Chapter 68: Good Advice Falls on Deaf Ears

After finishing their meal, the four of them grabbed their sacks and shovels and headed back to the mountain, determined to finish searching the remaining slope. This time, they only found twelve rat holes, but unexpectedly, they also came across two hibernating snakes. Ming Dai inspected them carefully and confirmed that they were non-venomous. Zhou Sinian swiftly cut off their heads with his shovel and brought them back.

When they returned, there was still plenty of daylight left. Ming Dai instructed Huang Dalian to stay home and sort the coarse grains they had gathered, while she took Zhou Sinian and Liu Guoqiang to the river to deal with the field mice in private while no one was around.

A total of 180 field mice, along with the two thin snakes, created quite a sight when dumped out.

This time, Zhou Sinian showed no hesitation. He grabbed his military knife and skillfully started skinning them. After working on a few, his speed noticeably increased.

Liu Guoqiang took charge of chopping off the limbs, heads, and tails, while Ming Dai handled the cleaning process.

Just as they were about to finish, Ming Dai spotted a group of people from Shangwan Village.

They were carrying about a dozen dead field mice, but the mice had been badly beaten—some were completely flattened.

Ming Dai narrowed her eyes. She recalled that the direction they had come from was the low-lying area Huang Dalian had mentioned earlier—the farmland belonging to Xiawan Village.

She hoped they were smart enough to fill in the pits they had dug. After all, hunting field mice required deep holes, and she and her group had always made sure to cover theirs.

The people from Shangwan Village squatted down at a nearby spot to clean their catch. Ming Dai observed that they simply washed the mice and skinned them but did not bother to remove the tails, heads, or limbs.

After thinking for a moment, she decided to offer a word of caution.

“Field mice carry bacteria. Before eating, you should chop off the heads, limbs, and tails, remove the internal organs, drain the blood thoroughly, and boil them for at least an hour.”

After saying this, she didn’t wait for their reaction. Without another word, she turned and left with Zhou Sinian and Liu Guoqiang.

It was only after they had walked away that the people from Shangwan Village began whispering among themselves in hushed voices.

“Do we really have to remove the heads? There’s barely any meat to begin with. If we take off the heads, there’ll be even less.”

“And boiling for an hour? Do you know how much firewood that would waste?!”

The man leading the group frowned. “It’s fine. Didn’t they eat this yesterday? They all looked perfectly fine today—stronger, even. There’s nothing wrong with it. As long as we wash them clean, there won’t be any bacteria. What bacteria could there be anyway? They’re just trying to scare us off so we don’t dig up all the field mice!”

The others nodded in agreement, convinced that the people from Liujiawan were being deceitful, afraid they’d snatch away all the mice.

One particularly cunning man even went ahead and picked up all the discarded field mouse heads and tails that Ming Dai’s group had left by the river, planning to toss them all into the pot for stew.

Ming Dai: Some people just refuse to listen to good advice…

Back at the shed, Ming Dai and Zhou Sinian went to cut fresh pine branches. They built a smoking rack at the entrance and carefully arranged the cleaned field mice on top.

Lighting the pine branches, they let the thick smoke rise, slowly curing the meat. This method not only extended the storage life but also enhanced the flavor.

While the branches burned on their own, Liu Guoqiang went to work on his accounting records, while Ming Dai, Huang Dalian, and Zhou Sinian began sorting through the grain they had collected over the past two days.

Seeing that they had plenty of soybeans, Ming Dai decided to sprout some to improve their meals.

That evening, they steamed rice and stir-fried sliced radish. Though there was some disappointment over the lack of meat for the night, the sight of the smoking rack filled with drying field mice reassured everyone—soon, they would have something to look forward to.

Meanwhile, over in the Shangwan Village area, a large pot of boiling water bubbled furiously as chunks of field mouse meat tumbled inside. The surface was crowded with an unsettling number of floating mouse heads, creating a scene eerie enough to send shivers down one’s spine.

Pan Xiazi wrinkled his brows at the pungent, fishy stench. “Why does it smell… off?”

The cook stirred the pot with a ladle. “I dunno. I just cooked it the way I would with chicken. I heard the people from Liujiawan say that field mice taste like chicken.”

Pan Xiazi nodded. He had asked around too, and they had said the same.

Oh well—no matter how it smelled, it was still meat. How bad could it possibly be?

In reality, it really could taste awful!

When Pan Xiazi took a bite of the field mouse meat, he felt as if a fist full of rancid stench had punched him straight in the throat. His body instinctively reacted, forcing him to dry heave.

“This tastes horrible!”

He stared at the meat in disbelief before glancing at the others.

