Rebirth in a Courtyard: I Am a Little Hunter

Especially in the low-ceilinged house of the Jia family in the middle courtyard.

Jia Zhangshi was lying on the kang (a heated brick bed), groaning and cursing the "ungrateful wretches" of Jiajia Village and Qinjia Village, cursing Director Wang's "heart of stone," and cursing Yi Zhonghai's "incompetence."

Qin Huairu, clutching a corn stalk, stirred the cornmeal porridge in the pot, so thick it reflected her image, with a distressed expression. Jia Dongxu squatted on the doorstep, smoking a cheap cigarette; the smoke swirled around his face, revealing a look of sorrow and despair.

Just then, a domineering, rich aroma of stewed chicken, with its unique oily fragrance, silently slipped through the cracks in the door and the holes in the window, and entered the Jia family's house, which was filled with resentment, despair, and hunger!

Jia Zhangshi's whimpering stopped abruptly! She sniffed sharply, like a hyena smelling blood, and her cloudy little eyes flashed with a terrifying light!

She struggled to sit up on the kang (a heated brick bed), her movements so nimble that she didn't seem like a patient with "backache and leg pain." "Meat... stewed chicken?! Whose?! Whose stewed chicken?!" Her voice became sharp and distorted with extreme shock and longing, carrying a kind of hysterical madness.

Qin Huairu's hand, which was stirring the porridge, stopped. She subconsciously sniffed the air, and the rich aroma of meat made her already hungry stomach clench painfully, and her throat involuntarily bobbed. Banggeng seemed to have smelled it too, and it squirmed restlessly in its mother's arms, making weak, longing whimpers.

Jia Dongxu stubbed out his cigarette and scratched his hair in frustration. "Who else could it be? It must be Wei Chen's family in the east courtyard! When he came back this afternoon, Old Yan was yelling in the front yard that he was carrying pheasants and rabbits! He must be stewing chicken!"

"Wei Chen?! It's that damned little beast again!" Jia Zhangshi's voice suddenly rose, filled with deep-seated resentment.

"What right does he have?! Huh?! What right does he have?! He went hunting and got meat for those peasant refugees who came from who-knows-where! And then he came back and cooked chicken for himself?! Where did he get so much meat?! He must have embezzled the relief station's supplies! He definitely has! That bitch Wang Guifen is in cahoots with him! He gave all the meat to them! He doesn't care about us, the legitimate residents, living or dying!"

"Mom! Stop talking, or someone will hear! You dare to curse Director Wang? Aren't you afraid of being arrested or me losing my job?" Jia Dongxu quickly reminded his mother when she heard that she had even cursed Director Wang.

As Jia Zhangshi spoke, she grew angrier and angrier, increasingly convinced that she had guessed the "truth." The jealousy and hatred in her chest burned fiercely like dry tinder doused with oil! She felt a little scared thinking about her son's warning!

She slapped the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed), spitting as she launched into a new, even more vicious curse, her voice so shrill it seemed to pierce the roof: "You damned Wei Chen! You heartless, rotten little beast! May you die a horrible death! You glutton! I'll choke you to death!"

"You heartless slut! You fed all the meat from the neighborhood committee to the dogs! And to that ingrate Wei family!" She dared not mention Director Wang's name again, and muttered under her breath.

"God! Open your eyes! Strike down these heartless, cruel bastards who wouldn't even help someone dying!" "They're stewing chicken! They're eating meat! We can't even get enough porridge to eat! Old Jia... come and take these depraved people away..."

Vicious curses poured out like sewage from the broken door of the Jia family's house, spreading through the oppressive air of the courtyard. The other households in the middle courtyard either silently closed their doors and windows, shook their heads and sighed, or wore complex expressions in their own homes—annoyance at Jia Zhangshi's tantrums, envy of the aroma of meat at Wei Chen's house, and helplessness at their own meager existence.

That tightly closed moon gate was like an invisible barrier; inside lay the warmth of abundance and family harmony, while outside lay the despair and resentment of starving people. The rich aroma of stewed chicken, in this courtyard during a year of famine, became the fuse that ignited the darkest flames in the hearts of some.

Yi Zhonghai stood on the bluestone steps of his own house in the courtyard. The rough porcelain teacup in his hand, with its chipped rim, had long since gone cold. The murky tea stems sank to the bottom of the cup, just like the heavy thoughts weighing on his mind at that moment.

The thin wooden door of the Jia family's house was no match for Jia Zhangshi's sharp and vicious curses, which were like a dull knife scraping the bottom of a pot. Each curse drilled into his ears, making his temples throb.

Foul language, like stagnant water churning in a sewer, splashed into the stifling air of the courtyard. Yi Zhonghai frowned deeply, his deeply lined face etched with profound weariness and a sense of powerless frustration. He sighed heavily, a sigh that seemed to carry the weight of rust.

My gaze involuntarily drifted to the tightly closed moon gate of the east courtyard. Through the crack in the gate, the tantalizing, heart-wrenching aroma of stewed chicken from midday seemed to linger. That fragrance, at this moment, was like an invisible thorn, deeply piercing the already tense and fragile nerve endings of the courtyard.

"Sigh..." Yi Zhonghai let out a hoarse sigh, his voice so low that only he could hear it. "Jia Zhangshi... she's really going crazy... when she throws a tantrum, she doesn't recognize her own family, she's disgraced her ancestors for eight generations..."

