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

As she was moving along the village road, she heard a noisy commotion coming from around the corner of the wall ahead. It was two children, about seven or eight years old, each carrying a small manure basket that was almost as big as herself and holding a small shovel. They were arguing heatedly around a pile of donkey dung.

"This dung is mine! I saw this donkey wandering around here last night, I've had my eye on it for a while, don't you dare try to take it!"

Another bald kid.

"You're talking nonsense! What do you mean, 'your shit'? I got here first, whoever sees it first gets to keep it, whoever picks it up first gets to keep it!"

"be mine!"

"be mine!"

The two children wouldn't give in to each other, and their argument escalated into a physical fight. They pushed and shoveled each other, throwing their small shovels aside as they wrestled on the ground, covered in dirt. Their small manure baskets were also overturned, scattering the bits of manure they had collected all over the ground.

The adults who had gone out to collect manure gathered around, laughing uproariously as they watched the two teenagers fight over a pile of donkey dung.

"Look at these two little rascals, they're so clever. They know manure is good stuff, and they even know to steal it!"

"Arguing heatedly over a pile of manure—farm kids learn to collect fertilizer from a young age!"

Chen Liu smiled and shook her head, then stepped forward and pulled the two wrestling children apart, patting the dirt off them.

"Alright, alright, stop fighting! It's nothing, just a pile of dung. There's plenty of that on the wasteland. Go pick it up somewhere else, don't fight here, or you'll start crying!"

The two children rubbed their flushed faces, glared at each other, and dared not make a fuss anymore. They picked up their shovels, slung their manure baskets over their shoulders, and grumbled as they ran towards the edge of the village.

Just as Chen Liu shoveled the last pile of dog poop into the basket, before she could even straighten up, she heard a flurry of hurried footsteps. She looked up and saw...

Those two kids were running around in a sweat, making a lot of noise.

"A madman! A madman has come to the river bend at the west end of the village!"

When the manure collectors from the village arrived at the edge of the wasteland, Chen Liushi, with her sharp eyes, immediately recognized them.

"Oh my god! Isn't this Jia Da Kong from our village?! What happened to him?! Look at his head, who cracked his skull open?!"

Jia Dakong's face was covered in scabs, and his hair was stuck to the wound. Liu Dazui next to him immediately pouted.

"I think it's almost certainly him! This kid's always been a good-for-nothing, loafing around all day. He must have been caught red-handed climbing into someone else's woman's bed in the middle of the night by the men, and they beat him senseless! Otherwise, why would a perfectly normal person be eating grass like this?"

Jia Dakong, who was lying in the haystack, was stuffing weeds into his mouth without a care, chewing them until his mouth was full of grass crumbs.

Suddenly, he grinned foolishly and threw away the weeds he was holding.

"Hehe, woman, she's a woman..."

He stared intently at the group of old women in front of him.

"I want to nurse! I want to nurse! Will you let me nurse or not!"

Chen Liu was closest to him. When she saw this silly boy heading straight for her, she protected her manure basket, turned around and ran back into the village, cursing as she ran.

"You damned bastard! Even though you're this stupid, you still can't forget about that thing in your crotch? Get lost!"

····

There was already a big fool named Qiang in the village, but ever since Jia Da Kong started acting silly and demanding milk from every woman he saw a few days ago, everyone in the village said that now there's another big fool, Jia Da Kong, and the two fools together are making the village quite lively.

Sha Qiangzi's brain was damaged by a fever later in life. He's usually a bit silly and doesn't understand anything, but he's honest and kind-hearted, with no bad intentions. He's like a child who hasn't grown up. He just smiles at people and doesn't cause any trouble.

The villagers, young and old, had watched him grow up since he was a child. They knew that he was a good person at heart. Even though he did things without thinking, they all liked him from the bottom of their hearts and didn't hold it against him. When they saw him on weekdays, they would smile and call him "Silly Qiangzi".

But Jia Dakong was different. He was a notorious good-for-nothing in the village. Before he went crazy, he was always idle and did all sorts of petty theft, swindling, and cheating. His reputation was worse than that of a latrine.

Now that he's gone mad, he does whatever he wants without any regard for others. He takes off his pants whenever he wants and chases after young women whenever he wants.

At first, there were a few kind-hearted old people in the village who couldn't bear to see him groaning from hunger and gave him half a cornbread and a bowl of thin porridge.

Who would have thought that Jia Dakong was an insatiable glutton, with an astonishingly large appetite, capable of eating the equivalent of three strong laborers' meals in one sitting.

If anyone treats him even slightly well, he immediately takes advantage of it, barging into people's houses without a care in the world, snatching food from the pot without any politeness.

These days, everyone in the village relies on the meager harvest from the fields to make a living. Every household is struggling financially, so where would they find any extra grain to give to this good-for-nothing?

Wouldn't it be better to save that food for our own elderly and children, so that our family members don't suffer from hunger, than to feed it to this ungrateful fool?

After this happened several times, the entire Nangou Village was so disgusted that no one was willing to give him a bite to eat anymore, and they would avoid him whenever they saw him.

Jia Dakong was an old man living alone, with no relatives or friends. After he became mentally unstable, he couldn't remember where his home was and wandered around the village all day. In the last two days, he has disappeared without a trace. Nobody knows where he went or whether he is dead or alive.

Right now, spring plowing is the most important thing. Everyone is busy in the fields, working hard from dawn till dusk, so tired that they can't even straighten their backs. Who has time to think about some irrelevant good-for-nothing? This matter was gradually forgotten by everyone.

Chen Gaoshan hasn't been idle these past two days either. He went to the fields with his father before dawn and worked from dawn till dusk for four days straight, clearing out all the land in the family's two plots, breaking up the clods of soil, and straightening the ridges, just waiting to sow the seeds.

Right now, the family's large horse-drawn carriage is parked at the edge of the field, carrying a seed drill, as well as wheat seeds, corn seeds, and bean seeds.

When farming and supporting a family, livestock are of utmost importance, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.

Oxen are strong and energetic when plowing, but they are slow.

Horses have good endurance and can travel long distances for work, but they need to be fed expensive, high-quality feed, which most families cannot afford.

Donkeys are hardy and easy to raise, and they are not picky eaters, but they are stubborn and fierce, and it takes a lot of effort to get them to work.

The mule, however, combines the strengths of both a horse and a donkey, possessing both power and stamina, and never slacks off when working. Unfortunately, it is a castrated animal and cannot be used for breeding.

Therefore, in Nangou Village, any family with a decent means would grit their teeth and raise a horse. Horses are so useful: they can plow and harrow the fields during spring planting, grind grain on ordinary days, pull carts and sleds when going out, and ride them to catch up in emergencies. They are indispensable for everything.

Nangou Village has a small population and a lot of land, so the Chen family is considered a large household. They own a big, fat draft horse with four legs as thick as wooden pillars. It can plow the fields more than twice as fast as an ox and is very efficient at its work.

Those poor families in the village who couldn't afford to buy horses or raise cattle had to rent cattle from others to plow their land. If they couldn't even afford to rent cattle, the whole family had to work together, pulling the plow and harrow by hand to plant the land. They were exhausted and the progress was very slow.

Old Chen's two plots of land are mainly used for growing corn, wheat, and soybeans, which are staple foods that can fill their stomachs and be sold for money. The remaining small paddy field is used to grow rice, which was originally intended as offerings for the dog, but now they can keep it for themselves.

The big red horse at the edge of the field, with its harness already on its neck, was pulling a seed drill.

Old Chen led the way, pulling the reins and occasionally shouting to direct the direction of the farmland.

"Whoa, oh oh, giddy up, go go go, darling."