Reborn to Hunt and Build a Fortune

At noon, when the thick fog had lifted, I hid inside the house and listened as Father wheeled out his old twenty-eight-inch bicycle. On the back seat sat my seven-year-old sister, Xiao He. She was going to our maternal grandmother's home, twenty li away along a mountain road.

That was the silence I would regret most in my life.

By the time Father was on his way back, dusk was drawing near. The smell of blood attracted hungry wolves from the mountains. They surrounded him by a narrow wooden bridge. In the struggle, he fell into a ravine and never made it home in one piece.

After losing a leg, Father seemed to have had his backbone ripped away. Our family fell apart, and the light in Mother's eyes gradually went out. When my sister was brought back from our grandmother's home, her gaze held nothing but ice. She was convinced that if I had gone with Father that day, none of it would have happened.

Years later, I died alone, curled up in a hospital bed. She never came.

When I opened my eyes again, I had returned to that afternoon.

Father was pumping air into the tire, while Xiao He sat at the door with a cloth bag in her arms, waiting for me.

This time, I stepped forward and took the handlebars from Father.

“Dad, I'll take her.”

The mountain wind swept through the trees, like a quiet sob, like a warning.

I knew where I would encounter them.

This time, I was no longer the boy hiding inside the house.

With a hunting knife at my waist, I wheeled the bike out the door.

Some debts have to be settled with your own hands.

Some wolves have to be hunted down before they strike.