Li Yuzhu asked, "Honey, how did you know he was cheating?"
Dong Qing said, "His technique was too fast for me to detect. I always felt he wouldn't use such a low-level gambling method against me. This time I guessed right. Normally, when you draw a card, you reveal it immediately. The fact that he covered the cards so tightly with both hands made me suspicious. No wonder I haven't won at mahjong for over a year. I wonder how many mahjong tiles he's hiding. He replaces whatever he's missing. How can I possibly win?"
With tears in her eyes, Li Yuzhu said, "This is the happiest moment of my life since we got married. You've finally realized that there's still hope for our marriage."
Dong Qing suddenly pulled his wife into his arms, tears welling in his eyes, and said, "Don't worry, I will repay you with my whole life!"
After Dong Qing finished speaking, the image of his wife's corpse from her past life, lying in a pool of blood with a large pregnant belly, flashed through his mind like a slideshow. He then embraced his wife from this life and burst into tears.
The couple ended up hugging and crying. Li Yuzhu reached out to wipe away her husband's tears and cried, "Let's forget about the unpleasant past and live a good life together!"
"Live a good life"—such an ordinary sentence, yet it pierced Dongqing's heart like a knife. These words were something his wife had exchanged for with her life in a previous life—no, and his son as well; it was two lives.
Having been reborn twice with the same wife, perhaps it was God's punishment for him in his previous life, allowing him to repay his wife in his second life. Dong Qing nodded with tears in his eyes after hearing his wife's words.
Li Yuzhu cried as she kissed her husband's lips. She believed this kiss was the sweetest, the happiest, and the most hopeful kiss of her life since their marriage, a kiss she would remember for a lifetime.
After the couple finished dinner and lay in bed, Li Yuzhu said, "Dongqing, our son is 10 days old now, let's give him a name!"
After listening to his wife's words, Dong Qing pondered for a long time. He said, "Our son was born on a rainy night. Also, I'd like him to have the character 'rain' in his name. How about we name him Dong Yusheng?"
"Dong Yusheng!" After saying these three words, Li Yuzhu remained silent for a long time. She then said, "Okay, our son will be named Dong Yusheng."
Two days later, after breakfast, Dongqing asked, "Yuzhu, are you alright staying home alone?"
Li Yuzhu said, "It's been more than ten days since I gave birth, and the antenna has been removed. What could possibly happen to me alone at home? Is there anything wrong with you?"
Dong Qing said, "I want to go up the mountain to hunt some wild rabbits and exchange them for some money at a restaurant in the city."
When my father was alive, he had a hunting rifle. There weren't any big wild animals on the mountain, so he would go up the mountain to hunt a few rabbits when he had nothing to do.
In the 1970s, there was no market for cutting off the capitalist tail everywhere, so we couldn't sell our game. We could only bring the wild game we hunted home to eat. If we couldn't finish it all at once, my mother would pickle the rabbit in a basin with salt and eat it slowly. It would keep for a long time without spoiling. In those days, who said life was hard? Our family could often eat some meat.
After the reform and opening up, a market emerged, and Dongqing took his father's hunting rifle to the mountains to hunt, then returned to the city to sell the rabbits in a braised rabbit shop.
For the past two years, he had spent all the money he earned from hunting rabbits on gambling. He hadn't given a single penny to his wife. He had never considered his wife's feelings before. Whenever he thought about his past life, he wanted to slap himself.
Li Yuzhu wasn't worried about her husband throwing away the money he earned from hunting at the gambling table; she was only concerned about his safety. She said, "I really want to go hunting with you, but I can't go out during my postpartum period. You must be careful."
Dong Qing said, "Don't worry, there aren't any big wild animals on the mountain. The biggest one is a rabbit. I've hunted before."
Dongqing went into the inner room and took out his father's hunting rifle. This kind of hunting rifle is also called a bird gun. It is much longer than a regular rifle and is about the same height as a person when it stands on the ground.
This gun is very crude; it's a simple, homemade weapon. The barrel is filled with gunpowder, a small cannon, and steel shot. Although it's a bit crude, it's very powerful because of its long barrel, giving it a very long range.
This gun has a very simple structure: the bolt strikes a cannon, which ignites the gunpowder and fires a shot that kills the prey.
The longer the range of this homemade hunting rifle, the larger the area of impact of the steel shot. For example, if there is a flock of birds in a tree, you can shoot down several birds with one shot. Unlike rifle bullets, which are more uniform, rabbits are generally hard to catch. As long as the range is not too far, one shot can hit the prey.
Dongqing then took out a yellow cloth bag containing gunpowder, steel shot, and shot pellets (also called steel balls). When needed, the gunpowder was placed in the chamber, and the steel shot was loaded into the barrel.
Li Yuzhu packed two steamed buns into Dongqing's bag, saying, "Eat them if you get hungry on the mountain!"
Dong Qing nodded, kissed his wife on the forehead, slung the gun and yellow cloth bag over his shoulder, walked out of the house, and headed out of the village.
Arriving at the mountain around 8 a.m., he loaded his gun with gunpowder and shot, then put a mortar in the chamber before searching for prey on the mountain.
In those days, few people went up the mountain to hunt, so finding wild rabbits was not difficult. Twenty minutes later, two wild rabbits were found in the grass.
Hare has very sensitive eyesight, but it also has a special skill: once a hare realizes you can't see it, it won't move; instead, it will run away. This is the kind of insult people often use: "You're smarter than a rabbit."
These words fully demonstrate that rabbits are very intelligent and cunning animals; they will not move unless they are detected.
When two rabbits are startled, they usually run away in the same direction, and the direction they ran away was right in front of Dongqing.
Don't panic when shooting a rabbit; stay calm and collected. No matter how fast it runs, it can't outrun your bullets. Try to hit it with one shot, otherwise it will be a hassle to find it again.
Dong Qing raised his hunting rifle, aimed, and pulled the trigger. With a bang, both rabbits fell down at the same time.
The two rabbits were running in the same direction. The shotgun pellets were only a small area, so as long as the two rabbits were running in the same direction, it was not difficult to kill them with one shot. Even if there were three rabbits in a line, they could still be taken down.
Dong Qing stepped forward, picked up the two rabbits, checked that they had no vital signs, then threw the rabbits on the ground and loaded ammunition into the gun barrel.
Dong Qing wandered around the mountain until four in the afternoon, shooting six wild rabbits. He chased after the last rabbit and fired three shots but missed. Finally, he found it and fired a fourth shot, which only wounded the rabbit. The wounded rabbit ran into a ditch.
Dongqing suddenly remembered a story his father had told him when he was alive. His father had said that if you can't kill any animal with three shots, don't chase it.
My father told me a story with a name and details: In the 1940s, a middle-aged man named Sun Gui went hunting in the mountains. He chased a rabbit and fired three shots but missed. It was the third shot that wounded the rabbit. He then loaded the gun and continued chasing the wounded rabbit.
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