The Entire Mountain Is My Hunting Ground

"Oh, get out of here!" Zhao Jun snapped irritably at Li Baoyu. "I was spooked by a bear, not possessed by some spirit. What’s a kitchen knife going to do?"

Back then, there was a folk belief that if a child was frightened by something "unclean," you were supposed to wrap a kitchen knife in cloth and stick it under their pillow while they slept.

But Zhao Jun had been scared by a Black Bear, which had nothing to do with any of that.

Just then, Zhao Jun started to get up. Li Baoyu helped him and said, "Brother, the big market is in two days. You can’t go?"

"How can I go like this?" Zhao Jun said indignantly.

"Maybe you’ll be better by then."

Zhao Jun climbed off the kang bed, washed his face with some effort, and dried it with a towel. He then asked Li Baoyu, "Brother, did you find out anything about that thing I mentioned yesterday?"

Li Baoyu said, "Brother, you were right. He’s really back."

Zhao Jun walked to the edge of the kang and sat down, folding his bedding.

Li Baoyu came over to help and asked Zhao Jun, "Brother, what should we do?"

"There’s nothing to be done about it," Zhao Jun said. "We’ll just have to take it one step at a time."

As the two were talking, they heard the door to Zhao Jun’s family home open. Someone outside called out, "Is Fifth Aunt home?"

Immediately after, Wang Meilan’s voice followed, "Dalong, come on in!"

Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu exchanged a look. Zhao Jun, leaning on Li Baoyu for support, got up and walked out, coming face-to-face with Wang Dalong.

"Xiaojun! Oh, Baoyu’s here too."

"Brother Dalong!"

"Brother Dalong!"

Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu greeted Wang Dalong. He was holding a badger upside down by its legs, and he handed it to Wang Meilan, saying, "Fifth Aunt, I dug up a badger den yesterday. Brought one over for you."

"Oh, look at you. You could have just come empty-handed," Wang Meilan said, accepting the badger with a smile. "We have some wild boar meat. I’ll give you a whole leg to take with you when you leave."

As soon as Wang Meilan said this, Li Baoyu secretly nudged Zhao Jun, but Zhao Jun just shook his head.

Then Wang Dalong, picking up on Wang Meilan’s comment, continued, "Fifth Aunt, I hear my brother here has been bringing in a lot of boars lately."

Wang Meilan glanced at Zhao Jun and chuckled. "Your brother’s been doing alright. He went out stalking the other day and brought back three of ’em."

"Really!" Wang Dalong said with feigned surprise. "How’d my brother go stalking? Why didn’t he take the dogs? The one he bought from me..."

"Here, Dalong!" Suddenly, Wang Meilan cut Wang Dalong off, pressing a white porcelain mug into his hand.

"Fifth Aunt, don’t go to any trouble. I’m just here to chat for a bit, then I’ll be on my way," Wang Dalong said.

He hadn’t come today to drink water, and certainly not just to give Wang Meilan a badger. He had another purpose.

Wang Meilan, still all smiles, asked him, "Is everyone at home doing well?"

"Ah, yes, everyone’s fine."

"I heard the other day that you and Juanzi had a fight." Wang Meilan suddenly changed the subject. "Dalong, it’s not my place to criticize, but what married couple lives without a little friction..."

"It’s not my place to criticize, but a real man doesn’t squabble with his wife..."

"It’s not my place to criticize..."

Wang Meilan’s verbal barrage made Wang Dalong’s head spin. ’It’s not your place? You’re doing it right now!’ he thought. ’If it weren’t for your son, would my wife and I even be fighting?’

"Fifth Aunt," Wang Dalong finally found an opening to interject, "when is Xiaojun starting his job? Hasn’t my brother-in-law arranged it for him yet?"

The brother-in-law Wang Dalong mentioned was Zhao Jun’s older sister’s husband, Zhou Jianjun.

Wang Meilan didn’t hide it from him, replying, "It’s good of you to ask. Your brother will start work after the New Year."

"Oh no!" Wang Dalong feigned disappointment, looking up at Zhao Jun. "Brother, if you’re working, how are you going to keep hunting?"

By this point, Zhao Jun and the others had already figured it out. Wang Dalong was here to stir up trouble.

But Zhao Jun wasn’t worried. The whole village knew his mother was kind-hearted, but what they didn’t know was that Wang Meilan’s kindness had one condition: you don’t try to scheme against her son in front of her.

Otherwise, she would make you regret it.

"Oh, that’s no problem." The Wang Meilan of today seemed like a completely different person from the one who used to stop Zhao Jun from going into the mountains to hunt.

She was heard saying, "Zhao Jun will still have days off. He can hunt on his days off."

"Well..."

Wang Dalong started to say something else but was cut off again by Wang Meilan. "And to be honest, your brother is a crack shot. He never comes back from the mountains empty-handed. Once he starts his job, the leaders at the Farm might even ask him to help hunt for specimens."

Wang Dalong was left speechless. He couldn’t get a single word of his prepared speech out.

