Flip the table and divide the family property! Take his wife and daughter into the mountains and eat

"Blocking the door?"

Zhao Shanhe sneered, "Fine, that's perfect. I'm not interested in this lousy business anymore. I'd be more than happy if you're willing to be the gatekeepers for my Zhao family in this freezing weather."

Zhao Shanhe turned around and decisively waved his hand: "Close the door!"

The two heavy, black lacquered wooden doors slammed shut with a dull thud, leaving more than a hundred people stunned.

Outside the door, the cold wind lashed against my face like a knife.

The crowd looked at each other, bewildered, and then a chaotic commotion erupted.

They're just closing down like that? Not even a threat, just abandoning them?

The bearded man gritted his teeth and roared at the shivering men around him, "Don't panic, everyone! He's just bluffing! Let's freeze here and wait it out, see how he manages to haul all that hide out of his yard! Let's wear him down!"

More than a hundred people braved the biting winds of minus ten degrees Celsius, standing like wooden stakes firmly planted at the bottom of the steps, their faces filled with resentment and bitterness.

But this stubbornness didn't even last half an hour.

From inside the high courtyard walls, a mournful sound of a pig being slaughtered soon came, followed by the muffled thuds of a knife chopping into a cutting board and the crackling of firewood being chopped.

Before long, a rich, sizzling aroma of stewed pork, mixed with the steam from pickled cabbage and glass noodles, wafted arrogantly out from the top of the wall.

Gurgle.

Outside in the wind and snow, someone swallowed a large mouthful of saliva without any self-control.

The sound of swallowing saliva was like a plague, densely packed among the more than one hundred men who had been starving all day and whose chests were sticky with sweat.

Some people didn't even bother to wipe the snot frozen on their upper lips; they just kept sniffling and greedily inhaling the aroma of meat wafting from the top of the wall.

"Damn it! They're eating meat inside, while we're freezing out there!"

The bearded man, smelling the aroma of meat, was so enraged his eyes nearly bled. He roared at the people around him, "Damn it! Can you guys stand for this? There are only a dozen of him. I don't believe he'd dare kill all one hundred of us! Everyone, grab your weapons and attack!"

"Go to hell!"

From the crowd, a young man shivering from the cold retorted without hesitation: "Why don't you go and get in there yourself! Don't you have another arm you can use to wield a knife?!"

The bearded man, his face turning ashen, cursed, "I took a bullet for you! And now you're cowering like cowards? Don't you have any backbone?!"

"Bullshit! You asked for this yourself, why should everyone else risk their lives to take bullets for you!"

Liu Laizi, whose right hand had just been smashed by Zhao Shanhe with a cast iron weight, was now sweating profusely from the pain and staring viciously at the bearded man.

He didn't dare vent his anger on Zhao Shanhe, who was like a living devil, so he could only bite back like a mad dog: "Yeah! It's all because of you that we've ended up like this! If you hadn't stirred up trouble, would my hand be crippled?!"

Old Ba squatted in the snow, wiping away tears in despair and wailing, "I told him I'd sold it to him, five cents would have been enough! My son is waiting at home for sorghum to save his life! You, you good-for-nothing, ruined it all!"

"Go to hell! You're just after more money for yourself. You just tried to trick us into storming their compound. You want to kill everyone?"

The men who had been huddling together for warmth just moments before instantly broke off all pretense of civility under the dual torment of hunger, cold, and the enticing aroma of meat.

In an attempt to shirk responsibility, more than a hundred people started biting and cursing at each other in the snow.

The bearded man trembled with rage as he looked at his fellow villagers who had turned on him in an instant and listened to their slanderous accusations.

"Stop trying to pin this on me!"

The bearded man, clutching his bleeding shoulder, his eyes bloodshot, hysterically roared at the crowd: "Fuck you! If I were Zhao Shanhe, looking at a bunch of ungrateful bastards, I wouldn't take a single penny of your goods!"

Just as this group of people were about to fight each other in the snow, they were like dogs biting each other.

With a creak.

Suddenly, the gate of the Zhao family compound was opened from the inside, leaving a gap about half a meter wide.

With a white bandage wrapped around his head, Erga Zi, holding a large, rough porcelain bowl bigger than his face, swaggered out the door and plopped down on the steps.

The large bowl was filled to the brim with slices of pork belly, cut half an inch thick and stewed until tender, with a layer of tempting golden-yellow oil floating on top.

