Chapter 62 Cold-Resistant Leather Set

"Second Brother, your wolf-skin coats will all be finished by this afternoon. Eldest Sister-in-law asked all of you to come over and try them on so they can be altered if anything doesn't fit quite right."

Hualing brought some good news: the cold-weather leather sets would be completed by the afternoon.

"Is it really that fast?" Zhang Huacheng was surprised. From the time the pelts were sent over until now, it had only been a day and a night, yet Eldest Sister-in-law had almost finished sewing all of them?

Buying that sewing machine was truly worth every penny!

However, the hardest part of working with leather clothing at present was the stitching. Having a sewing machine certainly made things much easier and faster, but this speed still exceeded his expectations.

His mother heard this and smiled, saying, "Your eldest brother and eldest sister-in-law stayed up until the roosters crowed for the third time, and Hualing stayed up right along with them. Your eldest sister-in-law got up at the crack of dawn this morning and went straight back to work."

She was also happy as the relationships within the family grew increasingly harmonious, inexplicably slipping into a wonderful life that everyone envied.

Staying up late to rush the work!

Zhang Huacheng understood why it had been done so quickly.

"Then I'll head over right now, and take the pelts I hunted last night back home along the way." Zhang Huacheng ran into the house to retrieve the hides: last night's large wapiti pelt, two adult roe deer pelts, and half a basin of scraped fat.

He simply threw both roe deer onto the flatbed cart as well.

"There's more than enough meat at home."

His mother hurriedly signaled.

The family truly was not lacking meat to eat right now.

"This isn't for eating. Roe deer meat isn't worth much and doesn't taste particularly good either, so I'll just have Eldest Brother take it to the production brigade to trade for coal, and then we can distribute the coal among ourselves."

Meat was no longer scarce, but charcoal was in very short supply.

Zhang Huacheng planned to trade for some coal and distribute it.

During the 1960s, the rural areas of Northeast China practiced a system of unified purchase and marketing, and coal was a planned commodity. However, almost all the coal for their production brigade had to be purchased with cash because the coal ration coupons allocated to them were far too meager. Even so, the coal pricing at the Shicheng People's Commune was very low: fifty cents could buy a fifty-jin bag of coal, though naturally it was of the lowest quality, and the best quality was twice that price.

At normal rates, a single jin of roe deer meat could easily trade for a fifty-jin bag of inferior coal. Together, these two deer weighed around eighty jin of meat, so trading them for seventy or eighty small bags of coal should have been possible. However, going through the brigade made it impossible to exchange for that much.

"The family still owes money to the production team; shouldn't we pay some of it back first? The 500 jin of coal we borrowed hasn't been returned yet."

His mother reminded him.

Coal was distributed by the production brigade according to population size and work points, with very little cash transaction involved. At the time, their family and the eldest brother's family had been allocated 600 jin of coal, which was deducted using work points, but it was obviously not enough for the two households to get through the winter, so they had borrowed an extra 500 jin of coal.

They still owed a balance to the brigade.

"There's no rush for that. Which family in the Old Chen clan doesn't owe the brigade hundreds or thousands of jin of charcoal? If they really want to make an issue of it, we'll pay them back. But for now, we won't trade the meat—we'll just pay cash to buy coal outright."

Zhang Huacheng remembered that Wang Lin had gone to the brigade to borrow coal a few times before, only to be driven away and subjected to plenty of taunts. He would not forget that.

He was not a hunter who had to hand over thirty percent of his game to the brigade; he was a mountain guard. If he wanted to share, he shared; if he didn't, nobody could say a word.

Hunters still ate the public grain, but a mountain guard couldn't get a single bite of it.

On the way to his ancestral home, he saw brigade members running in groups of three or five toward the brigade headquarters.

"What's going on over there? Is the brigade distributing meat?"

Some members of the Old Chen clan, not knowing what had happened, joined the running crowd.

"Fourth Aunt, what meat distribution? Chen Youde has been tied up at the brigade office, beaten black and blue with his nose bleeding by a few brigade cadres, and even Chen Yinshan got beaten up!"

"What? What's going on?"

"I don't know either! Let's hurry over and take a look!"

Chen Youde was getting beaten again?

How miserable!

Zhang Huacheng almost wanted to go and watch the commotion, but thought better of it. He was busy as could be right now, and with plans to head into the mountains that afternoon, he had no time for this kind of dog-eat-dog spectacle.

When he arrived at the old house, Zhang Hu was shoveling snow in the courtyard.

"Huacheng's here. I heard you got a little mule? Your mother and the others haven't come back yet?" Zhang Hu now had wild boar leather knee pads and had even been made a brand-new set of cotton-padded clothes.

Now, not only did he dare to get off the heated brick kang, but he even dared to step outside.

He also wanted to go take a look at the little mule; having a mule in this day and age was a big deal.

"Mom and Hualing are out looking at the little pack mule."

Zhang Huacheng lifted the pelts from the cart.

"You managed to bag another wapiti?"

At the sight of the thick pelts, Zhang Hu couldn't help drawing a sharp breath. Were the beasts in the mountain really this easy to hunt?

In the past, when the hunters from the brigade went into the mountains, they often returned empty-handed after days of searching. A mountain guard managing to bag a single roe deer once every ten days or half a month would cause the entire brigade to gather round and gawk. On ordinary days, they relied merely on setting rabbit snares and shooting pheasants to supplement their household income.

"Dad, these pelts haven't been boiled yet. Can you boil them for me?"

"Alright!"

