Young Liu felt that his father had been acting strange lately, just sitting there staring into the fire and then suddenly chuckling to himself in a rather creepy manner.
That snickering grin was extremely lewd.
From his memory, when he was in elementary school, his parents had gotten into a fight, with his mother crying her eyes out, her face pale, eventually even being hospitalized.
Later on, he realized that the argument was because his father had been unfaithful.
When his mother begged his father not to see other women, his father said,
"I'm already a man with a child, so I won't get divorced, but I'll still have to visit her place a few times a month."
He didn't fully understand what his father meant at the time, but he remembered those words.
When he grew older and realized what his father was talking about, he felt sorry for his mother.
He truly didn't know why his mother insisted on continuing to live with such a man, claiming it was for his own good.
His mother always said that there had to be a man in the house, but now that he was grown up, why did she need to keep his father around?
He observed his father and noticed that he seemed to be trying to woo the single neighbor woman.
He didn't think she would pay any attention to his father, but he still found it disgusting.
His father had recently become particularly concerned with cleanliness, even taking it upon himself to tidy up his own clothes and shave.
He complained that his mother's clothes didn't look good and weren't clean enough, and he picked at everything during meals.
This man who didn't even bathe or shave in the winter, and was generally sloppy in any season, had suddenly started caring about his appearance - wasn't that strange?
One time, Young Liu secretly followed him to see what this man was up to.
He discovered that his father went to the trap he had set and took out the small prey, then continued walking.
Following him, Young Liu realized they had arrived at Wen Qian's hunter's cabin, the same place where he and his father had stopped for a rest earlier and were warned at gunpoint.
After being warned, they should have avoided trespassing again, but this man brought the prey he had taken from Young Liu's trap.
Old Liu took a wild chicken and hung it on the iron chain by the door, as if delivering a love letter.
On his way back, he kept imagining the scene of the recipient receiving his gift, not even considering that the prey was from the trap set by his own son.
From afar, Young Liu saw that after taking the prey into the cabin, Wen Qian came back out empty-handed, and he was furious.
There was no smoke coming from the cabin's chimney, meaning no one was staying there today.
He truly wanted to see what would happen if Wen Qian was there when Old Liu did that - would he get shot?
Countless times throughout his life, he had hoped that this man who had brought so much hardship to him and his mother would die.
Whether by lightning strike, alcohol poisoning, sudden death at the gambling table, drowning, or being hit by a car – anything would do.
But the man stubbornly clung to life.
When Old Liu came home, Young Liu deliberately said that the prey from his trap had escaped, and Old Liu feigned ignorance.
On the third day, Wen Qian saw the dead, frozen wild chicken hanging on her door and couldn't fathom why someone had put it there.
If it was meant as an apology, it was too late for that. So she hung the chicken on a nearby tree trunk, worried that the meat might be poisoned or that eating it would come at a great cost.
After sending two wild chickens with no response, Old Liu felt that his offerings weren't substantial enough.
So when his family wasn't paying attention, he took a particularly large deer leg from home.
This time, Young Liu couldn't hold back anymore. After his father left, he asked his mother if, now that he was an adult, she wanted to separate from his father.
His mother was stunned, as natural disasters had prevented her husband from philandering, and now that they were in this remote place, it should be even less likely for him to misbehave.
For her son to suggest divorcing his father at this point seemed strange.
Was there even a place to get a divorce now?
Young Liu said there was someone whose heart was not in this family or with his mother, so it would be better to let him go.
His mother found it odd – although her husband was lazy and didn't work much, what trouble could he really cause in this place?
But as she thought about it, she considered the neighbor woman, and her face suddenly turned pale.
She then asked her son if the neighbor woman had seduced her husband.
Young Liu closed his eyes and sighed heavily.
When he was young, he always felt guilty because his mother said she didn't divorce for his sake.
Now he felt that his mother had clearly treasured his father, and even though the man was like this, she still believed others were seducing him instead of looking at herself!
Young Liu had only seen Wen Qian a few times, but she had always been cold and aloof, never even giving his father a second glance!
His own family situation was a mess, yet his mother thought others were trying to take it away from her – not everyone loves to eat shit, you know?
Seeing her son speak so bluntly with such scathing remarks, the mother lowered her head and covered her face as she began to cry.
It was unclear whether from sadness, anger, or sheer embarrassment.
All Young Liu could tell her was that he planned to go live in the village or the city. If she left his father and came with him, he would take care of her in her old age and bring her wherever he went.
But if she insisted on staying with his father until death, then he would venture out on his own and never come back.
His mother had been good to him, taking care of him since he was little. Although he both loved and resented her, he still wanted to bring her with him.
But he also felt that his mother couldn't bear to let go of this waste of a man. And he himself had not an ounce of affection left for his father.
This selfish, lazy, and stupid man – his mother was a thousand times more hard-working and kind, toiling to raise him, yet she still felt she needed a man to depend on.
The key was that this man was utterly undependable – he couldn't shelter his wife and child from the storms of life. Instead, he was the one who brought the storms into their home!
Now, being forced to choose between her son and husband, all she could do was cry.
His mother was clearly stronger than that man, whether through her past work earning money or her current farming and foraging efforts.
So why did she act as if she would die without a man around?!
The more Young Liu thought about it, the angrier and more resentful he became, his teeth aching with rage. He decided to take matters into his own hands.
He always had an ominous premonition that his stupid, arrogant father would eventually bring trouble upon their family.
It wouldn't matter if his father found his own death, but if he implicated himself and his mother...
Young Liu angrily grabbed his hunting rifle and went out the door.
His mother was worried and wanted to persuade her son to take her and her husband with him, but her son only gave her a choice, and she could only choose one of the two.
Her son made a stern declaration and swore a vow of vengeance.
Before the calamity, his father was always out drinking, gambling, and womanizing, never returning home, and it was his mother who worked everywhere to support him.
After the calamity, they lived near their original base, and it was a rationing system at that time.
His mother had one ration, so the two of them shared one portion of food, and then his father showed up.
He played the "model" father and husband for half a month, then settled into this family, and his true nature was revealed.
Towards the end of the calamity, they were living quite well in Young Liu's grandfather's village, but this man had offended someone somewhere, forcing their family to flee northward.
Now he was going to come up with another harebrained scheme, and Young Liu was determined to rid himself of this scumbag father.
Unlike his mother who gave birth to and raised him, this father who just pulled up his pants and walked away after getting his pleasure had no value in his eyes.
