Gugu Chickens Were the Real Prize

The family shared ten sparrows. Li Jianguo and his wife ate one each, Li Long ate two, and the two children had three apiece.

The only real meat on the sparrows was the little bit on their legs and breasts. But Li Qiang and Li Juan did not let a scrap go to waste. They sucked the larger bones clean and simply chewed up and swallowed the smaller ones, spitting nothing out. When they finished, they even licked their hands clean.

Watching them, Li Long felt a pang in his heart. These two children really were starved for meat. Thinking back to his days as an apprentice in Wu City, he had never deprived himself. After buying clothes with his wages, he spent whatever remained on offal at the state-run braised-meat shop to satisfy his cravings. Back then, he had never once thought of his nephew and niece. What a rotten excuse for a human being I was!

Seeing Li Juan and Li Qiang still looking hungry after finishing their sparrows, Li Long felt genuinely guilty.

How much meat could there be on three sparrows?

He had planned to rest, but now another idea occurred to him.

He had nothing to do anyway, and he had a flashlight on hand. Why not take the opportunity to go out again tonight?

He said nothing about it, though. After they finished eating the sparrows, he shooed Li Juan and Li Qiang into the West Room and told them to go to bed early. He got himself ready, put on his cotton-lined rubber shoes, which had not quite dried by the fire, then pulled on his padded coat and fur hat and went out with the flashlight. In the yard, he picked up the scoop net, found a urea sack under the shed, and carried them out through the gate.

After checking that Li Juan and Li Qiang were asleep in the West Room, Liang Yuemei said quietly to her husband:

"Little Long has changed. He never used to be this close to Juan and Qiangqiang. But look at him now..."

"Well, he's their uncle." Li Jianguo rolled some Mohé Tobacco, his tone matter-of-fact. "I look after him, so shouldn't he look after his own nephew and niece?"

"That's true," Liang Yuemei said with a smile. "Even though he got fired, he seems to have grown up and learned some sense. That money wasn't wasted!"

"As long as he's learned some sense." Li Jianguo was actually quite pleased too. He knew perfectly well what his younger brother used to be like. But this was his brother, not his son, so he could hardly lecture him too much. He had only hoped that doing more for him might bring him around.

Now that Li Long was being so sensible, Li Jianguo was even having trouble getting used to it.

"I heard him go out just now. I wonder..." Liang Yuemei said as she stitched a shoe sole.

"Leave him be. He's old enough to know what he should be doing," Li Jianguo said. "What can he get up to in the dead of winter? There's someone home in every household, and he can't stay outside for long. He's probably gone visiting."

After leaving the house, Li Long headed east.

There was a stretch of uncultivated land east of the production team's settlement, with reclaimed farmland farther beyond it. Along the edges stood earth mounds of all sizes, left over from clearing, leveling, and harrowing the fields. After the autumn harvest, weeds and crop roots from the fields were scattered here.

And this was exactly the sort of place Gugu Chickens liked to stay.

With food scarce and nutrition poor, most people had Night-Blindness and could not see well after dark.

And at least half the households in the production team did not own a flashlight, that sort of "household appliance."

So although the villagers in later years all knew where Gugu Chickens liked to gather, people at this time had yet to find out.

Even those who knew would have trouble catching them-they had neither the tools nor good enough night vision.

Li Long lacked neither. Meals had been provided at the food factory where he worked. They might not have been particularly good, but they were more nutritious than what he ate back in the production team.

He trudged along, his feet sinking unevenly into the snow, without making any particular effort to quiet his footsteps.

Gugu Chickens were actually rather stupid birds. At least, that was how Li Long saw them. This particular Gugu Chicken roost had been discovered by an old shepherd.

According to the old man, it had been nearly pitch-dark when he was bringing his sheep home. Tired, he spotted a patch of dark lumps and took them for stones poking through the snow, so he lowered himself to sit on one. But before his backside reached the "stone," it ran away. It turned out to be a flock of Gugu Chickens.

In other words, these birds generally would not run unless they absolutely had to.

After all, a good roost was hard to find. Once they had spent ages huddled down and warming it up, how much heat would they waste by running off again? Building up energy in winter was no easy task!

Li Long had really only come to try his luck. Finding some would be ideal, of course. If he found none, well, there was no television to watch at night now, no phone to scroll through, and no friends to chat with. A walk to burn off some energy would do him good anyway.

The place was about a kilometer from the settlement, but it took Li Long nearly half an hour to reach it, mainly because the snow was so deep. By the time he arrived, a thin film of sweat covered his body.

But the moment he stopped, the cold began seeping into him. Thirty below zero was no joke.

Li Long switched on the flashlight and immediately started searching. He could not stay outside too long. With so little food in his stomach, he could not generate enough body heat, and it felt miserable.

Several distinct humps rose before him-earth mounds buried beneath the snow.

He felt a little disappointed. The heavy snow had covered the mounds, making them unlikely to attract any Gugu Chickens.

He continued forward with the flashlight, checking the mounds one by one.

Before long, Li Long noticed signs of snow having been scratched away around a mound near the farmland, exposing dead grass and crop stalks underneath.

This looks promising!

He kept going and soon spotted grayish-black shapes crouching in the snow ahead.

Gugu Chickens!

A quick count showed more than a dozen Gugu Chickens huddled there. Some already had their eyes closed, while others, drawn by the flashlight beam, watched him warily.

Li Long switched off the flashlight and closed his eyes to let them adjust.

After a little over a minute, he opened them again and could just make out what lay ahead.

Peering carefully toward the Gugu Chickens, he could barely distinguish their dark shapes. He approached them step by step.

Less than a meter from the nearest Gugu Chicken, Li Long stopped and slowly raised his scoop net.

Then he slowly lowered it over the bird.

Before the Gugu Chicken could react, it was trapped beneath the net.

It fluttered just once before Li Long reached in, pulled it out, and stuffed it into the urea sack.

This one was quite big, weighing half a kilo-more than a dozen sparrows' worth.

Li Long was delighted.

Two nearby Gugu Chickens stirred in alarm, but in the end they could not bear to abandon the warm little nests beneath their bellies and stayed put.

Then Li Long caught those two in a single sweep of the net and stuffed them into the urea sack as well.

Then one Gugu Chicken flew away.

The other Gugu Chickens began stirring too, and Li Long immediately lunged forward with the scoop net. If he moved too slowly now, he would get nothing more.

He caught two more Gugu Chickens in quick succession before the others finally caught on and flew off in a flurry of wings.

Five in all. Li Long looked in the direction the Gugu Chickens had flown, but ultimately decided not to chase them.

The snow was too deep, and with so little food in his stomach, he had no strength left.

Even that brief burst of strenuous movement had brought him out in a weak sweat. Now that he had stopped, the sweat turned cold, leaving him terribly uncomfortable.

Li Long knew he needed to soak his feet as soon as he got home, or he was bound to fall ill tomorrow.

But with five Gugu Chickens in hand, Li Long was in high spirits, like a general returning victorious from battle.

There'll be something good to eat tomorrow!

(End of chapter)