Xing’an Ling Mountain Runner: Fishing and Hunting to Feed Five Younger Sisters

[1960s] [Famine] [Changbai Mountain] [Hunting and Fishing] [Raising His Younger Sisters] [No System] [Everyday Family Life]

In the winter of 1961, Chen Weidong froze to death at the foot of Changbai Mountain.

In his final moments, he still remembered his five younger sisters being sent away one after another.

His eldest sister married a widower in his forties.

His second sister was sent away to be a child bride.

His youngest sister was only five when she ate a bowl of cornmeal mush and never woke up again.

Then he opened his eyes once more.

Chen Weidong had returned to the third day after his father went into the mountains and disappeared.

Outside, the temperature was thirty degrees below zero. His mother lay ill on the heated bed, the grain jar was nearly empty, and his five sisters huddled around the stove, licking the pot clean.

Everyone on the production team was starving, their eyes gleaming green.

But Chen Weidong knew one thing:

People were poor in this era, but Changbai Mountain was anything but!

Pheasants, rabbits, roe deer, wild boars, black bears…

Schools of cold-water fish swam beneath the frozen river.

And that wasn’t even counting hazelnut mushrooms, wood ear mushrooms, pine nuts, and wild ginseng.

While everyone else tightened their belts in winter, venison was already simmering on the Chen family stove.

While others fretted over a few pounds of corn, Chen Weidong was treating his five sisters to white-flour dumplings.

In this life,

not one of his sisters would be lost.

He would provide for this family!