Starting from 1950

The next day, Wu Xinxue officially reported for work at the flour factory's publicity department.

She changed into a brand-new indigo blue overalls, her hair was neatly combed, and she looked energetic and capable.

"Su Yang, are you okay staying home alone? How about I take a day off to keep you company?" She stood at the door, her little face scrunched up.

"Oh, Sister Xinxue, you should go! I'm an adult... cough, I'm 11 years old, I can take care of myself." Su Yang pushed her out.

He knew that Wu Xinxue was nervous on her first day of work, and that she had to overcome this feeling on her own.

Wu Xinxue took several deep breaths and walked away, turning back every few steps.

As he heard her footsteps disappear into the corridor, Su Yang's smile faded, and his eyes sharpened.

Wu Xinxue goes out to work to earn money to support the family, and he can't hold her back.

He decided to take the initiative.

However, as the saying goes, "A skilled craftsman must first have the right tools."

To eliminate the rats more easily, he first needed to get a good weapon.

What's the best weapon for catching rats? It has to be a slingshot.

Unfortunately, rubber is precious these days, and the only rubber-related items available on the market are bicycle valve cores and tubes, as well as bicycle inner and outer tires.

But this stuff is incredibly expensive these days, and it's hard to buy.

So Su Yang decided to make one himself.

Su Yang first searched the cluttered hallway for anything useful.

A broken carrying pole, a chipped earthenware pot, a straight and sturdy poplar stick...

He searched for a long time but couldn't find suitable materials, and was wondering if he should try his luck in the wild.

"Xiao Su, what are you doing rummaging through the garbage pile?" Aunt Ma came out carrying a winnowing basket to empty the coal ash.

"I want to make a mouse-snatching gadget." Su Yang shook the unusable wooden stick in his hand, frowning.

Aunt Ma slapped her thigh: "You should have said so earlier! I have some at home!"

After saying that, she didn't bother to empty the coal ash and ran back home.

A moment later, she came out with a simple recurve bow, and said with a sneer, "This was bought by my husband a few years ago, for a whole silver dollar. He said he would go hunting to improve the family's life, but he hasn't caught a single rabbit in the past ten years."

Su Yang's eyes lit up when he saw the bow in her hand.

"Can I try it out?"

"Give."

Su Yang took the bow and stroked it.

This bow has a warm, lustrous sheen from the passage of time.

The dark brown hardwood bow arms were slightly curved, with polished ox horn tips at both ends. The bowstring was made of several strands of fine hemp rope twisted together, and it smelled of cooking oil, indicating that someone had recently taken good care of it.

As soon as Su Yang touched it, he felt a strange sense of familiarity in his palm, as if this thing was born to belong to him.

The bow was about one meter long. Su Yang tried it and found that the bow's strength was less than one-third of a stone.

To be honest, this bow is only average.

But that's in terms of the bow's function itself; this bow is unsuitable for either hunting or killing.

However, it's perfect for catching rats.

Especially considering that Su Yang was still a child.

"Aunt Ma, does this bow come with arrows?"

"I did have some before, but last month we had a fight, and I sold all those arrows for scrap metal," Aunt Ma said with a dark face.

She never cared that her husband played with bows; after all, everyone has hobbies, right?

But it wasn't until last month, when she saw her husband secretly applying soybean oil from home to the bowstring, that she finally snapped.

These days, people can't even afford cooking oil, and the husband is wasting such expensive oil on a useless, lifeless thing?

Su Yang was speechless, but he could roughly imagine how angry Uncle Niu was.

However, not having arrows isn't a big problem. Using iron arrowheads to shoot a tiny mouse is indeed a bit of a waste of its potential.

A few wooden arrows will suffice.

"Um... Aunt Ma, I'd like to borrow your bow and arrow to hunt rats today. I'll share some of the money with you after I sell them," Su Yang said to Aunt Ma.

"No need! You can just play with it!" Sister Ma waved her hand dismissively.

After saying goodbye to Aunt Ma, Su Yang first went to the consumer cooperative and spent 600 yuan to buy a small knife for sharpening pencils. Then he went to the field opposite the flour factory and picked up some relatively straight tree branches.

Back in the family compound, he used a pencil sharpener to straighten and sharpen the branches, eventually shaping them into more than a dozen wooden arrows.

They found a small, tattered basket in the pile of clutter on the second floor and used it as a quiver.

As he walked out of the residential compound carrying his bow and arrows, Old Xie saw him and asked curiously, "Little guy, what are you doing? Going hunting?"

"Catch the rat!"

"Catching rats?" Old Xie chuckled.

This was the first time he had ever seen someone use a bow and arrow to shoot a rat.

"To catch rats, you still need a slingshot," Old Xie reminded him.

Su Yang curled his lip. "If I had a slingshot, would I need you to tell me?"

He was about to say goodbye to Old Man Xie when his ears suddenly twitched. Without hesitation, he pulled a wooden arrow from his basket, nocked it on his bow, and shot the arrow almost without aiming, relying solely on his instincts.

"Whoosh!"

"Squeak squeak squeak!"

Not far away, under the back wall of the flour mill, a huge rat was shot through by a wooden arrow.

Because the arrow only hit the rat's belly, it wouldn't die immediately. It struggled desperately in pain, and with the wooden arrow still lodged in its body, it couldn't run fast. The dark mass was quite conspicuous in the snow.

"Did you really hit a mouse?"

Old Xie suspected that his eyesight was failing and rubbed them vigorously.

Su Yang didn't have time to pay attention to Old Man Xie. He quickly walked to the wall, stepped on the rat, pulled out the wooden arrow, and seeing that the rat was still struggling, picked up a stone next to him and threw it at it.

"Player has gained 2 experience points!"

"You must be guessing, kid?" Old Xie came over and looked at Su Yang with a suspicious expression.

Su Yang smiled faintly, "If you say so, then it is."

After saying that, he kicked the dead rat on the ground and asked, "Will you take this rat or not?"

"I'll accept it! Of course I'll accept it!" Old Xie suppressed his doubts and gave him a reward ticket.

Su Yang casually stuffed the reward ticket into his pocket, then thought for a moment and asked, "Uncle Xie, do you know where there are a lot of rats?"

Old Xie glanced at him, thinking to himself, "You don't mean you want to keep shooting rats with your bow, do you?"

However, he wouldn't dampen the children's enthusiasm, so he pointed to the wall of the flour factory and gestured a circle.

"If we're talking about a lot of rats, then the flour mill definitely has the most, but as a family member, you can't just go into the factory area. You can look around the factory wall; there are plenty of rats in the fields outside the wall too."

Su Yang nodded. "Thank you."

After saying that, he carried his bow and arrows and slowly walked along the wall of the flour mill towards the field.

"That kid has a strange quality to him!" Old Xie muttered to himself, watching Su Yang's departing figure.

......

Su Yang walked along the wall for a while but did not find any rats.

He wasn't in a hurry. Rats are mostly nocturnal creatures, and the ground was still covered in snow, so not many rats were out and about.

It's estimated that only the flour mill has a stable food supply. That rat was on its way to the flour mill for lunch when it passed by in the snow.

Su Yang rubbed the wooden tip, which had just been stained with rat blood, in the snow. Still feeling uneasy, he simply threw the arrow away.

Rats can carry germs all over their bodies, so it's best to be careful.

Walking in the snow was not easy. It took Su Yang a few minutes to walk another hundred meters or so when he suddenly heard a faint noise, and his heart skipped a beat.

As he drew his bow and nocked an arrow, he looked toward the source of the sound.