Flip the table and divide the family property! Take his wife and daughter into the mountains and eat

The heavy wooden door of the Zhao family compound was slammed shut with a loud bang.

Erga slammed the heavy bolt into the mortise, locking the gate shut. The entire courtyard fell into a deathly silence.

Erga Zi paced back and forth in the yard like a trapped beast, his thick-soled cotton shoes crunching loudly on the frozen ground.

He suddenly stopped, pulled out the butcher knife from his waistband, and with bloodshot eyes, slammed it hard against the wood chopping block beside him.

"Buzz—"

The strained blade trembled violently, emitting a piercing buzzing sound.

"elder brother!"

Erga's eyes were bloodshot, and the veins on his neck bulged, as if he were about to devour someone: "Are we just going to swallow this? That bastard threw money in your face! Who does he think he is! We'll raise the price! We still have tens of thousands of yuan in cash in our account. We can just pay three and a half yuan and fight him to the death!"

Zhao Shanhe didn't even lift his eyelids.

He walked straight to the well, picked up a wooden bucket, and poured up half a bucket of well water with ice shards.

He bent down, cupped his hands in the icy water, and splashed it directly onto his face.

Cold water droplets dripped down his chiseled chin.

Erga rushed over and grabbed Zhao Shanhe's arm tightly, his voice trembling: "Brother, say something! All those people in the village have run away! Even the brothers who usually work with us have gone to collect that Wenzhou guy's money! If this continues, our business will be completely ruined!"

Zhao Shanhe forcefully shook off Erga Zi's hand, grabbed a towel from the clothesline, and slowly wiped the water off his face.

He turned his head to look at the other side of the yard.

Dazhuang, shirtless, silently chopped firewood in the freezing cold of minus twenty degrees Celsius.

He didn't look at Ergaizi or Zhao Shanhe, but simply raised the heavy axe in his hand high and brought it down heavily with a whoosh.

"Click."

A thick piece of pine wood was split in two, sending wood shards flying.

"Dazhuang," Zhao Shanhe called out.

Dazhuang slammed the axe down hard on the wooden stump and looked up.

He wiped the white sweat from his chest, his voice muffled but crisp: "I'll listen to Brother Shanhe. Whoever he tells me to chop, I'll get the axe."

Uncle Liu, who had been sitting on the threshold of the main room smoking a pipe, put down his pipe at this moment.

He lifted his droopy eyelids and looked at Zhao Shanhe with his cloudy eyes.

"Using knives to destroy mountains and rivers is ultimately a low-level tactic."

Old Master Liu tapped the sole of his shoe with his copper pipe, exhaling a thick cloud of smoke: "You were right not to let Ga Zi do anything today. But that southerner is bullying us now, what recourse do you have?"

Zhao Shanhe threw the towel into the basin of water, took out a Daqianmen cigarette from his pocket, lit it with a match, and took a deep drag.

The bluish-white smoke dissipated rapidly in the cold air.

"Price increase." Zhao Shanhe exhaled a smoke ring, threw the cigarette butt he had just taken a puff of on the ground, and stubbed it out forcefully with the sole of his shoe: "But not now."

Zhao Shanhe turned around and strode towards the east wing: "Gazi, open the east wing."

Erga Zi paused for a moment, then walked over, pulled the iron bar off the door latch, and forcefully pushed open the heavy wooden door.

A strong musty smell and the fishy stench of raw hides that had been stored for a long time immediately hit me.

Inside, there was a dark, heavy pile of inferior hides that had been collected in the past two days.

Some of the hides were hard and small, some were skinned in the summer with sparse fur, and some were defective products with cuts due to poor skinning techniques.

There were three or four thousand sheets, piled up like a small hill.

Zhao Shanhe walked to the corner of the wall, picked up a large, tall wooden basin used for washing clothes, and smashed it in the middle of the yard with a bang.

He picked up the bucket and poured out most of the well water. Then he turned and went into his house, where he brought out a gray cloth bag.

He untied the bag and poured all the white Glauber's salt powder into the cold water, then grabbed a thick wooden stick and stirred it vigorously.

A layer of murky white foam quickly rose to the surface of the water, emitting an extremely pungent, sour smell.

"Bring me a gray squirrel skin. The smallest and hardest kind." Zhao Shanhe threw down the wooden stick.

Erga rushed into the side room, rummaged through a pile of scraps, pulled out a piece of scrap leather no bigger than a palm, shriveled like a piece of cardboard, and handed it over.

Zhao Shanhe took the leather and, without even blinking, shoved it directly into the murky sodium sulfate water.

