Chapter Twenty-Six: Memories of Qingyuan Village

With Li Yunfei’s shout, the main hall instantly fell silent. Everyone turned to look outside, and when they saw what was slung over Li Yunfei’s shoulder, cries of astonishment erupted.

“My goodness, that wild boar must weigh at least three hundred jin.”

“This young man is incredibly strong. Whose son is he? Do any of you know him?”

“He looks a bit familiar. Judging by his clothes, he must be from the city.”

“He just called out ‘Fourth Great-Uncle.’ Was he calling Old Fourth?”

Fourth Great-Uncle was momentarily stunned to see Li Yunfei carrying a wild boar. Hearing the murmurs from the crowd, he quickly threw down his cards and stood up, saying, “That’s Kui Jun’s boy, Li Yunfei. Let’s stop playing cards and help out.”

With that, everyone understood. A man in his fifties chuckled, “So it’s Little Fei! No wonder he looked so familiar. It’s been five or six years since I last saw him. Do you still recognize me, Little Fei?”

Li Yunfei had already tossed the wild boar onto the ground in the courtyard. At these words, he looked up and broke into a smile. “How could I not? You’re Uncle Dayong!”

Li Dayong laughed happily. “Good lad! No wonder you were a soldier—no one else could have managed a beast that size. Even a group of young men might not have taken it down, but you did.”

Li Dayong’s old house was about fifty or sixty meters from Li Yunfei’s family home. He and Li Yunfei’s father were cousins, both close kin and neighbors, always on good terms. When Li Yunfei returned to the village with his parents for ancestral rites, he would often run into Uncle Dayong, as they shared the same ancestors.

But six years had passed, and Li Yunfei had changed a great deal. As a student, he’d worn his hair long. Now, his head was always cropped short, and his face had matured. That was why the villagers hadn’t recognized him at first.

Li Dayong’s son and daughter-in-law, like Fourth Great-Uncle’s children, worked away from home year-round and only returned for New Year.

Meanwhile, a few curious villagers had already gathered around the wild boar to examine it. They found that its fatal wound was a single one at the throat—its neck almost half severed.

Fourth Great-Uncle looked at Li Yunfei in wonder. “Little Fei, what did you use to kill this wild boar? I don’t have any butchering tools here.”

Li Yunfei took off his backpack, reached inside, and pulled out a sheathed kukri.

“This. We’ll use this to take care of it in a bit.”

“You used that to kill the boar?” Li Dayong asked, astonished. “How did you make such a deep wound?”

Li Yunfei smiled and explained, “The boar charged at me. Just as it was about to hit, I sidestepped, and before it could react, I stabbed the knife into the side of its neck. The blade was angled downward, so when I pressed and dragged it, I slit its throat completely.”

Now the villagers understood why the wound on the boar’s throat was so deep—and they were in awe of Li Yunfei’s prowess. They’d spent their lives dealing with wild boars, but none would dare face one with a knife. Even with a rifle in hand, many would hesitate to shoot, for if the shot didn’t kill the boar, it would go berserk, and not even several strong men could handle it. Typically, they relied on traps and snares.

After a few more words, Fourth Great-Uncle began organizing everyone. He switched on the lamp under the eaves and had a few elderly women heat water. Li Yunfei and several older men brought out a large wooden basin into the courtyard.

Nearly every household in the village had such a basin, used for cleaning pig bristles during the butchering that took place at New Year.

Soon, the water was boiling. Li Yunfei plunged the wild boar into the basin and scalded it, loosening the skin. Then, wielding the kukri, he scraped off the bristled hide in one piece.

Next, they hoisted the cleaned carcass on a ladder, split open the belly, and gutted it.

After more than an hour, the task was done.

Butchers’ knives and bone cleavers were usually made of iron or low-carbon steel—neither as hard nor as sharp as high-manganese steel, and prone to rust. So, Li Yunfei’s kukri served perfectly well as a butcher’s knife and cleaver.

The wild boar was soon butchered into strips of meat, each about ten jin. Every villager who helped got a portion, while Fourth Great-Uncle kept about seventy or eighty jin for himself.

As for the offal, Fourth Great-Uncle told everyone to come back the next afternoon for a hotpot feast, for wild boar offal made a far tastier broth than that of domesticated pigs.

It was already late. After chatting with Li Yunfei for a while and teasing the little fox, the villagers each took their share of pork and returned home. Li Yunfei, naturally, stayed at Fourth Great-Uncle’s house.

He pulled a few cans of beer from his backpack and sat with Fourth Great-Uncle on the stone steps, drinking and enjoying the night air, while the little fox nestled quietly in his arms, eyes closed in contentment.

Li Yunfei and Fourth Great-Uncle chatted idly about all manner of things, but Li Yunfei deftly steered the conversation toward Qingyuan Village.

“Fourth Great-Uncle, was there a time when a lot of people died in our village?”

Fourth Great-Uncle chuckled. “What village hasn’t lost many people? Otherwise, where would all those graves on the hillside come from?”

“That’s not what I mean,” Li Yunfei replied. “I’m asking if there were any incidents where a large number of villagers died all at once.”

At this, Fourth Great-Uncle nodded. “If you mean that, then yes—there were two such events.”

“Oh?” Li Yunfei perked up, listening intently.

“In the years around the founding of the nation, this region was plagued by bandits. In the 1950s, Yuzhou City was practically a bandit stronghold. There were gangs all over the mountains around here, not just one group. Every nearby village was under the control of one group or another.

“There were frequent clashes between rival bandit groups, all fighting over territory. Once, the bandits who controlled Qingyuan Village and neighboring Daxi Village were nearly wiped out by a rival faction. In desperation, and unwilling to let their enemies take anything, they went berserk and slaughtered the villages, burning the houses.

“After that catastrophe, fewer than one in ten survived in Daxi and Qingyuan. If the rival bandits hadn’t shown up when they did, Qingyuan would have been wiped out entirely.

“Qingyuan used to be a big village, with families surnamed Xiang, Tian, Guo, and Peng. After that, only the Zhangs, Lis, and Wangs remained.

“It wasn’t until the liberation army came and wiped out the bandits in the surrounding region that people finally started living in peace.”

Li Yunfei nodded slowly when Fourth Great-Uncle finished. So, Qingyuan Village had indeed suffered a great calamity. The villagers massacred by the bandits would have harbored deep resentment—it was no wonder the village later gained a reputation as a haunted place.

But Fourth Great-Uncle had said there were two such events. Besides the bandit massacre, what else had happened?