Late-Night "Little BBQ" Wife: Xiaochengcheng, guess where I am

“Chen Youliang… is praying for my blessing?”

“What the hell?”

Before the twisted black text vanished, Ye Cheng checked it over and over, making sure his eyes weren’t playing tricks on him—that he hadn’t mistaken someone else’s name for that old bastard’s.

“How could that be? It shouldn’t be… Wait, could this be some kind of curse?”

Ye Cheng rubbed his smooth chin and sat on the bed, a thoughtful look in his eyes as he pondered whether this so-called blessing might actually be a curse.

After all, he knew perfectly well how he’d treated that old geezer over the years. How could he possibly be praying for his well-being?

Besides, even if it really was a blessing, why would it be Chen Youliang?

Shouldn’t it have been those little oddballs at the orphanage?

“Damn it, those ungrateful little bastards. When I get back, none of them are ever getting chicken drumsticks again!” Ye Cheng grumbled. He stopped thinking about what had just happened, pulled out the elderly phone he’d just bought, and started reading novels on it.

Well… the moment he arrived, Ye Cheng had gotten himself a local unregistered SIM card, then spent a few dozen yuan on a secondhand senior phone.

As long as it could take a SIM card and get online, that was enough.

There was no need to explain the SIM card situation. Once it was used and connected to a signal, the carrier could immediately pinpoint his location. Wouldn’t that make running away completely pointless?

What sane person brought a tracking device while on the run?

And as for his phone… he couldn’t use that either. Certain methods could identify a device directly. Those kinds of techniques were generally in the hands of the authorities; ordinary people couldn’t get hold of them.

The problem was, none of the people trying to catch him now were “ordinary people.”

Using his old phone would be no different from setting off a flare, so he might as well stick to a senior phone.

Smartphones were too dangerous. For the time being, they were out of the question...

“Huh? This old phone can scroll videos too?”

Late at night, just as Ye Cheng was about to go to sleep after reading, he suddenly spotted a familiar black-and-white app on the phone. He tapped it lightly.

Loading... loading...

Mind-numbing short videos began to play.

Ye Cheng: “Woohoo!!!”

In the middle of the night, Ye Cheng sprang up from his bed and let out a wild yell, delighted like an overgrown child.

Outside the crude wooden shack, insects, snakes, rats, birds, and beasts heard the noise. Some fled, while others crept closer, inch by inch...

Later that night, while Ye Cheng lay on wooden planks scrolling through mindless videos, he suddenly heard something like knocking at the door.

“Thump... thump...”

It sounded as though something was bumping against the door.

“Who is it? Nobody’s home,” Ye Cheng answered without a second thought.

Oh, right—one more thing. The makeshift little cabin Ye Cheng was currently staying in stood in a patch of woods, the kind that resembled a primeval forest. It was utterly deserted...

Even if one used their ass to think about it, it was obvious nobody would come knocking in a place like this in the dead of night. And judging by that knocking-like sound, it was clearly some kind of humanoid creature.

An ordinary person would have pissed themselves in terror.

Of course, that meant an ordinary person.

Ye Cheng obviously wasn’t one. Besides, what normal person would come to this godforsaken place to grow potatoes and build a house?

“Thump, thump, thump...”

It seemed to have gotten the hang of the rhythm. The knocking outside grew increasingly practiced, and the moment it heard a response from inside, it became even more excited, the knocks speeding up noticeably.

With every blow, the crude wooden shack Ye Cheng had thrown together shuddered, swaying as though it might collapse at any moment… Whatever was outside was something big.

“I said nobody’s home! Nobody! Are you fucking deaf?” Ye Cheng cursed irritably, yet made no move to get up and open the door. He merely rolled over and continued watching brain-rotting short videos.

“Bang!”

At last, in a certain instant, the wooden door reached the limit of what it could withstand.

The door… opened.

More precisely, it fell flat onto the ground. Straight down.

In the doorway stood a massive figure: brown fur, a white patch around its neck, thick and shaggy, enormous paws, and a long snout…

A gigantic brown bear.

The brown bear kept sniffing at the human scent coming from Ye Cheng inside the shack. Drool dripped from its mouth.

