Chapter 332 - 270: He Wants to Chop Me
"I didn’t bully him!"
Zhang Yuanmin felt he’d been wronged. He said to Zhao Jun, "I was driving a herd of roe deer that day, and one of them ran right into a snare he’d set. I killed it, gutted it, and was dragging it back when he caught up and tried to snatch it from me. So, we started fighting."
Hearing this, Zhao Jun pressed his lips together and lowered his head. When he looked up again, he asked Zhang Yuanmin with a look of resignation, "Brother, after you killed that roe deer, you didn’t chop off a leg and hang it on a tree for him?"
"No!" Zhang Yuanmin said, full of self-righteousness. "I was the one who chased that deer. Why should I leave a leg for him?"
"You..." Seeing his defiant attitude, Zhao Jun was momentarily speechless with anger. But on second thought, it was Zhang Yuanmin’s first time participating in a small-scale drive hunt. ’He doesn’t know the rules,’ he thought. ’Ignorance is no crime, I guess.’
"Brother," Zhao Jun explained patiently. "You may have driven the deer, but without his snare, would you have ever caught it?"
"Hiss... Oh!" Upon hearing that, Zhang Yuanmin drew in a sharp breath. He blinked, looked at Zhao Jun, and said, "You’ve got a point there."
"Of course," Zhao Jun said, then asked, "And you killed the deer and gutted it right there next to his snare, right?"
"Yeah!"
"Then he must have thought you were stealing from his snare," Zhao Jun said. "You know how poor the Zhang Family is. If he thought you stole his roe deer and didn’t even leave a leg behind, of course he’d be furious with you."
Hearing Zhao Jun’s words, Zhang Yuanmin blinked a few times and fell silent.
After killing the roe deer, he had untied it from the snare and gutted it on the spot.
Once he was done, he started dragging the deer down the mountain, inevitably leaving a trail of blood.
As it happened, Zhang Lifu was heading up the mountain to check his snares. One look, and he assumed Zhang Yuanmin had stolen his catch.
Zhang Lifu had been setting snares in the mountains for nearly twenty years and had run into this sort of thing often. But what truly angered him was this: if the person taking the animal knew the rules and had at least left him a hind leg hanging on a nearby tree, he would have let it slide.
But when he looked around at the trees, there was no deer leg. There was, however, a length of roe deer intestine.
This drove Zhang Lifu mad with rage. He followed the blood trail, found Zhang Yuanmin, and after a few unpleasant words, they came to blows.
With Zhang Yuanmin’s small frame, who could he possibly beat in a fight?
He could chase Minister Li and Li Erchen because he had the Large Axe in his hands. But when he ran into Zhang Lifu, he was taken down in just a few moves.
Since then, Zhang Yuanmin had been plotting to get even with Zhang Lifu. But now, hearing this, he finally realized he was the one in the wrong.
Seeing Zhang Yuanmin fall silent, Zhao Jun took the opportunity to scold him a little. "This whole thing could have been cleared up with a few words. Did you really have to fight? Brother, it’s a good thing you didn’t have your Large Axe, or you would’ve tried to chop him up too."
Zhao Jun’s words stirred up that reckless streak in Zhang Yuanmin. "I didn’t have my Large Axe," he said, "but I had my gun. If he hadn’t grabbed the barrel, I would’ve shot him right then and there."
"What?" Zhao Jun was startled. He got up from the kang, walked over to Zhang Yuanmin, and looked down at him. "You were going to pull a gun over something so stupid? Are you crazy?"
"No! You don’t understand, brother!" Zhang Yuanmin looked up at Zhao Jun, his voice full of grievance. "That Big Tongue Zhang said if I didn’t give him the roe deer, he was going to chop me. I thought he was going to pull a knife on me, so I..."
Before Zhang Yuanmin could finish, Zhao Jun turned and walked away. He went back to where he’d been sitting, plopped down on the kang, and turned his back to Zhang Yuanmin, fuming silently.
