The poor girl from the 1970s was forced to kiss by the damp educated youth.

Chen Zhi returned late last night and didn't ask Xi Lang how he prepared the wild boar, nor did she discuss with him how they would divide the meat and eggs. Chen Zhi planned to go find Xi Lang again tonight, but when she arrived at the foot of the mountain, she found him waiting for her with a lunchbox in his hand.

Xi Lang was still dressed the same in the morning light, still thin and frail, but his skin seemed even whiter, almost transparent in the dim light.

He seems really not quite right.

Xi Lang walked towards her step by step, and Chen Zhi suddenly felt like running away, a sense of fear rising in her heart for no reason.

A dark glint flashed in Xi Lang's unfathomable eyes. He stopped a meter away from her and handed her the lunchbox. "I stewed some meat this morning. Take this and eat it."

When Chen Zhi smelled the aroma of meat, and looked at Xi Lang again, she felt that this person was just an ordinary person with good cooking skills.

She swallowed hard. "Can I finish eating now and give the lunchbox back to you?"

"No rush," Xi Lang said. "Just give me the lunchbox tonight."

As he spoke, he took out three more eggs, "boiled."

The egg was still warm. Chen Zhi gently rubbed the egg with her fingertips, her eyes a little sore. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Xi Lang looked at her strangely. "You brought them all back, why thank me?"

Chen Zhi smiled. Yes, she brought them all back. Xi Lang understood the reasoning, but her family didn't think that way.

After parting ways with Xi Lang, Chen Zhi found a rock to sit on, opened her lunchbox, and found it full of wild boar meat. The wild boar meat was perfectly marbled with fat and lean meat, stewed until tender. She didn't know how Xi Lang had prepared it, but the meat had no gamey smell at all. Chen Zhi picked up a piece and put it in her mouth. The aroma of the fat and protein exploded in her mouth, so delicious that she almost swallowed her tongue.

The lunchbox was heavy with meat, and Chen Zhi ate it piece by piece until she was stuffed.

Even Chen Zhi had a day when she ate so much meat she was stuffed!

Chen Zhi's eyes widened, then she grinned silently, thinking that life was getting better and better.

On this day, Chen Zhi still took out her slingshot to practice whenever she had a spare moment. She also spotted a few pheasants along the way, but she let them go after missing her first shot and did not chase after them.

Chen Zhi didn't light a fire at noon. She ate two potatoes, three eggs, and drank a few handfuls of spring water. She felt about 70-80% full and wasn't very hungry.

As the sun began to set in the afternoon, Chen Zhi's basket was already full. But instead of rushing home, she sat on a rock and started shooting randomly with her slingshot.

Birds hopped about in the woods from time to time, but Chen Zhi's aim was still a bit off. Her hit rate was 70-80% for stationary objects, but for moving objects, she didn't even have a 30% hit rate.

Her goal was to hit moving prey.

Chen Zhi used the birds to practice, and even the insects crawling on the ground became her practice subjects. She squinted one eye, tightened the rubber band, and searched for her target—

Suddenly, a plump bamboo rat came into her view.

The bamboo rats were munching on bamboo shoots, completely unaware of the danger that was about to befall them.

call out!

Pebbles flew out.

It was so fast that even Chen Zhi herself couldn't see it clearly.

puff!

It hit the bamboo rat's big head, breaking off a corner of it.

The bamboo rat struggled for two seconds before collapsing.

Chen Zhi raised an eyebrow; she had actually hit him.

Chen Zhi wrapped the bamboo rat in a large leaf, put it in her basket, and when the sun began to set, she picked up the basket and headed out of the mountains.

By the time she returned to the village, it was already dark. A few villagers occasionally carried water along the road, but Chen Zhi avoided them from a distance. She took a detour, descending the small slope behind Xi Lang's house.

At this moment, Xi Lang was cooking. Today, he had set up an extra stove, one for stewing meat and the other for cooking rice.