Zhang Hu stepped forward to take the thick hides; he quite enjoyed doing this kind of work.

"Huacheng's here? You've come at just the right time. Come and try on the wolf-skin coat and boots your sister-in-law made for you, and see if they fit." Zhang Huchen poked his head out, and seeing Zhang Huacheng carrying a basin of wapiti fat into the house, he waved him over.

"Coming!"

Zhang Huacheng set down the basin and walked toward his eldest sister-in-law's room.

Eldest Sister-in-law was still busy, operating the sewing machine to stitch knee pads. She nodded when she saw Zhang Huacheng enter.

Dabao and Xiaobao were sitting obediently on the kang, their eyes tearful as if they had just been given a beating, looking at him for help.

However, in this era, whose children didn't get beaten? Zhang Huacheng directly ignored them. Look at Tie Zhu—he could beat Chen Youde until the man was paralyzed with exhaustion without shedding a single tear.

He was instantly captivated by the wolf-skin coat and deer-skin boots. He had to admit that Eldest Sister-in-law's craftsmanship was truly exceptional.

"Try them on. If anything doesn't fit, I'll alter it."

Eldest Sister-in-law motioned to him.

"Alright!"

Zhang Huacheng didn't stand on ceremony.

When he put the wolf-skin coat on, Zhang Huacheng only felt that it was soft, warm, and had a slight sense of weight. Slipping into the deer-skin boots, he immediately felt light on his feet; the soles were made of thick wild boar leather, making walking extremely comfortable.

"Looking good!"

Zhang Huchen watched with a hint of envy.

"Try on these knee pads and gloves to see if they fit, too. The pigskin vest will have to wait a little longer." Eldest Sister-in-law stood up, walked around him with a look of satisfaction on her face, and then hurried over to fetch a set of wild boar leather knee pads and deer-skin gloves to hand to Zhang Huacheng.

Zhang Huacheng quickly fastened the knee pads and put on the soft deer-skin gloves, saying happily, "Eldest Sister-in-law, your craftsmanship is truly top-notch. You'd be more than qualified to be a master tailor in a big city!"

There was simply no fault to be found with this handiwork.

"Of course. Your eldest sister-in-law's skill is famous far and wide."

Before Chen Xiuying could speak, Zhang Huchen chimed in with a proud boast.

About half an hour later, Zhang Huacheng had put on the wild boar leather jacket, topping it off with a furry, makeshift wolf-skin hat that could completely cover his ears.

The deer-skin gloves were a bit loose, so Chen Xiuying readjusted them to be tighter. Putting them back on, they didn't impede his finger movements at all, nor did they interfere with loading ammunition in the slightest.

How could anyone possibly be cold in the mountains with this gear?

Zhang Huacheng felt the urge to head into the mountains right now and test it out.

"Oh, right, Eldest Sister-in-law, carrying meat in this wolf-skin coat is bound to stain it with blood, and it might be a bit tricky to clean." Zhang Huacheng remembered that carrying game inevitably meant getting some blood on oneself.

Chen Xiuying thought for a moment. "How about this? I'll use the roe deer and wapiti pelts to sew a few leather bags for you. When the time comes, you can stuff the meat inside the bags and carry them. I'll add a drawstring to the bags so you can tie them around your waist when not in use, and seal the bags securely when you are using them."

There was plenty of wapiti and roe deer skin left over; making three leather bags was more than enough.

"Thank you, Eldest Sister-in-law. Oh, and can you add a slightly larger pocket in this position on the wolf-skin coat to hold ammunition?"

Bullets needed to be kept within arm's reach.

"That's simple!"

The cold-weather leather gear was now complete.

As for firearms and ammunition, the supply was terrifyingly abundant. Zhang Huacheng was already looking forward to heading into the mountains that afternoon. Earlier that morning, when he took Tie Zhu to the coast to collect seafood, he had already heard a few howls; the wolf pack clearly hadn't left and was still lingering nearby.

This time, he would hunt as many as he could. Even if he didn't sell them, just leaving the meat to freeze in the snow would keep it fresh all the way until spring.

"Huacheng, what should we do with the roe deer meat?"

Seeing that there were still two roe deer on the flatbed cart, his elderly father came over to ask. Surely they weren't going to distribute more meat, were they?

The previous distributions had already made every household in the Old Zhang clan feel embarrassed to accept more, and some had even come quietly at night to drop off money.

"We aren't distributing meat; we're distributing coal! Let the Old Chen clan know that we bagged two roe deer and traded them for an endless supply of charcoal to give away. After that, it's up to the brigade cadres to figure out how to distribute those roe deer carcasses. If they don't handle it right, people are going to raise a fuss—and with someone like Chen Yinshan around, how could they possibly distribute it fairly?"

"Just inferior coal is fine; it burns just as well. Your eldest brother and I will go trade for it right now!"

Zhang Hu nodded repeatedly. He estimated that doing it this way could yield seventy or eighty bags of coal, whereas going directly through the brigade meant getting fifty or sixty bags would be considered fortunate.

He certainly wasn't going to squander the meat on trading for high-quality coal.

While the brigade was in utter chaos over the incidents involving Chen Youde and Chen Yinshan, Zhang Hu pulled his flatbed cart carrying two skinned roe deer to the brigade headquarters to trade for coal.

A crowd of people quickly swarmed around to watch.

Before long, the news that Zhang Huacheng and Er Gou had bagged two roe deer spread everywhere.

Zhang Huacheng went off to find Er Gou; they would head into the mountains that afternoon to hunt wolves, killing as many as they could.