhonghai and Liu Haizhong's faces darkened completely. They hadn't expected Wei Chen to be so unyielding, and they certainly hadn't expected their "ally," Yan Bugui, to betray them at such a crucial moment.

Yi Zhonghai, still unwilling to give up, tried to intimidate Wei Chen with the grand rhetoric of "neighborly mutual assistance": "Wei Chen, you can't say that. It's a matter of kindness to help a neighbor in need. Look at the Jia family..."

"Grandpa!" Wei Chen interrupted him directly, his tone calm but with an undeniable determination, "I understand the sentiment you're talking about. Everyone has their difficulties. I, Wei Chen, am not heartless. But helping out must be within my capabilities and not violate any principles. For example, if someone is short of labor, I'm young and strong, and I can lend a hand to move things; if someone urgently needs some firewood or coal briquettes, and I have some extra, sharing some is no problem. This is normal mutual assistance between neighbors."

He then shifted his focus, getting straight to the heart of the matter: "But using work connections to privately purchase and resell meat that is strictly controlled by the state? I can't help with that, and I dare not help! This goes beyond the scope of 'neighborly assistance,' it's a matter of principle! I can't risk myself and my whole family for the sake of so-called 'friendship'!"

He paused, noticing the increasingly grim expressions on Yi Zhonghai and Liu Haizhong's faces, and finally added, "If you three gentlemen truly want to help the impoverished households in the courtyard solve their meat problem, I think instead of asking me, a lowly purchasing agent taking on this risk, why not have us, as the head of our courtyard, write a report to the street office or district government and apply for a special supply? That's the right way. What do you two think?"

This effectively passed the buck back to the old man. Asking the three old men to apply for special supplies? Where would they get the power or the guts? Even if they did, they'd find it too troublesome; it's much easier to simply exploit Wei Chen.

Yi Zhonghai was rendered speechless by Wei Chen's reasoned and uncompromising words, his face turning pale and then red. His usual moralistic approach seemed utterly powerless in the face of Wei Chen's clearly drawn red line of "speculation and profiteering."

He opened his mouth, but in the end, he couldn't utter a single word. He just let out a heavy "humph" from his nose, stood up abruptly, and stormed off! His back view was filled with barely suppressed anger.

Liu Haizhong was furious. He had hoped to use this incident to show off his authority and ability to his neighbors, but instead, he was not only reprimanded by Director Wang, but also slapped on the shoulder by the young Wei Chen with the label of "speculation and profiteering," and even Yan Bugui stopped supporting him.

He felt his authority had been seriously challenged! He pointed at Wei Chen, his fingers trembling, and after a long pause, he finally managed to utter a bureaucratic but utterly ineffective platitude:

"Wei Chen! You...you...you have no sense of collectivism! You're so selfish! You...you'll be in for a hospital-wide meeting soon!" With that, he turned around angrily, his belly protruding, and walked out with heavy steps.

Yan Bugui watched the two men walk away, then glanced at Wei Chen, who remained calm, and secretly rejoiced that he hadn't said anything. He stood up, chuckled dryly, and said, "Hehe, Wei Chen, don't take it to heart. Old Yi and Old Liu... they were just worried about the people in the compound. But you're right, the policy red line can't be crossed. Well... I'll head back now." As he spoke, he quickly slipped out the door, afraid of being dragged into anything else.

The three old men arrived in a menacing manner, but left with their own agendas, slinking away into the cold night.

Wei Chen walked to the door, watched their figures disappear behind the hanging flower gate, and expressionlessly closed the moon gate and bolted it.

Silence returned to the room, with only the fire in the fireplace burning quietly in the fireplace wall, emitting a soft, warm crackling sound. The smell of gunpowder from the recent confrontation seemed to linger in the air.

Wei Chen walked to the table, sat down, poured himself a cup of hot water, and slowly drank it. The cold porcelain cup gradually warmed in his palm.

He watched calmly as the flickering firelight reflected on the wall.

"A self-proclaimed moral paragon? A power-hungry old man?" A faint, cold smile curled at the corner of his lips. "Trying to manipulate me? Trying to use 'favor' and 'collective' to blackmail me? Ha..."

In his game inventory, 999 wild boars were stacked, radiating an invisible allure. New ones would refresh daily if he wanted them. But Wei Chen knew very well that some doors must never be opened. Once opened, what would surge forth would not be gratitude, but endless trouble, jealousy, and potentially fatal prying eyes.

The waters of the courtyard were deeper and more murky than he had imagined.

"Hold a college-wide meeting?" Wei Chen recalled Liu Haizhong's harsh words before he left. There was no fear in his eyes, but rather a sharp glint. "Then let's hold it."

He wanted to see what other tricks these three old men could pull.

