“Alright, let’s break up then,” Li Long said calmly. “I won’t cause you any trouble, and you can tell people we’re done. I’m fine with that.”

Li Long’s expression was steady and calm, which surprised Wu Shufen. This wasn’t like him at all. Normally, he would beg her not to leave. Could he have met someone new on his recent trip to Wucheng?

When they met last month, Wu Shufen remembered that she only slightly expressed her dissatisfaction about not seeing each other for such a long time, and Li Long immediately took out his salary to go to the commune store to buy a hair clip to make her happy. So why was he acting so distant now?

Still, Wu Shufen had her pride. Even though she was baffled by his behavior, she didn’t want to make a scene with Li Long in front of Li Jianguo, Li Juan, and Li Qiang. So, she ignored the Guagua Chicken lying at his feet and said sternly, “Then let’s break up. And don’t tell people we were ever together!” With that, she turned around and walked off quickly, disappearing behind the house.

Li Jianguo, watching all of this, asked Li Long cautiously, “You okay, Xiao Long? You seem different today.”

“I’m fine, big brother. We need to bring the chickens inside so they can thaw for plucking,” Li Long replied.

Li Jianguo didn’t ask any more questions. He and Li Long brought the Guagua Chicken inside. Li Qiang and Li Juan rubbed their red, cold ears as they watched the Guagua Chicken with eager eyes.

“There are really five!” Liang Yuemei was thrilled. With the family pig going to waste, winter was looking rough. But now that her brother-in-law had caught these Guagua Chicken, at least the kids could have some meat.

These days, it’s really rare to be able to eat meat.

“Yeah, there were actually more, but after I caught five, the others scattered,” Li Long explained. “It was getting dark, and I couldn’t go after them once they ran off.”

“Five is plenty,” Li Jianguo said. “With all this snow, Guagua Chicken are hard to catch. Most families in our brigade haven’t had any. Let’s cook them for lunch.”

“How many should we make?” Liang Yuemei asked as she served the pickled vegetables, then used the corn bread to soak up the bits left in the pan. She split the greasy bread between Li Juan and Li Qiang, who eagerly took it, keeping their eyes on the Guagua Chicken.

Li Jianguo turned to Li Long. Since Li Long had caught the pheasants, he had the final say.

“Let’s cook two,” Li Long suggested. “We’ll keep one for later and send the other two over to Juan’s maternal grandpa’s place. How does that sound?”

Li Jianguo and Liang Yuemei exchanged glances, surprised. Li Long had never shown much interest in visiting Liang’s family before. Was he finally growing up?

“Let’s do that,” Li Jianguo said. “After breakfast, we’ll start preparing them.”

Once breakfast was ready, Li Long waited for Li Jianguo to sit and take his chopsticks before he started eating. The pickled vegetables were just as good as he remembered. For years, he had eaten winter meals at his brother’s house, where pickled vegetables were always a staple. Even when they had more money, they never skipped making pickles.

But after Li Jianguo’s accident, things changed. Liang Yuemei viewed Li Long as the cause of her husband’s death and wouldn’t let him eat with the family anymore. Li Long drifted for years until he eventually married a woman who had a child from a previous marriage, but the food never quite felt like home.

Eating the pickled vegetables with a steamed bun, Li Long felt deeply moved. He was determined that this time, he would make a better life and prevent the tragedies of his past life.

After breakfast, Liang Yuemei heated water to help remove the feathers. Li Qiang and Li Juan picked out colorful feathers from the pheasants to make a shuttlecock for playing later on.

Seeing them gather feathers, Li Long remembered his brother once mentioning that he and the production team found a jar of ancient coins when plowing with a tractor years ago. They sold it for a few hundred yuan, which was a small fortune back then. Li Long wondered if he could go there in the summer and find anything left.

There is no cultural relic protection law these days, so these things are not under protection, but they are worth a lot.

But that was for later. With two lifetimes’ worth of memories, Li Long knew the mountains held valuable things: antlers, medicinal plants like Fritillaria bulbs, and more. Both state-owned and private buyers paid good money for them. And every year, the local militia was called up for a few months of training, where they were issued guns and later organize to go up the mountain to hunt wild boars. Li Long had been part of these hunts before and was a good shooter. Hunting could open up all kinds of possibilities for him.

Li Long’s thoughts drifted as he looked ahead, but he snapped back when Li Jianguo called him over to help with the chickens.

The Guagua Chicken looked big, but after plucking and cleaning, each barely weighed a pound. They saved the gizzards, hearts, and livers for stir-frying and even kept the lining of the gizzards as a remedy for kids’ stomach troubles.

Once the birds were cleaned, Liang Yuemei took two to chop up for lunch, Li Jianguo set two aside to freeze for the Liang family, and they hung up the last one for another day.

When they were done, Li Long turned to Li Jianguo and said, “Brother, I’m planning to borrow the team’s horse carriage and go to the mountains tomorrow to bring back some wood.”

“Absolutely not!” Li Jianguo’s face darkened, and he looked at his brother in disbelief. “It’s freezing, the mountain roads are unpredictable, and you’re not familiar with them. Why risk it? If something happens to you, we’ll be in real trouble!”

Li Long answered confidently, “One of my coworkers at the food factory is from Qingshuihe Commune, which is right by the mountains. He came back with me, and he can guide me. If I leave early, I can get back the same day.”

Seeing Li Long’s determination, Li Jianguo hesitated.