1983, Northeast China

Chapter 26 Green Skin

Aunt Wang followed behind him, saying, "Take Chengzi with you. He's alright at home right now."

"Mother, I heard you." Li Cheng was chopping wood outside the door, his ears perked up, listening intently. "You said I'm useless."

"You should throw away that ear of yours; it's really useless."

Li Cheng saw Chen Shi carrying a basket on his back. "Where are you going? To the weasel?"

"Okay, let's look at the condoms, then go find Old Wei."

"Old Wei?" He'd been thoroughly scolded by Old Wei on the ice yesterday, and the thought still made his ears burn. "Why are you looking for him? To hear him swear?"

"It's better to curse than for us to just stumble around blindly," Chen Shi said.

To be honest, if it weren't for Lao Wei yesterday, their embarrassment would have been a minor matter; falling into the ice hole would have been the real disaster.

Li Cheng slung the rope over his shoulder. "Fine, let's go. But let's make this clear: if he insults you, I won't interfere; if he insults me, you get half."

Aunt Wang gave him another blow without any hesitation.

The two left the village and headed towards the slope where they had previously set traps.

Li Cheng kicked at the snow with his toes, stopping after a few kicks, but after only a couple of steps, he couldn't resist starting again.

He kicked the first rabbit snare and squatted down even faster than Chen Shi.

The snare was empty, and the knot on the rope had been kicked open.

Li Cheng gestured to the buckle, "Too high."

Chen Shi looked at him.

"Don't look at me like that. I'm not stupid. Rabbits have their heads down. This mouth is almost on its ear. Do you think it won't run away?" Li Cheng said with a hint of smugness.

Chen Shi took the condom back and handed it to him, "Then you can put it on again."

Li Cheng's smug expression froze for a moment. "I can talk about it, but I might not actually be able to do it."

"Give it a try."

Li Cheng squatted in the snow for a long time, fiddling with the rabbit, his hands turning red from the cold. He kept cursing the rabbit for having short legs and long ears. In the end, Chen Shi took over and the job was finally done.

Then I put down another trap, and found a half-grown gray rabbit, already frozen solid.

This time, Li Cheng didn't lift the rabbit by its ears. Instead, he supported the rabbit's body with his hands before carefully untying the rope. "This rabbit pelt, can we sell it now?"

"The whole sheet is possible."

"I didn't break it."

"Yes, I'll remember that."

Li Cheng could barely suppress a smile. He looked down and patted the snow off the rabbit. "That's more like it. I'll give you credit for that too."

But when he got to the weasel's side, his smile disappeared.

The snow in front of the crevice was shoveled into a mess, and only bones and skin remained of the half-rabbit. The rope knot was overturned to one side, and there was a string of small footprints on the snow, heading behind the jumbled rocks.

They failed to catch the weasel.

A section of the rope was chewed up.

When Li Cheng saw the port, he first breathed a sigh of relief, then cautiously looked at Chen Shi's expression. "It's good that they ran away. It's best not to touch the Huang family if you can avoid it."

Chen Shi picked up the rope; the rope was rough and chewed up.

"Half the rabbit is gone, and the trap is broken."

"So what do you want to do? Chase it into the cave and reason with it?" Li Cheng said. "This thing is evil; it's not necessarily a bad thing that it ran away."

Chen Shi remained silent.

Seeing that he was still staring at the crack in the rock, Li Cheng felt a little uneasy. "You're not thinking of patching up another one, are you?"

"think."

"Chen Shi!" Li Cheng's voice rose a little. "How dare you bring anything home? If I really went with you to bring those weasels back, my mother would chase me and scold me for three days straight."

Chen Shi coiled up the broken rope, saying, "I'm not going to fight it."

"Then why are you staring at their cave entrance?"

"See where it came from." Chen Shi pointed to the string of small footprints. "Where a weasel can go, a rabbit can go too. If you set a trap in the wrong place, you need to know where you went wrong."

Now it was Li Cheng's turn to feel embarrassed. He thought Chen Shi was thinking about the weasel, but it turned out that Chen Shi was thinking about the rabbit trail.

"You should have said so earlier, you scared me."

"You jumped yourself, I didn't scare you."

Li Cheng remained silent.

Chen Shi accepted the broken trap and didn't set another one. He looked at the rabbit in the basket, then touched the two fish. "Let's go, to Lao Nan Gou."

"I'm really going."

"I've brought you with me."

"What's the point of bringing me along?"

Li Cheng looked back at the direction of the village, and then at the old South Gully. There were many trees there, and the wind blowing from that direction carried a chilly feeling.

"I'm not afraid."

Chen Shi nodded. "I didn't ask."

Li Cheng felt even more aggrieved.

It's colder in Laonangou than outside.

Old elm trees and miscellaneous pines grow on both sides of the slope. Snow weighs down the branches, and occasionally a clump of snow falls down with a rustling sound.

Chen Shi walked slowly, carrying a woodcutter's knife in his hand, not to scare anyone, but mainly to check on the snow.

Li Cheng followed behind, initially complaining about how remote Old Wei's residence was, but he soon fell silent.

"Why are you so quiet?" Chen Shi asked.

"Save some heat."

Chen Shi reached out and stopped Li Cheng.

A series of footprints appeared on the snow ahead.

Li Cheng glanced at it. "A dog?"

It wasn't a dog; the footprints were larger, the paw prints were deeper, and the lines were longer.

"Dogs don't walk straight, they sway from side to side. These few lines are different, they're all too straight."

He crouched down and peeled away the snow around the footprints. The edges of the footprints hadn't been smoothed out by the wind yet, so they didn't look too old.

"Chen Shi, could this be a thug?"

Green peel.

That's what the old folks call wolves.

In my past life, I had heard stories of wolves entering villages and stealing dogs, and I had also heard stories of encountering wolves while driving through the mountains and having to climb trees to survive until dawn. But hearing about it is one thing, and actually seeing it in the snow is another.

"Let's go back," Chen Shi said.

Li Cheng nodded immediately, agreeing, but then felt he had agreed too quickly, so he added, "That's what I think too."

The two had just taken two steps back when a series of crows cawing erupted overhead.

A crow took flight from the tree ahead, followed by two more.

Chen Shi looked up and saw a patch of snow that had been abandoned on the other side of the ditch, as if something had been dragged across.

Li Cheng saw it too, and his face turned pale. "Stop looking, let's go."

Chen Shi did not try to be brave.

He took the basket off his back, carried it in his hand, and gripped the machete tightly in his other hand.

The basket contained rabbits and fish, all smelling fishy. If there were wolves following them, these things would be a living advertisement.

The two of them slowly backed away.

Just as Li Cheng stepped back to a tree, he lost his footing and a piece of snow collapsed.

A snap.

Something immediately raised its head.

It was a grayish-blue wolf.

Thin, with messy hair. Ribs are faintly visible, and there's a touch of dark red at the corner of his mouth.

It stood beside the snowdrift, watching them from thirty or fifty paces away.

Li Cheng trembled for a long time before finally managing to squeeze out a sound, "Green...green...green skinny..."

Chen Shi grabbed his arm, afraid he would turn and run away, "Don't run."

The wolf took a step forward.

Chen Shi also held the machete horizontally.

Just then, a sound of knocking on a tree suddenly rang out from deep within the ravine.

thump.

Another one.

thump.

The wolf stopped and its ears twitched.

Chen Shi and Li Cheng both looked in the direction the sound came from.

Someone yelled, "You two little brats, do you think you can just barge into Old Nangou?"

It's Lao Wei.