Rebirth in a Courtyard: I Am a Little Hunter

Before Qin Huairu could finish speaking, the curtain of the Jia family's house was lifted a crack again, and Jia Zhangshi's mean face peeked out. Her triangular eyes swept over Wei Chen, and she curled her lip, her voice sharp and shrill: "Oh, it's Wei Chen! A rare guest! I thought you had climbed up the social ladder and forgotten about our poor courtyard! Where did you go to make your fortune? Looking at you coming back empty-handed, you probably came all this way for nothing, didn't you?" The sourness and probing in her tone were almost palpable.

Wei Chen was already immune to Jia Zhangshi's harshness. He only glanced at her indifferently before turning his gaze to Qin Huairu, his tone calm and even: "Sister-in-law Jia, Aunt Zhang. We didn't go anywhere. The factory assigned us a purchasing task, so we went to the countryside. We just finished our work today. The team leader saw that we were too tired, so he told us to come back early to rest." He specifically emphasized "the team leader told us to come back early to rest," making it clear that he wasn't idle.

"Shopping? Oh, shopping in this freezing weather is tough work! Go back inside and warm up!" Qin Huairu immediately chimed in, her smile unchanged, but her eyes quickly swept over Wei Chen's empty bag and his slightly tired but still energetic face. She was thinking: empty-handed... but he came back early to rest... it seems he did a good job on this errand? I just don't know if he got anything of value... She picked up the basin, swayed her hips, and headed towards the sink, her thoughts still lingering on Wei Chen.

Madam Jia snorted, not getting the answer she wanted, and sullenly withdrew her head. The curtain fell heavily, making a muffled sound.

Wei Chen ignored her, nodded to the old woman, and walked straight through the middle courtyard to the moon gate leading to the east wing. He unlocked the moon gate, pushed it open, and returned to his small, quiet world.

After two weeks away, the small courtyard seemed unusually quiet and deserted. A thin layer of dust covered the ground, and the bundles of firewood piled in the corner looked somewhat messy. But the small vegetable garden in the center of the courtyard unexpectedly showed a vibrant vitality.

Several large cabbages remained tightly wrapped, their leaves a vibrant green, though the edges were slightly wilted from the frost; rows of spinach and scallions, though growing slowly, still stood tall and lush. Clearly, someone had taken good care of them. Wei Chen had lightly covered the spinach with a plastic sheet.

Seeing how well the vegetable garden was being taken care of, Wei Chen felt a surge of warmth in his heart. He put down his bag, picked up the broom in the corner, and began to sweep the yard.

Her movements were swift and steady, the swishing sound of her sweeping particularly clear in the quiet courtyard. She swept away the dust and then neatly arranged the scattered firewood.

After doing all that, he walked to the edge of the vegetable garden, squatted down, and gently ran his fingers over a plump cabbage. The cold leaves, though tough, were a symbol of tenacious vitality.

After tidying up the yard, Wei Chen walked into his small house. A musty smell, mixed with dust and a faint musty odor, wafted out.

He opened the window to let in fresh air, and the cool air immediately dispelled the stuffiness. He picked up a rag and carefully wiped away the thin layer of ash that had accumulated on the table and windowsill, then tidied the bed a bit. Finally, his gaze fell on the coal stove burning in the corner, its hearth ice-cold.

Wei Chen picked up the fire tongs and an empty coal briquette from beside the stove, closed the door, and went back through the moon gate to the central courtyard.

On the west side of the central courtyard's passageway, there was a small, back-facing room with a low door frame and yellowed, torn newspapers pasted on the windows. Aunt Liu lived there.

Aunt Liu was actually only in her early forties, but the burdens of life had already worn her down to the appearance of a fifty-year-old woman. Her face was deeply lined with wrinkles, her hands were rough and cracked, she wore a gray-blue cotton-padded jacket covered in patches all year round, and her back was severely hunched.

Her husband died in a work injury years ago, and the small amount of compensation he received from the factory had long been spent. He didn't have a formal job and relied entirely on odd jobs from the neighborhood office, such as pasting matchboxes and sewing shoe soles, to raise their two teenage children. Their lives were even more difficult than those of Grandma Li, who was raising her grandson alone in the backyard.

When Wei Chen first moved in, Aunt Liu saw that it was not easy for him, a young boy, to make a living on his own. Sometimes she would secretly give him a steamed bun or some rare vegetable leaves. Wei Chen remembered this kindness.

Wei Chen knocked on the thin wooden door: "Aunt Liu, are you home?"

The door creaked open, and Aunt Liu's tired and worried face appeared behind it. When she saw Wei Chen, a glimmer of light flashed in her cloudy eyes. She tried to force a smile, but it was too stiff and looked somewhat bitter: "It's Wei Chen... Come in quickly, it's cold outside."

The room was dimly lit and filled with a mixture of cheap coal smoke and dampness. It was so small that it was almost impossible to turn around.

Two teenagers—a boy of about twelve or thirteen and a girl of eight or nine—were wearing thin, worn-out cotton-padded clothes. They were doing their homework on the only small square table, using the last bit of daylight coming through the window. Their little hands were red from the cold. When they saw Wei Chen come in, they timidly called out, "Brother Wei Chen."

