Chapter 599: The Pinnacle of the Minor Hunt — The Foot Snare (2)

Zhao Youcai blinked. He felt that Wang Meilan’s gaze was even colder than the house. But right now, he didn’t dare say a word.

Just then, Li Baoyu, holding two bundles of dried noodles and two jars of canned food, was about to climb down from the truck bed. Zhao Jun hurried over and reached out to take some of the load.

Seeing this, Wang Meilan said to Jin Xiaomei, “Xiaomei, hurry inside. Wash the wok, stir-fry some aromatics, and boil some noodles for us to eat.”

“Okay!” Jin Xiaomei replied and hurried into the courtyard. Before she went, she also took Zhao Hong and Zhao Na by the hand.

It was almost nine o’clock, and she was hungry too.

“Ruhai.” Although this wasn’t her own house, Wang Meilan started giving orders. Otherwise, everyone would just be standing awkwardly at the gate, staring blankly at Zhao Youcai. If she didn’t take the lead, no one would feel right about going inside.

So, Wang Meilan said to Li Ruhai, “Go to your family’s garden and see what vegetables are growing along the edge. Pick whatever you find and bring it to your mom for the stir-fry.”

Li Ruhai was stuffed, so he wasn’t hungry. But seeing that the show was over, he listened to Wang Meilan and turned to go back.

Before leaving, Li Ruhai wanted to take his younger sister, Li Xiaoqiao, with him. But when he reached for Li Xiaoqiao’s little hand, she twisted away, flung his hand down, and gave him a look of utter disgust.

‘Her second brother was just too much,’ Li Xiaoqiao thought. ‘Sponge cake for lunch and a four-course meal for dinner, yet he didn’t care one bit about his own little sister.’

Seeing this, Li Ruhai didn’t get angry. He just scrunched up his nose at Li Xiaoqiao, made a funny face, and walked into the courtyard.

“Jie Chen,” Wang Meilan said to him. “You’ve been driving all day. You must be tired. Hurry inside and get some rest.”

Then, Wang Meilan turned to Li Dayong. “Dayong, go on back and get the kids some water.”

“Alright!” Li Dayong answered, shooting Zhao Youcai a helpless look.

But in the pitch-dark, Zhao Youcai couldn’t see his expression clearly anyway.

After that, Li Dayong took Li Xiaoqiao by the hand and entered the Li Family Courtyard with Jie Chen.

Li Baoyu was the most perceptive of the bunch. After climbing down from the truck bed, he took the dried noodles and canned food from Zhao Jun and, without waiting for Wang Meilan to give him an excuse, ran straight into the courtyard.

Now, only the three members of the Zhao Family were left outside the Li Family’s gate.

Wang Meilan stared daggers at Zhao Youcai and asked in a cold voice, “Went hunting, did you?”

Zhao Youcai didn’t speak, just grunted in affirmation through his nose. “Mhm.”

“Well now!” Wang Meilan said sarcastically. “You ran around the mountains all day. How many wild boars did you get? How many bears?”

Zhao Youcai pursed his lips and mumbled, “Didn’t get anything.”

“Oh my!” Hearing this, Wang Meilan put on an even more surprised look. “So you got a Tiger then? Or an elephant?”

Zhao Jun had managed to hold it in until then, but when Wang Meilan mentioned an elephant, he just couldn’t take it anymore. He turned his back, his shoulders shaking, but still forced himself not to laugh out loud.

Seeing Zhao Youcai standing there with his head down, silent, Wang Meilan snorted coldly and turned to leave. Before going, she called out to Zhao Jun, “Son, hurry inside and eat.”

“Okay!” Zhao Jun replied. But afraid he would burst out laughing, he didn’t look at Zhao Youcai and quickly followed Wang Meilan into the courtyard.

Now, Zhao Youcai was left all alone outside the courtyard. A cold wind blew, and his stomach rumbled a few times.

…

When Wang Meilan and Zhao Jun entered Li’s House, Jin Xiaomei had already flavored the wok with shredded eggplant and was now ladling water into it. She just had to wait for it to boil before adding the noodles.

“Sister-in-law, come on in,” Jin Xiaomei said. “Have Dayong pour you some water.”

To be honest, even though they had been out and about all day, Wang Meilan and Jin Xiaomei had been sitting in the truck most of the time, so they weren’t really tired.

But after returning home, Wang Meilan was fuming. So she didn’t stand on ceremony with Jin Xiaomei and strode into the Li’s House’s east room.

Zhao Jun, however, stayed in the outer room and said to Jin Xiaomei, “Auntie, let’s not worry about it tonight. We’ll get a night’s sleep, and then tomorrow morning, Baoyu, Jie Chen, and I will unload the truck.”

