The next morning, Zhao Jun was woken up by his two younger sisters.
When he got up from the kang bed, he felt varying degrees of pain all over his body—his chest, back, thighs, and calves.
It was all from the beating Zhao Youcai had given him.
"Hurry up and eat." Wang Meilan acted as if nothing had happened, bringing Zhao Jun's breakfast to the small table on the kang bed.
Compared to last night's meal of three meat dishes and one vegetable, today's breakfast was much simpler: coarse corn porridge with pickled vegetables and a salted egg.
Just as Zhao Jun was digging the salted egg out into his bowl, he heard Wang Meilan say, "I've packed up that wild boar meat. Take it to your older sister after you finish eating."
"Shouldn't I wait for Dad?"
"No need," Wang Meilan said. "When you go this time, don't forget to ask about your job."
"Alright, I know," Zhao Jun replied, though he didn't really pay it much mind. He knew that, if all went according to plan, he would be starting work in another two or three months.
The person arranging the job for him was none other than his older sister's father-in-law, Zhou Chunming, the second-in-command and production director of the Yong'an Forest Farm.
After eating, Zhao Jun went back to his room to rest for a bit. He put on his coat and outer pants, said goodbye to Wang Meilan, and headed out, carrying the prepared wild boar meat.
Wang Meilan had prepared four boar trotters and about ten jin of boar meat for Zhao Chun.
Logically, since Zhao Jun had managed to carry a nearly one-hundred-jin wild boar down from the mountain, carrying something less than twenty jin for a dozen or so li should have been effortless.
But just as Zhao Jun stepped out the door and tried to hoist the burlap sack onto his shoulder, he felt a sharp pain in his left upper arm and back.
"Sigh!" Zhao Jun sighed. 'Pain is pain. It's still better than being stuck in bed for two days.'
Despite that thought, he still felt a bit frustrated. He had been reborn. Combining his two lives, he was mentally over eighty years old, yet he still couldn't win against Zhao Youcai.
Zhao Jun struggled to shoulder the sack and walked out the door. The moment he was outside, Li Baoyu's voice reached his ears.
"What nonsense are you all spouting? This wasn't my dad! I was gored by a wild boar..."
"You guys have no idea! Yesterday, I saw that boar knock my big brother to the ground. In that moment, a rage erupted from my heart, and a vicious courage was born..."
"Though that boar tossed me for forty-nine somersaults, I..."
"Watch! I charged right up to the boar, raised my Large Axe high, and brought it down! With a CRACK, blood splattered everywhere!"
Watching Li Baoyu under the large scholar tree, gesticulating wildly as he spun his tall tales, Zhao Jun couldn't help but purse his lips in resignation. 'What a waste. This brother of mine should have been a storyteller.'
"Brother!" Li Baoyu, who was waving his arms and legs about, suddenly caught sight of Zhao Jun out of the corner of his eye and ran over to him.
As Li Baoyu moved, the gazes of the crowd gathered around him involuntarily drifted with him toward Zhao Jun.
Of course, it wasn't because Li Baoyu's story was so captivating. It was entirely because of the wild boar's shoulder blade in his hand, which still had a good amount of meat on it.
Early this morning, Jin Xiaomei had woken up and stewed a huge pot full of meat.
After eating at home, Li Baoyu had come out with the meaty bone to show off and, while he was at it, publicize his "glorious deeds."
It's just that most of those glorious deeds he spoke of were of his own invention.
Last night, after taking a beating from Li Dayong, Li Baoyu was left with a bruised and swollen face. When he tried to sleep, he was in so much pain that he tossed and turned, unable to rest.
At that time, not only had his body been ravaged, but his spirit had also taken a hit.
Because Li Baoyu could just imagine how the villagers would laugh at him if he went out with a face like this tomorrow.
But if he didn't go out, how many days would it take to heal? A young man his age couldn't possibly stand being cooped up at home.
So, while he was lying awake, Li Baoyu concocted a story for himself, blaming the injuries inflicted by Li Dayong on the wild boar.
