Yang Yongqiang ran home excitedly, carrying two badgers.
His father, Yang Hua, was squatting by the courtyard gate smoking. His eyes narrowed a little when he saw Yang Yongqiang returning with something in his hands, but he could not make it out. He asked:
"What are you carrying? Why did setting a net take you so long?"
"Brother Long... I mean Li Long, Tao Daqiang, and I went digging for badgers. I got two!" Yang Yongqiang's voice brimmed with excitement. "Brother Long skinned them for me. All we have to do is gut them, and we can cook them!"
"What? Badgers? From that badger hole you mentioned a couple of days ago?" Yang Hua asked. When Yang Yongqiang first spotted the hole, he had told Yang Hua about it. Yang Hua felt that the two of them could not handle those creatures. Getting bitten would not be worth it, so he had not gone.
Some people were born without an adventurous streak. As long as they had enough to eat, they stayed quietly at home, with an instinctive fear of the outside world and no courage to venture out.
He simply had not expected Yang Yongqiang to team up with Li Long to dig up that badger hole-and actually find badgers!
"How many did you get?"
"Four! Two for me, one for Brother Long, and one for Daqiang." Yang Yongqiang fetched a basin and put the badger meat in it, then rubbed salt into the hides and hung them on the wall.
Those could be sold for money.
"How come you got two?" Yang Hua was puzzled. "Were you that good?"
"Brother Long said I found the hole, so I should get an extra one." Yang Yongqiang did not mention that his two were the smaller ones. Even those two