Hearing a noise behind him, Xi Lang turned around and saw Chen Zhi carrying a basket bigger than herself, tiptoeing towards him like a thief.

Her face was thin and somewhat dirty, but her eyes were very bright, with a faint green tinge.

When she saw him, her eyes widened slightly, then curved into a smile, as if she had breathed a sigh of relief.

Xi Lang frowned. "Injured again?"

Chen Zhi was surprised that he could smell the bamboo rat even though it had only shed a few drops of blood!

"I wasn't injured, I just killed a rat."

Upon hearing this, Xi Lang looked at the basket on her back.

"I need to take it home. Otherwise, I can't explain why I'm not going home this late," Chen Zhi said.

Xi Lang accepted her explanation and said to her, "Wash your hands and come eat."

Xi Lang prepared two dishes: a pot of stewed bones and a plate of cold lettuce salad. The rice was mixed grain rice, and Xi Lang's pot was a bit small; the pot was full, just enough for Xi Lang and Chen Zhi to each have a bowl. However, the bowls were large, coarse earthenware bowls, one bowl being equivalent to two bowls in Chen Zhi's family.

Chen Zhi held a bone in one hand and chopsticks in the other, gnawing on it. After a few bites of meat, she would eat a bite of cold lettuce salad. The lettuce was crisp and sweet, with some chili peppers, making it very refreshing.

"Your cooking is really good, better than my grandma's and my eldest cousin's wife's," Chen Zhi praised sincerely. She added, "I've also started learning to cook, but I haven't had a chance to cook independently yet. My grandma complains that I put too much oil and salt in my food."

Xi Lang: "Then let's not do it."

Chen Zhi agreed, "I'd love to not have to do it. It'd be perfect for being lazy."

Xi Lang hummed in agreement.

At the nearby educated youth settlement, Li Zhou'an, Yang Wenyu, and others held bowls, staring at two plates of vegetables, unable to swallow their food.

"That Xi Lang is eating meat again!" Yang Wenyu said through gritted teeth.

Zhu Yuan nodded, her tone tinged with envy, "Early this morning, I saw him carrying meat back from the direction of town."

Zhao Yiqing: "Just who is this Xi Lang? I can't find anything of value on him, but he has money and ration coupons to buy meat."

The educated youth at this table shook their heads.

Zhao Jinbao: "Forget about Xi Lang, let's go buy some meat and eat. We've been working so hard these past few days, I can't keep going without some meat."

The others nodded in agreement. "Then let's pool our money and tickets and go to town to buy meat first thing tomorrow morning."

"If I had known Xi Lang's food was so good, I wouldn't have kicked him out in the first place."

"It's too late to regret it now. But it's also tragic that he cooks and eats alone, without anyone to talk to."

In the darkness, no one saw that Chen Zhi was sitting next to Xi Lang.

Chen Zhi couldn't remember how many bones she had gnawed on. After she finished eating the bones in the pot, she let out a satisfied burp, her mouth still smelling of oil.

"I'm going back now," Chen Zhi said.

Xi Lang nodded and watched Chen Zhi leave.

Chen Zhi got home a little earlier today than yesterday. The Chen family hadn't started dinner yet, and the door wasn't locked. Chen Zhi gently pushed the door open.

The old door creaked, waking the people inside.

Under the dim light of a kerosene lamp, all of the dozen or so members of the Chen family looked towards the door.

"Auntie, did you hunt anything today?" asked Chen Dongqing, the little nephew, in his clear voice.

Chen Zhi: "We caught a rat."

The next second, the Chen family strode towards Chen Zhi, with Chen Fu and Chen Mu running at the front.

Chen Mu took Chen Zhi's basket, and Chen Zhi was happy to relax. She went straight to the bamboo pole in the yard to get the clothes that had been drying in the morning. She now only had two sets of clothes to change into, which she could wash in the morning and wear in the evening.

