Rebirth in 1972: Redemption in Changbai Mountain

"Hmm..." Zhou Rui pondered for a moment, "How about this, buy more things next time you go home..."

"Huh?" Gu Jiacheng wrung his hands anxiously before he could finish speaking.

"Every time I go back to the village, I'm carrying half a bag of pastries and two pounds of sugar. But my mother still searches me as usual; she can't hide a single penny. This method is completely useless!"

"What's the rush? I haven't finished speaking yet." Zhou Rui shook his head, looking just like a strategist in a play waving a feather fan.

"I told you to buy a larger quantity, carrying dozens of kilograms of rice home. Your mother can't possibly empty the whole bag and feel each grain one by one, can she?"

"Wrap the money tightly in oil paper and stuff it into the bottom of a rice sack; wouldn't that bypass a body search?"

"Oh~ I understand now." Gu Jiacheng's eyes lit up, and he slapped his thigh and laughed out loud.

"Once my mom finishes searching me and turns to cook, I'll secretly slip the money out of the rice. That should solve the problem, right?"

"Hmm, at least you've finally figured it out." Zhou Rui nodded. "But don't just keep buying rice. You're stuffing flour bags in here today and hiding soybean oil next to the barrel tomorrow. If you keep buying the same thing, your mother will get suspicious sooner or later."

"What mischief are you two up to, whispering amongst yourselves in the back?"

Suddenly, a head popped out from the side. It was Liu Qingguo, who was walking in front. He had come around to ask about the two people who were sneaking around at the back of the line.

"N-nothing!"

Zhou Rui and Gu Jiacheng chuckled in unison, swallowing back the topic of hiding money from each other.

The twenty-mile mountain road wound along the edge of the forest. The group chatted and laughed without stopping, and soon they stepped into the territory of Taiping Town.

Four old Liberation rifles were parked in a row at the entrance of the commune compound. The militiamen and hunters who had arrived early had already lined up in the open space, their rifle butts hitting the ground with a dull thud.

After Zhou Rui and his group returned to their team, it took another half an hour for people from several surrounding villages to gradually arrive.

Commune director Wang Yuankun stepped up the steps, grabbed a large tin megaphone, and shouted, the wind carrying his voice throughout the courtyard.

"Attention, all of you!"

Militia comrades, hunter comrades!

The farm is in dire straits; a pack of wolves has reached our doorstep in the Great Northern Wilderness. They've snatched the farm's lambs, trampled the rice stalks in the fields, and even bitten the educated youth who were harvesting!

Those kids from the city, full of enthusiasm, responded to the nation's call to defend and build the border regions, and gathered here from all corners of the country.

We cannot allow them to suffer even the slightest harm!

Load the guns, leash the hunting dogs, and today we're going to wipe out this pack of wicked wolves completely, so they'll never dare to set foot on our farmland again!

After everyone finished their tasks, the commune prepared ginger soup and warmed strong liquor in the large iron pot to warm everyone up and celebrate their success. "Let's go!"

His words were spoken faster than a gunshot. Before the people below could even clap, he started dividing the group into two teams of about two hundred people each, each with about ninety people, and they headed off to the two farms where the incidents had occurred.

As Zhou Rui squeezed onto the truck, he caught a glimpse of his master, Wang Shouye, and his second senior apprentice, Wang Zhen. Unfortunately, the two were assigned to another team. They quickly nodded to each other across the crowd, and the roar of the truck engine drowned out their farewells.

The eldest brother, Gu Shaofeng, also spotted Zhou Rui. Without even greeting the villagers, he grabbed the collars of several hunting dogs and squeezed sideways into the back of Zhou Rui's Liberation truck.

A Jiefang brand truck could normally fit forty or so people, but with the addition of a dozen or so hunting dogs panting with their tongues out, even the space to stand was cramped.

A militiaman wearing a new cloth jacket kept dodging and weaving, afraid that dog hair would dirty the hem of his clothes, and kept muttering to himself.

"This dog smell is too strong. Move aside and don't get on me. I just wore these new clothes yesterday."

An elderly man in his fifties nearby couldn't stand it anymore and yelled at the young man.

"Young man, what are you yelling about? This dog is more useful than you on the farm."

"And what are we here for? We're here to hunt wolves. Wearing new clothes, anyone who didn't know better would think you're going to be a groom."

The whole bus burst into laughter, and the tension that had been building up just moments before vanished completely with the sound of their laughter.

"Grandpa, you've been running around in the mountains your whole life, can you tell us a few words?"

A young man leaned forward and asked, "These wolves have been breaking into the farm one after another, and they're not all together. Is there some kind of reason behind this?"

Zhou Rui looked up and saw that the old man in his fifties was the "Guai Zi Ye" (Guai Zi Ye), who seemed to be an old hunter. However, Zhou Rui had only recently started out and hadn't heard of him much.

"Could it be that some evil spirit has gotten into the ground?" A young man who had only recently picked up a hunting rifle blurted out, but before he could finish speaking, the middle-aged man next to him slapped him on the back of the head.

"What nonsense are you spouting? What kind of evil thing is this? If such a thing really existed, I could take it down with one shot."

The entire car fell silent instantly, even the hunting dogs stopped barking and pricked up their ears to look in the direction of the cripple.

Zhou Rui leaned forward as well. He had been pondering this matter all the way here but still couldn't figure it out. Listening to what the old mountain runners had to say was better than guessing blindly.

The old man tucked his pipe back into his waistband, squinted, and gazed at the distant wasteland. The wind blew the white hair on his forehead backward.

"If it's just a pack of wolves causing trouble on the farm, it's probably because some kid stole a wolf cub, and the mother wolf went mad and came looking for revenge."

"But these several packs of wolves broke into different farms. I've been running around in the mountains for half my life, and this is the first time I've ever seen anything like this."

The old man with the rickety closed his eyes, whether he was recalling something or organizing his thoughts, there was no sound at all on the truck.

Everyone waited patiently, but some were impatient: "Hey, stop panting, hurry up and tell me, I can't wait any longer."

The kidnapper opened his eyes again.

"When I was young, I traveled to the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. The local herders had been dealing with grassland wolves for generations."

The wolves in that area clearly had gazelles and rabbits to eat, yet they still insisted on charging into the pastures despite being under fire.

Snatching lambs and stealing food isn't out of fearlessness; it's because they see humans as territorial rivals. Two packs of wolves are fighting to the death for the same pasture.

"You mean, the situation in our Great Northern Wilderness is the same as that of the grasslands?" The young man who had interrupted earlier was so engrossed in listening that he subconsciously chimed in.

"Almost there." The wind deepened the wrinkles at the corners of the old man's eyes, revealing the wisdom that had been etched by time.

"Our corps came to reclaim the wasteland and turned all the barren meadows into farmland. The territory that the wolves used to roam was suddenly gone by more than half."

They can't retreat into the mountains either? The mountains are full of bears, leopards, and Siberian tigers; those creatures are ten times fiercer than humans. If a wolf went in, there wouldn't even be bones left.

"They had nowhere to retreat, nowhere to hide, so they could only rush into human territory with bloodshot eyes. This wasn't a wolf scourge; the wolves had no other way to survive and were trying to drive the people away."

The truck slammed into a ditch, and the people in the back swayed. The outline of the distant mountain valley slowly became clear in the wind, and Zhou Rui's hand, gripping the rifle, tightened unconsciously.