The Entire Mountain Is My Hunting Ground

When Xing Zhuyong and Li Hu heard the dogs start barking, they followed the sound and ran up the ridge. But not only were they running for nothing, seeing no sign of their prey, the problem was they could clearly hear the barking getting farther and farther away.

In other words, the farther up they ran, the more distant the prey became.

This could only mean one thing: the dogs hadn’t caught up to the prey and were now following it far into the distance.

Logically, a Black Bear shouldn’t be able to run that fast, especially not a pair of them—one large, one small.

As he was running, Xing Zhuyong suddenly stopped. He wanted to shout for Li Hu to stop too, but he couldn’t catch his breath. He took two huge gasps of air before looking up and yelling, "Elder San, stop running!"

Li Hu heard him and stopped in his tracks, nearly collapsing into the snow. He panted several times before making his way over to Xing Zhuyong. "What’s wrong, Brother? Why’d we stop?"

"Why? Just look!" Xing Zhuyong bent over, one hand on his knee, and pointed at the tracks on the ground.

Li Hu followed his finger and saw the tracks. He was so mad his nose practically twisted out of shape. "After all this time," he said testily, "we’ve been chasing roe deer!"

"What else?" Xing Zhuyong said. "Hurry up and whistle the dogs back."

"I’m too winded. You do it, Brother."

Resigned, Xing Zhuyong straightened up and whistled for his dogs.

As it turned out, his two dogs had never been on the Black Bears’ trail at all. They had found a herd of roe deer and had taken off after them.

Roe deer aren’t just known for being silly; they’re also called "snow-flyers." When they run at full tilt across the deep snow, even dogs can’t keep up. No wonder the barking had grown so distant.

"Brother, what kind of dogs are these, anyway?" Li Hu grumbled at Xing Zhuyong.

"What’s wrong with my dogs?" Xing Zhuyong shot back, annoyed. "Is it a bad thing for a dog to chase whatever it sees?"

Li Hu just scowled and said nothing more.

Before long, Xing Zhuyong’s two dogs came trotting back, one after the other. One sat and the other flopped down beside him. Steam rose from their fur as they panted heavily, mouths agape and tongues lolling out.

Once both men and dogs had rested enough, the pair led the dogs back to search for the tracks of the two Black Bears. When they found the trail, they resumed the hunt.

But the two dogs didn’t understand their master’s intent. More importantly, their sense of smell was poor; they couldn’t follow the tracks and pick out the Black Bears’ scent from the air.

As a result, the two dogs spent the entire day either chasing roe deer or flushing out rabbits. By dusk, they had caught nothing, and Xing Zhuyong and Li Hu finally realized the entire day had been a waste of time.

"Brother, don’t get mad at what I’m about to say, but what kind of useless dogs are these? We might as well strangle ’em and cook ’em for dinner!" On the way home, Li Hu complained nonstop. "We wasted the whole day running around. Think of all the work we could’ve gotten done!"

Xing Zhuyong felt he was in the wrong. It was true his dogs had proven useless and failed to track the Black Bears. It was only natural for Li Hu to complain.

As they neared home, Xing Zhuyong asked, "Brother, are we still going after them tomorrow?"

"We are!" Li Hu said without a moment’s hesitation. "We tracked them to the base of Wangmu Summit today. Tomorrow, we’ll set out early. This time, no dogs. We’ll just carry our guns and follow the trail. The second we get a clear shot, we’ll blast them!"

"Alright!" Xing Zhuyong agreed. ’That could work,’ he thought. Between the two of them, they had two guns. No matter how fierce those Black Bears were, they were bound to fall to their bullets.

Having made their decision, the two men returned to their respective homes to rest. The next morning, they were up just after six. They shoveled down a few bites of leftovers, pocketed some dried rations, and headed out.

They entered the mountains together and returned to the spot where they had last seen the Black Bears’ tracks. From there, they picked up the trail again.

Around ten o’clock, Li Hu suddenly spotted something dark moving in the woods up ahead.

"Brother, look! Is that them?"

"I think so..." Xing Zhuyong couldn’t see clearly either, just a dark shape weaving through the trees.

What should they do?

Shooting was out of the question. They couldn’t get a clear look. ’What if it’s a person?’

The two men quickened their pace to follow it. Strangely, when they sped up, the figure ahead sped up. When they slowed down, it slowed down too.

"Is that someone up ahead?!" Li Hu finally couldn’t take it anymore and yelled out.

The moment he shouted, the figure ahead moved even faster.

Suddenly, a dark shadow to their side caught their eyes.

One large, one small. Though they couldn’t see them clearly, there was no doubt it was the two Black Bears.

"Light ’em up!"

