Chapter 3

Wang An thought about it, and it wasn't hard to understand; it was ownerless property to begin with!

The only two solutions were to turn it in, but if he turned it in, they would definitely ask where it came from! Once the origin was cleared up, they would definitely ask how he knew about it! Even if he rounded out the lie, they would definitely ask how much he had hidden!

How to answer? It was unsolvable! Especially the gold issue; it was impossible to explain no matter what.

No benefit, a pile of trouble, and in the end, he might even get himself locked up.

Seeing his parents were so "reasonable"!

Wang An set his mind at ease and said: "Mom, hide this gold nugget well. As for these two guns, shouldn't we come up with a story? Otherwise, if someone asks, we won't know what to say!"

"Simple, hide the new one, and keep the old one out in the open. If anyone asks, just say your uncle bought it as internal confiscated goods and had someone bring it back!" Liu Guilan said casually with a wave of her hand.

Wang An's eyes lit up when he heard this. That's a good idea! Wang An's uncle was a warehouse keeper at some unit in the neighboring city, and they hadn't been in contact for years!

Guns were rampant in this era; who would be bored enough to go verify it? It was simply perfect!

"That works, then let's say that!"

After discussing the origin of the guns, Wang Dazhu asked: "When did you learn to shoot? I saw those bullet holes were all in the pig's head? Your marksmanship is quite fierce!"

"Hi! Don't you guys think I just wander around the county town every day doing nothing? I've really touched this thing plenty of times!" Wang An replied without thinking, thinking to himself: "I can't tell them I've lived through this once and was tinkering with this stuff in my past life!"

"Then what are you thinking? Are you going to hunt in the mountains from now on?" Wang Dazhu asked in a muffled voice.

"Yeah, can't just wander around like this every day! Gotta find myself a living!"

"I like hearing that. You're twenty years old, jumping around like a loafer every day. If you don't put your heart into it, no one will want to be your wife!" Liu Guilan said while examining the gold nugget.

"That's right! The third son of the Zhang family in the east is already engaged at 18, and you look more energetic than him!" Wang Dazhu said.

"That's right! Let's work hard, we're no worse than them!" Liu Guilan said.

Wang Dazhu suddenly said solemnly: "But this hunting is not like anything else. Mountain animals are fierce, you must be extremely careful!"

"If you run into a 'big claw' (tiger) or a leopard, don't go poking around blindly. If you get yourself kicked to death, what are your mother and I supposed to do!" Liu Guilan put down the gold nugget and added.

...Listening to his parents' repeated lectures and exhortations, Wang An felt particularly moved. The hearts of parents are truly pitiful!

In his past life, he had treated it all as wind past his ears! He really wanted to give himself a couple of punches!

"Alright, enough said, you're a big person now! Just think it through yourself!" Liu Guilan said.

"Let's go fix the meat, those three little ones are about to drool!" Wang Dazhu said with a laugh.

Wang An put the new gun wrapped in oil paper into the kang cabinet (the cabinet at the end of the kang), put the bullets in the drawer under the cabinet, and hung the old gun on the wall behind the door.

Liu Guilan went down to the floor and took the gold nugget to the east room, while Wang Dazhu continued to wash the pig intestines.

At noon, the family sat around the kang table to eat. A big basin full of pork belly stewed with sauerkraut—little sauerkraut, lots of meat. The staple food was cornmeal pancakes!

Everyone had meat in their mouths, the whole family was eating until their mouths were oily, and everyone's face was full of smiles!

The two little sisters were muttering while eating: "Finally got to eat meat, meat is so delicious!"

"So fragrant, if only we could eat meat every day!"

"Bad Gou Dan always makes me crave it, humph, I'm eating meat too! Make him crave it to death!"

Hearing this, Wang Dazhu, Liu Guilan, and Wang An all laughed out loud. This little girl is quite vengeful!

The big basin of meat and vegetables, even the soup, was wiped clean by Wang Yi using pancakes. Having not seen meat for a long time, this meal left the whole family stuffed! Satisfaction was written on everyone's face!

After the meal, the meat and bones left outside were already frozen, and Liu Guilan put them into the big vat under the window outside!

This big vat was the natural refrigerator for the people of the Northeast, generally used to store frozen bean buns, frozen tofu, frozen dumplings, frozen meat, etc. It could ensure the food stayed frozen and prevent rats from causing damage!

Every household would have one or several such big vats under their windows!

Wang Dazhu built a fire in the courtyard and hung the pig's head, trotters, and tail over it to burn off the pig hair. These were all good things and would never be wasted!

After burning the hair, Wang An took a hunting knife and scraped the ash off with Wang Dazhu.

In the evening, Liu Guilan cut the fat and lard from the pig's belly into small pieces to render oil. Because the wild boar was very active, there wasn't much fat on its body, so Liu Guilan only got half a jar of oil. Even so, Liu Guilan still couldn't stop smiling!

This was lard; even if you only put a little bit when cooking, the taste of the dish would change drastically!

And in this era, if every meal had some oil, people would eat less grain but be healthier and have more energy!

