The Entire Mountain Is My Hunting Ground

At Qin Qiang’s home.

Several months later, Qin Qiang was once again lying face down on the kang bed.

His injuries weren’t serious. He didn’t need an IV drip, and the wound on his back didn’t even require stitches. All he had to do was apply some medicine and lie still to recover.

In the outer room of his house, two dogs lay on gunnysacks. They were wrapped in thick gauze bandages, one with a needle still stuck in its foreleg for an IV.

Inside the main room.

Tao Hehua sighed, remaining silent.

The three Tao Brothers sat around the low table on the kang, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes.

Hearing Tao Hehua’s sigh, Tao Dasheng took the cigarette from his mouth. Before he could even exhale the smoke, he said to her, "Big Sis, this one’s on me."

"On you? How?" Before Tao Hehua could speak, Qin Qiang, still lying on the kang, cut in. "If you’re my brother-in-law, don’t say things like that."

Tao Hehua added, "It’s alright. Your brother-in-law isn’t badly hurt. I just feel awful for our Xiaoqing."

The moment Tao Hehua mentioned the dog Xiaoqing, Tao Dasheng lowered his head even further and fell silent.

Just then, Tao Ersheng flicked the ash from his cigarette and said, "I wonder if that kid Zhang Laibao can even handle things properly."

"He can’t do shit!" Tao Sansheng retorted. "I don’t think he’s a good person at all. I mean, we lost two dogs, he lost one, and because he couldn’t get the bear, he wanted to drag the dead dogs back to skin and eat them. What kind of bastard is that?"

Tao Hehua chimed in from the side, "If you ask me, you guys shouldn’t be going into the mountains with people like that."

Qin Qiang said, "But don’t we still owe him money?"

At the mention of that, Tao Hehua went quiet.

After failing to buy those three dogs from Xu Changlin before the New Year, Qin Qiang had been restless at home.

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, he went to the riverside to burn paper offerings and happened to run into Zhang Laibao.

Zhang Laibao asked Qin Qiang for advice on hunting and mentioned that he was planning to go to Lingnan to buy dogs.

When Huang Gui had parted ways with Zhao Jun, he’d mentioned that Lingnan had many hunters, and thus, many hunting dogs.

This was because Lingnan was mostly populated by farmers. They planted in the spring and harvested in the fall, so during the off-seasons, they would go into the mountains to hunt.

In contrast, villages like Yong’an and Yongsheng were adjacent to the Forest Farm and had more workers who kept regular work hours. Relatively speaking, very few of them hunted.

Qin Qiang, who was already thinking about buying dogs to rebuild his pack, heard this and immediately went to Lingnan with his three brothers-in-law and Zhang Laibao.

Once in Lingnan, they found two packs of dogs they liked. Qin Qiang chose one and bought the pack of four.

Zhang Laibao also picked a pack, buying one with three dogs.

However, when it came time to pay, Qin Qiang was short on cash and had to borrow eighty yuan from Zhang Laibao.

After that, Zhang Laibao started visiting Qin Qiang’s home often to ask for hunting advice. This continued until two days ago. The dogs had been fed at home for several days, so Qin Qiang and Zhang Laibao decided to take them into the mountains together to test their abilities.

If the trial went well, they would keep them. If not, they would hurry back to Lingnan and return the dogs.

Unexpectedly, on their first day out with the dogs, they ran into Zhao Guofeng and Xu Changlin before they had even left the village.

Upon hearing there was a Xiong Ba, the group scrambled anxiously toward Gaojian Peak.

When they arrived, there was indeed a Xiong Ba.

But after a vicious battle, Qin Qiang’s party returned in bitter defeat.

Since the failed bear hunt in the autumn, Qin Qiang had been left with only his dog, Xiaoqing. With the four newly purchased dogs, he had a total of five.

But after that one battle, of his five dogs, two were dead, two were injured, and the last one was now tied up in his yard.

As for the three dogs Zhang Laibao had bought, one was dead, one was injured, and he too was left with a single dog.

