The Entire Mountain Is My Hunting Ground

Zhao Jun and the others helped Huang Gui take the injured dogs to the home of Huang Gui’s cousin, Jiang Ming.

Jiang Ming was also a hunter who used hounds. As the first to take his pack into Little Gu Mountain to corner the man-injuring boar, three of his five hounds had died and two were injured.

When Zhao Jun and his group arrived outside Jiang Ming’s courtyard, they happened to see Jiang Ming coming out of the door, seeing someone off.

Coincidentally, the person Jiang Ming was seeing off was none other than Zhao Dejiang, the doctor from Yongsheng Village’s clinic.

Compared to Yong’an Village’s clinic, which only had one doctor, Han Shang, the clinic in Yongsheng Village was staffed with two.

But ever since that wild boar started repeatedly injuring people and goring dogs, the two doctors had been swamped. Not only did they have to change dressings and give injections to the injured villagers every day, but they also had to act as part-time veterinarians, tending to everyone’s injured hounds.

As the saying goes, "Better to be lucky than to be early." Since they’d run into him, Zhao Dejiang, who had just finished putting Jiang Ming’s hounds on an IV drip, had no choice but to turn around and go back inside to suture, bandage, and give injections to Huang Gui’s dogs.

Between the four dogs, there were over three hundred stitches in total. One of the black dogs had a broken spine, and Zhao Dejiang said it wouldn’t last long. He didn’t want to treat it, but he couldn’t resist Huang Gui’s desperate pleas. In the end, he still sutured and bandaged its external wounds and put it on an anti-inflammatory drip.

And so, in Jiang Ming’s outer room, six dogs were all hooked up to IV drips. It was a scene rarely witnessed even in a veterinary hospital ten or twenty years later.

From the moment they brought the dogs over, everyone had been busy caring for the four animals, so Zhao Jun and the others couldn’t find a chance to say their goodbyes to Huang Gui and Jiang Ming.

It wasn’t until Zhao Dejiang slung his medical kit over his shoulder and said he was heading to Wei Lai’s house to give injections to the two dogs gored by the boar that everyone finally left the Jiang Family’s home together.

After seeing off Zhao Dejiang and Wei Lai, Huang Gui cupped his fist toward Zhao Jun and Zhou Jianjun. "Brothers, thank you so much."

Zhao Jun understood Huang Gui’s feelings better than anyone and knew that no words would help right now. So, he offered a few simple words of comfort before leaving with Zhou Jianjun.

As they neared the Zhou Family home, they heard waves of barking coming from Zhou Jianjun’s house. Zhao Jun smiled at Zhou Jianjun and said, "Looks like my grand-nephew won’t be getting much sleep again." 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

Zhou Jianjun laughed. "It’s fine. The kid’s older now, much easier to soothe."

As they spoke, they reached the courtyard gate. Through the fence, Zhao Jun saw four dogs rushing over, pawing at the gate.

The four dogs weren’t tied up; they were just loose in the yard.

Zhao Jun pushed the gate open and entered the courtyard, and the four dogs swarmed him from all sides, jumping up on him.

Hearing the dogs’ clamor, Li Baoyu came out of the house. He immediately walked toward Zhao Jun but greeted Zhou Jianjun first before asking Zhao Jun, "Brother, did you get it?"

"Let’s talk inside."

Zhao Jun quickly calmed the dogs down a bit, then went into the Zhou Family’s house with Li Baoyu and Zhou Jianjun.

Seeing Zhao Jun and Zhou Jianjun return safe and sound, Zhao Chun and Hu Sanmei both breathed a sigh of relief. After they all sat down around the kang table, Zhao Jun recounted the day’s events in the mountains.

When Zhao Jun finished, Li Baoyu was the first to speak. "So that Big Cannon Egg is really that tough!"

Zhao Jun shook his head, looking at Li Baoyu with a wry smile. "This boar is something else. To this day, four different groups have gone after it with dogs, and not only have they failed to corner it, but not a single Cannon Shooter has even laid eyes on it."

Hu Sanmei and her son, Zhou Jianjun, didn’t understand, but Zhao Chun grasped some of it. She asked Zhao Jun worriedly, "Little brother, if that Huang... whoever’s six dogs couldn’t corner it, will our four dogs be enough?"

Zhao Chun had barely finished speaking when Zhou Chunming returned from outside. He came in, was introduced to Li Baoyu, and then asked Zhao Jun if he had managed to get the boar today.

After hearing Zhao Jun recount the day’s events once more, Zhou Chunming immediately said to him, "Son, if it’s no good, don’t go tomorrow. I’ll see about finding someone else to hunt it."

Zhao Jun was taken aback by Zhou Chunming’s words, wondering why his attitude had changed so drastically.

"Chunming, what did you and Farm Director Zhang figure out?" While Zhao Jun was still stunned, Hu Sanmei, who was beside them, asked her husband.

Ever since Zhao Jun and Zhou Jianjun left for the mountains that morning, Hu Sanmei had felt uneasy. With the boar causing so much trouble and injuring so many people, it had already become a public matter. Otherwise, Qi Shengli wouldn’t have represented the Village Office to offer such a large reward.

’Since it’s a public matter, why should my own son have to risk his life on the mountain?’

But Hu Sanmei had spent the better part of her life with Zhou Chunming, and she knew him better than anyone. As the farm’s production director, he was in charge of production. His mind was always occupied with coordinating and dispatching lumber and timber to support the development of the Divine Land. He paid little attention to anything else.

So, Hu Sanmei had been persistently urging Zhou Chunming to go discuss the matter with Zhang Yuntao, the head of the Yong’an Forest Farm, to see if there were any other solutions.

In the past, when dangerous beasts appeared around the Forest Farm, the response was usually to offer a reward and encourage hunters to take care of it. Alternatively, the farm could organize a hunt, or report it to higher authorities and request guns and personnel.

It was just like the great tiger hunt twenty years ago. That time, the Forest Farm had reported it, and their superiors allocated four semi-automatic rifles. Then the Forest Farm sent out its four great Cannon Shooters, who took up the rifles and killed the Tiger.

But that was in ’66. Nowadays, the Forest Farm had no shortage of semi-automatic rifles. The key problem, instead, was where to find the Cannon Shooters to fire them.

When it came to marksmanship, the best of the best were those four who had hunted the tiger back in the day.

But of those four, Zhou Chengguo was still recovering from a serious injury and was currently bedridden at home.