I Overhear Animals' Thoughts to Feed My Family

Chapter 5: Chapter 5: Inner Voice in the Night

A jolt went through Zhao Wendong. He ignored the fleeing creature and sprinted in the direction it had come from, following its tracks.

The prints weren’t large. They were shaped like plum blossoms—pointed at the front and rounded at the back, with an overall teardrop-like contour. Fox tracks. Zhao Wendong followed them for several dozen meters until a set of human footprints finally came into view, stretching toward a snow-covered hole up ahead before vanishing.

’Fuck, I found it!’

Overjoyed, Zhao Wendong scrambled toward the hole in the snow.

In the crevice, Zhao Dashan slowly lay back down after firing the gun. It had been pre-loaded, and though he wanted to reload it, he found he couldn’t. All he could do now was stare up at the spot he’d fallen from, praying Zhao Wendong would find him.

The wait felt agonizingly long. Just as Zhao Dashan’s thoughts began to stray into despair, he heard the sound of someone running. A moment later, a head poked over the edge of the hole.

Zhao Wendong looked down into the crevice at the figure he had worried about day and night, and he couldn’t help but burst into tears.

”Dad, I’m here! You scared me to death, you old bastard! Waaaah!”

Seeing it was really Zhao Wendong, Zhao Dashan cracked a grin.

”Fuckin’ A, it really is my son!”

”Dongzi, stop your bawling! Your old man ain’t dead yet, and you’re already crying at my funeral!”

Zhao Wendong let out a snort of laughter, amused by his dad. He’d always suspected his own devil-may-care attitude came from his father; now he had proof. He quickly wiped his tears and glanced about three meters to the side, where he spotted an exceptionally thick pine tree, just as he’d expected.

He had returned to this place once in his previous life and remembered a gentle slope next to that thick pine tree, one that led down into the gully.

”Dad, wait there! I’m coming down to get you!”

”You... How are you going to get...”

Before Zhao Dashan could finish, Zhao Wendong’s head had vanished from sight.

Zhao Wendong went over to the pine tree and, sure enough, found the hidden, gentle slope. He took out his sickle and hacked away the branches blocking the path, quickly clearing a passage.

Then, with the rope on his back, he sat down and slowly slid, inch by inch, down the slope and into the crevice.

”Dongzi, how did you get down here? And how did you even get here in the first place?”

Zhao Dashan had to pause for breath between sentences, his face a mask of disbelief.

Zhao Wendong quickly checked Zhao Dashan’s injuries. Seeing the blood covering his father’s head, he grew anxious and immediately took out the rope to tie him to his back.

”Your dad is... asking you a question!”

”Shut up and save your strength! We’ll talk when we get back!”

Zhao Wendong shut him down flat. Zhao Dashan smacked his lips but ultimately closed his mouth obediently. ’My son is acting a little freaky today,’ he thought. ’Something’s off.’

After checking a few times to make sure Zhao Dashan was securely fastened to his back, Zhao Wendong picked up the hunting rifle from the ground, slung it over his shoulder, shouldered his father’s gear, and returned to the slope, beginning to climb on all fours.

Carrying another person was incredibly difficult. The snow was slippery, and several times Zhao Wendong reached for a branch only to lose his grip and slide back down into the gully.

The sun had completely dipped below the horizon, leaving only a faint red glow that stubbornly clung to the sky. In a surge of determination, Zhao Wendong ripped off his mittens and began grabbing at the branches with his bare hands. The grip was much surer; he wouldn’t slip again.

The leafless winter branches were jagged and irregular. The moment his bare skin made contact, they tore into his flesh. Zhao Wendong let out a muffled grunt as he gripped a branch, his palm immediately sliced open. He gritted his teeth and kept climbing, with no time to worry about such minor wounds.

It took him a long time to climb the ten-odd-meter slope. By the time he reached the top, his hands were a bloody mess of cuts.

Worse, every time snow touched the wounds, they throbbed with a searing pain. It was a bone-deep agony, the kind that made his whole body tremble.

Zhao Dashan saw it all, and his eyes reddened with heartache as he gritted his teeth.

”Dongzi, put me down. I don’t need you to save me. You... you go back by yourself!”

”Listen to me. I’m so happy you even came. After this, who’d dare say my son is a good-for-nothing!”

”Put me down, don’t be stubborn! Once it’s pitch black, neither of us will... get out of here. It’s so cold, we’ll both... we’ll both freeze to death on the way back to the village.”

”Shut up! I can get you back!”