"Brother, brother, why are you mad now?" Seeing this, Zhang Yuanmin quickly swung his legs off the kang and went to Zhao Jun’s side.
"Sigh!" Zhao Jun let out a heavy sigh, shot Zhang Yuanmin a sidelong glance, then turned his head away again, refusing to look at him.
"What’s wrong, brother? He was the one who threatened to use a knife on me. Wasn’t I supposed to be scared?" Zhang Yuanmin felt incredibly wronged. He was the one who got bullied, but when he got home, his wife scolded him. Now, even his best friend was blaming him.
’Is there any justice in this world?’
"Sigh!" At his words, Zhao Jun sighed again. He finally turned around, looked at Zhang Yuanmin, and asked, "Brother, how have you managed to live this long?"
"What’s that supposed to mean?" Zhang Yuanmin felt even more aggrieved. ’Now he’s resorting to personal attacks?’
Seeing he genuinely didn’t understand, Zhao Jun said, "Don’t you know? He’s from Shandong. The word they use for ’kick’—’stomp’—sounds just like ’chop.’ He meant he was going to kick you, not use a knife on you."
"Huh?" Hearing this, Zhang Yuanmin froze on the spot, completely stunned.
Zhao Jun continued, "Regardless of what he thought, you drove that deer into his snare. According to the rules, you had to leave him a hind leg at the very least.
"He gets there, sees nothing but blood, and figures you’ve got no decency. He chases you down and tells you he’s going to kick you if you don’t hand it over, and you go and reach for your gun. Why wouldn’t he beat you up?"
After Zhao Jun’s lecture, Zhang Yuanmin came to his senses. He walked back to the other side of the kang table and sat down. He blinked a few times and, after a long moment, said, "Brother, I was in the wrong. I won’t go looking for people to beat him up."
"Beat him up? What for?" Zhao Jun said irritably. "Do you have any idea how poor Big Tongue Zhang’s family is? With a family in that situation, you can’t go hitting him, whether you’re in the right or not."
"I just wanted to vent a little..." Zhang Yuanmin muttered, then asked Zhao Jun, "So, brother, what do I do now?"
"What else is there to do?" Zhao Jun made a fist with his right hand and tapped it, knuckles down, on the kang table a few times. "You still want to go looking for him? Next time you run into him, just apologize. That’s all."
"No, brother, listen to me," Zhang Yuanmin said, waving his hand. "You haven’t been home the last couple of days, so you don’t know. Your big brother is setting snares in the mountains now, too. And the place where I’m setting them isn’t far from his spot. I could easily run into him when I go check my snares."
"So you run into him. So what?" Zhao Jun didn’t understand what he was getting at. "If you see him, that’s perfect. You can clear the air, and it’ll all be over."
"Um..." Zhang Yuanmin said meekly, "Big Tongue Zhang is a really stubborn guy. He said that day that from now on, he’ll ’stomp’ me every time he sees me. What if I run into him next time, and before I can say anything, he just comes up and... stomps me? What do I do then?"
Mountain folk were stubborn back then, and Zhang Yuanmin was no exception. But once he knew he was in the wrong, his stubbornness evaporated.
"Hah!" Zhao Jun let out a cold laugh, then said sarcastically, "Don’t you have a gun? If he stomps you, just shoot him!"
After saying this, Zhao Jun got up and started walking out.
Seeing this, Zhang Yuanmin quickly chased after him, yelling, "Brother, don’t go! Even if you’re mad at your big brother, you still have to stay for dinner!"
"Sigh!" Zhao Jun was at his wit’s end with him. He just turned back and said to Zhang Yuanmin, "What time is it? Dinner can wait. I’ll be back later to eat."
"Then where are you going?"
Zhao Jun shot him a glare and said, "I’m going to my Uncle Zhang’s house to talk to him for you, so he won’t stomp you anymore."
Zhang Yuanmin: "..."