Erga Zi didn't even glance at the group of hungry ghosts below. He picked up his chopsticks, grabbed a large piece of marbled white meat, and stuffed it directly into his mouth.

Smack, smack.

The loud chewing sounds carried exceptionally far in the wind and snow.

"Oh my god, Dazhuang, your knife skills are terrible! You cut it so thick!"

Ergaizi smacked his lips loudly, muttering with disgust, "This big fat piece is all oil, it's greasy! Guys, anyone want to eat a couple of pieces for me? My throat feels like it's stuffed with oil!"

The more than one hundred people below the steps stared wide-eyed at the gleaming fat in Ergaizi's bowl, their eyes practically popping out of their sockets.

The Adam's apples of dozens of men bobbed violently, their cravings somehow warming their frozen minds. Some of the younger men even drooled onto their stubble.

Immediately afterwards, several more figures squeezed out from the crack in the door.

Da Zhuang and his dozen or so guards, each holding a large, steaming bowl, lined up on the steps and squatted down, shoveling food into their mouths.

"Hey Erga, stop talking nonsense! Meat tastes best when it's this thick!"

Da Zhuang roughly wiped the grease off his mouth with the back of his hand, opened his mouth wide, and chewed with a satisfied expression: "I don't know why, maybe it's because I was out exercising at the entrance today, but I have an unusually good appetite!"

A burly guard next to him picked up a shiny noodle with his chopsticks and slurped it loudly, glancing mockingly at the crowd below the steps: "Brother Dazhuang, you're not exactly warming up, are you? There's an old saying, happiness is always relative, right, brothers!"

The guard grinned and deliberately laughed loudly: "You might find this meat ordinary while squatting on a warm kang (heated brick bed), but if you eat it with these bastards freezing like little lambs down there, watching them suffer from hunger and cold while swallowing your saliva, then this meat is an absolute delicacy!"

"Hahahahaha!"

A dozen or so men, holding bowls, burst into unrestrained laughter in the wind and snow.

Enraged by this humiliating beating and slapping, the bearded man's chest heaved violently as he pointed at the steps and roared, "Don't go too far! Killing someone is just a matter of beheading them!"

"What's excessive?"

Ergazi scoffed, spitting a piece of pork cartilage into the snow. Holding his large bowl, he blinked innocently: "We're just having a hot meal in front of our own brother's compound, and we're taking a moment to sit on these steps and enjoy the snow. What's it to you?"

Erga tapped his chopsticks on the rim of his bowl, crossed his legs, and spoke with a smug, self-satisfied tone.

"Besides, we have tens of thousands of top-quality hides in our warehouse right now. I've been living in constant fear that we'll be robbed in the middle of the night."

Erga slapped his thigh and burst into laughter at the nearly infuriated crowd below: "Now everything's fine! I'm completely relieved! With over a hundred of you acting as gatekeepers for our compound, what foolish thief would dare to steal anything at this hour?"

"Yeah yeah!"

The dozen or so guards on the steps cheered loudly, each holding a bowl and laughing so hard they were doubled over: "With so many people keeping watch for us for free, we don't even need to lock our inner room doors tonight!"

This humiliation was like a rusty saw, slowly and cruelly tearing at the nerves of these men from the lower classes.

Hunger, cold, and the humiliation of being treated as "free gatekeepers" utterly crushed their dignity in the mud.

Just when this group of people were trembling all over, yet too weak to even curse due to hunger and cold.

Zhao Shanhe, wearing a military overcoat, slowly appeared in the center of the gate.

He held a glass of strong sorghum liquor in his hand, looking down at the group of men whose faces were ashen.

He casually poured the remaining half-mouthed wine from his glass onto the steps, not even bothering to look at them again, and simply turned his head away.

"Close the door, and seal the cracks shut for me."

Zhao Shanhe's voice sounded particularly cold and piercing in the wind and snow: "I don't want anyone to bother my wife and children again today!"

boom!

The door was locked again, cruelly.

The enticing aroma of meat and the warm glow of the fire were completely shut out within the high walls.

The sky darkened rapidly.

The cold wave, like a raging demon, swept ruthlessly across the entire Kaoshantun village.

Temperatures plummeted dramatically, and the snow on the ground instantly froze into a solid ice sheet.

More than a hundred hungry men huddled together in the darkness and cold snow, their chattering voices growing faint.