1940s: I supported my wife and sister-in-law by hunting.

Chen Gaoshan put his glove back on and patted the snow off his cotton trousers.

After patiently waiting for another five minutes, they finally headed into the village.

It was just past noon, and everyone in the village had finished eating. With no farm work to do, everyone was bored and restless.

The old women in the village either stayed at their kang (heated brick bed) doing needlework, sewing shoe soles and cotton clothes, or they went to their neighbors' houses, sat cross-legged on their kangs and chatted endlessly about this family and that family.

"Hey, isn't this Shanzi? What have you been up to in this freezing weather?"

"How did you come from the west side of the village? It has to be you, Shanzi! The ice hole just fell down like that, and you were completely unaffected. Your physique is truly something else; you won't find another like it in our village!"

The speaker was none other than the shameless Fatty San.

He was wearing a cotton hat askew, the ear flaps drooping on both sides, his hands tucked into his sleeves, his neck hunched, and he was leaning towards Chen Gaoshan with a grin on his face, completely oblivious to the anger in Chen Gaoshan's eyes.

The moment Chen Gaoshan saw him, a fire ignited within him, shooting straight to his head and making his temples throb. If it weren't for this kid's instigation and sabotage, he wouldn't have ended up in that ice cave and suffered so much.

He originally intended to devise a proper way for him to die, but he never expected that this bastard would actually come to him on his own initiative.

They're practically asking for too much of a life; they were born to die young.

Without saying a word, Chen Gaoshan rushed towards Sanpangzi. Before Sanpangzi could react, he grabbed him by the collar of his cotton-padded coat and lifted him off the ground.

"What the hell are you spouting? You think I really am that kind of person?!"

Chen Gaoshan gritted his teeth.

"What kind of nonsense is going on in your head? You know better than anyone how I fell into that ice hole! I didn't even come looking for you to settle scores, and instead you're acting like a donkey in front of me?"

What I do is none of your business! Why are you so annoying, always running around wherever there's trouble, always baring your teeth and making a scene!

Sanpangzi never expected Chen Gaoshan to act so suddenly. In an instant, he felt his feet leave the ground and his collar was tightly wrapped around his neck, making it hard for him to breathe. His face quickly turned bright red.

He flailed his arms at Chen Gaoshan's arm, kicked and struggled incessantly in the air, and coughed intermittently.

"Relax, let go! Shanzi! Cough cough, let go... I can't breathe!"

The fat man's eyes rolled back in his head from holding it in.

"If you don't let go right now, I'm going to call for help!"

Seeing that the man's tongue was sticking out from being strangled, and fearing that he might actually kill him in broad daylight, Chen Gaoshan loosened his grip and pushed the man away.

Fatty staggered back several steps and fell hard on his backside in the cold snow. He gasped for breath, desperately trying to breathe.

Chen Gaoshan stood still, staring at him fiercely.

"Get the hell out of here! Don't ever come near me again. Just looking at you annoys me! If I ever see you strutting around in front of me again, I'll beat you so badly you'll be soaking wet, unable to stand, and your pee will be split in two. I'll write my name backwards!"

Sanpangzi was thin and small, a whole head shorter than the tall Chen Gaoshan. He was all talk and no action and was no match for Chen Gaoshan at all.

His neck was throbbing with pain from being strangled, and it took him a long time to recover. He clutched his neck, rubbing it and coughing, and managed to utter a complete sentence with great difficulty.

"Cough cough cough... You fucking trying to strangle me!"

"We've been childhood friends, practically inseparable since we were little, how could I possibly hurt you!"

While saying this, Sanpangzi's mind was racing. He remembered that a few days ago, he met Liu, the hunter, who was returning from hunting. They planned to go into the mountains together again while the weather was still cold and the snow hadn't melted.

He quickly stood up from the ground.

"Shanzi, you're the most capable and successful person of your generation in our village. Who doesn't admire you? You really can't blame me for that ice hole incident. I didn't do it from beginning to end. It was those guys behind me who lost their footing and rushed you out in a panic. If anyone's to blame, it's them!"

"What's our relationship? We've been childhood friends, always catching fish and climbing trees together, practically growing up naked. Do you think I'd joke about something this dangerous? You have to believe me!"

He rubbed his hands together and caught up.

"Here's the thing, if you're still angry, just come to my house tomorrow. I'll have my housekeeper, Qiuyanzi, stew some fresh fish for you, heat up a pot of liquor, and we'll sit on the kang (heated brick bed) and have a good drink. Let's turn the page on this! Besides, you're perfectly fine, nothing's wrong with you, so don't hold a grudge against me."

He glanced furtively at Chen Gaoshan's expression and saw that he wasn't as angry anymore.

He snorted inwardly.

Chen Gaoshan was just a big, strong but simple-minded guy with nothing to show for it.

If it had been him in the same situation at the frozen lake that day, he would have run away the moment he was pushed out. He would rather lose those fish than throw himself into the ice hole to his death. Only this big fool would be so stupid as to rush in.

Chen Gaoshan, who can be so close to that big idiot Qiang in the village, can't possibly be a good person.

This guy's brain isn't working properly; if I wanted to fool him, I could easily crush him.

Playing with him is no different from playing with an obedient dog.

However, Chen Gaoshan was tall and strong, so he would definitely lose in a head-on confrontation. But Sanpangzi never relied on brute force; he relied on his cleverness.

"You've been staying home and haven't gone out lately, so you don't know what's going on in the village. But all the men in our village, young and old, give you a thumbs up whenever they talk about you, Chen Gaoshan. They all praise your character and say you're a real man who stands tall and upright!"

Shanzi, why are you so short-tempered? Don't you know me? I love to join in the fun and stir things up, and I'm a bit of a chatterbox, but I have a good heart and I've never had any bad intentions!

"To be honest, if I hadn't pulled some strings for you in the village, would you have such a great reputation, and would all the young women and wives in the village admire you so much?"

"Ha! Bah, you? You think you're so clever? I'd rather spit a mouthful of phlegm at you and kill you. Stop trying to sweet-talk me!"

As he listened to the three fat men beside him chatter on and on, their mouths never stopping, spouting nonsense, he began to plot his own scheme.

He knew Fatty San too well. That bastard never showed up without a reason. The fact that he was saying so many nice things for no reason meant he was definitely setting up something. He probably had some bad intentions up his sleeve.

Chen Gaoshan was too lazy to waste any more words with him. He turned around and kicked in the direction of the fat man.

The fat man was startled and quickly bent over, taking several steps back to avoid the kick. He immediately panicked.

I said a whole bunch of nice things and used all my sweet talk, but it was all for naught.

His family was originally doing quite well. His father was a well-known stonemason in the surrounding area, making a living by carving stone tablets for others. The family had no worries about food and drink.

But when his father died last year, the family's good days came to an end.

He has two older sisters who are married, so he learned his father's skills as well.

But chiseling stones is so tiring, and you can't make quick money. With no income for the family, they rely entirely on those seven acres of land to make ends meet, and on his wife Qiu Yanzi supporting him in exchange for food.

Seeing that the hunters in the village could hunt more game than they could eat every time they went into the mountains, and exchange the hides for a lot of grain and money, living a prosperous life, eating meat with grease at every meal, he was extremely jealous and anxious every day.

Who wouldn't want to eat meat every meal?

But he had no skills or connections to go hunting in the mountains, so he could only watch helplessly.

····