Drip. Drip…

It was as if they had fallen into some bizarre stalemate. The bear stood in the doorway, drooling as it stared at Ye Cheng. Ye Cheng climbed off the bed, sat up, and stared at the bear by the door…

They were locked in a staring contest.

This time, it truly was big eyes staring at big eyes—literally.

Ye Cheng looked at the door he had painstakingly built, then at the ramshackle cabin that was on the verge of falling apart, and finally at the brown bear standing in the doorway, its appetite written all over its face.

“My fucking door!!!”

“Fuck you!”

“ROAR—”

The beast’s roar echoed through the primeval forest. In the pitch-black night, a fire blazed to life, driving away the cold and bringing warmth.

Throughout the forest, many pairs of bestial eyes emerged from the darkness. Greedily, they watched the fire and gradually crept closer…

A prairie wolf appeared, over a meter long and roughly eighty centimeters tall.

It, too, had caught the scent of a human and come over. But the moment it saw what was happening by the fire, the savagery and greed in its eyes vanished without a trace.

All that remained was crystal-clear understanding.

Beside the fire—

A gigantic brown bear had its forepaws and hind legs tied up and was bound to a thick log, arranged like a skewer over a barbecue.

A huge bonfire burned beneath it.

The bear was still alive. Its mouth had been gagged, and the section around its rear had already been charred black. It struggled desperately, but unfortunately, it was useless…

Ye Cheng’s temporary wooden shack had been destroyed. The bear had smashed the door, so Ye Cheng simply tore down what remained and used it as firewood.

Perfect for grilling up some skewers.

The brown bear would never have imagined that such a tiny creature could actually be stronger than it was…

The entire fight had gone like this:

The brown bear roared greedily and squeezed in from outside, intending to eat Ye Cheng.

Ye Cheng grabbed the hoe he had used to till the ground during the day and smashed the bear over the head with it.

The blow landed solidly. The hoe handle, as thick as an arm, snapped in two with a sharp crack.

Boom!

The very next second after the hoe broke, a dull thud rang out.

The massive brown bear had been knocked unconscious by Ye Cheng’s single strike. It collapsed to the ground, completely out cold.

The instant it hit the ground, the earth itself seemed to tremble. The already fragile, teetering little wooden cabin took another hit from the shockwave and was pushed to the brink of collapse.

Little by little, Ye Cheng dragged the brown bear out of the cabin. At last, the cabin could no longer hold up and came crashing down.

Ye Cheng: “...”

“I’ll avenge you!” Ye Cheng declared with a grief-stricken look. Then, without hesitation, he dismantled what remained of the cabin and built a simple makeshift barbecue rack.

In a sense, the brown bear had brought this upon itself. Seriously, big guy, think about it. This place had been deserted for years, and then someone who put up a cabin in less than a few hours showed up. Did you really think he was some easy prey?

After being knocked unconscious, a brown bear weighing several hundred pounds had been dragged out by Ye Cheng—and he didn’t even look like he was struggling. And you still wanted to eat him?

You should’ve just settled for some “wotou.” Now look at you. Not only did you fail to get your wotou, but you were about to be roasted and eaten yourself.

Back to the present: Ye Cheng raised his hoe, ready to give the still-twitching brown bear another whack. Otherwise, what if it kept flailing around and knocked over the grill?

Did he still want to eat or not?

Just as he lifted the hoe high, preparing to bring it down, he suddenly spotted an enormous prairie wolf stepping out from the nearby woods...

They stared at each other.

In an instant, the wolf’s eyes cleared. It didn’t know Ye Cheng, but it knew brown bears—the kind of creatures that treated members of its pack as side dishes.

And now...

That brown bear was Ye Cheng’s side dish.

Prairie Wolf: “...”

“Oh? Another side dish?”

Ye Cheng raised an eyebrow, set down the hoe, and spoke with unmistakable excitement. Rubbing his hands together eagerly, he walked toward the wolf.

Prairie Wolf: “???”

“Awooo...”

Though Ye Cheng wasn’t particularly large, the wolf had a strange feeling that if it made a move, it would be killed instantly. A primal sense of danger, instinct buried deep in its genes, was frantically warning it.

