For the next few days, Chen Shengjun did not dare show his face in front of Yuanchun.
After work that afternoon, the village head held a meeting and announced, "The autumn harvest begins in three days. I am giving everyone a three-day break so you can all go back and make the necessary preparations."
Even with the time off, the villagers could not afford to idle. The men headed up the mountain to chop firewood, while the women went to forage for mushrooms and wild vegetables. Everyone tried to bring back as much food as possible. Once the harvest started, no one would have time to climb the mountain; even the young children would be out in the fields picking up stray stalks of wheat. To avoid going hungry during the harvest, every single member of the household was out from dawn until dusk, racing up the mountain.
Yuanchun had been eating nothing but wild vegetable steamed buns for days and was craving meat. The meat in this era was nothing like the meat from the mutated beasts of the post-apocalyptic world—which were tough, tasteless, and like chewing on old tree bark. The small game on this mountain, however, had meat that was absolutely fresh and delicious. If it weren't for the fact that Grandma Feng and the other women had been keeping a close watch on her ever since Chen Shengjun harassed her, she would have gone hunting on the mountain long ago to improve the family's diet.
Fortunately, the opportunity finally came. On the first day up the mountain, Yuanchun slipped away while Grandma Feng and the others were busy digging for wild vegetables. An hour later, her basket held two wild rabbits, three pheasants, and over twenty pheasant eggs.
Perhaps because there were so many people on the mountain foraging, Grandma Feng and the others did not even notice that Yuanchun had disappeared. When they returned home at noon, Yuanchun pulled the five small carcasses out from the bottom of her basket, stunning everyone in the Feng family.
"Yuanchun, this... did you catch all of these?" Liu Qingqiu asked, astonished by her daughter’s stroke of luck.
Everyone who went up the mountain to forage hoped to catch a pheasant or a rabbit to satisfy their cravings, but pheasants could fly and rabbits were fast—they were not easy to catch. They had seen them before, but they could never capture them, only watching helplessly as the animals vanished before their eyes. Those with good luck might manage to find a few pheasant eggs, but for her daughter to have caught three pheasants, two rabbits, and dozens of eggs—that luck was simply off the charts.
"Big sister, you're amazing! How did you catch them?"
"Big sister, teach me! I want to catch pheasants and rabbits too."
"Meat, so much meat! Big sister, I want to eat meat!" The children surrounded the pile of game, drooling and shouting with excitement.
Grandma Feng slapped her thigh and whispered, "Oh, keep it down, keep it down! Don't shout. If someone hears us, you can forget about having this meat all to yourselves."
In this era, government controls were strict, and game caught on the mountain was supposed to be surrendered. Of course, catching one small animal didn't require turning it in, but Yuanchun had brought back quite a haul. If others found out and got jealous, they might force the family to hand it over, and they certainly wouldn't be able to keep it for themselves.
The Feng family fell silent at once, though the joy in their eyes remained. Qiu Guihua, being the most efficient, immediately went to the kitchen to boil water and dress the pheasants. Feng Dasheng also quickly set to work cleaning the two rabbits.
That evening, the Feng family did not cook any of the meat. For one thing, they were reluctant to eat it, wanting to save it to nourish everyone during the upcoming harvest. For another, cooking meat would release an aroma, and the family did not want to invite trouble. During the harvest, some of the better-off families would buy meat in advance, so if the smell of meat drifted out then, no one would think anything of it.
Although they didn't cook the meat, Grandma Feng boiled seven pheasant eggs for the children to eat. Yuanchun and Ding Chunli were each given one as well.
That afternoon, not long after Yuanchun reached the mountain, she tried to sneak away again, only to be stopped by Grandma Feng. "Yuanchun, where are you going to dig? There are plenty of wild vegetables right here."