Li Hu raised his gun and fired, and Xing Zhuyong immediately fired a second shot.

After the two shots echoed through the woods, both men lowered their guns in frustration. They were too far away to have any hope of hitting their target.

"After them!"

The two men put their heads down and started chasing again. But there was no way they could outrun the Black Bears, especially since the pair didn’t stick to the ridge, instead choosing to cut across the slopes.

This made things miserable for Xing Zhuyong and Li Hu.

Going downhill would have been easy; they could have just slid down. But climbing up the steep inclines was brutal. If they tried to go around, it would take an eternity to catch up to the Black Bears.

They kept on like this until well past three in the afternoon. Exhausted and famished, they finally gave up when they couldn’t go on any longer and headed down the mountain for home.

This time, Li Hu didn’t complain. He was silent the entire way back. As they neared the village entrance, Xing Zhuyong asked him the same question he’d asked the day before: "Brother, are we going after them again tomorrow?"

"Again!" Li Hu gritted his teeth and stomped his foot, forcing the single word out. Then, as if making a stubborn vow, he added, "I refuse to believe we can’t take them down!"

Seeing his determination, Xing Zhuyong said, "Then let’s leave even earlier tomorrow."

"Earlier?"

"Right, even earlier," Xing Zhuyong said. "We’ll leave the house at five. We’ll get there before the Black Bears are even out of their den. We arrive, BANG BANG, two shots, and it’s all over."

Li Hu’s eyes lit up. ’That’s a great idea,’ he thought. ’Why didn’t I think of that sooner?’

The two discussed the plan a bit more before heading to their separate homes.

When Xing Zhuyong got home, Hu Erya saw he was empty-handed yet again and couldn’t help but start nagging him.

As for Xing Zhuyong, he suppressed his own frustration, endured Hu Erya’s verbal assault through dinner, and then went straight to bed.

A night passed. The next morning, well before dawn, Xing Zhuyong left his house with his gun slung over his back.

As he approached the village entrance, he saw Li Hu already waiting for him. They exchanged a brief greeting and then, without another word, headed straight for the mountains.

Once in the mountains, they returned to the spot where they had turned back the day before and picked up the trail once more.

They walked without stopping until about eight o’clock, when Li Hu finally spoke. "Brother, when we find them, let’s make sure we kill the big mother Black Bear, but leave the little one alive."

He immediately followed up, emphasizing, "Don’t shoot it!"

"Huh?" Xing Zhuyong was taken aback. "Why not?"

"Come on, Brother, are you dense?" Li Hu said. "How big can that Little Black Bear cub be? Its Bear Gall isn’t worth much, is it?"

"So we just let it go?" Xing Zhuyong was even more confused. Whether the Bear Gall was large or small, it was still worth money, wasn’t it?

’Something is better than nothing,’ he thought. ’Why wouldn’t we take it?’

"Let it go? We’re not Buddhists or anything," Li Hu snapped back, but then patiently began to explain his idea. "We capture it, chain it up, build a den for it in your backyard, and let it hibernate through the winter.

When spring comes, we can just feed it some leftover squash and potatoes to get by. We raise it for two years until it’s big, and *then* we kill it. By that time, its Bear Gall will be worth a fortune."

"Hey!" Xing Zhuyong’s eyes lit up. He pointed at Li Hu and laughed. "That’s a brilliant idea! It hibernates in the winter. By the time summer rolls around, the early potatoes, cucumbers, and persimmons will be ready. We can just feed it the bruised cucumbers and rotten persimmons.

In the fall, we can have our wives go up the mountain to gather Hardy kiwis, walnuts, and acorns to feed it. Then it hibernates again for the winter. Two years will fly by, eh?"

"Exactly. I’m telling you, Brother, how much can it really eat in two years? But after two years of growth, that Bear Gall will be worth a whole lot of money."

The two men walked on, lost in a pleasant daydream of raising the Little Black Bear for its gall and striking it rich. But in their reverie, neither of them noticed that the Black Bear tracks had vanished.

By the time they snapped out of it, they were standing before a fallen tree. It was a wind-snapped birch, blanketed in snow, lying directly across their path.

This very obstacle was what finally jolted the two daydreamers back to reality.

"Brother, something’s not right!" Li Hu said. "How did we lose the trail?"

Xing Zhuyong glanced behind him. In the ten meters of snow behind them, there were only their own two sets of footprints.

’Where did the Black Bear go?’

This was the only path up and down the mountain. Where else could it have gone? ’Did it grow wings and fly away?’

Just then, a deep GRUNT came from behind the fallen log.

Before the sound even faded, a Black Bear shot up onto the log. It didn’t pause for a second, launching itself down in a single motion, hurtling straight toward the two men.