Rebirth in a Courtyard: I Am a Little Hunter

After speaking, Director Wang didn't look at them again. Holding the folder, he hurried across the street and quickly disappeared around the corner. He left Yi Zhonghai and Jia Dongxu standing like two wooden stakes in the cold wind outside the street office, their faces ashen, looking utterly dejected.

"Master...Master...what...what should we do?" Jia Dongxu's voice was filled with sobs and utter despair.

Yi Zhonghai sighed heavily, looking as if he had aged several years in an instant. He looked at his good-for-nothing apprentice, his heart filled with disappointment and a sense of powerlessness as if he had been dragged down with him: "What else can we do? You heard what Director Wang said, this road is blocked! Let's go back first... I'll... I'll think of another way..." His voice was dry and weak, and even he himself didn't believe he could come up with any "way".

The two returned to the courtyard dejectedly, their steps heavy as if filled with lead. As soon as they entered the central courtyard, a strange, faint aroma wafted through the cold air. That aroma… was the long-lost, rich fragrance of fat and meat! Though faint, mingled with the smell of coal smoke, it struck their hungry senses like a thunderclap!

Jia Dongxu subconsciously sniffed, his stomach rumbling loudly. Yi Zhonghai also smelled it, his brows furrowing slightly. These days, who still has meat stew in their household?

Just then, the broken door of the Jia family's house was pulled open with a "bang." Jia Zhangshi, like a hyena smelling blood, suddenly rushed out of the house. Where was the trace of her "ache in the back and legs" on her face?

A pair of small eyes widened, gleaming with the greedy light of a hungry wolf, and its nose twitched like a hunting dog, searching for the source of the tempting aroma of meat.

"Dongxu! Lao Yi! Can you smell it?! Meat! It smells like stewed meat! Whose house is this? Whose house is stewing meat?!" Her voice became sharp and shrill due to extreme desire, and spittle flew everywhere.

"This damned courtyard! It must be that damned little bastard from the east courtyard again! Or it must be that despicable Xu Damao, that wicked son of a bitch! He's deliberately stewing meat to tempt us! He wants us to starve to death! May they die a horrible death!" She cursed viciously as she wandered around the courtyard like a headless fly, trying to pinpoint the source of the meaty aroma.

Yi Zhonghai frowned in disgust, too lazy to pay her any attention. He tossed Jia Dongxu a message, "Go home first, I'll think about it some more," and went straight to his room, slamming the door shut. He needed some peace and quiet to figure out how to fill the bottomless pit that was the Jia family.

Jia Dongxu returned home dejectedly and told Jia Zhangshi and Qin Huairu everything Director Wang had said. The room immediately erupted in another round of wailing and cursing from Jia Zhangshi, along with Qin Huairu's suppressed sobs.

However, that faint aroma of meat, like a venomous snake, burrowed into Jia Zhangshi's heart, making her restless and anxious.

She stopped wailing, perked up her ears, and her eyes darted around in their swollen sockets. Suddenly, as if remembering something, she slapped her thigh!

"No! This smell... isn't coming from the backyard!" She lowered her voice, her eyes turning sinister and sharp, as if she had spotted her prey. "It's up ahead! It's at the alley entrance! Nanluoguxiang... is the direction of that... shelter!" She remembered vaguely hearing people talking a couple of days ago, saying that the shelter seemed to have gotten some meat and was about to have its first meal!

A bold and malicious thought, like a poisonous weed, festered wildly in her greedy heart: A relief station? Isn't that under the jurisdiction of the neighborhood committee? That bitch Wang Guifen! She kept saying there was no food, no quotas, and she was blocking our household registration! But then she turned around and sent meat to the relief station? To feed those peasant refugees who came from who-knows-where?!

Why?! We are the legitimate residents of this courtyard house! My son is a working-class man! We are starving, while those disaster victims get to eat meat?! What kind of logic is this?!

It must be Wang Guifen's doing! She definitely has connections! She definitely has something to offer! She just won't give it to us!

Once the thought took hold, it fermented wildly in Jia Zhangshi's mind. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she became, and the more angry and resentful she felt! That faint aroma of meat, at that moment, seemed to transform into Wang Guifen's mocking smile in her nose!

No! We can't let this go! We have to keep an eye on things! That bitch Wang Guifen will definitely go back to the shelter! She needs to find out where this meat came from! Maybe…maybe there'll be a chance…

In Jia Zhangshi's cloudy little eyes, a cold light gleamed, a mixture of resentment and greed. Like an old cat lurking in the shadows, she quietly slipped behind her window facing the street, lifted a crack in the corner covered with tattered newspaper, and stared intently at the direction of the alley entrance, waiting for the figure in the blue Lenin suit to appear.

Unbeknownst to her, the secret she was waiting to uncover was closely connected to the young man who had just saved countless lives while pushing the mountain of flesh chariot.

As Wei Chen pushed his bicycle and turned into the bright, weathered gate of the courtyard house of the Hongxing Steel Rolling Mill at No. 95 Nanluoguxiang, the sun was already beginning to set.

The hustle and bustle of the rescue station, along with the heavy atmosphere of life and death, seemed to have been temporarily left at the other end of the alley. He took a deep breath, and the familiar smells of coal smoke, dust, and the faint aroma of food wafting from each household brought him a strange sense of relief—at least, there weren't so many pairs of eyes on the verge of despair, their longing turning green.

