The Entire Mountain Is My Hunting Ground

Zhao Guofeng was given two of the four badgers, and Zhao Youcai gave the other two to Lin Xiangsheng.

Wang Qiang and Lin Xiangshun were close friends, not outsiders, so they wouldn’t complain about not getting a badger.

The group split up, each heading home.

The Zhaos and the Lis were neighbors, so they naturally walked together.

On the way, Li Baoyu suddenly remembered something funny. He laughed and said, "We promised Zhang Laibao a badger, but we ended up giving them all away."

"He said later he didn’t want it," Zhao Jun replied with a laugh. "We put the badger next to him, and he threw it a long way off."

"Ah!" Li Baoyu suddenly cried out. As everyone turned to look at him, he grabbed Zhao Jun’s arm. "Our leg wraps are still on the stretcher! We gave them to Zhang Laibao!"

"Forget the leg wraps," Li Dayong chuckled. "What happened today is good enough."

"’Good enough?’" Li Baoyu scratched his head and asked, "So we’re just letting it go that Zhang Zhanshan drugged Hua Xiao’er the other night?"

"What else do you want to do?" Seeing that neither Zhao Youcai nor Li Dayong were explaining it to Li Baoyu, Zhao Jun told him, "The Village Chief already said his piece today. If Zhang Zhanshan ever tries to pull any crap on us again, we can break his legs and nothing will happen."

...

When they got home, Wang Meilan was in the outer room cooking. Seeing Zhao Jun walk in behind Zhao Youcai, her face lit up with a smile. "Son, hurry inside and get some rest. Mom’s making you something good to eat."

"Alright." Zhao Jun pushed open his bedroom door, and Hua Xiao’er immediately pounced on him. The little creature didn’t know how to fake being sick, so it had to stay cooped up inside for a few more days. Otherwise, if Zhang Zhanshan figured things out, he might get desperate and do something crazy.

The night passed uneventfully. The next day, after waking up, Zhao Jun first got up and let Hua Xiao’er out for a run.

After finishing breakfast, Zhao Jun left without his dog, carrying only his gun, and went to find Li Baoyu.

The two of them were heading into the mountains today to set rabbit snares. They should have gone long ago, but Zhang Laibao’s unexpected appearance had delayed them by several days.

It was a clear day. The two of them took the rabbit snares out of the box one by one.

A rabbit snare was really just a piece of wire. One end was formed into a loop about ten centimeters in diameter, and the rest of the wire was temporarily folded up.

To use it, you’d keep the loop as it was and unfold the rest of the wire. The shorter ones were over twenty centimeters long, while the longer ones exceeded half a meter.

This wooden box of snares had been discarded by a neighbor of Li Baoyu’s uncle, Jin Xiaofeng. Jin Xiaofeng had taken them and given them to Li Baoyu.

Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu separated and straightened the snares, bundling them into groups of ten and putting them into their satchels.

They each took fifty snares, left the village, and headed for the mountains, making a beeline for Yellow Mud Ridge to the north.

Once they were on the ridge, Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu split up to search everywhere for rabbit tracks.

"Jumping cats," as they’re called, are just wild rabbits. Their three-toed tracks are very easy to identify.

There’s a saying: "Rats have their trails, and snakes have their paths."

But what many don’t know is that rabbits are creatures of habit, sticking to a single route.

No matter where they’re going or coming from, they use the same path. They leave tracks on their way out and will inevitably follow those same tracks on their way back.

This was similar to the sables Zhao Jun had trapped before. But rabbits were even more stubborn than sables. While sables also followed set routes, they had more than one path they would take.

But a rabbit? As long as nothing unexpected happened, it would stick to one path and one path only.

And compared to sables, rabbits were far more numerous. Zhao Jun had only walked three or five meters south when he saw a line of rabbit tracks crossing the path ahead.

Zhao Jun stopped about half a meter from the rabbit tracks. He examined their size and saw that they came out of the woods. ’It’ll probably head back into the woods on its return trip,’ he thought.

He immediately chopped down a nearby branch, stripped off the excess twigs, and was left with a stick about two centimeters in diameter and over a meter long.

Zhao Jun took a snare from his satchel and unfolded the wire. The whole thing was about thirty centimeters long. The loop at one end had a diameter of about ten centimeters, leaving about twenty centimeters of straight wire.

