Returning Home in the Deep of Night

"Xiaoyu, Huzi, are you two going to stay for dinner at my place, or head home after a short rest?"

Huzi looked at Su Yu, leaving the decision to him.

"Why look at me? We're definitely heading back. If we eat first and then walk home, it'll be eight or nine o'clock by the time we get there. Aren't you afraid your old man will beat you? Besides, there's no room for you to stay anyway. I certainly don't want to share a bed with you."

Huzi curled his lips, thinking to himself that he didn't want to share a bed with Su Yu either.

Seeing the two of them bickering playfully and sharing such a close bond, Huang Shan felt quite envious. He had almost no close friends in the village; he usually just hung out with his uncles and cousins.

"One mountain cat, three pheasants, one hare, five badgers, a lone wolf, a roe deer, and a fine-wool sheep."

"Big Brother Dashan, do you want this sheep tail? I'll cut off half for you to render into oil."

Sheep tail fat has a very strong, gamey odor, and in the countryside, it is sometimes called sheep pancreas. It is a chunk of meat resembling a tail located at the rear, looking much like two eggplants and filled entirely with rich fat.

Although barely anyone would eat this sort of thing in the twentieth century because of the pungent gamey taste, it certainly yielded plenty of oil, and in this era, oil was scarce—making it an absolute treasure.

"No, no, how could I possibly take your things?"

"It's fine, what's yours and mine? Give me the knife, I'll cut it off."

Su Yu took the skinning knife from Huang Shan's hand and sliced off a large chunk of the sheep tail from the rear to be used for rendering oil.

"Brother Dashan, you can keep this pheasant. Stew it tonight for Sister Su'e, and tell her I was just joking with her."

Hearing this, Huang Shan felt even more embarrassed and waved his hands repeatedly.

"No, no, that girl is just like that, a terrible glutton. I'll just stew the rabbit for her tonight; I really can't take this pheasant."

"Stop hesitating. If I take every single thing back home, my mom will probably grab a bamboo switch and whip me when she asks about it."

"Huzi, you carry the wolf, the pheasant, the hare, the badgers, and the mountain cat."

"I'll take care of this roe deer and the sheep."

The roe deer weighed a solid seventy or eighty pounds, and the sheep weighed well over a hundred pounds—even after being gutted, it probably still weighed around ninety pounds.

Meanwhile, the wolf only weighed about forty pounds, and even with the miscellaneous game added, it was sixty pounds at most. For Huzi, who was eighteen years old and stood one meter seventy-five tall, this was nothing; worst case, he could just take a break on the way back.

"Brother Huzi, take this sack and put the badgers, pheasants, and hare inside. Tie it tight so it's easier to carry on your back."

Huang Shan hurriedly fetched a sack from his house, packed the items for Huzi, placed the wolf on top of his back along with the sack, and Huzi reached up to grip it tightly. As long as he held on, nothing would get lost.

"Xiaoyu, I really can't accept this pheasant. You should take it back."

After much persuasion, Su Yu managed to leave it with him, instructing him repeatedly to make sure he stewed it for Huang Su'e that evening.

"Sister Su'e, I'm heading out! I'll come visit you another day."

Su Yu deliberately shouted at the top of his lungs, then immediately hoisted the fine-wool sheep and the roe deer onto his back and sprinted away.

Huang Su'e remained locked in her room and didn't come out, but Su Yu didn't mind. He had intentionally shouted loudly so that all the neighbors would hear. As for his underlying motivation, he couldn't quite figure it out himself; he just felt like doing it, so he did.

"Brother Yu, aren't you tired?"

After walking just two or three miles, Huzi hurried to catch up and asked if he was tired.

Su Yu glanced back at him. "Don't tell me you're already tired after walking just two or three miles? We have twenty miles to walk to get home. If you're like this, won't you have to rest ten times?"

"No, I can still hold on a bit longer. It's just that carrying fifty or sixty pounds has me out of breath, while you're carrying nearly two hundred pounds—don't you feel tired at all?"