Just like that, Li Baoyu transformed from a weak boy violently suppressed by his old man into a heroic young lad who battled a fierce beast.
And you had to admit, all those little picture books Li Baoyu read growing up hadn't gone to waste. A basketful of lies flowed smoothly from his mouth, sounding surprisingly suspenseful.
And so, from early morning until now, he had already told this story of "Young Hero Li Slaying the Boar to Save Zhao Jun" seven or eight times to an audience of twenty or thirty people.
Zhao Jun didn't bother arguing with him, just said, "I'm heading over to my older sister's place to drop off some meat."
"Say hi to your sister for me." As Li Baoyu spoke, he held the boar's shoulder blade up to Zhao Jun's mouth. "Brother, want a bite?"
"You'd better keep it for yourself," Zhao Jun said, not breaking his stride as he continued walking.
Li Baoyu hurried to keep up with Zhao Jun. "Brother, when are we going back up the mountain?"
Hearing this, Zhao Jun smiled.
"What? Didn't get beaten enough yesterday?"
"Quieter, quieter." Li Baoyu quickly stopped Zhao Jun and glanced back furtively. Seeing that the crowd hadn't heard, he said, "If we go a couple of times, they'll stop hitting us."
Zhao Jun: "..."
'This kid is pretty sharp.'
Actually, Zhao Jun felt the same way as Li Baoyu. Their families didn't want them going up the mountain mainly because they lacked experience. Their parents were afraid they'd run into danger and something bad would happen.
But Zhao Jun had memories from his past life. His hunting experience was as rich as it could possibly be. As long as Li Baoyu listened to him, Zhao Jun was confident he could get his brother out of any situation in one piece.
So, just as Li Baoyu had said, if their families wouldn't let them go, they'd just have to go anyway. As long as nothing major happened, the worst they could expect was a couple of beatings.
'He's my own father, after all. It's not like he'd beat me to death or cripple me.'
"Brother, what do you say?" Seeing Zhao Jun remain silent, Li Baoyu grew a little anxious. He was afraid that Zhao Jun had been scared off by Zhao Youcai's beating and wouldn't dare go up the mountain with him again.
Of course, it wasn't that Li Baoyu couldn't go up the mountain by himself, and it certainly wasn't that he was afraid to go alone.
The key issue was that without Zhao Jun, he was afraid he wouldn't be able to take out Zhao Jun's family's dog, Da Hua.
You have to understand, that dog, Da Hua, was a lead dog. Tracking, finding boars, chasing bears—it all depended on it.
Li Baoyu's Yellow Dog, on the other hand, was a helper dog. As the name implied, it was a sidekick, a fighter.
If Da Hua didn't go, trying to find prey with just Yellow Dog was a joke. If they were lucky, they might run into a boar head-on.
Otherwise, they could wander the mountains all day and would be lucky to even touch a boar's bristle.
Zhao Jun stopped walking and whispered to Li Baoyu, "Stop shouting. When I go to my sister's place this time, I'm going to see if I can get my hands on a gun."
"A gun?" Li Baoyu's eyes lit up at the word. The more Zhao Jun told him not to shout, the louder his voice became.
"Shut up." Zhao Jun nudged him with his elbow, annoyed. "If we're going to be mountain runners, we need some hardware. We were lucky yesterday that it was an old sow. If it had been one of those 'cannon eggs,' our dogs probably wouldn't have been able to hold it down."
"Mhm, mhm." This time, Li Baoyu quieted down. He knew Zhao Jun wasn't wrong.
Even someone who didn't hunt would probably know that between a male and female wild boar of roughly the same size, the male is always more ferocious.
Male boars have tusks. A three-hundred-jin male boar, in particular, has tusks like two daggers, razor-sharp and deadly to dogs.
"Alright, you can go back to spinning yarns for them," Zhao Jun said, waving goodbye to Li Baoyu. He shouldered the sack and headed straight for Yongsheng Village.