Chapter 3: The Whole Family Gets Diarrhea

Meng Ling searched hard for half an hour but still found nothing. The sun was nearly setting.

“This is so unfair!”

She couldn’t figure out what went wrong—someone even claimed the croton seeds had no effect on the boar.

As she sulked her way back and neared the cornfield, she heard rustling from the grass nearby.

“Oink… oink…”

“There it is!”

It was clearly the sound of a wild boar snorting. She didn’t dare approach, so she picked up a few stones, ran behind a tree, and started throwing them into the grass, afraid it might suddenly charge at her.

She threw several stones and only heard grunts—no boar jumped out.

The grass on both sides of the mountain path was too dense to see through.

She tossed in a few more stones. Still nothing.

Feeling somewhat reassured, she cautiously parted the grass with a stick and slowly walked in.

The grunts grew louder, and the smell of pig feces hit her. Meng Ling was sure the wild boar was there.

But with no weapon in hand—and even if she had one, she wasn’t confident she could beat it—she decided to get her father for help.

She dropped her basket and quickly ran to find him.

When Meng Liang heard his daughter say she had caught the wild boar, he couldn’t believe it.

“That’s a 300-plus-pound wild boar! Even five or six hunters wouldn’t go near it. It can kill someone when it goes berserk.”

But Meng Ling looked serious and said, “Dad, really! I fed it a lot of croton seeds. It should be too busy pooping to move by now.”

“Croton seeds? You gave it croton seeds?” Meng Liang looked at her strangely. Where did she even come up with that idea?

Why hadn’t he thought of that?

Soon, Meng Ling led her father back to the spot. When they arrived, they only saw the basket, seemingly moved.

A large patch of trampled grass lay nearby—but no wild boar, just a pile of pig poop.

Meng Ling panicked. “It got away?”

“Where’s the wild boar?” Meng Liang asked, not seeing any trace of it.

“It was just here!” she said with a frown.

They looked around but couldn’t find any signs of it. As the sky grew darker, they had to give up the search.

Meng Ling returned home, frustrated, while her father went back to guard the cornfield overnight.

When Meng Shiqiao saw his sister, he asked, “Sis, you’re back. Did you catch the boar?”

He really knew how to poke a sore spot.

“No, it got away,” Meng Ling said gloomily.

Early the next morning, Auntie Zhang was chatting with Shen Yun in the courtyard.

“Did you hear? Yesterday afternoon, those two hunter brothers, Zhang Ermazi and his brother, caught the wild boar! They butchered it and ate it last night!”

Shen Yun was thrilled—her husband wouldn’t have to keep standing guard in the fields. Great news!

“Really?”

“Of course!” Auntie Zhang nodded. “Didn’t expect much from those two brothers, but they actually caught such a huge boar!”

Meng Ling, listening at the door, finally understood—someone else had taken it.

“But that boar ate a lot of croton seeds… what if they…”

As she thought that, her father’s voice suddenly rang out.

“Ling! Something happened!”

“Zhang Ermazi’s whole family is having uncontrollable diarrhea!”

“They can’t stop. They can’t even change pants fast enough—the whole house reeks!”

Pffft!

Meng Ling burst out laughing. She had been sulking over it, but now she couldn’t help herself.

“You’re still laughing!”

Meng Liang frowned. “The village already sent for a doctor. Hopefully, it won’t turn serious.”

Croton seeds could be fatal in large doses.

Meng Ling giggled. “They were just unlucky. It’s not my fault—I clearly left my basket there as a marker!”

Meng Liang sighed. “Well… guess they brought it on themselves.”

News of the mass diarrhea quickly spread. The village’s opinion turned fast.

“So it was a sick pig they picked up! No way those two could catch a 300-pound wild boar.”

“Exactly. They just stumbled on a dead pig.”

“No wonder they got sick—it had been dead for three days!”

The rumors got more and more exaggerated…

The truth? Meng Ling had just left the scene when the two brothers came by, heard a noise, and quickly tied the boar up.

Soon, the wild boar incident faded. People no longer had to guard the fields day and night.

Later, Meng Ling learned from Auntie Zhang that the brothers had stolen her boar for the 100-jin rice reward.

The village head had promised the rice to whoever caught the boar—greed led to their fate.

Life returned to shrimp-catching and fish-trapping. Meng Ling’s four fish traps brought in five to six jin of catch daily.

She had already dried a good amount of small fish and some shrimp.

Too many small fish were hard to clean, so she fed some to the chickens and pigs.

The pigs were happily eating when Meng Ling sighed, wondering when she’d finally get to eat meat again. She missed her grandma’s braised ribs and stewed pig trotters—it had been half a month with no meat.

At that moment, the pigs suddenly stopped eating and stared at her.

The autumn breeze brought a chill. Days of sunshine had dried the corn leaves—time for harvest.

People were busy everywhere on the hillside, harvesting corn and millet.

Meng Ling hadn’t seen this scene in years—it felt like childhood again.

But the cornfield looked far worse than her memories. The stalks barely matched her height.

She peeled one open. The cob was smaller than her palm, and the kernels were tiny.

With such a yield, no wonder people starved in famine years. This acre might barely produce 100 jin.

But Meng Liang looked at the corn in her hand and smiled, “Looks like a good harvest year—at least 110 jin per acre!”

“This is a good harvest?” Meng Ling asked, holding the tiny cob.

“Of course! Look at the plump, golden kernels—definitely a good harvest!”

She didn’t know how to respond. She expected low yields, but not this low.

If this was a “good year,” what about a bad one? Fifty or sixty jin? Less?

“Well, let’s keep working then,” she said with a smile.

Low yield meant faster harvest—they finished an acre quickly and bundled the stalks.

Meng Ling had never harvested an acre so quickly. It wasn’t a good experience.

Her dad carried the corn and stalks. The three of them picked corn and cut stalks. Little Qingqing played on the grass catching grasshoppers.

After three days, they were nearly done when Meng Shiqiao shouted, “Rabbit!”

They turned to see a rabbit dart out of the grass.

Just a blur of gray—it vanished in seconds.

Meat!

They saw a rabbit. Meng Ling saw delicious rabbit meat.

She couldn’t just let it go. She had to bring it back… to “liberate” it with some ginger.

After the corn harvest, the day was still young. Meng Ling took a machete and went to the back mountain, cut some bamboo, and set traps in the field.

She had grown up in the countryside with her grandpa and knew how to hunt. Setting up basic traps was easy.

She tied hemp rope to a short stick with a slip knot and attached it to a bamboo rod—classic neck-snare trap. If the rabbit triggered it, the bent bamboo would snap up and hoist it into the air.

She set five traps. With luck, she’d have rabbit meat tomorrow.

If not… she’d try again.

That night, Meng Liang and his wife exchanged glances and looked at Meng Ling. They both felt she’d changed—suddenly capable of everything.

Even her cooking had become so good the family always looked forward to meals.

The next morning, Meng Ling took her brother to the mountain while her sister stayed with their mom to dry corn.

The first trap was untouched.

“Really, sis? These things can catch rabbits?” Meng Shiqiao poked at the mechanism—

“Ah! Ouch!”

The rope immediately tightened around his hand, the bamboo rod snapped up, and his fingers were tightly bound.