Now that "hunting for specimens" had been brought up, what else could he say?

As the saying goes, those who live by the mountain live off the mountain.

In those days, the mountains were rich with wildlife: Black Bears, wild boars, roe deer, stags...

This game was common for people in the logging camps and Forest Areas, but city dwellers rarely got a taste.

The leaders of the Forest Farm sometimes had to go to the city for meetings, which involved a lot of social obligations, and people would ask them for some game to try.

But the leaders couldn’t go hunting themselves, so they had to find the Cannon Shooters in the work unit to do it for them.

Of course, doing favors for the leadership came with plenty of benefits.

And the leaders wouldn’t make it difficult. For example, they might give you a month off. For that entire month, you wouldn’t have to show up for your job at the Farm; the leader would find someone to cover for you.

During that month, you had only one task: hunt.

The leader would set a quota, and it wouldn’t be difficult—something like three roe deer and two wild boars in a month.

Because it was a task assigned by a leader, they would provide you with a gun—always a Type 56 semi-automatic rifle—and plenty of ammunition.

You have to understand, the people chosen by the leaders were always well-known Cannon Shooters, masters with first-class Spear Technique.

For people like that, bagging three roe deer and two wild boars in a month was a piece of cake.

This meant that once you were chosen by a leader, you got a month of paid hunting leave.

Anyone who got this kind of assignment would always wait until there were only two or three days left in the month before turning in the game to the leader.

Even if they bagged three roe deer and two wild boars on the very first day, they couldn’t hand them over right away.

After gutting and bleeding the animals, they would haul the carcasses home.

Since these assignments were usually in the winter, they could just freeze the carcasses in the snow and leave them there until it was almost time to deliver them to the leader.

This process of gutting, bleeding, and then freezing for storage was similar to preparing a taxidermy specimen.

That’s why it was called "hunting for specimens."

In truth, Wang Meilan knew exactly what kind of person her distant nephew was, as she had grown up with Wang Dalong’s parents.

Therefore, Wang Meilan knew that if she didn’t completely shut down Wang Dalong’s idea, he would just come back in a couple of days.

So, Wang Meilan continued, "Dalong, did you really come all this way today just to bring me a badger?"

The real reason Wang Dalong had come was to buy back the white dog he had sold to Zhao Jun, for fifty yuan.

But ever since he’d walked in, Wang Meilan hadn’t given him a chance to bring it up. What Wang Dalong never expected was that she was now giving him an opening herself.

As the saying goes: Opportunity knocks but once.

Without a second thought, Wang Dalong said, "Fifth Aunt, you know I sold my white dog to my brother the other day, right? I was thinking I’d come over and ask if the dog is actually working out.

"I’m worried that with a new master, it might not work for my brother. We’re close relatives, after all. I can’t cheat my own family. If it’s not working out..."

"It’s working out fine!" Wang Meilan said abruptly. "That dog of yours is great. Your uncle even said so."

At this point, Wang Meilan looked up at Zhao Jun and asked, "Isn’t that right, son?"

"That’s right." Zhao Jun smiled at Wang Dalong and said, "Brother Dalong, that dog you brought over is really something. It works well for me."

"Brother, about that..."

"Dalong!" Wang Meilan gave him no chance to speak. "I know you mean well, and the dog is truly excellent. My son is keeping it. Otherwise, when he goes into the mountains to hunt without enough dogs, I’ll just worry about him."

With things said so plainly, what else could Wang Dalong say? He immediately put down the mug in his hand and got up to leave.

But just then, Li Ruhai burst into the room in a flurry.

Li Ruhai came in, first calling out "Auntie!" to Wang Meilan, then nodding at Wang Dalong.

Only then did he sidle up next to Li Baoyu.

"What is it? What are you here for?" Li Baoyu asked his younger brother.

Li Ruhai said, "Big Brother, weren’t you talking about buying a dog? I heard Elder Xu Pao is selling off his pack of three!"

At Li Ruhai’s words, the eyes of both Li Baoyu and Wang Dalong lit up. Wang Dalong stood up and asked Li Ruhai, "Ruhai, who’d you hear that from?"

"Who’d I hear it from? The whole village knows," Li Ruhai replied to Wang Dalong, before turning to Li Baoyu. "Big Brother, if you want to buy one, you’d better hurry home and ask Mom for money."

"Alright," Li Baoyu agreed. He said his goodbyes to Wang Meilan, Zhao Jun, and Wang Dalong in turn, then left with Li Ruhai.

"Well, Fifth Aunt, I’m going to go have a look too." Wang Dalong said his farewell to Wang Meilan and left in a hurry.

Wang Meilan got up and walked him to the door with Zhao Jun. They saw Wang Dalong striding away quickly without a single glance back.

The white dog tied to the corner of the house saw its former master and started wagging its tail and lunging forward, but Wang Dalong paid it no mind at all.

The mother and son looked at each other, and Wang Meilan laughed. "And here I was about to give him a leg of pork. Instead, we got a free badger."