Chapter 48: Comparison Makes You Want to Throw Things Away

Qin Mao paid no attention to what his third older brother was thinking; he only cared that there would be something delicious to eat tonight.

"Leave it to me! I'll be super fast!"

With a nimble leap and trailing a string of sparrows, Qin Mao darted straight into the kitchen.

"Huh? Little Four, where did these house sparrows come from? They look like they were shot with a gun?" Sister-in-law's voice came from inside the kitchen.

"Third Brother shot them. He was holding a gun this long—it's so pretty, he wouldn't even let me touch it."

Only then did Qin Mao remember he had just been beaten up a moment ago, so while talking about the long rifle, he didn't forget to complain about Qin Jun's tyrannical behavior.

"A long rifle? Could he have borrowed it from the village?"

"Third Brother, you need to be careful when playing with guns!"

Feeling a bit anxious, Yang Yuanyuan hurried out of the kitchen, just in time to see Qin Jun holding the rifle and heading back to his room.

Seeing such a long gun, Yang Yuanyuan grew even more worried.

"Sister-in-law, this is just an air rifle. Its impact is very weak," Qin Jun said helplessly.

"Ha, what are you all talking about? This gun packs a pretty good punch. Look at what I harvested today!"

Right at that moment, Qin Feng's hearty laughter rang out. Naturally, he didn't forget to show off his own battle results.

Qin Jun took a look, and indeed, there were quite a lot.

Compared to the sparrows Qin Jun had tied together with fishing line, Qin Feng was much more generous—he had brought them back directly in a hand-basket.

Taking the basket, Qin Jun looked inside and saw a truly impressive amount.

There was half a basket full; wouldn't that be forty or fifty of them?

The larger ones among them were clearly collared doves. Commonly known as wild pigeons, a single one weighed a good three to four liang. Just one of these was easily equivalent to five or six sparrows. Rummaging through, he found quite a few wild pigeons—a full seven or eight of them.

"Little Four, get out here quickly! Process all of these, and we're going to have a proper feast tonight!"

Qin Jun was excited. The eleven sparrows he had brought back earlier would barely give everyone in the family more than one each. But now, with this many sparrows and seven or eight wild pigeons, there was more than enough to eat.

"Eat what? What kind of racket are you raising again?"

With Qin Feng's return, it meant the rest of the family would be coming back too. Sure enough, Comrade Qin Zhihe walked through the front door.

Clearly, the old comrade had heard every word they said in the courtyard. Although he didn't know what his third son wanted to eat, his immediate instinct was just to oppose it!

These spendthrift sons—the moment they got a little something good, they wanted to eat it. What kind of family did they think they had? Were they not going to live prudently anymore?

Sure enough, stepping inside and taking a look, there were so many sparrows, plus seven or eight wild doves! All of these represented cold hard cash!

"So many? Did you guys borrow a net?"

Qin Zhihe was pleasantly surprised, but he still knew that to get this many sparrows, they must have set up a net; otherwise, there was no way they could catch so many.

"My brother shot them with a gun, Dad. Didn't you see those two super long rifles?"

Hearing the lively commotion outside, Qin Mao could no longer be bothered with cleaning the sparrows and bolted out of the kitchen. A boy that age never walked anywhere; he either hopped or ran, never sitting still for a moment.

Grabbing his youngest son by the collar, Qin Zhihe finally followed the direction of Qin Mao's pointing finger and looked at the long rifles cradled in his two older sons' arms.

Qin Zhihe stared in astonishment at the two long firearms. It was truly his first time seeing guns like these.

There was no shortage of guns in the village, and his generation hadn't exactly lacked experience touching them—after all, who hadn't been a militia member at some point?

Yet, guns this long and this exquisite were a first for Qin Zhihe.

These dark, long rifles that seemed to gleam with a cold light looked expensive no matter how you sliced it! In Old Qin's worldview, the prettier something looked, the more costly it was.

"Whose gun did you borrow? Hurry up and return it to them! This thing looks extremely expensive. What are you going to do if you break it?"

Qin Jun couldn't help but find it amusing; old man Qin had money on the brain. At first, he was so focused on the harvest that he didn't even notice the guns in their arms. Now, seeing the gun, his very first thought was about how expensive it must be!

Actually, Old Qin's intuition was spot on. If this gun were to be sold, it genuinely wouldn't come cheap.

Qin Jun looked at Qin Zhihe with a smile. "Dad, with this gun, we can shoot quite a few sparrows every single day. And all of those are money!"

Qin Feng also laughed and said, "That's right! The commune procurement station buys sparrows at three cents each, and they buy them in bulk."

Qin Jun looked at his second brother. "The commune procurement station actually buys them?"

"Of course! Didn't you know? These wild doves sell for ten cents each!" Qin Feng said cheerfully.

Qin Zhihe furrowed his brows. He looked back and forth between the gun and the sparrows in the basket—these really were all money!

