Ch 33: The Farmer Ger in the Apocalypse

And from that day on, Song Kaiji became “Song Ge” to Shen Qing.

Song Kaiji wasn’t quite sure how he felt about it. It wasn’t like he had imagined—Shen Qing didn’t laugh and tell him to get lost, like a friend messing around. Nor was he embarrassed but still reluctantly calling him “ge” in order to learn how to shoot. He didn’t even give a perfunctory, drawn-out “ge, ge, ge—”

Shen Qing just called him “Song Ge” very plainly and sincerely, as if it were the most natural thing in the world. There was even a hint of confusion in his tone, as if he didn’t understand that Song Kaiji had just been teasing him. After all, in Shen Qing’s mind, Song Kaiji was older than him by nearly three years—wasn’t calling him “ge” the normal thing to do?

He had always called the older men in the village “ge”—like Village Chief’s eldest son, Shitou Ge, or Aunt Yanzi’s eldest son, Tieshan Ge. And… well, not that many others, actually.

Come to think of it, the number of people he actually called “ge” was quite small. Mostly, it was just his defeated rivals. Take that Wang Liuzi, for example—sure, he was two years older than Shen Qing, but did he deserve to be called “ge”? What a joke!

Shen Qing’s expression darkened as he glanced over at Wang Liuzi and the others squatting beside him. Old grudges and new resentment slowly surfaced in his mind.

It was true—Shen Qing was good at fighting. There were barely any boys in the village his age who hadn’t been beaten by him. But it wasn’t because he was naturally violent or enjoyed hurting people. At first, he had no choice—he had been forced to become this kind of person.

And the ones who had pushed him to be this way were none other than Wang Liuzi and his group of troublemakers.

It all started the second year after Shen Zhang’s death. Back then, Shen Qing wasn’t as tall and strong as he was now—he was just an ordinary, scrawny little ger who never had enough to eat and was thin as a twig from hunger.

The Shen family mistreated him and his mother. Every day, they were given nothing but a bowl of thin rice soup, with barely a few grains of rice floating in it. At mealtimes, if Shen Qing dared to reach for the cornbread or flatcakes in the basket, Old Lady Shen would smack his hand with chopsticks.

If it were just a few hits on the hand, he could endure it—it didn’t really hurt. The real problem was that afterwards, Old Lady Shen would take it out on Miao Shi, berating her endlessly over Shen Qing eating a few extra bites or breaking off half a piece of cornbread. She would spew the most vicious, heart-piercing words—calling Miao Shi useless for not being able to protect her children, a barren hen who couldn’t lay eggs. She blamed Miao Shi for not watching over Shen Zhang properly, for letting him run off and drown. She called her a bringer of misfortune, a star of calamity… And in the end, she would always accuse Miao Shi of failing to raise Shen Qing properly, letting him act like a greedy ghost, wondering why she hadn’t just “cursed him to death” alongside Shen Zhang.

Every time Old Lady Shen spewed this poison, bringing up the dead child, it would strike a nerve in Shen Zhigao. Hearing it over and over again, he began to truly believe that Shen Zhang’s death was Miao Shi’s fault. If she had just kept a closer watch on the boy, if she hadn’t let him run off, wouldn’t he still be alive? Never mind the fact that every boy in the village his age ran around wild outside—somehow, in Shen Zhigao’s mind, it was only Miao Shi’s failure.

So in the daytime, Miao Shi was berated by Old Lady Shen, and at night, she had to endure beatings from Shen Zhigao.

With no other options left, Shen Qing stopped touching the family’s food altogether. That was when he started foraging in the mountains.

At first, he didn’t dare go too deep—just stayed within the areas where villagers usually roamed. Every kid in the village knew how to climb trees. And because Shen Qing was small and flexible, he could climb higher than the others, reaching branches that no one else could. The best, sweetest fruits always grew at the very top, and Shen Qing could pluck them with ease.

