Chapter 7: The Lucky Soul of a Past Life
“Fourth Brother, no need to help! This wild boar is so skinny; I can carry it back by myself.”
Tang Jianbing grabbed the boar’s two ears, pulled its head upright, then squatted down beneath its belly. With one hand, he grasped the front leg, and with the other, the hind leg. After adjusting his grip slightly, he hoisted the boar onto his shoulder.
At eighteen, Tang Jianbing stood over 1.7 meters tall and often worked heavy labor alongside Tang Genshui, so his body was strong. He could easily carry a 150-jin sandbag without breaking a sweat.
This boar, weighing just over eighty jin, was nothing to him.
But Tang Jiancheng frowned.
He remembered clearly that in the previous life, the lucky man had called his brothers to help carry the boar back. That boar had to have weighed more than this!
If it was only about eighty jin, the lucky man could have carried it alone—no need to summon help.
Could there be another boar nearby?
“Jianbing, wait a moment. I’ll check around again—what if there’s another boar?”
Tang Jiancheng continued searching the surroundings.
Jianbing laughed, “Fourth Brother, you’re overthinking. If we find one boar, it’s already great—why expect two?”
Tang Jiancheng said, “What if?”
He searched for over half an hour.
Jianbing was already shivering from the cold, urging him repeatedly to return. Otherwise, they might freeze to death without finding any more boars.
But Jiancheng was stubborn. “Five more minutes. If we don’t find anything by then, we go back.”
After another round, he suddenly spotted boar tracks behind a rock. Since that spot was sheltered from the wind and shaded by rocks and bushes, the snow hadn’t covered it.
Tang Jiancheng examined the depth, size, and direction of the tracks carefully and concluded these prints belonged not to the eighty-jin boar, but to another boar weighing at least twice as much.
His heart surged with excitement.
There really was another boar here!
He hurried along the trail of prints. Just as Jianbing urged him again, Jiancheng laughed loudly, “Ha ha ha, Jianbing, we’re really lucky today!”
“Fourth Brother, what do you mean? There really is a second boar?”
Hearing his brother’s laughter, Jianbing carried the boar over quickly, eyes widening in shock.
This wasn’t just a second boar—it was practically a whole litter!
A sow weighing more than two hundred jin lay by the roadside, her front leg broken, barely clinging to life.
Nearby were three piglets.
Each weighed around twenty to thirty jin, uninjured but trembling with cold, huddled tightly beneath their mother’s belly seeking warmth, occasionally suckling.
“Fourth Brother, what do we do? There are only two of us—how can we bring back so many boars?”
Happiness had arrived too suddenly, and Jianbing felt a little overwhelmed.
Tang Jiancheng understood immediately that this sow was the very same boar the lucky man had seen in the previous life. The reason he called his brothers back then was to carry the three piglets first.
Only now did Jiancheng remember: the lucky man had raised the piglets for a while, but they were too wild to tame. When spring came, the piglets caused havoc in the pen, and the lucky man had no choice but to kill them.
“Quick, carry the boar on your shoulder back, and bring Dad along. Remember, try not to be seen—otherwise, we’ll have to share a lot of the meat!”
Tang Jiancheng instructed.
Daping Village had just over fifty households, all familiar with one another; if others saw them, they would demand their share of the meat.
They could end up drowning in gossip.
If no one saw them and only found out after the fact, that was a different matter.
The lucky man from before had done exactly that: quietly carried the boar back, and only when the aroma of cooking meat spread through the village did people take notice.
By then, even the most greedy villagers felt embarrassed to ask for a share.
“Alright, but in broad daylight…”
Jianbing worried about being seen.
“Then drop the boar here. Go back and get a basket. I’ll hide these boars first, and we’ll move them when it’s dark,” Jiancheng said.
Jianbing thought it over and agreed it was the best plan. He dropped the boar and hurried back to the village.
Jiancheng quickly found a spot to hide the boars.
As for the sow weighing over two hundred jin, too heavy to move, he dug snow around her and buried her alive.
He did the same for the three piglets.
Since they couldn’t be tamed, it was better to kill them for meat.
Glancing at the fading daylight, estimating there was still over an hour until nightfall, Jiancheng suddenly realized they were short on firewood at home. With time to spare, he gathered a large pile of dry twigs and vines nearby and bundled them together.
“Jiancheng? It’s so late and you’re still collecting firewood in the mountains? You’re too diligent!”
Suddenly, a voice came from behind.
Jiancheng turned and couldn’t help but smile.
It was Tang Xingcai—the lucky man from the previous life!
Unfortunately, this time, he was no longer the lucky one; Jiancheng had stolen his luck.
But Xingcai didn’t realize his fortune had been intercepted. He had just returned from visiting relatives and, seeing the large bundle of firewood and the big snow mound beneath it, suspected nothing. Instead, he mocked, “Jiancheng, you only have daughters, no sons. Why are you so hardworking?”
At those words, Jiancheng’s face darkened, and he felt a surge of anger.
But then he thought: there would be many times like this in the future. If he lost his temper every time, wouldn’t he become a firecracker?
Better to go along with the joke and let him feel the sting of frustration.
With that in mind, Jiancheng smiled again. “Ah, no choice. That’s my fate. With nine fairy daughters, I have to be diligent. If I ended up like you, raising a fool, wouldn’t that be a disaster?”
“Who are you calling a fool?” Xingcai snapped.
He had five children—three boys and two girls. One of his sons was premature, slow to react, with a wandering gaze. The villagers called him the fool.
“The whole village calls him that. What’s wrong with that?”
Seeing Xingcai fuming but unable to do anything about it, Jiancheng felt a surge of joy.
Xingcai was surprised.
In the past, when he mocked Jiancheng, Jiancheng would just sulk silently and take it out on his wife and daughters at home. But today, unexpectedly, he talked back and dealt him a crushing blow.
When did timid Jiancheng learn to be stubborn?
“Damn it, Jiancheng! Just wait—I hope your tenth child is a girl too!”
Xingcai cursed as he walked away.
Watching Xingcai’s defeated expression and knowing he had just intercepted his luck, Jiancheng couldn’t help but laugh heartily.
That laughter only darkened Xingcai’s face further.