He had to admit that Su Yu was taller by a head and broader than him, and though he didn't know when Su Yu had put on all that muscle, that load was a hundred and sixty or seventy pounds.

"It's alright. Just hang in there a bit longer. How about this: we walk five miles, then rest for ten minutes. That way we only need to rest four times. Excluding the resting time, we'll be home by seven o'clock at the latest. But if you rest endlessly and take too long each time, we'll get home way too late."

With no other choice, Huzi had to grit his teeth and push forward. He was just an ordinary person, and carrying a sixty-pound load for two miles was indeed tiring, though not entirely unbearable.

After a hard-fought five miles, Huzi collapsed heavily onto the ground.

"I'm never coming to Huangjia Village to hunt again. This is just too exhausting!"

"Alright, stop complaining. Here, I still have some water in my skin flask, drink it."

Su Yu handed the water flask to Huzi, who took it and drained it in one go.

"Without a watch, we don't know the time, and we don't have a flashlight either. Once it gets dark shortly, walking will be tough. Get up quickly and keep moving, stop playing dead."

Su Yu first helped Huzi hoist the game back onto his shoulders, then shouldered two animals himself and strode forward.

The two of them continued in this fashion—walking and stopping, walking and stopping. After twenty miles, they finally reached the village shortly after dark.

This was only because they had descended the mountain around three or four o'clock, arriving at Huangjia Village by no later than five-thirty. After a brief rest, they had hurried back, making their arrival home shortly after seven o'clock quite fast.

"We'll divide the game tomorrow. Here, take this pheasant back and stew it to eat. I'll take the remaining pheasant and hare back to stew, which will use up all the pheasants and hares at once."

The pheasants and hares had all been hunted by Su Yu. There were three pheasants in total: one was given to Huang Su'e, one to Huzi, and he would stew one pheasant and one hare himself, perfectly finishing off all the birds and hares.

That left only the mountain cat, the roe deer, the fine-wool sheep, the wolf, and the five badgers. No matter what, after working hard all day, they had to eat well. Since he was going back to stew meat, he couldn't leave Huzi smelling it without a share, so he had to arrange it properly.

"Alright then, I'm heading back."

Huzi took his bow and arrow, picked up a plump pheasant, and headed home.

Su Yu pushed open the door and called his eldest brother, and the two of them hauled the game from the entrance into the courtyard.

"Alright, it's getting dark, and Mom and Dad are back too. Stop busying yourself around me, take a pheasant and a hare and go stew them. Look at our little sister, she's already drooling."

Su Yu noticed that from the moment they stepped through the door, his youngest sister had her eyes fixed firmly on the various game animals, knowing well that these meant meat.

"How did you manage to hunt so much? No wonder you came back so late."

Su Sheng assumed that he and Huzi had been delayed because they couldn't carry everything at once, unaware that the two had gone all the way to Huangjia Village. However, Su Yu didn't bother to explain.

"Eldest brother, come into town with me tomorrow? Accompany me to sell the mutton and the roe deer, and then you and I can go to the supply and marketing cooperative, buy some gifts, and pull some strings to find you a wife in the neighboring village."

Hearing his brother talk about selling the game to help him find a wife, Su Sheng felt a sudden itch of excitement. He grinned and casually muttered that there was no rush, but Su Yu could tell at a glance what he was really thinking. Still, he couldn't blame his older brother; people in the countryside married early, and at his age, many men were already fathers of several children.

"Alright, hurry up and go clean the chicken and rabbit."

Su Yu took out the skinning knife to skin the five badgers. They already had five badger skins at home, and with these five, they would have exactly ten badger skins.

He also skinned the wolf, and their father came over to help while the fourth sibling assisted the eldest brother with food preparation.

Their mother took charge of tending the stove, and the whole family was kept busy.

"Dad, I cut off this sheep tail. Take your time and render it into oil tonight, I'll leave that to you."

Su Father glanced at it and asked, "How come there's only half? Where's the other half? Did you give it to Huzi?"

"Ah... right, I gave it to Huzi."

Su Yu didn't want his family members letting their imaginations run wild, as they would otherwise ask endless questions, so he simply went along with it.