vstars Chapter 191 The Vanished Handahan
Chapter 191 The Vanished Handahan
The woman let the quilt slip off her snow-white shoulders, leaning against Li Ju'an in a sweet, coquettish voice: "Please." He lit a cigarette, thought for a moment, and said, "Okay, I'll go ask for you."
Qin Zhiqing's eyes shone brightly. She sighed inwardly. Her actions were truly despicable, and she felt utterly shameless.
Li Ju'an comforted her again, enjoying her whimpering and contented expression.
The sky was just beginning to lighten, and the sunlight was shining down.
Qin Zhiqing stewed a pot of corn porridge, made sticky rice cakes, braised venison, and fried some oil, then had Li Ju'an eat the meat with his breakfast.
She climbed the wooden ladder and took down an elmwood box from the top floor of the wooden house. She handed it to Li Ju'an and said, "Li Pao, you might need this when you go out."
Li Ju'an opened the elmwood box and saw four small tubes of explosives inside, which looked similar to firecrackers. He measured them and found they were about four centimeters in diameter. He opened another oil paper package and took out two detonators and a roll of fuse.
The sheer amount of gunpowder and its immense power caught his eye. Having this weapon in his hand gave him a sense of security far greater than any bullet.
After eating and drinking his fill, he sat on the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed) to tie his leg wraps, then picked up his skis, grabbed his hammer, and headed out.
After nursing her crying baby, Qin Zhiqing blushed and brought over two wild boar ribs and a heavy pig leg. She said softly, "Take these with you when you go down the mountain. Let your sister-in-law stew some ribs with dried potatoes for you."
Looking at her sorrowful expression, Li Ju'an said, "There are only my elderly mother and younger sister at home."
Qin Zhiqing's beautiful, dark eyes stared at him intently, a hint of color in them. Then, somewhat self-consciously, she lowered her eyes and fell silent, dejected.
He could see a different emotion in her eyes. Besides wanting him to help her get a city residency permit, she had other feelings for him.
In this era, many women are like this. Although the two only have one night of physical intimacy, once he gets her body, he basically gets her heart as well.
Li Ju'an declined the two ribs of wild boar, refusing to accept them. He gestured with his chin towards the furs, animal bones, and antlers in the wooden house, saying, "These shouldn't have been hunted by you either. If I accept the ribs, you'll be in trouble if your family finds something missing."
Qin Zhiqing bit her lower lip tightly and remained silent. She admitted, "My father-in-law is a hunter. If it weren't for his hunting skills, we wouldn't be able to make a living. I married into the Chen family, and my husband hasn't come back for years. I don't even know if he's alive or dead. What if he gets taken away by Old Xiong and marries someone else in the village?"
Looking at this beautiful, unfortunate woman, he felt a surge of sympathy and pity.
The pampered young woman from the city probably never imagined the predicament she would face before coming to the countryside. Now, with a pure heart, she is still thinking about helping her husband's father get out of trouble and speaking up for him.
Qin Zhiqing dared not meet his direct, insightful gaze.
Li Ju'an only glanced at her before quickly averting his gaze, refusing to look at the pitiful woman.
The door to the wooden house was suddenly pushed open.
Lu Zhiqiang and Song Desheng stumbled in, yelling and babbling incoherently. They seemed somewhat delirious, their dog-skin hats askew, their hair and eyebrows covered in frost, and even their nostrils were frosted.
The two men, panting heavily, their faces contorted with malice, roared with the excitement of having won a battle, "Master Huang, we've finally caught you!"
Just as the two were about to grab Qin Zhiqing's arm, Li Ju'an knocked it down with his ash wood stick and shouted, "What nonsense are you spouting?"
The two struggled through the old graveyard and mass burial ground all night, finally managing to capture seven or eight weasels alive with their snares. They stepped on quite a few snares and traps, and encountered many absurd things. They spent the entire night reciting the stories of the weasel spirits told by their ancestors, their expressions becoming increasingly erratic.
Lu Zhiqiang finally couldn't take it anymore. Pointing at the lit wooden house, he shouted, "Are you a man? Dare to charge in! So what if he's Huang Daxian? Anyone who's afraid of him is a coward!"
