Chapter 65: A Man

Looking at the Type 54 pistol in his hand, his thoughts were in turmoil. He realized he had been reborn for quite some time now, and it seemed Heaven hadn't given him this second chance for anything particularly noble!

Either the bandits were practically begging him to kill them, or they were simply tired of living and wanted to die!

Regardless of how it happened, even though he wasn't a good person, everything he did ended up being for the benefit of the people!

And he had turned himself into a neurotic, carrying a gun on his person every single day!

His thoughts drifted to Mu Xueqing and Shen Wei—one was the woman who would always hold his heart, and the other was the regret he couldn't help in his past life!

To put it bluntly, it was all just lust. Otherwise, there were several young widows in the village; why was only the bewitching Shen Wei a regret?

Facing himself honestly, there was no other reason: he just craved her body!

Today, facing the life-and-death struggle against the wolf pack, although he had fought with blood surging, he was lucky enough not to lose his life to their maws.

But it also made Wang An reflect once more on his life’s motto: "Live freely, happy until the end!"

With only a few decades in a lifetime, one must enjoy life's pleasures and never leave regrets. Mu Xueqing was already his wife, so he certainly had to cherish her!

And as for Shen Wei, he had already had her, and she had offered herself up; no matter how he looked at it, he shouldn't let her go!

It was a situation she desired and he was happy to indulge in; to give it up would be to miss out on a great happiness in life!

Moreover, with his schemes and methods, she wouldn't dare resist and would only obey obediently. As long as he let her live well, that was a good thing!

As for the promise he made to Mu Xueqing regarding Shen Wei—to a man who had spent the first half of his past life in the underworld and the second half in prison, he was cold-blooded, selfish, and had a terrible character. Only such a person was truly a "man"!

So, what did a few words or promises really count for?

A man’s true colors!

His eyes darted around, seeing the wolf carcasses, which made Wang An recall what his mother had said that day: "If they dare to act cocky, just blast them!"

Liu Guilan’s words were absolutely correct; one look at these wolf carcasses proved it.

If they dare to act cocky, just ask if a bullet can kill them, and that’s the end of it!

Carrying this pistol at all times might be a bit neurotic, but it really was better to be safe than sorry! Otherwise, today would have been truly precarious; he might have wasted this rebirth entirely!

After the two of them recovered, they didn't dare take off their clothes to check their wounds in this freezing weather, where the nighttime temperature was at least minus 30 degrees Celsius.

They brought back the horse that had run quite a distance and tied it to a shrub. The fodder was already gone, so it could at least gnaw on some tender buds.

As for the wolf carcasses and what was left of the wild boar, the two were too tired to even look; it wasn't going anywhere!

They immediately gathered firewood, built two large fires, and sat back-to-back facing the flames—neither cold nor unsafe!

The four dogs had torn the wolves to shreds; the wolves probably didn't have a single intact spot left, and the two men had no interest in checking anyway!

What was impressive was that none of the dogs dared to eat the wolf meat. After biting the wolves to death, they all went to lie down beside Feng Chengmin. Aside from a few extra bloodstains, the four dogs were almost completely unscathed!

After they warmed up, they checked their wounds. Wang An only had four puncture holes in his left forearm from wolf fangs; he sprinkled some tobacco powder on them, and that was that!

Feng Chengmin looked quite miserable, covered in cotton stuffing, but in reality, he was fine. He just had four puncture holes in his arms and some small lacerations from the wolves' teeth during the struggle. Mountain hunters wore very thick clothing, so it wasn't a big deal—another dose of tobacco powder finished the job!

People in the mountains were very tough; these few holes and cuts didn't even count as minor injuries, no different from a scratch on the hand!

Everyone was unaware of, and didn't care about, things like diseases or bacteria!

When Wang An wanted to boil some water, he realized that everything on the sled, including the sack containing the tiger cub's carcass, was gone!

He told Feng Chengmin, and the two spent a long time searching by moonlight!

In the dead of night, they finally found two stones to set up a pot to boil water, which made Wang An even more determined to build a proper pot stand!

He dragged over a wolf carcass, gutted it, drained the blood, cut the meat, and fed the dogs in the process!

He raked out a pile of half-burnt charcoal and buried the two pheasants they had caught that morning whole into the embers!

Once roasted, they would tear off the charred skin; the intestines and gizzards were thrown away, but the heart, liver, and kidneys were all edible. With a little salt and chili powder, it was quite delicious!

Because eating this way was easier; the meat was frozen rock-hard and impossible to process otherwise! Otherwise, stewing this stuff would be much better than wolf meat!

After this day, he didn't know if he was lucky or unlucky, but the harvest was quite good! But his luck was truly terrible to run into a wolf pack!

Wolf fur was half the price of fox fur, but the sheer quantity today meant they could sell it for a good sum—a compensation for his bad luck!

Half an hour later, the pheasants were done. The two were starving, so they didn't care about the heat, tearing off the charred skin to reveal the bright red meat. Taking a bite of the pheasant leg, it was truly a delicacy! It was really delicious!

Burying pheasants whole in charcoal was the most common way for rural children to eat.

Pheasants, small wild chickens, unknown birds, sparrows, quails, large mountain birds, fish, ground squirrels, potatoes, sweet potatoes, unripe corn—everything could be buried this way, and once roasted, it was incredibly tasty!

Especially ground squirrels; they sizzled with oil when roasted, which was a real treat for children who rarely saw meat! But catching a ground squirrel was no easy task!

In short, in the countryside, as long as it was edible, everything could be buried in charcoal, and that was how everyone grew up.

After finishing the pheasants, the wolf meat was also boiled. To cook it quickly, the meat was sliced very thin, and it tasted quite good, similar to fox meat. In any case, they were both full!

The meat broth was covered in foam from the blood, but no one cared; they drank it all without wasting a drop!

Full and satisfied, they weren't as exhausted. Looking at the wild boar, only bones remained, so they left it!

The two began to collect their spoils under the moonlight—the wolf carcasses!

Dragging them all together, there were 13 in total. He hadn't expected that two semi-automatic rifles with a total of 20 bullets would cause such heavy losses to the pack—seven wolves killed!

Even Feng Chengmin, an old hunter, couldn't understand why a pack of 15 wolves would be so stubborn; even after seven died, they kept charging! In the end, only two escaped. This trade was hardly worth it!

However, while dragging the carcasses onto the sled, they discovered one wolf was significantly larger than the others. Judging by the bullet holes, it was the one that had confronted Feng Chengmin before Wang An shot it! That was why the last two wolves fled immediately after it was killed!

This mystery was now explained: with the alpha, the pack is brave; with the alpha dead, the pack is defeated! A pack with an alpha has unparalleled cohesion, truly ignoring life and death!

After packing up the wolf carcasses, the two chopped down many living pine trunks to keep the fire going. These wet pine trunks produced a lot of smoke but lasted longer than dry ones.

In these deep mountains at night, it was better to stay here and keep the fire going than to risk walking the mountain paths home!

The two sat back-to-back and fell asleep. With the dogs there, there was no need to worry about keeping watch; hunting dogs were the best sentries!

Deep in these mountains, wild dogs wouldn't survive in such dangerous places, so there were no earthen shelters built by them; otherwise, staying the night would have been much more comfortable!

During the night, the two were frozen awake and had to rebuild the fire from time to time, and that was how they made it to dawn! For a mountain hunter, spending a night like this was normal, so they weren't unaccustomed to it!

Please keep reading, please keep reading, please keep reading!

Dear readers, don't just hoard the chapters, I beg you!!

(End of chapter)