But the wild fruits and bird eggs in the nearby trees were limited. If Shen Qing wanted them, so did the other children. With limited resources, conflicts were bound to arise.

Even at that young age, the children had already begun to separate into groups based on gender. The little girls and the other gers would gather to dig for wild vegetables and collect firewood, while the boys would run wild all over the mountains—stealing bird nests, picking fruit, and making slingshots to hunt sparrows.

And that was how Shen Qing ended up clashing with them.

Some of the older boys, who couldn’t climb as high as Shen Qing, became jealous of how much he could gather. It was funny, really—if they were competing among themselves, the village boys always played by the rule of “every man for himself.” But because Shen Qing was a ger, they somehow felt entitled to bully him, to snatch his things.

That was how his grudge with Wang Liuzi and his gang began.

Shen Qing still vividly remembered his first real fight with the village boys. He had just stolen a nest full of bird eggs and was feeling ecstatic—somehow, this nest had six whole eggs! He had already planned it out: he would eat three himself and save the other three for Miao Shi.

But just as he climbed down from the tree, a group of boys, older and bigger than him, surrounded him with arms crossed.

They mimicked the speech of outlaws in the stories told by the village elders, telling him to be “sensible” and hand over the eggs. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be so polite.

They stared at him, waiting for him to cry and beg, to obediently hand over the eggs. Six was plenty—they had already done the math—enough to roast and split among them all.

But Shen Qing refused.

Biting his lip, he grabbed a stick thicker than his arm and fought them off while crying.

Those boys were older than him, sure, but they were still just kids—not hardened criminals. Children instinctively tested their boundaries, but they weren’t truly prepared for a fight.

The moment Shen Qing started swinging his stick wildly, eyes fierce despite the tears, they hesitated.

And when they actually got hit—feeling the sting of the blows—they cursed under their breaths and scattered.

Shen Qing also got hurt a little. When the boys couldn’t beat him, they got mad and started throwing stones at him. His forehead was bruised in several places, and his skin was broken. In the end, he won the fight, but the bird eggs in his arms were smashed, and the sticky yolk stained the only clean clothes he had.

That day, Shen Qing sat on the ground and cried for a long time. He was still young and couldn’t understand many things. He only felt wronged. He only felt that his life was too bitter. He only thought—he could never let himself be bullied like this again!

After that, he never cried again. Whenever he went up the mountain, he always carried a sturdy wooden stick. Before a fight, he made sure to put down the bird eggs and wild fruit first. Maybe fate was truly favoring him because Shen Qing was naturally sharp and quick to learn. After a few fights, he even figured out some techniques—how to swing a stick to use the least effort while causing the most pain, how to move to avoid getting attacked from behind, how to kick to trip someone easily…

Eventually, he didn’t even need a stick. Even bare-handed, he could take down two or three boys at once.

Seeing how fierce Shen Qing was, the village boys stopped trying to rob him outright. But the grudge had already formed. Whenever they saw him, they would block his path, surround the trees he wanted to climb, and hog the space—not because they wanted the fruit, but just to stop him from getting any.

The troubles at Old Shen’s house weren’t a secret. The boys heard the adults gossiping at home and knew that Shen Qing barely had anything to eat. Sometimes, children’s cruelty was even worse than adults’—they thought he deserved to go hungry. They wouldn’t let him pick fruit. It would be best if this annoying little ger just starved to death!

At first, Shen Qing endured it. He tried to take detours—after all, they hadn’t attacked him or stolen his things, so he felt it wasn’t right to start a fight. But then they started following him, deliberately blocking every tree he wanted to climb.

After it happened too many times, Shen Qing lost patience. He also began to reflect—why was it that these boys could choose to bully him whenever they wanted, but he had to wait until they attacked first before fighting back?

Why did he have to hold himself to such a high moral standard? Why could they do it, but he couldn’t?

So, from then on, he fought whenever he saw them.