The people around him wore the same disgusted expressions, as if they had just eaten something vile.

These were his most trusted men—he had carefully chosen them to share the meal. After all, they hadn’t caught many field mice, so there wasn’t enough for everyone. The rest of the villagers, stuck outside, were eating their meager stone-mixed rice while cursing him.

Unwilling to admit defeat, Pan Xiazi tore off another piece and forced himself to chew. It was still the same foul stench. Gritting his teeth against the nausea, he tilted his head back and swallowed it.

It was truly terrible.

He thought back to how the five of them had spent an entire day in Xiawan Village’s fields, digging against the wind just to catch a dozen or so mice—only for them to turn out this disgusting!

He was absolutely furious!

“What are you staring at?! Eat!”

Annoyed, he shouted at the others, then stubbornly forced himself to finish one whole mouse out of sheer spite.

The others, unable to stomach the taste, quietly tossed theirs into the fire. Only the four men who had gone hunting with him, unwilling to waste their hard-earned meal, forced themselves to eat one mouse each.

But none of them dared to reach for a second one—not even Pan Xiazi.

The group sat in silence for a while before Pan Xiazi finally waved his hand in resignation. “Dump it.”

Without hesitation, they scrambled to their feet, carried the pot outside, and discreetly buried the remains in a pit.

That night, no one in Shangwan Village slept well.

Pan Xiazi and his men lay awake, plagued by a single question:

“Why? It’s the same kind of meat, so why does ours taste so terrible?”

“Damn You, Pan Xiazi!”

The other villagers of Shangwan cursed Pan Xiazi, their voices full of resentment.

“That bastard! Serves him right for hogging the good stuff!”

“Hope the heavens strike you down with thunder! You set up a private meal while the rest of us starved—why didn’t it kill you instead?”

“His cooking was garbage anyway! It was nothing compared to what the people from Liujiawan had!”

Tears welled up in some villagers’ eyes as their stomachs growled.

“We wanted to eat field mice too…!”

Perhaps their curses had taken effect, because by midnight, chaos erupted at the Shangwan Village campsite. One by one, torches flared to life, illuminating the scene as cries of pain echoed through the cold night air.

The commotion escalated so much that the local militia had to be called in to restore order. Only then did the turmoil finally subside.

The next morning, Ming Dai heard about what had happened.

Apparently, five men from Shangwan Village had suffered severe vomiting and diarrhea throughout the night. By the time they were discovered, they were already dehydrated and on the verge of collapse. With no other choice, the militia rushed them to the commune hospital for emergency treatment.

No one knew if they would survive.

Ming Dai sighed.

She had warned them

But they had chosen to ignore her. What else could she do? This was just karma.

A week later, the five men returned.

They looked completely different from before—thin, weak, and utterly drained. Their eyes were dull, and their bodies barely held together. They were no longer fit to work.

As expected, Pan Xiazi tried to assign others to work in their place, but it didn’t go as planned.

Not only did the villagers of Shangwan refuse, but even the site supervisors rejected the idea. Liu Guoqiang outright refused to count work hours for the five men.

Pan Xiazi was furious, but there was nothing he could do.

For now, they had no choice but to rest for a couple of days before returning to work.

But before they could recover, another disaster struck.

The villagers from Xiawan Village came looking for trouble.

Their fields were covered with massive pits—dozens of them, dug up for field mice.

Ironically, they weren’t even mad about the mouse hunting itself. After all, field mice were pests, and eliminating them was doing everyone a favor.

But these fools had dug up the land without filling the pits back in!

That was just plain dishonorable!

At first, the Xiawan villagers stormed into Liujiawan’s camp, wielding their shovels aggressively, ready to drag people out to fill the pits.

But as soon as they saw Zhou Sinian, they fell silent.

Their aggression vanished instantly, replaced with an awkward smile.

“Haha… Uh, actually, we were just wondering if you guys wanted to catch more field mice. We’ve got some untouched land to the east!”

Ming Dai couldn’t help but chuckle.

She quickly clarified, “It wasn’t us. If you’re looking for the culprits, their camp is over there.”

She pointed toward the location of the Shangwan villagers.

The Xiawan villagers immediately turned on their heels, politely thanked them, and then marched off with their shovels in hand—this time, heading straight for Shangwan’s camp.

Thus, the five men—who hadn’t even recovered yet—were dragged out of bed and forced to fill in all the pits.

By the time they returned, they had all caught a cold.

Now, they were completely useless.

With no strength left to work, all of them—except for Pan Xiazi—were kicked out of the labor team.

They didn’t even get a single penny for their troubles.