The old man had just left and reminded Xiao Xian to return home after her walk. As Xiao Xian passed the field ridge, she saw those cars again.
"Annoying Qian Duoduo, he must have brought those poachers into the mountains to catch birds," Xiao Xian walked around the cars, chuckled twice, and felt her pockets, but ended up pulling out nothing.
Xiao Xian sighed; she had almost forgotten that the sugarcane seedling had recently lost its appetite. She hadn’t brought any of the "special" snacks she prepared, and it seemed that her plan to sabotage the tires couldn’t be implemented tonight. She decided to leave those irritating cars alone for now.
The moon hung high in the sky, and the rabbit feast at Qian Duoduo’s house had just ended. Tonight, Qian Duoduo had invited a few of his high school classmates. Among the seven or eight people, only Qian Duoduo had legitimately passed the vocational high school exam and become a civil servant. Back then, it was a sensation throughout the entire mountain village, and Qian Duoduo was proud of it for a long time.
However, good times didn’t last. At the end of July, Qian Duoduo organized a class reunion and went to Yunnan. That trip unsettled him. His classmates, who hadn’t even finished junior high, were all driving nice cars and had wives much younger than themselves. In comparison, he felt inferior. Qian Duoduo was so stirred up that he almost quit his chief position to start a business. If it hadn’t been for his wife threatening to divorce, his mother threatening to hang herself, and his father threatening to break his legs, he would have resigned long ago.
Soon after, one of his classmates came to the town and, hearing his complaints, gave a suggestion, "Duoduo, just stop making your dad worry. A civil servant job is a secure job with lots of perks. Besides, civil servants have many connections, and you shouldn’t worry about making money. Brother, let me show you a clear path. Behind your hometown lies a treasure mountain, full of valuable creatures. These days, it’s not trendy to keep birds as pets anymore. Now, bird specimens are trendy, especially those rare, brightly feathered ones from deep forests. If caught and made into specimens, they could be worth a year of your salary. With that money, you won’t have to live tightly anymore. With money, aren’t you afraid you can’t get promoted or support a young maiden?"
Indeed, this woke up the dreamer. Qian Duoduo and his friend hit it off like a turtle and a snake, seeing a golden path laid out before him. There they were, carrying several guns and trespassing into the mountain with modified iron nets.
Seven or eight men, so drunk they could barely find the car door. The one who clicked with Qian Duoduo, surnamed Hu, true to his surname, was reeked like a skunk. He was skinny and crafty, earning him the nickname "Skunk" behind his back. He drank a lot tonight, and after walking a few steps on the village’s stony path, his stomach acid surged, compelling him to rush to the head of the village and vomit.
After emptying his stomach, "Skunk" heard the loud chorus of frogs, "Duoduo, I’m tired of rabbit meat, let’s change the flavor. Wild mountain frog meat is peerless."
A dark and windy night is opportune for wicked deeds, and that very night a cruel and inhumane "man-frog battle" took place at the head of Ge Village.
By dawn, Qian Duoduo and his group of eight had caught more than two hundred large fat frogs. The men were thrilled, oblivious to the paddy fields they had trampled into disarray.
The next morning, as Xiao Xian and Little Hai passed by that three-acre field on their way to temple school, they were dumbfounded. The nearly harvest-ready field was flattened, with footprints everywhere. The muddy marks extended to the side of Qian Duoduo’s car.
Without another word, Xiao Xian headed to Qian family’s house. Before she reached there, she saw Wang Chunhua sitting outside the house, holding a kitchen knife with dozens of jumping frogs netted at her feet. With every lift of her hand, a frog head was chopped off. Her actions in skinning the frogs were smooth, resembling a butcher.
Seeing this enraged Xiao Xian even more. Ignoring the pleas from Little Hai and others, she stormed up to Wang Chunhua, "It was you who trampled my paddy field and caught my frogs."
"Yo, yo, yo, little girl, why aren’t you out of breath when you talk? How did your blind eyes see us, Duoduo, trampling your field and catching your frogs?" Wang Chun’s fingers were still covered in frog guts, the black skin trembling. Xiao Xian, looking at it, wished she could snatch the knife and chop off the heads of that mother and son, just like the frog heads.