"I won't go in, Aunt Liu," Wei Chen said, standing at the door and handing her the empty coal briquette. "I just got back, and the stove went out. Would it be convenient for you to give me a burning coal briquette?"

"Convenient! Convenient!" Aunt Liu responded repeatedly, quickly turned around and went back into the house. With somewhat slow movements, she carefully used tongs to take out a burning red-hot coal ball with slightly white edges from under her own stove, and carefully placed it into the empty coal ball that Wei Chen had brought.

"Here, take this! The fire's blazing!" She handed the tongs holding the coal briquettes to Wei Chen, and then instructed, "Your room is freezing cold. You need to smother it up quickly and add more firewood to start the fire. The coal briquettes alone won't warm it up anytime soon."

"Oh, thank you, Aunt Liu!" Wei Chen took the heavy fire tongs that were radiating scorching heat. "Thanks to you and Grandma Li for watching over my vegetable garden. The vegetables are growing quite well; they haven't been damaged by the frost at all."

Mentioning the vegetable garden, Aunt Liu's wrinkles seemed to smooth out a bit, revealing a simple sense of accomplishment: "Oh, it's only right. You trust us and gave us the keys. It's just that the weather is getting colder every day, and it frosted last night. You need to harvest those cabbages and scallions quickly! If you delay any longer, a biting blizzard will come and freeze them all in the ground, ruining them!" Her tone was genuinely anxious, as if the vegetable garden were her own.

"You're right!" Wei Chen nodded. "I'll collect it first thing tomorrow morning. Perfect timing. Our team leader said that we were exhausted from this procurement trip, and we also exceeded the factory's targets, so he's rewarding me with a day off tomorrow, and I don't have to report to the factory."

"Exceeded the target?" Aunt Liu repeated, somewhat bewildered. She only knew that Wei Chen was a purchasing agent at the steel rolling mill, but she didn't know the specifics of what he was purchasing or how difficult it was. She just felt that "exceeding the target" must be a good thing, and her face showed a hint of happiness for Wei Chen. "That's great! He should take a good day off! There's no rush to harvest the vegetables. We can do that tomorrow when the sun comes out and it's warmer."

"Okay, Aunt Liu. I'll go back and tend the fire now." Wei Chen thanked her again, picked up the burning coal briquette, and turned to leave. Behind him came Aunt Liu's low, weary cough and her urging of the child to finish his homework.

Back in his cold, icy little hut, Wei Chen immediately sprang into action. He deftly gathered dry firewood, flammable wood shavings, and scraps of paper from the corner of the room, carefully placed the blazing coal briquette given to him by Aunt Liu at the bottom of the stove, piled the firewood on top, and then covered it with wood shavings and scraps of paper.

He struck a match and lit the scraps of paper. A bright orange flame leaped up, greedily licking the dry firewood, crackling and popping merrily. Soon, a roaring fire filled the stove, the heat and the smell of coal smoke spreading out, dispelling the chill from the room.

Wei Chen filled the tin kettle on the stove with water and sat down. Listening to the faint hissing sound from the bottom of the kettle and feeling the temperature in the room gradually rise, he finally let out a long sigh of relief, a sense of relief that came from finally returning home after a long journey.

He took off his heavy cotton-padded coat, rolled up his sleeves, and began to prepare a simple dinner—taking out two still-warm white steamed buns, a small dish of pickled vegetables, and two eggs to make an egg drop soup.

The firelight illuminated his young yet composed face. As he waited for the water to boil, he looked out the window at the sky, which had grown completely dark.

The east courtyard was secluded and unusually quiet at this moment, with only the crackling of the stove fire and the faint sounds of other people's children crying or adults shouting coming from the alley in the distance.

The bustling city life and the tremors brought by the massive "mountain of flesh" at the steel mill seemed like two completely different worlds. But Wei Chen knew that these two worlds would soon converge in this small courtyard, creating waves.

Just as Wei Chen had predicted, the calm did not last long.

The roar of the steel mill's whistles, like the cry of a giant beast, pierced the winter twilight and echoed from afar. Immediately afterward, the gate of No. 95 Nanluoguxiang courtyard came alive. The crisp ringing of bicycle bells, the rough voices of workers greeting each other, and the heavy footsteps mingled together, breaking the alley's silence.

The first to bring back the news was Liu Erzhuang, who lived in the backyard and also worked as a fitter in the third workshop of the steel rolling mill. As soon as he entered the front yard, his voice rang out, filled with undisguised excitement and pride: "Guess what? Something big happened at the factory today! Something earth-shattering!"

The third uncle, Yan Bugui, who was tending to his precious potted plants in front of his house, had the sharpest ears. He immediately straightened up, pushed up his glasses that had slipped down to the bridge of his nose, and asked, "Erzhuang, what's all the fuss about? What's going on at the factory? Has someone been awarded an advanced worker award again?" He habitually guessed at honors.

"Advanced? Hey! Much more advanced than advanced!" Liu Erzhuang leaned his tools against the wall, deliberately keeping everyone in suspense, which attracted the curious onlookers from several households in the front yard who had just returned from get off work.

"Tell us already! Don't keep us in suspense!" someone urged.