Year 1979: Eating meat with my wife and children

Li Xiangdong was stunned by the grenade his son threw at him. He had lived two lives, and although he wasn't exactly a law-abiding citizen.

But he never imagined that one day a grenade would fly right in front of him, and he didn't even notice whether his son had pulled the pin.

The sweltering heat startled him so much that he broke out in a cold sweat!

Zhou Dewang nudged Li Xiangdong, who was standing there dumbfounded, and said, "Dongzi, snap out of it. There's no gunpowder in the grenade. It's what our village militia uses for training."

As he spoke, he bent down to pick up the grenade from the ground, tapping it against the sole of his shoe. "See, it's okay."

"Ah, really..."

Li Xiangdong gradually recovered.

"Brother-in-law, you're such a scaredy-cat! Look how frightened you are."

Zhou Yuqi stood to the side, holding Li Xiaozhu, laughing heartily. Her brother-in-law's embarrassing moment had amused her greatly.

"Dad, is it fun?"

Li Xiaohai had no idea that this would scare his father. He had just seen his two cousins ​​throwing things around and thought it was funny.

Li Xiangdong glanced at his sister-in-law with a dark expression, then turned and stared intently at his dutiful son standing in the middle of the yard. He gritted his teeth and said fiercely, "Fun my ass!"

Li Xiaohai scratched his head. "I'm playing with you, Dad. My uncle is at our house. I'll play with him when I get back."

"You're so..."

Li Xiangdong swallowed the curse he was about to utter. He was furious and raised his leg to punch Li Xiaohai, but Zhou Dewang grabbed him as soon as he took a step.

"Dongzi, my nephew is still young, what could he know? I, as his uncle, am right here. Do you think I'd let you beat him up?"

Although Zhou Dewang is the village's scorekeeper and doesn't usually have to work in the fields, he also serves as the village's militia captain. The militia training he does every now and then has given him a muscular physique.

Li Xiangdong was held tightly and couldn't break free at all. After trying a couple of times, he gave up and stopped trying.

"Alright, Brother Wang, let go. Would I really hit my own son? I'm just trying to scare him. Otherwise, he'll keep causing trouble for me, and I can't stand it."

"As long as you don't hit the child, calm down. I can't give you the gun, but you can keep this grenade as a souvenir."

Upon hearing this, Zhou Dewang released Li Xiangdong and shoved the grenade he was holding into his hand.

???

Li Xiangdong looked at the grenade in his hand. What was so special about this thing that he wanted to commemorate it?

Are you suggesting that when he gets old, he'll lie in a rocking chair and use a hand grenade to tell stories to his grandson?

Grandson, you have no idea, your grandpa almost got killed by this grenade your dad used back then...

"Let's go, let's go, everyone come home with me."

When Zhou Yuqi saw her nephew carrying the rabbit, she looked at Zhou Dewang and said, "Brother Dewang, we're taking the rabbit with us."

Zhou Dewang was locking the door to the room where guns and ammunition were stored. This was of utmost importance, as the brigade's courtyard required someone to keep watch every night.

Hearing this, he turned around and smiled, "Take it, it was originally meant for my nephew."

Li Xiangdong walked up to Li Xiaohai with a grenade, raised his leg and kicked him, but the force was not great.

Li Xiaohai patted the dirt off his bottom, looked up and asked, "Dad, why did you kick me?"

"Nothing much. You wanted to play with me, so this is just me playing with you."

"Then I'm not playing with you anymore."

Li Xiangdong looked at Li Xiaohai, who had run to his sister-in-law's side, and sighed inwardly. He was too young. If he were a few years older, he could beat him without restraint.

Little Snotty came over and asked, "Uncle Li, are you alright?"

"It's alright, let's go back together. Uncle Li will roast some wild rabbit for you."

Li Xiangdong patted the little snotty-nosed boy on the shoulder, and the two followed behind his sister-in-law Zhou Yuqi toward his father-in-law's house.