Ultimately, Old Qin managed to retain some reason; no matter how he calculated it, the gun was clearly worth more. If they broke this gun, how many sparrows would they have to shoot just to fill that financial hole?

"Is a gun something you just play with casually? What if someone gets hurt? Give it back right now!"

Qin Zhihe forced himself to look away from the sparrows and made a resolute, ironclad decision.

Qin Jun and Qin Feng immediately burst into laughter. After chuckling for a good while, seeing that Old Qin was about to fly into a rage from embarrassment, the two of them finally stopped.

"Dad, the third brother made this himself. Even if it breaks, it doesn't cost anything. Well, actually, if it breaks, he can just fix it himself—completely free."

"Look, this thing shoots steel pellets; it's an air rifle, so the impact isn't that strong."

"Besides, with a rifle this long, even if you wanted to point it at someone, it's not that easy. It's hard to accidentally hurt anyone with it!"

As he spoke, Qin Feng began tinkering with the long rifle in his hands once more. He had thoroughly figured this gun out by now, so with just a few motions, he made it abundantly clear to Old Qin that this was indeed just an air rifle.

Did an air rifle even count as a real gun? It wasn't even as powerful as old muzzle-loaders!

That had been Qin Zhihe's original understanding, but looking at the dark, remarkably long firearm in front of him, no matter how he looked at it, it didn't resemble a mere air rifle.

"This really is an air rifle," Qin Jun said, reading his father's thoughts and offering an explanation.

"Air rifles are no good either. Won't they still cost dozens of yuan?" Qin Zhihe muttered.

Qin Feng smiled. "They sell them right at the county department store, hanging on the wall right inside the display case. I caught a couple of glances at them when I passed by the department store."

Qin Jun blinked. Was that something you could just see by glancing at it?

"How much do the air rifles sold at the department store cost per piece?"

Qin Jun remained interested in this detail. If possible, he wondered if the village could manufacture guns, and if they made them, could they sell them?

Anyway, his sniper-style air rifle had already been built, and quite a few people in the village definitely knew about it by now. Since it couldn't be kept under wraps, he might as well figure out a way to turn it to their advantage.

"Just the most rudimentary kind of air rifle—completely incomparable to the two you've made. Do you know how much a single one costs? Thirty yuan!"

Qin Feng didn't hold back the suspense, though deep down, he really wanted to swap with Qin Jun. He had originally been quite satisfied with the long rifle in his own arms, but now, seeing the one in Qin Jun's hands, Qin Feng felt rather deflated.

It's not that you don't know the goods; it's that comparison leaves you wanting to throw things away!

"Stop staring at it. Once you set your eyes on it, you won't be able to look away!"

Qin Feng's thoughts were written all over his face, and Qin Jun caught on instantly. Having prepared well in advance this time, Qin Jun clutched his rifle tightly and made straight for his room.

"Little Four, hurry up and clean those! We're going to eat our fill today!"

Seeing Qin Jun about to leave, Qin Feng chimed in, "Prep them properly. If you mess it up, you'll just be wasting good food."

Qin Mao was sharp; he directly snatched the hand-basket right out of old man Qin's hands.

"Dad, don't feel bad. Both Second Brother and Third Brother have guns now; our family definitely won't lack sparrows to eat from now on."

"Haha, no—wait, we definitely won't lack money to spend from now on! If we want to sell them for cash, we can just send those two out hunting!"

"Isn't that how it works? With guns, why worry about not having sparrows? Today we'll eat these first, or else they'll spoil!"

"If you really feel bad about it, just have Third Brother make two more guns. Then you and Big Brother can go hunting too."

"With guns in hand now, who worries about not finding sparrows? They're everywhere outside, flying in flocks. You can hunt them endlessly!"

Chit-chatting happily, Qin Mao didn't wait for Old Qin to react and scampered away with the sparrows dangling from his hand.

No matter what, he was going to get his share of meat today. More importantly, what Little Four said made complete sense!

Qin Zhihe stared with gleaming eyes at the... bullets in Qin Jun's hands. These things didn't seem to cost anything? That's right, they made them themselves—what cost was there? If they had to use the village's guns, those bullets were terribly expensive! But using the guns his own son made, the bullets didn't cost a single cent, and the gun wasn't bought either. Calculating it that way, every sparrow they shot was a pure three-cent profit! If he worked a bit harder every day and bagged a hundred of them, that wasn't too much, right? How much was a hundred of them? Three yuan? Wasn't that making more than going to a regular job?

The more he calculated, the more excited Comrade Qin Zhihe became. His third son could make these guns all by himself—wasn't that as many as they wanted? If every member of their family had one, could everyone make three yuan a day?

At this thought, Comrade Qin Zhihe felt his heart pounding wildly. He couldn't take it; he couldn't let his imagination run wild! He hadn't completely lost his reason yet, because what he had just envisioned was the absolute ideal scenario.

By now, old Qin had snapped back to reality: a person had to live in the present, not in fantasies.

Therefore, even if they had guns, and even if they bagged a mountain of game, they couldn't just squander it like this!