On the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, the Zhao family all got up early in the morning at around five o'clock. After having breakfast early, they divided their labors and started working.

Zhao Youcai was chopping green onions and ingredients in front of the stove, while Wang Meilan fetched water and washed the dishes. Zhao Youcai borrowed these dishes from the canteen and had to return them after using them.

Zhao Jun took Hua Xiaoer and Daqing for a walk in the yard, and then led them to the warehouse. At this time, the wounds on the two dogs had healed and scabbed, and they should be able to recover in a few days.

Zhao Jun tied them up, otherwise the two dogs would easily kill the three sheep if they were both in the barn. Today, the Zhao family is inviting relatives and friends to a banquet, but they cannot treat them to mutton.

After tying the dog, Zhao Jun came to the west corner, where tables stood.

This kind of table is a folding square table. Because it is often folded and stood up against the wall, people in the Northeast often call it standing aside.

These tables were eliminated from the forest farm canteen in previous years, and Zhao Youcai picked out a lot of the ones that were still usable and took them home.

Zhao Jun moved the tables out, eight tables in a row, and took out a lot of the long benches that were piled up.

A table has four benches on four sides; eight tables equals thirty-two benches.

When Zhao Jun was struggling outside, Li Baoyu climbed over the wall next door and helped Zhao Jun move out.

When everyone moved outside, Li Ruhai was waiting on the other side of the wall. Li Baoyu handed over the four tables and sixteen benches one by one, and Li Ruhai took over on the other side.

Today the two families are having a banquet together, and each family has four tables.

At this time, Li Dayong came back from outside and handed over a barrel of wine and two boxes of cigarettes along the wall.

"How is your dad preparing?" Li Dayong asked Zhao Jun.

"I'm busy." Zhao Jun responded with a smile and began to move tables and stools into the room.

As soon as Zhao Jun finished moving the table and stools, Zhang Yuanmin's family of three came.

Zhang Yuanmin entered the house and called Zhao Youcai, "Uncle" and "Auntie". Zhao Youcai smiled and pulled Zhang Yuanmin's daughter, grabbed a handful of candy bars for her from his pocket, and asked her to come into the back room and chat with her.

Zhao Hong and Zhao Na play together.

Yang Yufeng helped Wang Meilan wash the dishes, while Zhang Yuanmin and Zhao Jun were cleaning the yard together.

Just after scanning twice, I heard someone shouting at the gate of the courtyard: "Zhao Jun!"

Zhao Jun looked up, waved to him and said, "Come in."

As soon as Zhao Jun finished speaking, a young man came in from outside the hospital. He was similar in age to Zhao Jun, but the carefree manner in which he walked looked more like a village boy than Zhao Jun.

"Jinshan." Zhang Yuanmin just turned around and greeted the young man when he saw him.

This man was none other than Zhao Jinshan, whom Li Baoyu exchanged wild boar thighs and black bear thighs for bullets. He was also the son of Zhao Guofeng, the chief of Yongan Village.

Zhao Guofeng and Zhao Youcai have a good relationship. Zhao Youcai invited Zhao Guofeng and his family today, but I don’t know why Zhao Jinshan wandered over first.

"Hey! Zhang Datong... Big brother is here too?" Zhao Jinshan was stunned for a moment when he saw Zhang Yuanmin. He didn't expect that the Zhao family would invite Zhang Yuanmin.

Zhang Yuanmin heard the "clang" in Zhao Jinshan's words. Although he didn't care, he just smiled and continued to sweep the yard with his head down.

"Where is my Uncle Zhao?" Seeing this, Zhao Jun hurriedly asked Zhao Jinshan.

Zhao Jinshan did not answer. Instead, he pulled Zhao Jun aside and asked him in a low voice: "Yesterday, your uncle asked my father to get three guns and a hundred rounds of ammunition from the Tunbu. What is he going to do?"

Zhao Jun pretended to be mysterious and looked around. After mentioning Zhao Jinshan's curiosity, he whispered to him: "I heard...it seems that they are going to Huzigou to beat their beards."

"Go to the other side!" Zhao Jinshan was listening with his ears bent, but when he heard Zhao Jun's words, his face suddenly changed and he stretched out his hand to push Zhao Jun.

Zhao Jun laughed.

In that mountain, there is indeed a beard ditch, where bandits once camped and grew "tobacco".

Right now, the Beard Ditch still has the furrows they dug when growing tobacco in the past.

Zhao Jinshan is not good at hunting, so he asked just out of curiosity. Seeing that Zhao Jun avoided answering, he only asked Zhao Jun: "My uncle wants to hunt something big, right? Will you go then?"

"Let me see and then talk." Zhao Jun gave him an ambiguous answer.

Zhao Jinshan said: "They released bullets again a year ago. I've cut off two packages. If you need them, I'll get them for you later."

"Okay." Zhao Jun responded casually, but he was a little confused. Why was Zhao Jinshan suddenly so generous? He usually exchanged meat for bullets, but only gave him a dozen or twenty rounds.

But today, when I took action, there were two full packs of bullets.

You must know that the bags of semi-automatic rifle bullets are packed in groups of five, five groups in one bag, fifty five twenty-five. Two bags of bullets is a full fifty rounds.

"But it's agreed." Zhao Jinshan said: "When the time comes, no matter what you hit, you will have to give me a leg."

"This..." Zhao Jun hesitated when he heard this. After thinking about it, he said, "Can we talk about it then?"

Hearing what he said, Zhao Jinshan smiled, but nodded and said: "Okay, if you give it to me, I will take it. If you don't give it to me, I will pull you down."

After saying that, Zhao Jinshan turned around and left.