"Uncle Li, I'm not eating the wild rabbit anymore. I'm taking my bamboo basket and going home."

"You don't need to worry about cutting pig feed, I've already done it for you."

"Ah~ Thank you, Uncle Li."

"Hehe, now you feel at ease, right?"

"Uh-huh."

back home.

Zhou Yuqi carried Li Xiaozhu into the house and told her parents and sister what had just happened.

When Zhou Yuqin heard her sister recount the whole story as if it were a joke, she was so angry that she grabbed Li Xiaohai, who had followed her into the room, pulled down his pants, and whipped him twice.

Mr. and Mrs. Zhou watched their grandson get beaten but didn't stop him. The brat really deserved it. Luckily, it was their son-in-law who threw the grenade; if it had been an older person, who knows what might have happened.

Li Xiaohai didn't cry even when he was being beaten. When his mother stopped hitting him, he pulled up his pants and ran to the kang (a heated brick bed) to look at Zhou's father and said, "Grandpa, Uncle Dewang hunted a wild rabbit for us."

Mr. Zhou nodded, "Okay, you can keep them and play with them."

Li Xiaohai shook his head and said, "Grandpa, I don't want to play anymore. I want to eat meat."

Zhou's father asked, "Where is the rabbit?"

"Here it is."

The two Zhou brothers saw their cousin being beaten and didn't dare go inside. They stood at the doorway and peeked out to show their grandfather the wild rabbit they were holding.

Zhou's father got off the kang (a heated brick bed) and took the wild rabbit from his grandson's hand. "Don't follow me. What's so interesting about killing a rabbit?"

The reason they weren't allowed to follow was to avoid scaring Li Xiaohai. The two Zhou brothers had both seen pig slaughtering before, and they weren't afraid. But children, if you let one watch and don't let the other, they'll definitely chatter on and on.

Zhou's father carried the wild rabbit into the yard and instructed his son-in-law, who was studying a grenade, "Dongzi, there's firewood in the backyard. Go and fetch some."

"I'll go, Uncle Li."

The little snotty-nosed creature that was squatting next to Li Xiangdong got up and ran to the backyard.

After breaking the rabbit's neck, Zhou's father began to skin it and gut it.

Crispy roasted rabbit is a method that simply won't work in rural areas today.

Rabbit pelts with fur are a valuable commodity; they can be exchanged for a good amount of money at supply and marketing cooperatives and purchasing points. Even if you don't exchange them for money, you can tan them and keep them for winter heating.

This is because Zhou Dewang's family and his father-in-law's family have a close relationship; otherwise, they wouldn't have been willing to give away a rabbit skin for free.

After killing the rabbit, Li Xiangdong put it into a basin, chopped some scallions and garlic, and added some salt and soy sauce to marinate it.

Forget about other seasonings, there aren't any.

While he was at it, he made a brush himself.

"Mother, where did you put the sugar I brought today?"

Li Xiangdong went into the house, found Zhou's mother, and asked her about the white sugar.

The white sugar was put away separately by Zhou's mother, unlike in later generations when it was placed directly in the kitchen.

Putting aside the possibility of the rats ruining it in the kitchen, in this era of scarcity of sweets, the mere presence of those two large rats in the house is enough to make one feel uneasy.

Zhou's mother asked in confusion, "Why are you taking the sugar?"

Li Xiangdong said, "I'll make some sugar water to use when we roast the rabbit later."

"You need to use white sugar to roast rabbit?"

Zhou's mother's voice was noticeably louder, "I'm old and my memory isn't good. I forgot where I put the sugar. You'd better get out of here and stop getting in my way."

As she spoke, she pushed and dragged her son-in-law out of the house.

"Mom, why are you pinching me again?!"

"..."

Hearing Zhou Yuqin's complaints, Li Xiangdong stood outside the door with some concern.

He's worried that his wife will learn from his mother-in-law and pinch him like that...