In those days, no matter how well everyone in the village got along, it was all based on everyone working hard and enduring hardship together. Once you had something others didn’t, jealous people would start causing trouble. They might not make a scene outside the village or report you for political reasons, but stirring up problems within the village was common.
Not to mention the basket full of meat Hehua was carrying today—even having one more bite of meat or one more mouthful of refined grain than someone else was enough to make people jealous and gossip everywhere.
Being careful was never a bad thing.
The sun had already set, and the sky was beginning to grow dark.
Looking toward the road home, there were still a few villagers gathering firewood and digging wild vegetables. Hehua slowly wandered toward the village.
She was still lingering at the foot of the mountain when she spotted her eldest brother walking toward her from a distance.
When he got close, Hehua lowered her voice.
“Big Brother, why are you here?”
Shen Jianguo looked speechless.
“Don’t you see it’s getting dark? What are you still doing up here? You’re on the mountain at this hour. Your courage has really grown. Aren’t you afraid wolves might come down? Look around—there are barely any people left on the mountain. Just wait until you get home. See if Mom doesn’t scold you.”
As he spoke, he held out his hand.
“Give me the basket. I’ll carry it.”
Hehua grinned.
“Is Mom at home waiting to scold me?”
Shen Jianguo laughed in exasperation.
“And you’re still smiling? Mom already has the stick ready.”
Hehua answered confidently in her usual cheeky tone.
“When I get home, Mom won’t scold me.”
She slipped the basket off her back, stepped closer, and motioned for him to look inside.
Shen Jianguo glanced into the basket.
One look…
What exactly had he been expecting?
She had been gone for several hours, yet the basket wasn’t even full of wild vegetables.
He raised an eyebrow dramatically.
“Wow~ My little sister is amazing. You spent several hours outside and managed to gather half a basket of wild vegetables. Impressive!”
The sarcastic tone made Hehua want to hit him.
“Can’t you smell all the blood?”
Hehua had to point it out before Shen Jianguo noticed.
He sniffed the air. Realizing what it might mean, his eyes lit up.
He reached over and lifted the amaranth covering the basket.
“My heavens!”
He hurriedly pushed the vegetables aside a little more, then froze in disbelief.
Recovering himself, he quickly covered everything back up, hiding the rabbits beneath the greens. Then he looked around like a thief, carefully scanning every direction.
Safe!
He immediately grabbed the basket from Hehua, hugged it tightly to his chest, and became alert to every movement around them.
Seeing her brother like this made Hehua both helpless and touched.
“Big Brother, relax. You’re acting so suspicious that people in the brigade will know something’s wrong before they even get close.”
Shen Jianguo glanced down at his carefree little sister.
“You think everyone’s as fearless as you?”
He bounced the basket in his arms.
Judging by the weight…
There were definitely more than the three he had seen. There were probably more hidden beneath the grass.
“How many?”
He gestured toward the basket.
The meaning was obvious.
Hehua proudly held up six fingers.
“Six rabbits, one pheasant, and sixteen pheasant eggs.”
Shen Jianguo inhaled sharply.
“That many?”
He hugged the basket even tighter.
Hehua wanted to laugh, but she held it in.
“Don’t make such a fuss. There’ll be plenty more in the future.”
Shen Jianguo frowned slightly.
“Did you set traps in the woods? Where? Tell me and I’ll destroy them. People go into those woods every day—not just from our brigade, either. If someone finds your traps, it’ll only bring trouble. Destroying them would be the least of your worries. What if someone waits beside the trap for you, catches you checking it, and accuses you? Asking you to compensate the collective would be one thing. But what if someone with evil intentions reports you to the Revolutionary Committee?”
In those days, people’s hearts were hard to trust.
Hadn’t most of the people in the cowshed been reported by their own relatives and friends?
Even at the commune’s canned food factory, the deputy director had been reported by his own brother, with his own son testifying against him.
If his sister suddenly brought home this much meat, people from other brigades would be jealous.
Even people from their own brigade would envy her.
Afraid Hehua wouldn’t listen, Shen Jianguo continued persuading her.
“Let’s just leave it at this one time. Don’t do it again. Meat is nice, but it’s not worth risking yourself. If something happened to you, think about how heartbroken Mom and Dad would be.”