He paused, his gaze lingering on the moon gate for a moment, a complex mix of emotions in his eyes. "But... that kid Wei Chen..." His brows furrowed even deeper, as if assessing a tool difficult to control. "His skills... are truly remarkable. His ambition... is also boundless. But his temperament..."

He shook his head slightly, a barely perceptible shadow of gloom flashing across his eyes. "Too solitary, too hard, like a stinking, unyielding rock! Impervious to reason, unyielding to both soft and hard approaches..."

Retirement! This heavy thought weighed on his mind once again. Jia Dongxu was the most important piece on his chessboard—honest, outwardly filial, and most importantly, easy to control.

But this pawn just happened to be burdened by Jia Zhangshi, a troublemaker, and her bottomless family!

Sha Zhu? That rascal is a good cook, with plenty of oil and fat, but unfortunately he's a bit dim-witted and has an ambiguous relationship with Qin Huairu, which is also a destabilizing factor.

As for Wei Chen… Yi Zhonghai felt a bitter chill in his heart. This young man was like a sharp, brand-new sword, young and strong, skilled at hunting, able to obtain meat that outsiders wouldn't even dare to dream of. If he could be held in his hands, he would definitely be a strong guarantee for his retirement, or even… a powerful tool to control others!

But after several attempts, this kid's eyes were frighteningly clear when he looked at people, as if he could see through all hypocrisy; his words were impeccable, polite but distant; and he had a deep-seated disregard and scrutiny of the "rules" of the courtyard and his "authority" as an "old man".

Want to bring him under his wing, tame him, and make him willingly take care of him in his old age? Yi Zhonghai felt a deep sense of powerlessness grip him—difficult! Difficult as ascending to heaven! This kid was never one to be easily manipulated! He was like a wild wolf in the mountains, only recognizing his own territory and rules.

"Ding—! Ding—! Ding—!" The afternoon bell at the steel rolling mill rang sharply and piercingly, like a death knell, tearing through the resentful curses and oppressive atmosphere that filled the air above the mill.

Like a puppet whose soul had been ripped out, Jia Dongxu, hunched over, slowly shuffled out of the musty-smelling doorway of the Jia family home.

His face was ashen, his eyes sunken, and he was shrouded in despair. Qin Huairu silently followed him out and stuffed a tattered cloth bag containing two hard, dark brown cornbread buns into his hands.

Jia Dongxu didn't even glance at it, numbly stuffing it deep into the pocket of his oil-stained work clothes, the cuffs worn so thin the cotton wadding showing. His facial muscles twitched uncontrollably—it was the deep-seated heartache of having half a day's wages deducted! Household registration! Food! These two invisible mountains were slowly crushing his young spine and his last remaining hope.

"I'm leaving..." Jia Dongxu squeezed out two dry, hoarse syllables, like sandpaper rubbing against wood. Yi Zhonghai also came out at that moment. Their eyes met briefly in the cold air, and they instantly understood the same helplessness, heaviness, and a kind of gloom in each other's eyes, as if they had been completely defeated by life.

Yi Zhonghai nodded almost imperceptibly, his voice carrying a formulaic weariness: "Okay, let's go, Dongxu. Be quick, don't miss the deadline."

Two men, one shrewd and calculating yet feeling powerless, the other strong and robust yet bent over by reality, silently blended into the gray flow of people surging into the alley towards the factory, temporarily leaving behind the chaotic mess in the courtyard. Their backs exuded an overwhelming sense of twilight.

Inside the east courtyard, however, lay a completely different world. Sunlight filtered through the new green leaves of the jujube trees, casting dappled, shimmering patches of light on the clean, spotless earthen floor.

Wei Chen had just helped his mother, Wang Xiulan, put the dishes into the rough earthenware basin in the kitchen. Wang Xiulan lifted her apron to wipe her hands, looking at her son, who was a head taller than her, her eyes filled with unwavering love and a hint of barely perceptible worry: "You must be exhausted. Look at all that sweat. Go back inside and lie down for a while to rest."

Wei Chen grinned, revealing a set of neat white teeth. He was full of energy and showed no signs of fatigue from the long journey and fighting the wild boar: "Mom, I'm not tired at all. Deputy Section Chief Jin was considerate and gave me half a day off to catch my breath."

The image of the shimmering, never-ending river in the game world flashed through his mind, along with the gleaming "Fishing" icon in his skill bar.

Hunting wild boars? That's too noisy and too risky; it's impossible to succeed every time.

Fishing... seems to be a safer, more "reasonable," and easier-to-control source.

It can openly and legitimately add oil and oil to the family's food and improve their meals, and it can also legitimately "support" the factory canteen, silencing some people's envious mouths, and even... it can become a good card.

"I'm going out for a stroll," Wei Chen said to his mother in a relaxed tone, "to see if I can find some useful fishing gear. We need to add some fish to the house."

"Fishing?" Wang Xiulan was a little surprised, but then she remembered that her son had grown up by the mountain streams and was more skilled at catching fish and shrimp than at eating. She nodded and instructed, "Okay, go ahead. The city is not like our mountain valley. Shichahai is packed with people, like dumplings in a pot. The fish are very clever, so be careful and don't squeeze with the crowd."