Seeing Zhao Jinshan leaving, Zhang Yuanmin came to Zhao Jun's side and whispered: "Brother, please pay attention to this kid, he is not as kind as his father."

"Yeah, brother, I understand." Zhao Jun knew that Zhang Yuanmin had good intentions, so he put his arm around Zhang Yuanmin's shoulders with a smile and said, "Okay, the cleaning is almost done. Let's go inside and warm up for a while."

When it was about eight o'clock, Lin Xiangshun's family of three came. Lin Xiangshun's younger son couldn't move when he saw the little green dog.

Lin Xiangshun heard his son yelling, came over from the opposite room to take a look, gently lifted the tail of the little green dog with his fingers, looked at Zhao Jun in surprise, and asked: "Brother, this dog is good, where did he get it done?"

In this hundred-mile radius, if Zhou Chengguo's marksmanship is the best, and no one can beat him when it comes to sneaking around, then when it comes to beating dogs around, it has to be Lin Xiangshun.

And he is the best at pulling dogs. The Hua Xiaoer of Zhao Jun’s family is Lin Xiangshun’s favorite work.

But when it comes to beating dogs, Lin Xiangshun’s skills go beyond that.

He is better at cooperating with hunting dogs. During hunting, as long as the hunting dogs give him a gap, he can take the opportunity to shoot and kill his prey.

Zhao Jun replied: "I bought it at the big market that day."

"That's right!" Lin Xiangshun patted his head and said with a smile: "Yesterday, my second uncle asked me to pull sheep. I mentioned it to me. I heard that you also feed malted milk to dogs?"

Zhao Jun laughed and said: "If I don't use malted milk to feed the dog, he can't lead my sheep."

While they were talking, Zhao Jun's uncle Wang Qiang and his family of four also came.

Zhao Jun has been wandering around the village recently and often hears people talking about his uncle's right and wrong.

I gambled again today, and had sex with my wife again yesterday...

However, Wang Qiang is worthy of his name. He has a strong personality. He gambles and loses, but he never cares about borrowing money from others, let alone talking to his sister Wang Meilan, nor does he want to take advantage of his brother-in-law.

Seeing Wang Qiang coming, Zhao Youcai, who was eating black bear meat, suddenly lit up. He grabbed Wang Qiang and said to him: "Qiangzi, I'm leaving later today. I have something to tell you."

"Okay, brother-in-law." Wang Qiang didn't think much about it. He just thought that his brother-in-law wanted to take care of his brother-in-law and get some meat and vegetables for his family after everyone left.

After explaining Wang Qiang, Zhao Youcai glanced sideways into the back room. Although he didn't see Zhao Jun, he thought in his heart: "Little bastard, if you don't come with me, there are many people who will follow me!"

As soon as Wang Qiang entered the house, the door was pulled open again. Li Dayong came in with a large pot of wild boar bones and meat. He put the big pot next to the stove and said to Zhao Youcai: "Brother, I brought it to you."

"Let's put it there." Zhao Youcai asked: "How is the venison?"

"Medium rare."

Zhao Youcai said: "Take it out and stew it with my ingredients."

"Okay."

The two families set up a banquet together, cooked together, and had a big stove.

Wild boar braised vermicelli, wild boar deboned meat fried with green onions, braised wild boar knuckles, braised bear meat, braised venison, shredded potatoes, fried peanuts.

Under Zhao Youcai's control, seven dishes were put on the table one by one as the guests arrived.

After the arrival of Zhao Guofeng and Han Dachun, all the Zhao family guests came.

Zhao Guofeng's family has a large population. They have three children and an old lady who is Zhao Guofeng's wife.

As for Han Dachun, he was Zhao Youcai's colleague in the forest farm canteen. The two had a very good relationship. Every year when Han Dachun's family killed pigs, they would invite Zhao Jun's family over for dinner.

However, Han Dachun and his wife were barren and had no children, so only the couple came to the banquet.

Now there are seven dishes on each table, and the last dish is stewed in the big pot. This is a pig-killing dish in the Northeast that is as famous as chicken stewed with mushrooms and pork stewed with vermicelli.

This dish is only made when the pig is killed, fresh pig blood is collected, old soup, eggs, and various ingredients are added, and then poured into the pig intestines.

Tie the two sections of Mingchang tightly and put it into the pot to cook.

After cooking, cut into thick slices. This is blood sausage.

Stew a pot of sauerkraut, add some cooked pork belly, and blood sausage to make the pork sauerkraut.

As the name suggests, this dish can only be eaten when killing pigs.

But the Zhao Jun family used wild boars hunted in the mountains to kill pigs for a banquet. The blood of the pigs had long been drained on the mountains, and the pig intestines were taken home, but they were all fed to the dogs.

If there is no blood sausage, just add more meat. Anyway, there are two pigs, just put them open.

When the pig-killing dishes were served, the banquet began. Zhao Youcai raised his glass and stood up to greet the guests.

Even though banquets are good, they will eventually come to an end.

When it was getting dark, only Zhao and Wang's family were left in Zhao Jun's house.

Four children were playing in Zhao Jun's room. Wang Meilan and her sister-in-law Zhao Ling were talking in the outer room. Zhao Ling seemed to be complaining to Wang Meilan, scolding Wang Qiang.

When she talked about her discomfort, Zhao Ling even cried.

Wang Meilan glanced into the inner room and saw Zhao Youcai and Wang Qiang sitting on the kang talking. Zhao Jun sat on the long bench under the kang to accompany them. Then she comforted Zhao Ling and said, "Brothers and sisters, don't cry, it's time to celebrate the New Year."
To be continued...