“What are you two doing here?”
As soon as Xu Changnian returned near the gate of his house, he saw Liu Ermazi and Lai Dou squatting by the side, peeking toward his home now and then.
The moment he thought about what Liu Ermazi had done, Xu Changnian’s bright mood instantly turned gloomy.
He was carrying two wild chickens in his arms. To avoid the uncles and elders at the village entrance, he’d even taken a long detour to circle back to the village.
And yet, right at his front gate— he ran into these two jinxes.
“Aren’t you our dear Brother Nian… hey, what’s that you’re hiding in your coat?”
“We’re all brothers here, why act so distant?”
Seeing Xu Changnian come back, Liu Ermazi instinctively stepped back, clearly guilty.
But then his eyes locked onto something— underneath Xu Changnian’s sheepskin coat, something bulged, and a chicken leg stuck out.
Wild chicken?
Immediately, Liu Ermazi straightened up. Xu Changnian turned into his blood brother again, closer than kin.
“Get lost.”
Xu Changnian frowned and snapped coldly. He really didn’t want to waste words on these two rascals.
But clearly, words alone wouldn’t work. Guys like Liu Ermazi didn’t respond to kindness.
“Aren’t we brothers anymore?”
“Come on, come on, let’s go to my place and stew some chicken. Brother’s craving it!”
“Lai Dou, come help your Brother Nian! There’s wild chicken!”
Once Liu Ermazi saw the chickens in Xu Changnian’s coat, his eyes turned red. Shamelessly, he clung to him.
Lai Dou quickly came over as well.
Liu Ermazi rolled up his sleeves and reached for the chickens in Xu Changnian’s arms.
But how could Xu Changnian tolerate that?
Swish—
Xu Changnian didn’t even move from where he stood. As Liu Ermazi reached close, he pulled out the hunting knife from his waist and slashed.
He had a sense of measure—he wouldn’t kill anyone in the village, but he’d teach a lesson.
A thin line of blood slid down the blade…
“Hey…”
Liu Ermazi never expected Xu Changnian to really strike. His right hand was cut open, and he immediately rolled on the ground, shrieking in pain.
“Xu Changnian! You’d even hurt your own brother—Lai Dou, today I…”
Seeing Liu Ermazi fall, Lai Dou, whose brain was always half a beat slow, flew into a rage and charged forward.
Bang!
“Who told you to cause trouble at my door?”
“Get lost. Now!”
Yun Niang stood there, one hand on her hip, the other holding a thick stick, pointing at the two ruffians on the ground.
With her appearance, both men visibly shrank back.
Xu Changnian might be a famous rascal in the nearby ten villages, but Yun Niang was the famously fierce shrew of those same villages—both were infamous figures.
Neither of them was easy to mess with.
“Zhou Yun… you just wait. I, Liu Ermazi, will settle this with you eventually! And don’t think you’ll get away either, Xu Changnian. Our brotherhood ends here!”
Liu Ermazi shouted threats while crawling away.
Lai Dou, after taking that stick to the head, suddenly looked more alert and ran off without a word.
“Two bastards…”
Watching the two flee, Yun Niang rolled her eyes hard. She even muttered that she went too easy on them.
“Sister-in-law, you’re amazing! Look what I brought back for you…”
Now was the perfect time to flatter. Xu Changnian quickly pulled out the wild chickens from his coat.
“Gasp!”
“You caught these?”
Yun Niang ignored his flattery, but after taking the two chickens, her brow couldn’t help but rise slightly.
Yesterday’s rabbit could be chalked up to luck, but catching two wild chickens in a single morning?
Now that was something.
“Get inside.”
Seeing Xu Changnian grinning from ear to ear, Yun Niang motioned with her mouth. Look at you, so smug!
Right as they were about to step inside, Xu Changnian glanced back in the direction Liu Ermazi had fled.
Those two bastards were nothing but trouble.
Especially Liu Ermazi—he was bound to stir up more issues later.
I may not be a murderer or someone who brings harm to others, but when it comes to protecting my family—there’s nothing to be afraid of!
“Husband, you really have skills~”
“First day, a rabbit. Second day, wild chickens. We’re eating meat every day now!”
Back home, the Shen sisters were full of admiration as they looked at the three wild chickens.
They had thought staying with the Xu family and getting a bowl of thin porridge would be a blessing.
But now, they had meat every single day?
“Mother, I want a chicken leg!”
Xiao Yue tightly hugged one of the chickens and chased after Yun Niang, her cheeks puffed with excitement.
“Eat, eat, eat—”
Yun Niang scolded her with annoyance. This little girl was getting spoiled—nothing but meat on her mind.
With a mouth this picky, what future husband could afford to raise her?
After getting scolded, Xiaoyue pouted and ran off to find Shen Wei.
“Two jars of wine, two wild chickens, and the rabbit skin… we’ll trade them for grain at the market the day after tomorrow. If we’re careful with food, hopefully we can survive this winter…” Yun Niang calculated silently.
A jar of wine could fetch five kilograms of millet.
A chicken could get ten kilograms.
Even a rabbit skin could be worth one.
But no matter how she calculated, it wasn’t enough.
They now had two extra mouths to feed, which meant an additional twenty kilograms of millet every month.
“Let’s just cook one chicken today. I’ll head up the mountain again tomorrow—I saw a wild ginseng plant earlier…”
After washing his face, Xu Changnian exhaled into the cold air.
“Mhm, mhm, mhm!”
“Uncle is the best!”
The moment he mentioned stewing chicken, Xiao Yue was the first to cheer, nodding like a bobblehead.
“Wild ginseng?”
“You really got that lucky?”
Hearing that, Yun Niang sucked in a sharp breath.
Even the worst wild ginseng was worth a few taels of silver. That would be enough food for the entire winter!
But on Xiaoyue Mountain, all the herbs exposed to the surface had long been picked clean.
If one wanted to find wild ginseng now, they’d have to go to Black Wind Mountain—where wolves, leopards, and all sorts of dangers lurked.
Was Xu Changnian just bluffing for the sake of eating meat?
“Yun Niang, just stew one. When it’s ready, pack a bowl of meat and a jar of wine and deliver it to the Li family.”
“As for these two wives, we need to formally notify them. Also mention what happened at the gate today.”
In the end, it was Xu Tielin who spoke up—and he brought up the important matter of the Shen sisters’ identity.
Even picking up wives during a year of famine had rules.
There didn’t need to be a formal banquet, but they still had to notify the village head, the lizheng, to officially register the relationship.
Once the greeting was done, the two women would be formally acknowledged.
And in the future, if county officials ever inquired, they’d still need to go to town to register their household and update their family records.
But in the dead of winter, the county wouldn’t even remember Qingshan Village existed.
“Go to the county to register household records…”
Hearing that they needed to register identities, Shen Yourong and Shen Wei suddenly became tense.
They exchanged glances, frozen in place, unsure what to do—just hoping nothing unexpected would happen.