Zhao Jun began wrapping the wire around the stick, starting about thirty centimeters from one end. After coiling it around the stick a few times, about twenty centimeters of the snare—the loop plus a straight section of wire—remained.

Zhao Jun stabbed the end of the stick with the snare into the snow. He pushed it in just far enough so that the loop stood upright above the rabbit tracks, about ten centimeters off the ground.

The height of the loop from the ground was determined by the rabbit’s size. As for the rabbit’s size, Zhao Jun estimated it based on his experience and the size of the tracks.

Rabbits move by hopping. When a rabbit of about four or five pounds came hopping back along the path, its head would be about ten centimeters off the ground.

If luck was on his side, the rabbit would plunge headfirst into the loop.

When the rabbit’s neck was caught in the loop, it wouldn’t back away. Instead, it would surge forward.

Its front legs were short and its chest was narrow, so once it pushed forward, the front half of its body would pass through the snare.

But its hindquarters were thick, and with its wide hips, it couldn’t get through.

And just like that, the rabbit would be unable to struggle free from the snare.

The stick planted in the snow would be pulled over by the rabbit’s tug, but that didn’t matter. The woods were right ahead, and a rabbit dragging a meter-long stick wouldn’t get far before getting snagged.

This type of snare was called a "pull-stick" by Mountain Runners.

When setting the snare, Zhao Jun always squatted about half a meter from the tracks, setting up the stick with an outstretched arm.

Then he turned and went to set the next one.

Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu worked all morning, setting snares all over Yellow Mud Ridge.

You had to admit, the rabbits really had multiplied.

The two went home to eat and rest. The next day, they wandered around the village, asking around and gossiping about the state of Zhang Laibao’s injury.

They heard that to get Zhang Laibao treated and to ensure he could still carry on the family line, Zhang Zhanshan had emptied his family’s savings.

The doctors at the hospital In the Town had worked through the night and finally managed to stitch Zhang Laibao’s "thing" back on. But as for whether it would work in the future—or work well—the doctors wouldn’t make any guarantees.

Another night passed. Waking up in the morning, Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu ate breakfast and then headed straight for Yellow Mud Ridge.

Once on the ridge, they began to check their snares.

Some snares were untouched. This meant the rabbit hadn’t come back—either it had been eaten by a predator or caught by someone else.

It was already the third day, so Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu collected these kinds of snares.

Other snares had been knocked over. You could see the rabbit tracks veering away from the snare, not following the original path but running off to the side.

After all, no one could guarantee a rabbit would definitely plunge headfirst into a snare. If it wasn’t caught but just brushed against the trap, it would surely get spooked at the moment of contact and change its course.

Of course, there were also those that ran straight into the snares.

Once caught in a snare, they usually didn’t get far before freezing to death in the snow.

Over an hour later, Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu met up. Zhao Jun had collected three rabbits, and Li Baoyu had two.

Five rabbits in total, some big, some small. Some weighed three or four pounds, others five or six. Li Baoyu was overjoyed.

The two of them started down the ridge. Zhao Jun pointed to the southern slope. "Baoyu, you take the south side, I’ll take the north."

"Alright," Li Baoyu answered, heading down the southern slope.

He hadn’t gone far down the southern slope when he spotted rabbit tracks. Following them a little ways, he saw the marks of a stick being dragged through the snow.

Li Baoyu knew this meant a rabbit was in a snare. ’No doubt about it, another big rabbit for me!’ he thought.

Li Baoyu followed the trail. The woods ahead were dense, and the rabbit was stuck between two green poplars.

Li Baoyu walked up, dropped the gunnysack from his shoulder onto the snow, and picked up the rabbit. He unwound the wire from the stick, tossed the stick aside, and then wrapped the wire directly around the frozen rabbit. After making sure the wire wouldn’t snag the sack, he stuffed the rabbit inside.

Having collected the rabbit and the snare, Li Baoyu slung the gunnysack over his shoulder. As he did, he glanced up and suddenly saw a hole in the green poplar!

"Ah!" Li Baoyu stared. He saw white frost ringing the hole. He immediately turned and ran, shouting as he went, "Brother! Brother!"