My name is Cui Zuofei, and "Zuofei" means "making a false move". You might think this name sounds strange, similar to "Cui Zaofei", which means "useless Cui". Im not satisfied with this name either. However, according to the family naming rules, my generation was supposed to have a character "Zuo". My parents didnt have much culture, and they were really troubled when giving me this name. Later, it was my father who suddenly came up with an idea, pulling out a dictionary and saying that he would use the first character on the page as my name. Coincidentally, the first character on that page was "Fei", which means "waste" or "useless". At this point, my mother couldnt take it anymore - who wants their child to be named "useless"? She fully embodied the boldness of a Northeastern woman, saying that she wouldnt let her child be useless.

  Then my father compromised, pointing to a non-character on the same page and said to my mother, "Lets call our eldest son Non then. I hope he will have an extraordinary achievement when he grows up." And so my name was hastily decided.

  What Im going to tell you next, you can just take it as a story and dont have to take it too seriously.

  My hometown is called Longjiang, a small county town on the outskirts of Qiqihar City, Heilongjiang Province. My grandfather told me that Longjiang County used to be called Zhujiakang. As the saying goes, "a small temple has big evil spirits", this is indeed such a town, and there are even bandits living in the nearby forest. Friends who live in Northeast China should know what bandits are, they are like the mountain eagles in Lin Hai Xue Yuan, now there are still water towers rebuilt from old cannon towers. Its often during wartime that strange things happen most frequently. Many folk legends originated from that era. For example, this is a story about my grandfather when he was young.

  That year, my grandfather was 28 years old. The winter in Northeast China could freeze people to death. Its a bit better now, but I heard from my grandfather that the winters back then were several times colder than they are now. Isnt there a saying that goes "Laba and Labajiu, freeze your chin off"? Apparently, when you went outside to relieve yourself, you had to bring a small stick with you, and pee while tapping on the ground, or else it would freeze up. Of course, this is all beyond my comprehension.

  We dont have the habit of drinking Laba porridge on Laba Festival here. To be honest, Ive never seen what Laba porridge looks like since I was a kid. What we eat on Laba Festival is yellow rice, also called sticky rice, which is that kind of sticky rice that cant be separated into grains. If it sticks to your chin, it feels terrible. If someone with a beard eats it, its even more unimaginable.

  Although in the years of famine, northeastern women who were good at arithmetic would try their best to calculate and save precious food to ensure that they could have a fine grain meal during festivals. My grandmother was such a woman. In the past, my family lived in a large courtyard with five households, where Grandpa went out to work during the day, and Grandma took care of household chores at home. On this day, it happened to be Laba Festival (the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month), Grandma took out half a years accumulated millet and rinsed it with water once. There is also a saying here that differs from now; in the past, fine grains were basically not rinsed because food was precious, so they tried to save as much as possible, after all, there were several mouths to feed at home. The difficulty of life can be imagined.

  Rice was put into the pot, and the lid was covered. The corn stalks in the stove were burning fiercely, and soon the pot emitted a fragrance of rice. At this time, it was probably already around 6 oclock in the evening. In winter, the days are short, and at this hour, it was already pitch black outside. The wind was strong, and there was no moonlight. The snow on the ground was blown onto peoples faces, stinging like a knife cut. My grandmother sat on a small stool, thinking that her grandfather would be back soon. As she thought about it, she dozed off to sleep. According to what she said, she remembered it very clearly - at that time, she dreamed of something similar to a yellow animal skin in front of her, swaying back and forth. No matter how hard she tried to shoo it away, it wouldnt leave. Just as she was getting angry and wanted to pick up a stone to throw at it, she was woken up by the sound of knocking on the door.

  The voice was the wife of Lao Qiaos family opposite the courtyard, who knocked on the door and shouted: "Xiao Cui, come out quickly to see that, caught a thief!"

  The so-called wall-digging thieves were a type of thief that existed at that time. The courtyards back then all had earthen walls, which were quite high but not very sturdy. If a thief climbed over the wall and entered, there was still a risk of knocking down the wall. Therefore, some cunning thieves came up with the trick of digging holes in the wall. At that time, every household raised stupid dogs, but basically, they were all let out to find their own food because people didnt have enough to eat. Some dogs would sometimes be gone for half a day, and when they returned, the gate was locked, so they couldnt get back into the courtyard. As a result, most households would leave a small hole in the earthen wall for the dog to enter and exit. These thieves took advantage of these holes to commit their crimes. At night, they would use shovels to enlarge the holes and dig into the courtyard to steal food or poison the dogs and take them back home to eat the meat.

  And this thief was really stupid, daring to climb through the wall hole at this time, and ended up being caught red-handed by the old man in the courtyard. I guess he might have been really hungry too. My grandmother went out to take a look, only to see that everyone from each household in the courtyard had already come out to watch the commotion. The old man by the wall was using his foot to trample the thief firmly on the ground, and the thief looked around at the people with fear in his eyes.