He parked the car, not empty-handed. With a slight thought, two brightly colored male pheasants with long tail feathers and a plump grayish-brown rabbit appeared in his hands from his spatial backpack.

He deliberately chose prey of moderate size and "reasonable" origin. Wild boar meat? That was the rescue station's life-saving food; it was too conspicuous and absolutely could not appear in the courtyard.

The two chickens and one rabbit can be explained as "snatched while hunting wild boars for the rescue station," which shows skill without being too ostentatious.

However, even just these two chickens and one rabbit were enough to cause a sensation in those famine years.

Wei Chen had just stepped into the front yard carrying his prey tied with straw rope when he bumped into his third uncle, Yan Bugui, who was pacing back and forth in front of his house, hands behind his back, seemingly deep in thought. Yan Bugui's small eyes behind his signature old glasses, like they were equipped with a precision radar, instantly locked onto what Wei Chen was holding!

"Hey! Wei Chen! You're back!" Yan Bugui's face instantly lit up with an even more enthusiastic smile than usual, and he rushed forward in a flash, his movements so swift that they were nothing like the slow, calculating old scholar he usually was.

He leaned very close, his eyes seemingly glued to the pheasant's colorful feathers and the rabbit's plump hind legs, his gaze filled with undisguised envy and a hint of barely perceptible greed.

"Tsk tsk tsk! Amazing! Wei Chen is truly amazing!" Yan Bugui clicked his tongue, his voice filled with exaggerated praise. "Look! Look at this pheasant! How beautiful its feathers are! And this rabbit! How plump it is! These days, to be able to get such good game, that takes real skill! Real skill!" As he spoke, he subconsciously reached out, as if wanting to touch the glossy pheasant's feathers.

Wei Chen subtly concealed the hand carrying the prey behind his back, a perfectly measured smile on his face, and replied, "Uncle, you flatter me. I was just lucky; I was in the mountains looking for meat for the rescue station and stumbled upon it on the way. It's nothing special."

"Oh my! What's this if it's not worth much?" Yan Bugui's voice suddenly rose, as if afraid others wouldn't hear him. "This is meat! Genuine wild game! Plenty of fat! Right now, there's only one pheasant in the pigeon market, it'd cost at least..."

He held up a few fingers to indicate the name, his eyes still fixed on the prey. "Wei Chen, from what you're saying, you've brought meat to the rescue station again? You've really done a great service to the neighborhood this time, and you've also... hehe, reaped quite a harvest!" His words were loaded with meaning, and his "hehe" laughter carried a hint of inquiry and a subtle sourness.

"Director Wang is urgently needing wild boar meat, so I just picked up a few things on the side. It's nothing." Wei Chen emphasized "on the side" and "nothing" again, his tone calm but carrying a sense of distance that didn't invite further scrutiny.

"Uncle, you're busy, I'll go back to my room first. My mother must be worried." He didn't want to get entangled with Yan Bugui any longer. That old man was shrewd and calculating. If they continued chatting, he might ask to "borrow" or "exchange" some things.

"Hey! Wei Chen! Don't rush! Let's talk some more! You're hunting..." Yan Bugui wanted to pull Wei Chen closer, ask him about the situation in the mountains, or "share" some experience.

Wei Chen, however, had already sidestepped Yan Bugui's outstretched hand, and carrying his prey, walked steadily across the front yard.

He could clearly feel the burning gazes cast upon him from the cracks in doors and behind windows as he moved. Envy, jealousy, inquiry, and even a hint of hidden resentment... these gazes were like invisible needles pricking his back. He didn't look to the side, heading straight for the familiar moon gate in the east courtyard.

Pushing open the half-closed moon gate, the east courtyard reveals a completely different scene, like a secluded little oasis. The courtyard is much more spacious than both the front and back yards, and the ground is swept clean.

In the north courtyard, the jujube and peach trees that Wei Chen transplanted before the New Year have already borne fruit. Nourished by Wei Chen's daily planting techniques, they bore fruit in the first year after transplanting, and in a little over half a peach, they will be ready to eat! The jujube trees have also produced quite a few green jujubes, yet they are still lush and green! In the autumn, they will be able to harvest sweet jujubes again.

Along the wall next to the east wing, the grapevines that Wei Chen transplanted have climbed all over the newly built trellis, adding a patch of green shade to the courtyard. Bunches of grapes hang heavily on the trellis, making everyone in the compound envious! It's estimated that the harvest will be ready in another month!

In the center of the courtyard, under the shade of the trees, came a burst of clear laughter and the sounds of childish arguing. "My turn! My turn! Xiao Ran, you cheated!" "I didn't cheat! You just didn't throw the ball properly!" "Little Grass, look! Brother Stone cheated!"

There, three children, namely Wei Ran (younger sister), Xiao Shitou (from Grandma Li's house in the backyard), and Niu Xiaocao (from the house in the middle yard), were playing a game of jacks around a flat bluestone slab on the east side of the yard.

A few smooth pebbles flew and tossed between their nimble fingers, accompanied by focused expressions and occasional bursts of laughter or small squabbles. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the jujube tree branches, casting dappled patterns that danced on their energetic figures.