On the twenty-first day of the twelfth lunar month, as dawn broke through the night, a layer of bluish-gray chill still lingered in the alley. Wei Chen pushed open the heavy wooden door of the courtyard house, and a gust of biting cold wind rushed in. He instinctively shrank his neck and pulled his cotton-padded coat collar tighter. His breath instantly dissipated into the frigid air.

Wei Chen pushed the gleaming old-fashioned bicycle out of the courtyard gate, the bulging cloth bag hanging on the handlebars swaying gently with the movement. The wheels rolled over the thin layer of frost on the ground, making a soft but clear "shush-shush" sound, and he drove steadily towards Baoyuquan Village outside the city.

The dirt roads in the countryside were frozen solid, with hard ice shards accumulating in the potholes. Every bump in the bicycle was clearly transmitted to Wei Chen's hands gripping the handlebars and his hips as he sat on it.

The biting wind seeped in through every crack, sneaking in through the gaps in his cotton-padded coat and stealing the last bit of warmth from his skin. Wei Chen kept his head down, leaning slightly forward, fighting against the wind resistance, and pedaled hard with both feet. The bicycle chain made a rhythmic "click" sound, mingling with the howling wind.

Wei Chen knew in his heart that the hardest part of bringing his mother to the city this time was not the journey, but his mother's heart, which was tied to the old house. That small courtyard, which she and her father Wei Mancang had built with their own hands, carried too many years and longings that could not be moved away.

My younger sister, Wei Ran, is easy to deal with. She's a young girl who longs for the tall buildings and bustling city life, and her heart has already flown there.

As the sun rose higher, it dispelled some of the chill and gilded the barren fields with a pale gold. The familiar outline of Baoyuquan Village finally appeared on the horizon.

The low, mud-brick houses, covered in thick snow, looked like sturdy white mushrooms. A few wisps of pale blue smoke rose straight up into the distant blue sky. At the village entrance, the old locust tree, its gnarled branches twisted and turned, stubbornly pointed its bare branches towards the sky, like a silent guardian.

Seeing all this familiarity, Wei Chen felt a surge of warmth in his heart, as if he had been injected with new strength. He pedaled faster, and the "clicking" of the chain became more rapid.

"Creak—" Pushing open the familiar, worn-smooth wooden gate of his courtyard, Wei Chen called out, "Mom! Ranran! I'm home!"

"Brother!" A cheerful response came as she rushed out of the house.

Wei Ran, the younger sister, was like a playful little deer. Only two buttons of her cotton-padded jacket were haphazardly fastened, her face flushed red from the cold, but her eyes shone brightly. She darted to Wei Chen in a few steps, grabbed his arm, and shook it excitedly. "Brother! You really came to pick us up? Are there buildings everywhere in the city? Are there lots and lots of cars? Can we eat big white steamed buns every day?"

Wei Chen smiled and gently rubbed his sister's dry, yellow hair with his cool fingers. "Yes, I've come to pick you up. The city is bustling with activity. Our new home is all set up, and it's so warm inside." He looked up and saw his mother, Wang Xiulan, lifting the thick, patched cotton curtain and walking out of the house, standing at the doorway.

Wang Xiulan was wearing an old indigo cotton-padded jacket and trousers that had been washed until they were faded and had some worn edges. She also had an old apron tied around her waist, and her hands were still covered with some corn flour that she hadn't had time to wipe off.

As she watched her son push the stroller into the yard, a genuine smile of relief bloomed on her face, smoothing out the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. But beneath that smile, her weathered eyes churned with more complex emotions—pride at seeing her son succeed, bewilderment at the prospect of leaving her homeland, and above all, an intense, heavy longing.

She didn't speak immediately, but quickly walked down the steps to Wei Chen's side, reached out and carefully patted the dust off his cotton-padded coat, her movements as gentle as if she were polishing a precious treasure.

"Mom," Wei Chen said calmly, looking at the few new gray hairs at his mother's temples, "how's the packing going? The truck arranged by the factory should arrive at the village entrance around three o'clock this afternoon. I've told them to drive right to our doorstep to load the truck."

"Yes, yes, I'm tidying up now," Wang Xiulan replied, but her gaze involuntarily drifted to every corner of the yard—the neatly stacked firewood in the corner, the strings of bright red dried chilies and golden corncobs hanging under the eaves, and the stone water vat in the center of the yard that had been used for most of its life and whose inner walls were covered with a thick layer of limescale.

Her gaze lingered for a long time on the peeling paint on the wooden door of the main house, as if she could still see her husband, Wei Mancang, leaning against the door frame, giving her a kind smile through the door.

She sighed softly, her voice slightly hoarse: "You...you're leaving already? There's still so much stuff at home..."