Song Desheng, exhausted from fighting off the weasels scattered all over the ground, and cold and hungry all night while busy killing them, put his arm around Lu Zhiqiang's shoulder and shouted, "Charge! A man who's afraid of ghosts isn't a real man! Even if it's an old weasel inside, or even an old woman turned into a woman, I, your brother, would sacrifice myself for the organization's final victory!"
Lu Zhiqiang shouted heartily, "Stop talking nonsense. If a real old hag came, you'd be too scared to stand up straight again."
"Pah! Who can't stand it up? Whether it's a female ghost or a female shaman, we real men will tame her and that'll be the end of it!"
"Let's have a double kill!"
The two encouraged each other and finally moved to the old work area, which they dared not approach, on a snowy, cold night.
On a freezing night with temperatures dropping to -40 degrees Celsius, the two were so cold that they couldn't stand it anymore. If they didn't warm themselves by the fire, they would not only be unable to stand up even if they encountered a beautiful female ghost, but they would probably freeze to death.
The two men, suppressing their anger, felt their blood rush to their heads. With a bang, Lu Zhiqiang kicked open the wooden door, brandishing a Type 54 pistol and a Type 054 revolver in each hand, and shouted into the room, "Huang Daxian, we've finally caught you!"
After they entered the house, they suddenly realized that they had made a huge mistake.
There was a woman, a very beautiful young woman, but she looked familiar. Wasn't she Qin, the educated youth from Wangxingtun?
There were men there too, but they recognized them all too well—it was none other than Li Ju'an. Even more striking was that Li Ju'an, sitting on the edge of the kang (heated brick bed), lowered his leg (which had been bound) and turned to eat the sticky rice cake the woman offered him. Their intimate actions made it difficult not to speculate.
Lu Zhiqiang's lips were blue and purple from the cold. His eyes were wide open, his eyelashes were covered with a thick layer of frost, and he could barely open his eyelids. He asked in confusion, "Li Ju'an? Where is Huang Daxian?"
Song De angrily slapped his thigh and cursed, "You, Li Ju'an! We almost froze to death in the graveyard in the middle of the night, and spent the whole night messing around with a bunch of beasts, while you just sat there having a carefree night."
Anyone in that situation would be indignant.
The two of them were terrified in the middle of nowhere, joking and teasing each other, all in an attempt to outsmart the weasels roaming the land. They were afraid the cabin was the weasel's lair, and that opening the door would mean encountering the oldest and youngest of the weasels. But Li Ju'an was already there with his hunting dogs, thoroughly enjoying himself.
You've had your braised meat, a full breakfast, and who knows, you might even have enjoyed a delicious late-night snack.
The two men were so angry that they dropped the aluminum basin. The steaming aroma of meat and porridge wafted into the air and filled their nostrils. They quickly put on smiling faces, hurriedly picked up the basin, and, with fawning smiles, asked for a bowl of hot corn porridge.
Lu Zhiqiang whispered to Song Desheng, "When my brother and I get married, we must ask this kid for some gifts."
"That must happen!"
After the three rested, Li Ju'an asked Lu Zhiqiang why he had run around on the snowdrift yesterday.
Speaking of this, Lu Zhiqiang got very angry. He looked at the furnishings of the wooden house with resentment, and then he understood what was going on. He said, "We've found our Handahan. Guess where he is."
"where."
Lu Zhiqiang pointed to the tall wooden branch and said, "The quilt cover is hanging up, and it looks different from the ones on the ground."
Last night, Li Ju'an rescued Tiechui from the snowdrift, and Lu Zhiqiang, with a rope around his waist, helped carry the rope. Suddenly, he turned around and saw a dark shadow dart past. The shadow was quite large, about the size of a green shrew, clearly not a small animal. He immediately became alert, not uttering a sound or revealing his position, but simply raising his gun to return fire.
The dark shadow flashed by without lingering, leaving only footprints. When he looked up again, he saw that Handahan, whom they had been searching for, was hanging from the treetop.
Because the treetops were so dense and the canopy so tall and large, the snares were set high enough that no one noticed them in the dim light of dusk.
He looked up and a drop of Handahan's blood, mixed with brain matter, dripped onto his eyelid.