Why did these two dogs survive?

Because they didn’t recognize a bear.

After they crested Gaojian Peak, Qin Qiang’s dog Xiaoqing was the first to give voice. It shot over the summit like a wisp of smoke, heading straight for Jumping Stone Pond below.

Then, the seven other hounds followed close behind.

But when Qin Qiang and the others caught up at Jumping Stone Pond, they saw six dogs locked in a deadly brawl with the Xiong Ba.

But off to the side were two other dogs, sniffing at rocks and lifting their legs to piss and mark their territory.

This infuriated Zhang Laibao so much that he was about to stab the two dogs to death with his Invasion Blade right then and there.

Luckily, Tao Dasheng stopped him, explaining that the two dogs must have been late additions to their original packs. They had never fought a bear or eaten bear meat, which was why they didn’t recognize one.

"It’s an easy fix," he’d said. "We just need to kill this brown bear here and let those two dogs have a good feast. The next time they see a bear, they’ll definitely charge right in, baying for blood."

After saying this, Tao Dasheng and Qin Qiang each shouldered a semi-automatic rifle and strode forward.

But to their utter surprise, Qin Qiang’s group failed again. Now, each family was left with only one of those useless dogs. Since they had been bought as separate packs, and each pack was now down to a single dog, returning them was likely impossible.

If they couldn’t be returned, they had to be raised.

But they couldn’t just raise them for nothing; they had to find a way to train the dogs.

And the key to training them was to make them recognize bears. Only by killing a bear for its gall could they turn a profit.

But bears were not so easy to kill.

The men thought and thought, but could come up with no solution.

Then, Tao Sansheng remarked offhandedly that if they could just borrow the Zhao family’s Flower-necked Dog again, a few trips to the mountains with it would be enough to train their two dogs.

But after their last major falling-out, the whole village knew the two families were on the verge of becoming enemies. Even if the Tao Brothers swallowed their pride and went to ask, it would probably be useless.

But what Qin Qiang and the Tao Family Siblings never expected was for Zhang Laibao to suddenly volunteer, claiming he could get Zhao Jun to help train their dogs.

Everyone scoffed at this. In all of Yong’an Village, and even the entire Yong’an Forest Farm, who didn’t know that the Zhao and Zhang families were mortal enemies? For Zhang Laibao to think he could get Zhao Jun to help him train dogs was pure daydreaming.

But Zhang Laibao was adamant. Ignoring everyone’s attempts to dissuade him, he headed straight for Zhao Jun’s family home.

...

As Qin Qiang and the Tao Family Siblings were discussing the matter, they suddenly heard the dog tied up in the yard start to bark.

Immediately after, the two dogs receiving IVs in the outer room also reacted. Tao Hehua and Tao Sansheng quickly went out to calm the injured animals.

A moment later, the door to their house was pulled open, and Zhang Laibao appeared in the doorway. "Sister-in-law Qin, Third Brother," he said, greeting them.

"Ah, you’re here, brother! Come on in." Tao Hehua’s greeting was unusually enthusiastic.

Zhang Laibao entered and climbed onto the kang. Qin Qiang lifted his head from the pillow and asked him, "Laibao, did it work out?"

Zhang Laibao shook his head, but as disappointed looks fell upon him, he added, "Zhao Jun isn’t home, but his dogs are back."

Tao Dasheng glanced at Qin Qiang and asked, "Brother-in-law, what do we do?"

Qin Qiang lifted his chin, gesturing toward Zhang Laibao. "Ask our brother Laibao."

A sinister grin spread across Zhang Laibao’s face. "Tomorrow, I’ll go intercept Zhao Jun first. If he agrees, I’ll take our two remaining dogs into the mountains with him. If he doesn’t agree, then we’ll just steal his pack of dogs."

When Zhang Laibao said the first part, Qin Qiang and the Tao Family Siblings’ faces were full of disdain.

But his next sentence made their eyes light up.