The Entire Mountain Is My Hunting Ground

The man who arrived was young, about the same age as Li Baoyu. He rushed into the house and collapsed before Yang Mantang, sobbing.

The moment the man said his older brother was gone, Zhao Jun understood he had come to report a death. But as he looked at him, Zhao Jun felt as though he had seen him somewhere before.

However, since he had been reborn, his memories of people he hadn’t known well in his past life had already grown blurry.

Yang Mantang steadied the man and asked loudly, "Guangjun, what did you say happened to Guangmin?"

By the time Yang Mantang asked his question, the man was sobbing too hard to speak.

’Guangjun? Hu Guangjun, Hu Guangmin?’ Hearing the names Guangjun and Guangmin, Zhao Jun finally recognized the man before him.

Hu Guangjun kept crying without a word. Anxious, Yang Mantang hauled him up from the floor, grabbed him by the shoulders, and gave him a hard shake. "Just say it! What happened to Guangmin?"

As the saying goes, concern clouds one’s judgment.

Hu Guangjun had already said it clearly—his older brother was gone.

But Yang Mantang simply refused to believe his own ears.

"Brother-in-law, my older brother... my older brother is dead!" Hu Guangjun’s words were clear this time. Yang Mantang’s eyes widened, and he collapsed onto the edge of the heated brick bed.

Li Baoyu glanced at Zhao Jun, giving him a look that said, ’Given the situation, maybe we should leave.’

But Zhao Jun shook his head.

Just then, Yang Mantang asked Hu Guangjun in a hoarse voice, "But... wasn’t Guangmin doing fine this morning before he went to the hospital?"

"It was tetanus!" Hu Guangjun wailed. "My eldest sister called and said... he was gone just moments after arriving at the hospital."

Yang Mantang closed his eyes and heaved a long sigh. "Don’t cry," he said. "Let’s hurry to the hospital."

"There’s no need," Hu Guangjun said, wiping his tears as he sobbed. "They’re bringing my brother back in a little while."

It made sense. He was already dead, so what was the point of leaving his body at the hospital? It was time to bring him home.

The rims of Yang Mantang’s eyes were red. He blinked hard, trying to will the tears away.

Suddenly, he noticed Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu sitting off to one side. Only then did he remember he still had guests.

"My friends," Yang Mantang said, his voice hoarse. "You can see... we have a family matter today. I won’t keep you."

Though his words were meant to send them away, anyone could hear that there was no malice in them.

But upon hearing this, Zhao Jun didn’t get up. Instead, he asked, "Brother, were you talking about Hu Guangmin just now?"

Yang Mantang paused, surprised. "You know him?"

Zhao Jun nodded. "Yes, we were classmates."

Although Hu Guangmin was four years older than Zhao Jun, he had constantly been held back in elementary school. He would attend for two years, then take two years off. After finishing second grade, he took a two-year break, and he took another two years off before starting fifth grade. In the end, he and Zhao Jun started middle school in the same year.

In middle school, they were not only in the same class but were also deskmates.

On the sixth day of the second semester of seventh grade, Hu Guangmin finally dropped out of school for good. Zhao Jun fared only slightly better, making it to the ninth day of the semester—he’d lasted three days longer than Hu Guangmin.

Though they weren’t classmates in middle school for long, they had been deskmates from the first day of seventh grade until the day they both dropped out, and they had gotten along very well.

Zhao Jun remembered one time when Zhang Laibao’s older sister had gathered more than a dozen people to beat him up, and Hu Guangmin had jumped in, taking several kicks for him.

After they dropped out, however, the two rarely saw each other.

Zhao Jun suddenly recalled his past life. By the time he’d heard the news of Hu Guangmin’s death back then, he had already been gone for over six months. Zhao Jun had always wanted to visit Hu Guangmin’s family to pay his respects, but he never got the chance.

He had only heard through rumors that Hu Guangmin had been taken down by a Black Bear.

"Guangmin and I were classmates," Zhao Jun said to Yang Mantang. He then walked over to steady Hu Guangjun. "I’m Zhao Jun, from Yong’an Village. You and Guangmin visited my house one year."

"Zhao Jun..." Hu Guangjun looked him over, memories of the past surfacing. The thought of his brother returned, and a fresh torrent of tears streamed down his face.

Hearing that they were acquaintances, Li Baoyu quickly stepped forward to help Zhao Jun comfort Hu Guangjun and Yang Mantang.

Now that he was with an old acquaintance, Hu Guangjun let his guard down and told Zhao Jun the full story of how his brother, Hu Guangmin, had met his end.

There were four siblings in the Hu family. Over a decade ago, their parents had passed away from illness, one after the other. Later, the eldest sister, Hu Guangli, married Yang Mantang. Their second brother, Hu Guangfa, also died young from sickness. That left the eldest brother, Hu Guangmin, to raise their youngest brother, Hu Guangjun. Even after Hu Guangmin started his own family, he continued to live with and support Hu Guangjun. 𝘧𝓇𝑒𝑒𝑤ℯ𝑏𝓃𝘰𝑣ℯ𝘭.𝘤ℴ𝘮

In fact, their family was also related to Hu Dajiang’s. ’Otherwise,’ Zhao Jun mused, ’Yang Mantang wouldn’t have given Black Dragon to Hu Dajiang in my past life.’

The Yang Family had been hunters since Yang Mantang’s grandfather’s generation. When the tradition was passed down to him, Yang Mantang continued to raise hounds and hunt.

The day before yesterday, Yang Mantang had gone into the Town to sell a Black Bear Gall. It was from a kill he’d made sometime between the start of winter and the New Year.

Yang Mantang was thirty-six years old and had watched the Hu brothers grow up. When Hu Guangli first married him, Hu Guangmin had just dropped out of school. Seeing Yang Mantang hunt and portion out the meat every day, he began to clamor to go hunting in the mountains with his brother-in-law.

Because he had spent ten years in elementary school, Hu Guangmin was already eighteen when he dropped out of seventh grade. From then on, he started following Yang Mantang into the mountains. After several years of practice, his Spear Technique had become quite good.

The day before yesterday, while Yang Mantang went down the mountain to sell the Bear Gall, Hu Guangmin took his spear and went up the mountain alone for a quick hunt. He was gone for two days and a night.

He didn’t return from the mountains until after dark last night, and even then, he had to be carried back.

He was found by a kind passerby. The man had gone up the mountain to gather logs for growing wood ear mushrooms and was on his way home when he spotted something crawling in the snow.