“Alright,” Jin Xiaomei said to Zhao Jun with a smile. “Xiaojun, you go on inside too. The noodles will be ready in a bit.”

“Okay.”

When Zhao Jun entered the room, he saw Li Dayong holding a cylindrical tin of hairtail fish and chatting with Wang Meilan.

Hairtail fish was a type of cutlassfish. In those days, hairtail could only be found in the Northeast during the winter, and even then, it had to be shipped in frozen.

Even so, it was only available In the Town. The small stores in the villages didn’t dare to stock it.

However, the Forest Farm would give its employees some benefits every New Year, and sometimes that included hairtail fish.

So, Li Dayong had eaten hairtail fish before. But this was the first time he had ever seen it canned.

This was because the canned fish sold in Yong’an Village was usually made from small yellow croaker.

Seeing the tin can in Li Dayong’s hand, Zhao Jun suddenly remembered something. He turned to Li Baoyu beside him and asked, “Baoyu, those Cans we bought last time—we kept them after we finished the drinks, right?”

“Yup,” Li Baoyu nodded. “My dad cut one up to use as an ashtray. The rest are all in the storage shed.”

Ten or twenty years from now, empty Cans would just be stomped flat and thrown away or sold for scrap.

But in these times, even empty Cans were a novelty. Both the Zhao and Li families had them neatly arranged on a shelf in their storage sheds.

“Get them all out for me tomorrow,” Zhao Jun told Li Baoyu. “I have a use for them.”

“Right!” To Li Baoyu, Zhao Jun’s words were practically an imperial edict. If Zhao Jun said they were useful, then they were definitely useful.

“Brother Jun,” Li Ruhai sidled up at that moment, a cheeky grin on his face. “I see we bought two more cases of Cans. If my family’s empty ones aren’t enough, I can help you drink a few more.”

“I don’t need your help,” Zhao Jun said with a laugh, pushing Li Ruhai away. Just then, Jin Xiaomei came into the inner room and asked, “Xiaojun, I just remembered, have the dogs been fed?”

It was a foregone conclusion that they hadn’t been. Since Zhao Youcai hadn’t caught a thing all day, how could he have fed the dogs?

Zhao Jun looked up at the large clock on the wall and said to Jin Xiaomei, “Auntie, let’s not feed them tonight. We’ll feed them until they’re half-full tomorrow morning. Then, Jie Chen and I will head up the mountain and catch whatever we can find.”

“Alright,” Jin Xiaomei agreed, then called to Li Baoyu and Li Ruhai, “Baoyu, Ruhai, set the table.”

The noodles were almost ready, and everyone was starving. They all busied themselves setting up the kang table and getting out bowls and chopsticks.

Once they started eating the hot noodle soup, Zhao Jun said to Jie Chen, “Jie Chen, let’s get up early tomorrow, unload the truck, and head up the mountain with the dogs. We’ll leave at six o’clock sharp.”

Tomorrow was Monday, and Li Baoyu had to work, which was why Zhao Jun didn’t include him in the plan.

“Hunting wild boar, why go so early?” Li Dayong chimed in upon hearing this. “You just need to get up there before the boars leave their dens.”

For an ordinary person going hunting, leaving home at six would be fine, as it would still take an hour or two to walk into the mountains.

But Zhao Jun had a truck. Half an hour would be enough. If they arrived at the mountain at six-thirty, the dew wouldn’t even have dried yet.

Zhao Jun slurped his noodles and said indistinctly while chewing, “I’m going up early tomorrow to scout the mountain. I need to find a place with lots of roe deer and red deer.”

Hearing this, it didn’t sound like Zhao Jun was planning a drive hunt. Li Baoyu asked, “Brother, what are you planning to do?”

At this, Zhao Jun glanced at the ashtray Li Dayong had made from an empty Can, then said to Li Baoyu, “I’m going to set some leg-hold traps and catch a few live roe deer and red deer.”

“What!” The moment Zhao Jun said this, Li Dayong stopped eating his noodles. He stared at Zhao Jun in astonishment and asked, “You know how to set leg-hold traps?”

“Yup,” Zhao Jun said with a smile. “I learned it from an old cook back in the spring when I was up on the mountain scaling timber.”

Zhao Jun was completely making this up, but saying so gave him a plausible excuse for all the skills he possessed.

“Brother Jun!” Jie Chen couldn’t help but exclaim. “If we catch them alive, those roe deer and red deer could sell for a lot of money!”

At this, Li Dayong also put down his chopsticks, looked at Zhao Jun, and said, “An old-timer who knows how to set leg-hold traps is no ordinary person. In the world of small-game hunting, that’s the most badass skill there is!”