Instead of chicken, the dinner table featured bamboo rat meat that Chen Zhigang had just brought back. The meat was boiled and stir-fried with bamboo shoots and some chili peppers, making it very fragrant.

"Little Aunt, Big Aunt is sick. The pheasant you hunted yesterday, Grandma gave to Big Brother-in-law to help Big Aunt recover," said Chen Dongqing, the little nephew.

The little guy looked unhappy.

Chen Zhi paused, saying that she had only eaten half a pheasant last night, and that her brother-in-law had taken the other half and the whole one with her.

When did Grandma become so generous?

"Your eldest sister is very ill." Grandma's voice was filled with worry, and even the meat in her mouth didn't taste good.

Chen Zhi remained silent. She and her older cousin were more than ten years apart in age, hadn't spent much time together, and didn't have much of a relationship. Hearing that her cousin was sick, Chen Zhi felt nothing.

"They can't figure out what's wrong with your sister in town, so your brother-in-law is planning to take her to the county to get it checked out," said Auntie.

Chen Zhi was envious; different people have different fates. When she broke her leg, she couldn't go to the county for treatment.

After that, no matter what these people said, Chen Zhi didn't respond.

She has no money and no medical skills, so what does it have to do with her?

Bamboo rats are fat, and my nephew thinks that if there's no pheasant, bamboo rat meat is fine too.

It was time to go out again, and my little nephew followed behind Chen Zhi, chattering away. He kept telling Chen Zhi to hunt pheasants, or if that didn't work, to hunt rats.

"Your dad will be free tomorrow, ask him to call you," Chen Zhi said.

The village's land has been almost completely plowed; today is the last day.

Chen Dongqing, her chubby cheeks puffed out, said, "I'll get Dad to hunt, but Auntie, you have to try your best too."

Chen Zhi: "..."

Little brat, you're really meddling.

Xi Lang waited for Chen Zhi at the foot of the mountain. He gave Chen Zhi a box of meat and three eggs, and then left.

The meat in the lunchbox is cold-dressed pig's head meat, which can be eaten even when it's cold.

Chen Zhi ate half of it first, and planned to save the other half for lunch.

Yesterday, Chen Zhi caught a bamboo rat. Today, while looking for bamboo shoots, he kept an eye out for any movement on the ground. By the end of the day, Chen Zhi had found five bamboo rats, shot two of them, and the rest escaped.

That evening, as usual, Chen Zhi went to Xi Lang's place first and left a bamboo rat for him.

"Do you want to eat?" Xi Lang asked her.

Chen Zhi nodded, then shook her head, "I just don't want to take two back with me."

Xi Lang was taken aback when he heard this, then thought about it seriously, "I'll cook you some spicy rat meat tomorrow night."

Chen Zhi brought back another bamboo rat, and Chen Da, Chen Gui, and the others immediately decided to go to the bamboo forest the next day to look for bamboo shoots and, incidentally, bamboo rats.

"The whole family is going," Grandma said. "Spring plowing starts in two days, and we won't have time to go into the mountains for a long time afterward. We should dry as many bamboo shoots as possible. If we can hold a banquet this year, it's always good to prepare more dried bamboo shoots."

Chen Zhi remained silent, thinking that the mountains would be very lively tomorrow.

The next morning, Chen Zhi wanted to go into the mountains by herself, but her family disagreed, arguing that she had experience in finding bamboo rats and should lead the way.

Chen Zhi was surprised; wasn't she afraid of being affected by her bad luck?

At the foot of the mountain, Chen Zhi saw Xi Lang. Their eyes met, and then they looked away.

"Xi Lang lent you his slingshot, so why didn't he come over to say hello when he saw you?" Chen Mu asked.

Chen Zhi looked frustrated, her tone laced with anger, "Who knows!"

If these people hadn't insisted on being with her, she would have been able to eat meat!

So annoying!

Chen Ye leaned close to her mother's ear and asked, "Did Zhizhi and Xi Lang have a fight?"