Chapter 18: The Unforgettable Wild Boar

Especially after she fell ill, something major happened in the neighboring village that stayed fresh in her memory.

After the heavy rain, the soil had already been soaked and was quite slippery, especially between the mountains and forests. One slip could be minor, but a more serious fall could result in broken arms or legs.

In such conditions, no one would typically venture into the mountains.

But in the neighboring village, there was a widow who had raised her only son in poverty. Life had been very difficult for them.

After finally raising her son to adulthood, she fell ill and was bedridden.

Fortunately, her son was filial and couldn’t bear to see her lying in bed every day, feeling depressed, unable to eat. He decided to go into the mountains to find some wild vegetables or fresh mushrooms to change her diet.

It just so happened that the mushrooms were abundant after the rain, so he went up the mountain secretly without telling his mother.

But his luck was bad. On his way up, he encountered a wild boar.

Normally, there wouldn’t be any large animals like wild boars in the front mountains; on a good day, you might only see small creatures.

But no one expected that the thunderstorm from the previous day had scared the wild boar.

Frightened, the wild boar ran amok and ended up in the front mountain, where it ran into the unlucky young man.

The boar, already frightened, charged at him as soon as it saw him.

Even experienced hunters would need several people to surround and handle a wild boar.

This young man, alone, had no chance. His first instinct was to run.

If it had been any other day, he might have gotten away. But the ground was too slippery from the rain, and he fell.

By the time he got up, the boar, in a frenzy, was charging straight toward him.

He fought back as best as he could, but a hundred-plus-pound man was no match for a 400-500-pound boar. A few hits from the boar sent him crashing to the ground.

Driven by the instinct to survive, despite the pain, he staggered and tried to evade the boar. The more it felt pain, the more enraged it became, and it lost all rationality, charging at anything in sight.

The mountain turned into a scene of chase and escape, with the young man desperately running for his life.

He eventually lost consciousness, and the boar, in its frenzy, crashed into several trees before collapsing in a pool of blood.

It was later discovered by a notorious rogue from their village when he went up the mountain.

Speaking of rogues…

When he saw the fallen wild boar, he immediately thought of taking it for himself, ignoring the person lying nearby.

Fearing that others might get a share of the boar, he pretended not to know anything about the situation.

First, he quietly moved the boar, then, under the cover of darkness, secretly took it back to his home.

The rogue thought he had covered all his tracks, but someone from the village saw what he had done. However, since it was none of their business, they didn’t speak out at the time.

The next day, the widow, seeing that her son hadn’t returned, went to the village head’s house for help.

The village head immediately organized a search party, and they found the young man’s tragic state.

The elderly villagers immediately recognized that he had died from the wild boar’s attack.

By the time his body was brought back home, the sickly widow, upon seeing her son’s corpse, also died from vomiting blood on the spot.

Later, it was the same person from the village who had seen the rogue’s actions who, feeling guilty, revealed the truth.

After all, what were the odds that the rogue had acted suspiciously the previous day…

The rogue sneaked the wild boar home at night, and the next day, the young man was found to have been killed by the boar. Something was definitely off here.

Once the rogue spread the news, the whole village knew that he was involved in the incident.

Even if he wasn’t directly responsible for the young man’s death, at the very least, he should have called for help. What if the young man had still been alive when they found him?

Who knows, maybe the young man had watched his own life slip away…

But the rogue stubbornly denied ever seeing the young man, and no one had any way to prove otherwise.

The widow and her son had no relatives in the village, so no one stepped forward to speak on their behalf. In the end, the matter was swept under the rug, just like many such incidents.

However, the rogue’s reputation grew increasingly notorious. People would point and gossip when they saw him.

But with his thick skin, he wasn’t affected by it at all.

At least when Chen Shuilian passed away, the rogue was still doing fine—truly living up to the saying, “A calamity lasts a thousand years.”

At that moment, Chen Shuilian had some thoughts of her own. It was a wild boar, after all, weighing at least 400-500 pounds.

Currently, ordinary lean meat was priced at twenty copper coins per pound, and that’s not even considering the fatty, delicious cuts of pork.

Even subtracting the parts that couldn’t be sold, the boar would still be worth about seven or eight taels of silver.

If she could get her hands on that wild boar, just the thought of it made her feel excited.

Chen Shuilian wasn’t someone who hesitated. Once she had an idea, she acted on it right away.

She spent the whole night thinking it over, and when the first light of dawn appeared, she finally fell asleep.

When she woke up, the glaring sunlight streamed into the room.

She immediately sat up. “Oh no, I’ve overslept!”

How did she fall asleep? She had only planned to rest for a bit to conserve some energy…

Quickly dressing, she stepped out of her room and saw Wang Miaomiao and Li Xiaoxing carrying bowls of food to the main hall.

When the two saw her, they greeted her warmly: “Mom, you’re awake! We were just about to call you for breakfast.”

Chen Shuilian sighed in relief. It was still early, only the time of Chen (7-9 AM).

But the sun was really blazing today.

The breakfast, without Chen Shuilian’s input, was just the usual coarse porridge with some pickled vegetables to fill their stomachs.

Watching the three of them drink this barely edible porridge with such gusto, she couldn’t help but speak up: “Miaomiao, Xiaoxing, don’t make the food so bland in the future. This won’t be enough to fill the two young men’s stomachs. Try to make more dry food or pancakes in the morning. At least they need a good meal to get through a day’s work comfortably.”

Her words stunned the three of them. How had the mother’s attitude not changed back yet after all this time?

Could it be that their lives were truly improving?

Wang Miaomiao, still a little nervous, stammered, “This…”

“Why are you so hesitant? There’s nothing to be afraid of. From now on, if you’re unsure about what to cook, just ask me in advance. That should be fine, right?”

“Okay, okay.” With that reassurance, Wang Miaomiao finally relaxed.

Without her mother’s approval, she really wouldn’t dare make any changes…

After all, if she wanted to continue living in this house, she had to win her mother’s favor. If her mother changed her mind, she would truly be left with nowhere to go.