Knowing her brother genuinely cared about her, Hehua comfortingly patted his shoulder.
“I didn’t set any traps. I hunted them myself.”
After reading all the period novels Niuniu had shared with her, Hehua had developed her own understanding of common story tropes.
She knew that if she didn’t explain herself now, her brother would doubt her. He would question her, she would get angry, they’d argue, and only after that would she reluctantly prove herself, shocking her brother and achieving the classic “show off and slap everyone in the face” moment.
She didn’t like being doubted.
So she decided to skip the argument altogether and jump straight to showing off.
She loved showing off.
She loved acting smug.
Hahaha…
She pulled a small pebble from her pocket and pointed toward a tree not far away, looking at it with lofty disdain.
“Big Brother, see that tree?”
The moment she finished speaking, she threw the pebble.
Whoosh!
A sharp whistling sound cut through the air.
Bang!
Boom!
The stone struck the trunk with a loud crack, blasted straight through it, shot out the other side, landed in the grass behind it, and rolled a long distance away.
Only a large hole remained in the tree trunk.
Shen Jianguo:
“…”
“W-W-Wow…”
“When did my little sister become this amazing?”
“This…”
“That’s almost like a bullet.”
“My goodness!”
Hehua proudly kept her chin raised.
Watching her brother’s astonished expression from the corner of her eye filled her with satisfaction.
Her vanity was completely fulfilled.
She was secretly delighted.
She desperately tried to suppress the smile tugging at her lips.
She managed to hide the smile.
But she couldn’t control her eyebrows.
That was the amount of force she now had when throwing a stone.
Because the effects of the Strength Pill were still gradually being absorbed, her strength hadn’t completely stabilized yet. Whenever she exerted force—especially with something like throwing a stone—it was difficult to control precisely.
That was also why she had chosen sharpened branches instead of stones while hunting.
The branches looked bloody enough.
If she had used stones instead…
It would have been even bloodier.
Once her strength stabilized and she became accustomed to controlling it, using stones would actually be much better.
And they wouldn’t leave a bloody smell.
Looking at her brother, Hehua raised an eyebrow, wearing an openly smug expression as she asked brightly,
“Well?”
Shen Jianguo stared blankly for quite a while before finally raising his hand and giving her a thumbs-up.
“Awesome!”
Without waiting for him to ask further, Hehua immediately told him the explanation their mother had already come up with—the whole “lying low, enduring hardship, and hiding her true abilities” story.
Only then did Shen Jianguo learn that his younger sister had been born with extraordinary strength.
“So you’ve been hiding it because we hadn’t split from the main family yet. Now that we’ve separated, you’re no longer pretending.”
Hehua nodded.
“Exactly. If I’d revealed it back at the old house, just imagine what would’ve happened to your delicate, adorable little sister.”
Shen Jianguo frowned.
What would have happened?
Of course they would have forced her to stop going to school, sent her to work in the fields at an early age, made her earn full work points, and drained everything she had for the entire family.
He was absolutely certain that if his sister’s strength had been exposed, that would have been the outcome.
Forget their shameless eldest uncle’s family—even their grandparents would have been tempted.
No matter how strongly their parents objected, it wouldn’t have mattered.
After all, in those days, someone who could earn full work points and hunt meat for the family would inevitably be exploited.
Even if Hehua had been a boy, she wouldn’t have escaped it.
She was a girl, so there was even less chance.
He reached over and gently rubbed his sister’s fluffy hair.
“You did the right thing. But only our family needs to know about this. There’s no reason to let everyone else find out. Forget what the villagers would think if they knew how strong you are. If the people back at the old house learned you could hunt, Grandma is staying with Eldest Uncle’s family. They’d use ‘being filial to Grandma’ as an excuse to force you into the mountains. What could you do then? They could even pressure Dad into making you go. It would put you in a difficult position. It’s much better if our own family quietly enjoys the food. Just keep acting lazy like before.”
Hehua was overjoyed.
“I know. Mom said the exact same thing.”
She knew her brother would say that.
Everyone in her family was wonderful.
Seeing his sister smile, Shen Jianguo smiled too.