Chapter 34: If He Dares to Show Off, Blow Him Away

When Wang An arrived home, his mother-in-law and wife were rendering fat.

Judging by their smiling faces, they seemed to be in high spirits; with the fat from four pigs, there couldn't possibly be very little!

Lately, whenever Wang An fed the dogs, he would give them some animal fat, causing the already meager supply to run dry even sooner.

Liu Guilan had scolded him several times, but finding it useless, she eventually started snatching the food to feed the dogs herself.

Both last night and today, Wang An had directly cut pieces of meat from the sow's ovaries to feed the dogs.

This infuriated Liu Guilan, who broke into another tirade, but Wang An simply continued feeding them as he saw fit, ignoring her completely!

He needed the dogs for hunting; how could he afford to mistreat them? Besides, the family wasn't short on meat.

In the evening, the family sat down for dinner.

Wang An told his parents and his wife that he planned to learn hunting from his great-uncle, Feng Chengmin, today.

Wang Dazhu kept his head down while eating and said nothing; in this house, Liu Guilan was the one in charge!

After a moment's thought, Liu Guilan asked, "So, are you staying at your great-uncle's place tonight?"

Wang An replied, "I don't know the situation yet. I'll go by horse. If nothing comes up, I'll just come back tonight!"

Liu Guilan said, "Ever since you brought those two horses back, our corn supply hasn't been much. You might want to take some sorghum instead."

In this era, when visiting others, eating one or two meals was considered normal and no one cared.

However, if one stayed for a long time, they either had to provide grain coupons and money or bring their own food!

This was an unwritten rule; no family had an abundance of grain. In extreme cases, even biological father and son had to provide grain when eating a meal together!

In Northeast China, although people weren't starving to death, it wasn't because food was plentiful.

Rather, it was because of the various wild animals, wild vegetables, mountain delicacies, and mushrooms in the mountains.

Every year, except during the busy farming seasons, almost every household was preparing things to eat or to trade for money.

Those with the ability were the mountain hunters, who caught various wild animals to sell their furs and meat!

If they were lucky and found a black bear, they could sell the gall and the hide; a single black bear could easily provide enough food for a family for an entire year!

However, the number of people who lost their lives to black bears every year was also quite high!

Secondly, there were the "mountain callers"—those who used shouts to drive animals—but that profession was even more unpredictable.

Since the Qing Dynasty, the Greater and Lesser Khingan Mountains and the Changbai Mountain areas had always seen the presence of ginseng hunters. They would head into the mountains for ten days or even a month, and returning empty-handed was common!

But if they truly found a "big prize," it meant instant wealth!

Those who neither hunted nor called animals would engage in gathering; in spring and summer, they gathered wild vegetables and mushrooms.

In autumn, in addition to those, they had to gather pine nuts, hazelnuts, and various medicinal herbs; in short, they were always busy.

Without a second thought, Wang An replied, "No need. I still have grain coupons in my pocket; there's no use keeping them."

Wang Dazhu said, "Our family can't eat all that meat anyway. I'll go sell some tomorrow."

Wang An didn't care how the meat was handled, but he thought about the incident he encountered while trying to sell meat the other day!

However, the meat from one or two wild boars wouldn't fetch much money even if sold, so he likely wouldn't be targeted!

But the horses were a different matter. Although those four men likely didn't have accomplices, one could never be too sure.

Having been reborn, these rotten people and rotten incidents were making Wang An a bit neurotic!

After dinner, Wang An called his parents and his wife into the west room and closed the door.

Then, he recounted the incident involving those four people, including the conversation he overheard, though he modified some details!

This matter couldn't be hidden; if someone with ill intentions were watching, they wouldn't know how to respond without knowing the truth!

The three of them stared blankly at Wang An, momentarily stunned!

After killing people, he just went on to marry a wife normally, without any delay, continuing his life as usual! Was this really Wang An?

Wang Dazhu and his wife became long-faced with worry; this son was too much of a stranger, and far too ruthless! He was more skilled at killing people than killing pigs!

Only Mu Xueqing stared for a moment before her face lit up with excitement, appearing quite admiring of Wang An!

Seeing that no one was speaking, Mu Xueqing said, "Then just kill them! They were going to kill our whole family anyway; there's nothing wrong with killing them!"

Hearing this, Wang Dazhu and his wife glanced at their daughter-in-law, both thinking to themselves: *This daughter-in-law is no ordinary woman!!*

After exchanging a look, the two were no longer worried; after all, worrying was useless!

Besides, they were both in their forties and had experienced far too much. During the war years, Northeast China was a major combat zone, and everyone had been mobilized!

Wang Dazhu's spirit surged as he said, "I only know how to use a shotgun. You said you have two pistols, right? Teach me how to use them. I'll carry them tomorrow and see who dares to tail us!"

Liu Guilan trusted her man quite a bit; at least compared to her son, she trusted her husband more!

She followed up sharply, "Right! If they dare to act tough with us, we'll just shoot them!"

This time, it was Wang An who was stunned. This family had no cowards!! Why were they all so fierce!!

Wang An thought about it; in this day and age, worrying was futile anyway. If things were like that in the big cities, the countryside certainly wouldn't be much different.

He turned to the kangs, took out the Type 54, fully loaded the bullets, engaged the safety, and handed it to his father. He gave a detailed explanation of the precautions and demonstrated it twice!

After watching, Wang Dazhu tried it himself and let out a sigh of admiration: "This thing is truly advanced. It's much simpler than a shotgun and can even fire continuously. It's great!" Having said that, he began to fiddle with it, unable to put it down.

A man, no matter his age, loves guns!

Wang An thought about his mother saying they were low on corn.

He took out all the coarse grain coupons, all the salt coupons, all the match coupons, 50 jin of fine grain coupons, 5 jin of sugar coupons, 8 jin of biscuit coupons, and a bolt of cloth coupons, handing them all to his father.

He then said to his mother, "Ma, think about it. Buy everything these coupons can get, and see how much money I should give Dad."

Although Wang An had just told them about the four men, seeing so many coupons still left the whole family shocked; this was far too much!

One doesn't get rich without windfall! Hunting or calling animals couldn't compare to the speed of making money from the pockets of dead men!

Seeing a pile of coupons still in Wang An's hand, Liu Guilan was about to grab them, but seeing her daughter-in-law standing nearby, she pulled her hand back!

Wang An laughed at his mother's reaction and said, "I'm giving these coupons to you. Are you willing to spend the money? Ma, as long as you're willing, I'll give them all to you! Haha!"

Liu Guilan gave Wang An a sharp glare and muttered under her breath, "You little brat!"

After his parents went back to their room, Wang An counted out 200 yuan from his pocket and gave it to Mu Xueqing. He still had a pile of small change in his pocket, about several dozen yuan!

Now that he had married a wife, he couldn't let his pockets be cleaner than his face every day!

*Sigh! Gotta make money! Gotta hurry up and make money!*

That night, Mu Xueqing was a bit excited, though it was unclear exactly why!

Regardless, after stripping naked, she actually took the initiative to sit on Wang An's lap. Wang An, naturally, accepted with pleasure and enjoyed himself beautifully several times!

The next morning, after breakfast.

Wang Dazhu helped Wang An load the two pigs onto the mountain hunter's sled.

Wang An then helped his father place the pork intended for sale onto another sled.

The meat from the sow's ovaries was particularly tough, smelly, and had a fishy odor; it was slightly better than wild boar meat, but not by much.

Then, they threw the pheasants and cats hanging in the shed onto the sled, and Wang An called for Mu Xueqing.

After exiting the gate, the father and son drove their sleds in two opposite directions.