The standoff lasted less than three seconds. As Ye Cheng drew closer and closer, the prairie wolf turned tail and ran, darting back into the woods at top speed, its tail tucked tightly between its legs...

Ye Cheng turned into a blur and vanished from where he stood, chasing after it in the direction it had fled.

Not long afterward, a scream rang out from the woods...

“Awoooo—!”

A moment later, Ye Cheng returned, dragging the barbecue “side dish” behind him by its tail. This time, he used a smaller stick.

He skewered it beside the brown bear as a side dish.

As for how the fight had gone...

The prairie wolf ran...

The prairie wolf panicked...

The prairie wolf made one final desperate stand, baring its fangs...

Ye Cheng grabbed it by the tail and slammed it around eighteen times in a row, knocking it out cold. Its eyes rolled back, its eyes shut, its legs went limp—and that was it for this life.

It had become a speed bump.

The barbecue was still going.

The brown bear’s backside was completely blackened, with patches of fur burned clean off. It was so miserable it couldn’t even cry anymore. The steppe wolf wasn’t doing much better. Since it was meant to be the side dish, it was roasting even faster.

In just a few minutes, its back had turned entirely black, and all the fur on its head had been singed away, leaving it with a bald, Mediterranean-style haircut...

Brown Bear Fear +999 +999 +999...

Steppe Wolf Fear +999 +999 +999...

Meanwhile, Ye Cheng sat nearby scrolling through mind-numbing short videos. His related searches included...

How to cook a brown bear.

How to cook a steppe wolf.

Would it be hard to digest after eating them? What should one eat to aid digestion?

And...

Is a steppe wolf suitable as a side dish for brown bear?

Searches like that...

Not far away, soldiers patrolling the edge of the far northwest spotted the firelight in the forest and the billowing smoke rising into the air. Their hearts tightened.

“Not good! There’s a fire! Hurry over!”

One after the other, the two soldiers drove a specially modified military off-road vehicle toward the scene. A few minutes later, they stopped. Once they got out and saw what lay before them, both froze.

The good news: it wasn’t a forest fire.

The bad news: it would’ve been better if it were...

Before them was an enormous bonfire, with a large pile of logs stacked beside it. Looking closer, the piled-up wood seemed to form some kind of barbecue rack?

The unused logs were fuel waiting to be burned. Was someone having a barbecue here?

No... Poachers!

Both brown bears and steppe wolves were protected animals in this region. Poachers often came here to hunt them down and sell them for money...

“Click.”

They hurriedly chambered rounds, their expressions turning grave. Though... they didn’t think these poachers would be brazen enough to attack military personnel directly.

Still, better safe than sorry. With a gun in hand, one always felt safer.

“Do they... still seem to be alive?”

The two soldiers quickly noticed something strange. The brown bear and steppe wolf strung up in front of them were both still alive, with no obvious wounds on their bodies—though tranquilizer darts were still a possibility.

But... they noticed that the brown bear seemed to have a huge lump on its head?

“What is going on here?” The two exchanged glances, then hurriedly reported the “poacher” situation...

...

At the same time, a bus drove through the desolate far northwest in the darkness, its headlights cutting through the night.

“Drive faster!” Du Wanyi urged.

Old Li: “...”

“Miss, we can’t go any faster. It’s pitch-black out here. What if we hit someone—”

“Smack!”

Du Wanyi slapped Old Li on his somewhat thinning head.

“Are you trying to scare your dad? Who the hell would be out here in the middle of the night?”

Old Li winced from the blow. After thinking about it, he decided Du Wanyi had a point and stepped on the gas... naturally, because he was also afraid of being beaten to death.

“Thump!”

A dull impact sounded.

Old Li: “...”

“Miss... I think we hit someone...” Old Li’s face went pale. His hands trembled, and even his voice shook.

“What do you mean, ‘we’? You were the one driving. What does it have to do with me?” Du Wanyi blinked, wearing an utterly “confused” expression.

Old Li: “???”

The other Ginseng Fruits in the car: “……”

Fucking awesome!!!