It was ironic. The village boys could freely bully the girls and gers—pulling their braids, throwing bugs on them, making up nasty nicknames and chanting them. They were used to being unreasonable. But when Shen Qing started acting the same way, they were the ones who got the angriest. They yelled the loudest about how unfair it was.

That was how Shen Qing earned his fierce reputation.

Later, he felt the nearby mountains weren’t enough, so he ventured deeper into the forest. The other boys, on the other hand, grew up and had to start working in the fields, learning how to support their families. A new generation of kids replaced the old troublemakers, and the conflicts finally died down.

Now, the few people Shen Qing called “ge” were the ones who had never bullied him. Second Aunt Lian Yanzi was close to Miao Shi, so her son, Tieshan, naturally never bullied Shen Qing either. And though Madam Guixiang had once looked down on Miao Shi, the village chief and his wife were fair-minded people, so their eldest son, Zhao Shi, grew up to be a decent, kindhearted man—a promising candidate for the next village chief.

There were also some boys who had no personal grudge against Shen Qing. But maybe, by instinct, boys just sided with other boys. After hearing Wang Liuzi badmouth Shen Qing for years, they also held a bias against him.

Even though everyone had grown up now, the grudges from childhood weren’t forgotten. Wang Liuzi still resented Shen Qing, and Shen Qing didn’t have a shred of goodwill toward Wang Liuzi either.

“Village chief, let’s settle it like this. I’ll clear out the wild boars in five days. But let’s be clear—if the village pays hunters, half of the meat goes to them, and the rest is shared among the villagers. If I hunt them myself, I won’t be sharing the meat. Anyone who wants some can come to my house to buy or trade for it with grain.” Shen Qing shot a glance at Wang Liuzi’s side. “And don’t let anyone start whining later. Some people have been greedy since they were kids—if they don’t get something for free, they act like they’ve been robbed. I don’t cater to people like that.”

Wang Liuzi and the others turned red with anger, but Shen Qing ignored them.

The village chief, however, was worried about Shen Qing’s safety. “It’s not just one or two pigs. From the tracks, there are at least five! Are you sure? Your mother only has you now. If something happens to you…”

He didn’t finish, but Shen Qing knew he meant well. “Don’t worry. Hunting wild boars isn’t about brute force. That day, I ran into one head-on and had no choice but to fight. But now? It’s much easier—I can just set traps.” Shen Qing lowered his eyelashes. “But for the next few days, tell everyone not to go up the mountain. If they fall into my traps, it’s not my fault.”

Madam Guixiang had been visiting Miao Shi more often lately and had heard that Shen Qing had learned a few tricks from Old Hunter Liu. Hearing Shen Qing’s plan, she felt somewhat reassured. “Alright, if you need help setting traps, just say the word. My boys are free—I’ll have them help you.”

The village chief looked around at the men in the meeting. “Any objections? If not, we’ll go with what Qing Ge’er says. If he fails, then we’ll pool money to hire hunters.”

Did the men have objections? Of course, they did! But not about the plan—about Shen Qing himself. How had a ger ended up above them again?

An entire village of men, and yet they were going along with the plan of a ger? Even the older men, who had no personal grudge against Shen Qing, felt uncomfortable.

But would they openly object? Would they secretly hope Shen Qing failed, just to see him embarrassed? If that happened, they’d have to pay out of their own pockets to hire hunters. They didn’t want that either.

So, conflicted and frustrated, they kept their mouths shut.

Seeing no one speak up, the village chief made the final decision. “Alright, then. For the next few days, no one is allowed up the mountain.”

He knew how these people were—some would deliberately disobey just because they were told not to. And if someone really fell into Shen Qing’s trap, even though they were warned, they’d still come knocking at his door to make trouble.

So he added, “There are wild boars on the mountain. If one of them mauls you, don’t come crying!”

Only then did the restless ones finally settle down. You could argue with Shen Qing, but could you argue with a wild boar? If one of those beasts gored you, there’d be no one to blame but yourself.

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