Wang Yi and the two sisters each held a bowl of cracklings left over from rendering the oil, dipping them in salt, eating quite happily!

This stuff was indeed delicious, and no one in the family ate less. Only Wang Dazhu muttered: "Such delicious food, but no wine, it's all a waste of such good things!"

"You're beautiful! No wine? I think you look like wine! I've been with you for twenty years, when have you ever let me eat meat like today, and you still have the nerve to think about drinking! You're nothing!" Liu Guilan rolled her eyes at Wang Dazhu, her mouth outputting like a machine gun at him!

Wang Dazhu's face turned red instantly, he smacked his lips, said nothing, and put another piece of crackling into his mouth...

Wang An and Wang Yi held back their laughter on the side, not daring to make a sound, their shoulders shaking for a long time.

The night passed without incident.

In the morning, around 5 o'clock, it was still dark. Wang An put on his clothes and went to the outhouse. When he came back, he saw the kerosene lamp in the kitchen was on, and Wang Dazhu and Liu Guilan were already busy in the outer room building a fire to cook!

Usually, no one would get up at this time, but maybe knowing Wang An was going into the mountains, the couple started cooking early.

Because Wang An left without eating breakfast yesterday and dragged back a pig, although his parents didn't say anything, they felt very sorry for their son!

Breakfast was cornmeal porridge and cornmeal pancakes! The dish was potato and cabbage stewed with meat! Lots of vegetables, only a few slices of meat!

To be honest, this food was about the same as what Wang An ate in prison in his past life! Even slightly worse, after all, the cornmeal used in the prison back then was machine-processed, relatively fine, and didn't scratch the throat!

But the cornmeal here was crushed directly by a millstone without removing the skin, and if you weren't used to it, it really scratched the throat!

"Gotta find a way to make money to buy some fine grain! Reborn once, gotta let the family eat something good!" Wang An muttered to himself.

After eating, Wang An picked up a few pancakes in a cloth bag; he really didn't want to experience yesterday's hunger again!

With the gun loaded, he took two full magazines and a box of bullets, along with the same equipment as yesterday, and went into the mountains again!

Wang An was now a half-baked hunter, knowing some common sense, but he really didn't know how to find prey, relying entirely on luck, which was damn painful!

After entering the mountains, he spent most of his time wandering aimlessly!

If he hadn't gotten the gun and his marksmanship wasn't bad, he really didn't know if Wang An could continue on this path of mountain hunting!

He pondered to himself that he had to find a mountain hunter to learn how to find prey, and also had to find an opportunity to buy a few hunting dogs, otherwise he wouldn't know how to train them!

If he just relied on himself to grope around, he'd be finished! When would he be able to enjoy a happy life freely!

Vigilantly looking around, he walked forward cautiously. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but trees and snow!

Suddenly, a shadow darted past Wang An at high speed, scaring him into a jolt. Looking closely, it was a hare running forward!

This angered Wang An. He raised the gun to his cheek, "bang," and the hare fell from mid-air to the ground!

Running up to it, not bad!

With this shot, the bullet entered the hare's neck at an angle and came out the head. Otherwise, with the power of the Type 56, the hare's skin wasn't very thick, and if there were two more holes, the supply and marketing cooperative might not even accept it!

He stabbed the neck with a knife to bleed the hare, didn't even open the belly, threw it directly into the sack, and continued wandering.

After wandering for nearly an hour, Wang An saw two flowers moving near a tree about two hundred meters ahead, appearing and disappearing. Doubting in his heart, he didn't stop his pace. Getting closer, he saw two pheasants looking for grass seeds in a snow-free area under the bushes. It looked like a male and a female!

Pheasants are really beautiful birds! They must taste quite good too!

Raising the gun to his cheek, Wang An paused and didn't fire. He slowly knelt on one knee, waited a while longer, and then pulled the trigger.

With a "bang," both pheasants flapped their wings at the same time. One fell just as it was about to leave the ground, and the other had already flown into mid-air, but immediately plunged into the snow like an airplane landing! One shot, two pheasants!

Running forward, he slit the throat of the pheasant that hadn't flown away and was still struggling, then immediately ran to where the other pheasant fell, picked up the struggling pheasant from the snow, and performed the same operation!

The snow was frozen quite hard, and the pheasant had made a small pit when it fell. Carrying this pheasant, he intended to walk toward the previous one.

He discovered a red animal holding the pheasant in its mouth and about to dive into the forest. It wasn't fast, because the pheasant weighed nearly 5 jin! The red animal was only a little more than twice the size of the pheasant!

"Hey! Are you here to deliver meat to me or to steal my food? You're clearly looking down on my marksmanship!" Wang An shouted at the red animal.

The pheasant went into free fall. He raised the gun to his cheek, smoothly disengaged the safety, aimed at the head, and fired!

The red animal didn't even make a sound, its head resting on the pheasant as it lay on the snow!

Running up to it, he saw this was a windfall! A fire fox! A very large fire fox!

If you like it, please collect and recommend, San Tu thanks you!!

(End of chapter)