Dozens of people raised their weapons and charged to meet the boars. For a moment, everyone was dodging left and right as axes, hatchets, and hoes came crashing down on the beasts.
Shen Yanqing and Shen Yanshan took on the largest boar, which weighed a good four hundred jin. Its coat was dark brown, and two long tusks jutted from either side of its mouth.
Shen Yanqing leaped up and flipped onto the boar’s back, driving his dagger straight into its right eye. Shen Yanshan sidestepped the maddened beast and brought his axe down on its neck, but the boar’s hide was so thick and tough that the blow left only a shallow wound.
Qi Yanxuan pulled a modern crossbow from his backpack, loaded a bolt, and took aim at the boar.
Whoosh,
The instant the shot split the air, the bolt flew straight into the boar’s left eye, piercing through its skull and burying itself deep in the beast’s body. The boar dropped on the spot, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Shen Yanqing flipped clear the moment the boar fell.
Using the same method, Qi Yanxuan then helped the villagers take down the remaining five boars.
The villagers dragged the six boars back, and Shen Yanqing and Shen Yanshan came over to join Qi Yanxuan.
Shen Yanshan stared curiously at the crossbow in Qi Yanxuan’s hands. “Xuan, this crossbow of yours is amazing! It’s far more powerful than any I’ve ever seen!”
“Mm. An old master craftsman from my hometown modified it,” Qi Yanxuan said, casually passing the crossbow and the remaining fourteen bolts to Shen Yanshan.
He had plenty of these things. During those years in the apocalypse, he’d scavenged them wherever he went, he had piles of everything, cold weapons and firearms alike. Since his spatial warehouse had unlimited storage, he’d collected anything he came across. (Main character Xuan is 19; main character Qing is 22.)
Shen Yanshan turned the crossbow over in his hands, stroking it and examining it from every angle, utterly enchanted.
After playing with it for a while, he handed it back to Qi Yanxuan. Qi Yanxuan could see the fondness brimming in the man’s eyes, but not a trace of greed to keep it for himself.
“Uncle, the mountains are dangerous. Keep it for protection!” Qi Yanxuan said with an easy smile, waving his hand.
Shen Yanshan promptly refused. “No, no. If I take it, what will you use? Keep it for yourself, just letting me have a look at it now and then is enough.”
“I’ve got plenty of other weapons. That axe of yours won’t do much against a wild beast. One more weapon means one more layer of safety.” Without giving him a chance to refuse again, Qi Yanxuan took Shen Yanqing’s hand and headed off to find the village chief.
With as many weapons as he had, would he really begrudge a crossbow to his boyfriend’s father? Impossible. The man would be his father-in-law someday too, what was the big deal about giving his own dad a toy?
Over by the village chief, everyone was crowded around the boars, eyes practically glowing green. Meat! All of it was meat! They’d been scraping by on chaff and wild greens for so long, who knew how many days it had been since they’d last seen meat? This time they could finally feast to their hearts’ content!
“These boars were all killed by Yanxuan and the others. Let Yanxuan divide them up!”
Qi Yanxuan and Shen Yanqing had barely walked over when they heard the village chief’s booming voice.
Seeing the two approach, the village chief’s swarthy face broke into a wide grin. “Ah, you’re here! Perfect timing! How do you want this meat divided?”
“Village Chief, you go ahead and divide it however you see fit. We don’t have a cart, we can’t carry much back anyway,” Qi Yanxuan replied.
The village chief thought for a moment. “No cart? That’s easy to fix. We’ve got two carts at home, take one along with you. The biggest boar goes to you two, and the rest can be split among the villagers.”
Qi Yanxuan quickly waved his hands. “No need, just give us the smallest one.” He was joking, the biggest one weighed over four hundred jin; hauling that along would be exhausting. The smallest one, at two hundred-some jin, was just right, and the younger meat was more tender anyway.
“Alright, then let’s camp around here today. Once we’ve divided the meat, we can smoke it over a wood fire right here otherwise it won’t keep in this hot weather!” The village chief looked to Shen Yanqing to ask about the campsite.
Shen Yanqing nodded.
Once that was settled, the villagers began dividing the meat, and some troublemakers stirred at the back of the procession.
A group of roughly two hundred people marched out from behind, bristling with hostility. Strangely enough, most of them were young, able-bodied men of two hundred people, there were only about a dozen women, and not a single elderly person or child in sight.
This scene was all too familiar to Qi Yanxuan. Back then, plenty of those beasts-below-human had corralled ordinary people to use as playthings for their venting.
“Such a lot of meat, those who see it should get a share, right?” called out a burly man with a long scar across his face from the opposing crowd.
“Yeah! Big Brother’s right! All this meat, let’s split it up!” A short man with triangular eyes shouted at the crowd, then turned to the scar-faced man with an obsequious grin.
The others chimed in one after another.
Their eyes were filthy with lewdness, greedily fixed on the girls of Kaoshan Village and the wild boars.
The men of Kaoshan Village stepped forward, shielding the old, the weak, the women, and the children behind them, facing off against the group.
“Have you no shame at all? Where were you when the boar was being hunted? Now you come to take advantage!” Shen Kui hefted his axe, glaring at them with fire in his eyes.
“That’s right, grabbing at every advantage! If a manure cart passed by and you didn’t scoop out a couple spoonfuls to taste, you’d probably feel like you’d lost out!” Shen Wenxuan, the village chief’s youngest son, said with utter contempt.
“Wenxuan, you might actually be right manure is fine fertilizer. Maybe they really do want some!” Shen Dagen, the village’s old bachelor, said with a teasing grin.
“Pfft”
“Pfft”
…
Suppressed laughter rippled through the crowd.
Qi Yanxuan was laughing so hard he had to lean on Shen Yanqing. How had he never noticed before that the people of Kaoshan Village were this funny?
Shen Yanqing steadied him, gazing at him dotingly. “There, there, your belly must be aching from laughing.”
“You… you people…” The scar-faced man opposite was so furious his face turned beet red, venom flashing in his eyes.
“Brothers, get them! Most of their group is old and weak! Kill them, and the meat and the girls are ours!” The scar-faced man raised his hatchet and charged forward, the rest close behind him.
The men of Kaoshan Village gripped their weapons and readied for battle. Qi Yanxuan’s expression turned serious in an instant as he secretly channeled his lightning ability.
Thunderclouds suddenly gathered thick above the attackers’ heads. Purple lightning crashed down in dense sheets, and before they could even convulse, the entire group dropped where they stood.
In a moment, the ground was covered in charred corpses, their clothes blasted to ash. Not far from the bodies, a dozen or so women huddled together, trembling.
Everyone who witnessed this was struck dumb. Suddenly, someone cried out, “The Thunder God has shown his wrath! The Thunder God has shown his wrath!”
Everyone knelt on the ground, echoing the cry: “The Thunder God has shown his wrath!”
“The Thunder God must have couldn’t stand these villains’ evil deeds, so he struck them dead. Truly, evil meets evil’s recompense!” a woman knelt on the ground and exclaimed joyfully.
The woman beside her quickly chimed in, “That’s right! Those dozen poor girls were ruined by that group of people. What are they going to do now?”
At these words, the dozen girls all broke into sorrowful sobs.
Shen Yanqing watched the scene with a suspicious look on his face as he stared at Qi Yanxuan. He couldn’t help feeling that the lightning strike had come at too convenient a moment, as if it had deliberately been helping them.
Qi Yanxuan, never expecting these people to mistake it for the Thunder God manifesting himself, awkwardly rubbed his nose.