Chapter 2: All that talk is nonsense; find a way to make some money!

The father and son chatted for a while longer, and soon the sound of Mother pushing open the wooden picket gate reached them from the courtyard.

Hearing the commotion, Yue Feng got up and left the room. He quickly saw his mother, looking delighted and carrying several oil-paper parcels, followed by his older brother and sister-in-law.

"Mom! Brother, Sister-in-law!" Yue Feng stood at the doorway of the north room and called out in a deep voice.

"Xiao Feng, you're awake! Hurry back inside and lie down!" Seeing that Yue Feng was awake, his mother, Meng Yulan, immediately hurried over, looking him up and down and even reaching out to touch his forehead.

Feeling the slightly rough touch of his mother’s fingers against his cheek, Yue Feng’s heart sank once more.

"Brother-in-law, how are you feeling now? If you don't feel right, your brother and I will find time to take you to the town clinic for a check-up! Oh, by the way, I bought you some of that rice cake you like!" Sister-in-law Chen Hong also walked up to Yue Feng, feigning concern as she asked.

"Thanks, Sister-in-law and Brother. I’m fine now; I just need to rest at home for a few days! You must be tired after such a long journey, come inside!" Yue Feng didn't expose his sister-in-law's 'good intentions' and led them into the north room.

The house only had three adobe rooms. The middle room was the kitchen, and the rooms on either side had half-length heated brick beds (kangs). Yue Feng led his brother and sister-in-law into the room where his father was recovering. Another round of small talk ensued.

Why call it small talk? Because it was truly devoid of any substance. His older brother, Yue Shan, was never one for words, so once they were inside, it was mostly his glib sister-in-law putting on a performance.

The two of them were both salaried employees and didn't have children; their combined monthly wages alone were fifty or sixty yuan. Yet, after traveling such a long way home, they only brought two bags of rice cakes that cost twenty-five cents a jin. And this was with the full knowledge that their father had a broken bone and their brother had been beaten into a coma and was recovering at home.

From the moment his brother and sister-in-law entered the room, Yue Feng remained extremely quiet.

In his previous life, ever since his brother and sister-in-law moved to the city and started living on state-supplied grain, their contact with the family was limited to holidays; they were almost never seen on ordinary days.

The reason Yue Feng had such a poor impression of his sister-in-law stemmed from when he got married in his past life.

According to the local customs at the time, a bride price for an average family ranged from 60 to 200 yuan. Since the family had just rebuilt the house, there wasn't much money left, and the funds for his wedding had to be borrowed by Yue Feng himself.

Seeing this, some might ask: weren't his brother and sister-in-law salaried employees? With his father deceased and his mother in poor health, the eldest brother should have acted like a father figure. By all logic, Yue Shan should have helped his younger brother, especially since marriage is a major life event.

But the reality was that Yue Shan only brought back 12 yuan. When Yue Feng asked about it, his brother stammered an explanation: his sister-in-law’s younger brother had just borrowed money to buy a bicycle and a sewing machine, so there was no money left at home!

From that moment on, Yue Feng saw through the true nature of his brother and sister-in-law. While they were brothers by blood, his brother was a brother, but his sister-in-law was certainly not a sister.

Later in life, when problems arose—including his mother’s passing and a series of family misfortunes—his brother and sister-in-law’s attitudes remained consistently subtle. Whenever money was involved, his sister-in-law’s behavior never failed to 'disappoint' him.

The family ate lunch together, and by three in the afternoon, his brother and sister-in-law left, not even staying the night.

Full and satisfied, Yue Feng lay on the kang, staring at the newspaper-covered ceiling, his mind racing with thoughts.

Relying on the production team’s meager work points to get rich was impossible. If he wanted to get ahead, he had to make changes.

Empty talk was useless; he needed to find a way to make money!!

In the social context of that time, ordinary farmers had very few channels to earn money.

In the entire Xing'an Village Brigade, there were six production teams, and the collective focused primarily on farming. A strong laborer, working from the beginning of the year to the end—even with perfect attendance of 360 work points—would only earn a few cents per point. By the end of the year, the dividend would be ten or eight yuan at most.

If the year was bad and the harvest poor, they might even end up owing the brigade money or grain.

Of course, one could live off the mountains. Being close to the Changbai Mountains, there were other ways to make money besides farming.

For example, the Xinghua Brigade at the foot of the mountain organized villagers to go into the mountains to pick ginseng, mushrooms, wood ear, and other mountain goods.

Then there was Kaoshan Tun, located at the foot of the mountain where they lived among the Manchu people. Some organized hunters to take hunting dogs into the mountains to hunt wild boars, black bears, and other game, bringing them down to improve their diet or sell to the supply and marketing cooperative for profit.

In that era, there were no wildlife protection laws and no bans on firearms. The mountain’s wildlife resources were incredibly abundant. Every autumn, wild boars or black bears would even come down to the farmland at the foot of the mountain to fatten up, requiring the villagers to organize guard teams. Seeing lynxes, wild boars, or eagles near one's doorstep was almost a common occurrence.

The Yue family had a tradition of hunting dating back to his great-grandfather. By the time it reached Yue Feng’s father, Yue Lei, the family’s hunting skills hadn't been lost. During the agricultural off-season, Yue Lei would set traps in the mountains to catch roe deer, wild rabbits, and other game, which helped supplement the family’s meat supply.

Yue Feng had been passionate about hunting in the mountains since he was a child. In his previous life, he not only knew how to train eagles but also raised several hunting dogs, earning him the name "Yue the Gunner" among the surrounding villages.

Yue Feng’s hunting skills were excellent in his past life, but his business acumen was nearly zero. He was also a man who cared too much about his reputation. Regardless of how close or distant their relationship was, whenever villagers heard that Yue Feng had dragged a mountain animal home, they would shamelessly come over to offer a hand with whatever they could. When they left, Yue Feng would give them a piece of meat weighing anywhere from one to five jin, depending on their relationship.

Because of the annual autumn hunts, the family lived passably, but he never saved much real money. After a few years of marriage, when he discovered they couldn't have children, Yue Feng’s temperament changed subtly, and he picked up the bad habits of alcoholism and gambling, making his life even worse.

Now, since heaven had given Yue Feng a chance to be reborn, he would certainly not walk the same path again in this life.

Clearing his thoughts, Yue Feng climbed off the kang, put on his jacket, and went outside.

"Mom! Where did you put the shuttle for weaving nets and the old gear for training eagles that were passed down in our family?" Yue Feng asked his mother in the courtyard.

"The shuttle? It’s in that broken box in the southwest corner of the shed. Why are you looking for that stuff?"

"I have a use for it!"

After getting his answer, Yue Feng slipped into the shed and began rummaging through everything.

Soon, the wooden shuttle for weaving nets was unearthed. In addition, he found a riding net six meters long and three meters wide with a three-finger-wide mesh, along with several pure copper swivels, sets of ox-bone plates, and large brass eagle bells passed down from his ancestors.

Yue Feng’s idea was simple: if he continued to just muddle through like this, he would never change his family’s fate.

At this stage, the family definitely didn't have the money to buy a gun; a 16-gauge shotgun cost at least several hundred yuan, and a brand-new Type 56 semi-automatic rifle in the supply and marketing cooperative cost over a thousand.

Raising dogs had too long a return cycle, good hunting dogs were hard to come by, and with the family’s current lack of grain, it was equally difficult.

To start making money from scratch, the shortest path for Yue Feng was to take advantage of the autumn eagle migration season: set nets to catch eagles, then train them to hunt and conduct small-scale trapping.

(End of chapter)