It soaked for a full five minutes.

He reached out and scooped the hide out; murky water dripped down the tangled fur.

Zhao Shanhe walked to the courtyard wall, picked up a homemade wooden frame, and put the soaked and softened leather on it.

"Nail, hammer." Zhao Shanhe stretched out his hand.

Erga quickly ran into the tool shed, grabbed a box of small nails and a claw hammer, and handed them over.

Zhao Shanhe picked up a nail, pressed it firmly against one corner of the leather, and pulled it outwards with all his might.

"when!"

With a heavy hammer blow, the nail firmly secured a corner of the leather to the wooden frame.

He grabbed the other end of the leather, the veins on the back of his hand bulging, and pulled it outwards again with brute force.

The leather panel, which had been stiff and lifeless, emitted a cracking sound that made one's molars ache.

"Clang!" Another blow from the hammer.

One pull, one tug, one nail.

Zhao Shanhe didn't stop moving, his iron hammer flying up and down.

A few minutes later.

The piece of skin, which was originally only the size of a palm, dry and hard, was stretched outward by a whole circle, becoming the size of a washbasin.

Because it had absorbed water and Glauber's salt solution, the originally wrinkled leather became flat and wide, and even the originally messy and sparse hair was stretched out.

Zhao Shanhe stopped, threw the hammer on the ground, and took a step back.

The leather on the shelf was glossy and smooth, and its size looked exactly the same as that of a top-grade slab.

Ergaizi's eyes widened, and he took a step forward in disbelief.

He reached out and touched the leather, then scratched the back of his head in shock: "Brother, how did this leather suddenly grow so big? It looks just like a top-grade piece!"

Uncle Liu stood up, put his hands behind his back, and slowly walked to the wooden frame.

He squinted at the taut leather and let out a cold snort.

"This is called a price surge."

Old Master Liu turned to look at Ergaizi, his tone revealing the cunning of a seasoned veteran: "In the past, those were the low-down tricks used by magicians under the overpass to fool laymen. They would soak the leather boards in Glauber's salt water to soften them and then stretch them out."

Old Master Liu stretched out his withered finger and poked the taut edge of the leather: "The fascia inside this leather is all broken. In three to five days, after the medicine dries completely, this leather will shrink drastically and become brittler than a biscuit. If you touch it with your finger, it will immediately crumble into a pile of crumbs. If anyone makes clothes out of it and wears them, their crotch will rip open the moment they squat down."

Zhao Shanhe walked to the basin, picked up a bar of soap, and slowly scrubbed the grease off his hands.

He moved slowly, but his eyes were as cold as the frozen soil in the yard.

"Gazi, you have to do the math when you're in business."

Zhao Shanhe rinsed his hands with clean water and shook off the water droplets:

"We used to have to hire a truck and brave the heavy snow to transport these inferior hides to the border crossing."

"The freight costs on the road are money, the bribes to the station are money, and the wages of the loaders and unloaders are also money."

He grabbed a towel to dry his hands, walked to the center of the courtyard, and turned to look in the direction of the village entrance.

"Now someone is coming to our doorstep to collect goods, carrying bundles of cash."

Zhao Shanhe draped the towel over the basin stand, his voice extremely calm, yet it carried a ruthless, merciless edge, as if he intended to devour his prey completely.

"That saves you the trouble."

Zhao Shanhe turned his head and looked at the people in the courtyard; his aura instantly became oppressive.

"Stop locking the gate. Dazhuang, stop chopping wood."

Da Zhuang threw down his axe and strode over.

"Don't do anything for the next two days." Zhao Shanhe pointed to the mountain of rotten hides in the east wing: "Take all three thousand-plus pieces of substandard and rotten hide, soak them in water, and then stretch them out on boards!"

Erga's breathing quickened, a glint of excited ruthlessness flashing in his eyes: "Brother, what happens after we're done?"

Zhao Shanhe walked to the wooden frame, bent his finger, and flicked the counterfeit leather piece hard.

boom.

The leather made a dull thud.

"Once it's done, take it out in batches."

Zhao Shanhe looked at Ergaizi with a dark and piercing gaze:

"Let our reliable brothers who work for us put on tattered cotton-padded coats and smear their faces with soot. They should split up and go to the village entrance to sell to that guy surnamed Huang."

"Didn't he give two pieces? Didn't he not check the goods? Didn't he take whatever quantity he had?"

Zhao Shanhe unzipped his military overcoat, tugged at the collar, and coldly uttered three words:

"Give it all to him."