This insolent brat had told him to shut up twice now. That was the last straw.

’Telling me to shut up, is he?’ he thought. ’Well, I refuse.’

”You... you put me down right now! You unfilial brat, are you trying to kill your old man with anger?! Go back by yourself, listen to me, or neither of us is making it back!”

Zhao Wendong just smiled confidently.

”Who says we can’t make it back? And what if I do get you home?”

”Heh... Heheh. What if? Aren’t you full of yourself. Navigating in these mountains, wild animals, the time... the time it’ll take to carry me all the way back to the village... You think any of that will be easy?”

”If you really... really can get me back home, I... I’ll call you Dad!”

Zhao Dashan was truly at his wit’s end and blurted it out without thinking.

Zhao Wendong’s eyes lit up.

”Alright, you’ve got a deal. Just you wait!”

Zhao Dashan: ...

The sun finally set, and the sky turned completely dark.

The moon was a small, imperfect sliver. Whenever clouds obscured it, the mountains plunged into absolute darkness, broken only by strange calls echoing from the deep wilderness.

”I... I can’t even tell which way to go, let alone you. Dongzi, put me down. Go on by yourself...”

”Shut up!”

”Fuck, you’re getting a real kick out of this, aren’t you? That’s it! You little brat—”

Zhao Dashan stopped mid-sentence. He stared in shock at the familiar terrain. ’Aren’t we at the edge of the mountains?’

In the pitch-black night, guided only by the faint moonlight, his son had carried him out of the deep mountains with the speed and precision of a radar system. How was that possible?!

”Are... are you really my son?”

Zhao Dashan could no longer remain calm. Even he couldn’t have navigated his way out so easily in the dark!

”Who else would I be? A monster?”

Zhao Wendong’s joke made Zhao Dashan’s heart clench. He swallowed the ”Could be” that was about to escape his lips, closed his mouth, and began to contemplate his existence.

Seeing Zhao Wenwu was only a hundred meters or so away, Zhao Wendong’s pace quickened, and an uncontrollable smile spread across his face.

Once they reached the sled, they’d be home in no time. He had successfully saved Zhao Dashan’s life.

’By preventing his father’s accidental death, he could prevent the tragedy of his family starving. Plus, he’d get to make his old man call him Dad. It was a triple blessing. The thought alone was pure bliss.’

Suddenly, a thought echoed from up ahead.

’Hungry. That human and horse will keep me fed for three days!’

Zhao Wendong stopped dead in his tracks. He looked in the direction the thought had come from, his hand reaching for the hunting rifle.

It was pitch-black up ahead; he couldn’t see a thing.

”What’s wrong?”

Zhao Wendong raised an index finger to his lips, signaling for silence.

”Trouble. Where’s the ammo?”

”On... on my belt!”

Zhao Dashan tensed up as well. Encountering a wild animal on the outskirts of the mountains this time of year was extremely dangerous. A beast wouldn’t venture this close to human territory unless it was starving, and a starving beast was the most aggressive kind.

With Zhao Dashan on his back, reaching was awkward. Zhao Wendong fumbled for what felt like an eternity before he finally managed to grab the ammo pouch, pulling Zhao Dashan’s pants halfway down in the process.

Zhao Dashan felt a sudden cold draft on his rear and quickly grabbed his waistband to hold up his pants.

”Fuck, pull my pants up!”

”Shut up!”

Zhao Dashan obediently shut his mouth, mentally counting how many times the little brat had told him to be quiet. ’When we get home,’ he vowed, ’I’m going to beat his ass black and blue.’

Zhao Wendong first inspected their family’s hunting rifle. It was a muzzle-loader with no rifling. The barrel was a steel tube about a meter long and a centimeter in diameter, with an effective range of no more than fifty meters.

There was a sizable crack in the gun’s stock, likely from when his dad fell into the gully. In his past life, when his father’s body was found, the wooden stock had been broken in the very same place.

With deft hands, he opened the ammo pouch, poured the gunpowder down the muzzle, inserted the lead shot, and tamped it all down with the ramrod. The entire process was as smooth as flowing water.

Zhao Dashan’s eyes went wide, a chill running down his spine.

’It’s over,’ he thought, his heart sinking. ’This is definitely not my son. I’ve been handling guns for years, and I’m not as skilled as he is right now.’

’Why isn’t that human moving? Whatever, I’ll just kill him first!’

The thought came again. Zhao Wendong’s heart tightened. He quickly raised the hunting rifle and sprinted toward Zhao Wenwu.