  According to my grandmothers recollection, the thief was not from our village because nobody recognized him. He looked about 40 years old with a pointed face and a small mustache like a mouse. He wore a tattered cotton-padded jacket on his body. His beady eyes were darting around everywhere.

  At this time, my grandfather came back, looking at the mouse that had been trampled on the ground, and sighed. He thought to himself that it was not easy to live in this world, but cats have their own way, and mice have their own way. Now that youve fallen into our hands, youll have to admit defeat.

  Reality is cruel, especially in those years when human life was cheaper than grass. The villagers were all starving and if they let you go, this unknown thief from who-knows-where, then there would be no peace in the future. Its not that people back then were cruel, but rather life forced them to do so, if they didnt kill him he would continue to wreak havoc on this area. This is something that people living in our era cannot understand.

  My grandfather looked at the raccoon dog on the ground and asked my grandmother to scoop a bowl of millet rice from the pot and pour some cold water. My grandmother did as she was told, and the freshly cooked millet rice emitted a tempting aroma that attracted the raccoon dogs attention. It didnt say anything but kept sniffing with its nose, its two small eyes blinking constantly.

  Everyone in the yard worked together to tie up the bandit, and Grandpa, who was holding a bowl of rice, said to him, "Its not that we dont want to give you a way out, its just that were also struggling to make ends meet. Were all having a hard time, so eat your fill and hit the road! Maybe in your next life, youll be born into a good family.

  After finishing, he dug a big block of yellow rice with chopsticks, stuck some cold water and put it to the edge of that raccoon dogs mouth. The raccoon dog was so hungry that it didnt care about anything else, it quickly swallowed the rice in one gulp, and then smiled at my grandfather, completely unaware of the disaster that had befallen him.

  You may ask, why feed this hairy thief? Those who have eaten yellow rice know that when its freshly cooked, the temperature is very high, almost reaching the boiling point of water. This was indeed the last supper for this hairy thief. Because yellow rice is very sticky, it clumps together in blocks. And after being mixed with cold water, the surface temperature and inner temperature differ greatly. It feels warm in the mouth, but after swallowing, it will scald the stomach half to death.

  When the bowl of yellow rice was about to go down, the women in the yard all returned to the house because they didnt want to see the terrible scene below. My grandmother also entered the house and just sat on the kang when she heard a miserable cry that wouldnt stop. After struggling for a long time, the sound finally stopped. The timid grandmothers heart was pounding with fear, imagining the death of the raccoon dog, its big mouth wide open like a kettle, steam rushing out from its stomach through its throat and finally spraying out of its mouth.

  About an hour later, my grandfather came back. He patted the snow off his body as he entered the door, then put down the dinner table and called out to my grandmother to start eating. My grandmother got up after hearing him, took out bowls and chopsticks, placed small dishes of pickled vegetables on the table, added oil to the kerosene lamp, and warmed up the wine. My grandfather started drinking with the pickled vegetables. Grandmother picked up the pot lid, scooped two bowls of rice onto the table. But in her heart, she was still uneasy because of that little thief earlier.

  My grandfather looked at my grandmother and put down his chopsticks, saying to her: "Look at you, youre finished. Even a stinky blind beggar can scare you to death." My grandmother sighed and gazed out at the snow, saying to my grandfather: "No matter what, its not right to kill him, after all, hes still a human life."

  My grandfather took a small wine cup and drank it in one gulp, then said: "You think I want to, this blind flow is probably a beard coming down to stare at the stake. Think about it, hes not from our town, people from the nearest town have all gone away, suddenly a big living person appears out of nowhere. Isnt that a beard? If we dont get rid of him now, if he goes back to the mountain and tells the beards that there is still yellow rice to eat in our yard, they will come down and rob us, how can we survive this year?" My grandmother was frightened as soon as she heard the word "beard".

  As mentioned earlier, the bandits in Northeast China before liberation were local tyrants. They usually only robbed landlords or rich peoples homes, but this was a different time. When they were starving, they didnt care if your family had money or not, as long as it was a household, they would come to loot, taking rice if they saw it, and dragging away livestock if they saw it. This made the local villagers dare not speak out in anger. Fortunately, before they became bandits, most of them were poor households, so things wouldnt be taken to an extreme. They would always leave some food for the families they robbed. However, the amount of grain left was usually pitifully small. Now that Chinese New Year is approaching, after the holiday it will be the difficult months of February and March. How can this little bit of grain support them? Therefore, in the past, many landlords and wealthy people who fled their homes were actually forced to flee due to the bandits harassment.

  These bandits usually send one or two "scouts" down the mountain to investigate before they come, to see which families have a good life and are well-off. Then they go back and report, after that they come down with a group of people to rob those families who are well-off. If you let them search quietly its better for you. But if you slightly resist, these guys kill people as easily as playing a game. After killing you, they throw your body into the big mountain to be eaten by wolves and rats, and your family cant even get a complete corpse back.