Chapter 40: Continuing up the mountain, planning to catch some wild pheasants.

The scene suddenly fell silent. Chu Feng stood there holding his wood-chopping knife. He had braced himself for a major confrontation, but instead of a fight breaking out, the people on the other side knelt on the ground.

Chu Feng looked at Zhou Xiaoxiao. He wanted to leave this choice to his wife. As far as Chu Feng was concerned, he had completely severed ties with his family. If those people who called themselves "family" repeatedly bullied, insulted, and conspired against him, then their existence in his life no longer held any significance.

However, Zhou Xiaoxiao’s situation was different. Only she knew what her life had been like in that household. Perhaps, even now, she still held onto some lingering affection for her kin. To force her to cut ties with them would be unfair to her.

Zhou Xiaoxiao glanced at Chu Feng with hesitation, then firmly shook her head. "No. The grain belongs to us. Why should we give it to them?" She turned and began to walk away.

Seeing this, Zhou Youqiang lunged forward and grabbed Zhou Xiaoxiao’s leg. "Dear niece, no matter what, we were your family once. You can’t just ignore us like this!"

This Zhou Youqiang was much smarter than Zhou Youzhi. From the moment they met, he had done nothing but kneel on the ground and play the victim, never once uttering a harsh word.

Zhou Xiaoxiao’s expression shifted from distress to absolute resolve. Her home was no longer in Xiliu Village; it was in Yulong Village.

"You can have grain, but you must trade money or goods for it. There is no such thing as getting something for nothing in this world. No household is finding things easy right now."

With that, she pulled her leg free. Without so much as a glance at these so-called family members, she turned and walked away. Chu Feng followed close behind her, not sparing the group a single look.

"Did you hear that? Don't come to our village begging for food again, or don't blame us for getting rough," Widow Wang said, naturally siding with her fellow villager. She had the standing to say so; although Yulong Village was small, it had many men, and they were all tough characters. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to establish a village so close to Yulong Mountain.

Startled, Zhou Youqiang scrambled out of the village. He looked at Wang Xiufen, whose eyes were filled with malice. "What did I tell you? That stubborn woman doesn't respond to soft or hard tactics anymore."

Zhou Youqiang shook his head. "Hard tactics won't work. If you want to survive this winter, listen to me."

"Then what do we do now?"

"Go back to the village first, and we'll come back in a while."

"Doesn't that just throw away our dignity for nothing?" Wang Xiufen found this hard to accept.

Zhou Youqiang laughed. "Dignity? What's that worth?" If they couldn't even eat and were about to starve to death, who cared about dignity? Those who did deserved to starve. With that, he led the way out.

***

Over the next few days, life for Chu Feng and Zhou Xiaoxiao returned to its normal rhythm. Chu Feng stopped hunting; the snow on the mountains was growing deeper by the day, and it was clear that the mountain would soon be impassable. With the Lunar New Year approaching, Chu Feng needed to prioritize gathering supplies.

Benben and Huahua were growing rapidly. Now, the two little creatures chased each other around the courtyard, and Chu Miaomiao could no longer outrun them. She couldn't even best Benben in a scuffle.

"Mutton, venison, stone crabs, and oil toads." Zhou Xiaoxiao counted their supplies over and over, seemingly never tiring of it. Chu Feng watched them, a happy smile touching his lips.

He then stepped into the room and locked the door, leaving only a sliver of light coming through the window. Once he was certain of total privacy, he stepped onto the *kang* and reached up to the rafters, taking down a black package.

A matchlock musket. A firearm of the Great Qian Dynasty.

Back on the mountain, it had been too dark for him to examine it closely. In his past life as a soldier, his love for firearms was ingrained in his bones, but he had never seen such primitive weaponry. By the standards of his previous life, this would be a museum artifact. Even now, to Chu Feng’s eyes, it was crudely made. The barrel and the stock were not forged as a single piece.

He knew that by the Ming Dynasty, high-furnace steel forging and integrated stamping techniques had existed. While those techniques were rudimentary, they allowed for the manufacturing of integrated musket barrels. If that history had continued to develop, it might have become a military powerhouse. But the musket in his hand fell short; every component had been hammered out by a blacksmith and fused together at high heat. It looked far inferior to the muskets of the early Ming Dynasty.

In this era, which existed in no history book, Chu Feng had few points of reference. Since his rebirth, he had stayed within this village and this mountain, the furthest he had traveled being the small town at the foot of the mountain. He had only heard that the Great Qian and the Great Xia were constantly at war, but he had never seen the scale of their battles, their military systems, or the weapons they employed.

This musket, however, gave him a rough idea. Judging by the importance the robber had placed on it, these were rare. Even in the army, it was unlikely that every soldier carried one; there were likely specialized musket units.

It was ignited by black powder, which meant the dynasty possessed sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal. As for the bullets, they were even more laughable. He wondered if this thing would explode in his hands upon firing.

Until now, Chu Feng hadn't dared to use the musket while on the mountain, even though he longed to bag a few pheasants. The crude metallurgy made him anxious. But after examining it for a long time, he dismissed his concerns. The materials were solid, made almost entirely of raw iron. Because the caliber was small and the gunpowder charge minimal, the energy generated wouldn't be enough to cause a barrel rupture. In other words, the power was so low that the risk of explosion was negligible.

Having made up his mind, Chu Feng tucked the musket back into the black package. This time, he didn't take his bow and arrows, only an axe and a bamboo basket.

"Wife, I'm heading to the outskirts of the mountain to see if I can find any pheasants."

"Be careful," Zhou Xiaoxiao replied, not even looking up as she counted their money.

Chu Feng chuckled softly. Chu Miaomiao didn't ask to follow; after the last time, when she had frozen and tripped repeatedly, she had learned her lesson. With the mountains sealed by snow, it was difficult to walk, and at her small size, she would likely sink right into the drifts. Even if she had asked, Chu Feng wouldn't have allowed it.

He secured the courtyard gate and crunched through the snow toward Yulong Mountain. He wondered if the bailiffs from the other day had reached the second peak, or if they had encountered that brown bear. But none of that mattered to him anymore. Today, he just wanted to use the musket to bring home some pheasant for the New Year feast.

Pheasants were plentiful on Yulong Mountain. His previous method of trapping them—using a circle of rope with some moldy rice—was incredibly inefficient, and the pheasants were not as stupid as one might think.

But this time, he had the musket.

He found a towering tree and began to climb. Once he reached a suitable height, he sat perfectly still, blending into the branches like a part of the forest itself.

He waited.

Then, the sound of flapping wings echoed through the air.

"Cluck-cluck-cluck!"

It was here.