The Entire Mountain Is My Hunting Ground

Zhao Jun squatted, leaning against a large oak tree. Fifteen or sixteen meters behind him were four wild boars—two large, two small.

To his left were two more wild boars, one large and one small. Both had their backs to him, heads turned the other way, snouts buried in the snow as they rooted for acorns.

Another small wild boar had somehow run from Zhao Jun’s right side to his front, heading in Li Baoyu’s direction.

Seeing this, Li Baoyu quickly ducked behind the large red pine where Zhao Jun had been standing just moments before.

The little boar ran seven or eight meters, then lowered its head and started pawing at the snow again.

At this moment, this yellow-hair was no more than twenty meters away from Zhao Jun.

Boars to the front, back, and left!

Zhao Jun had snuck right into the middle of the sounder.

Zhao Jun watched the constantly swaying porcine rumps and tails before him. He calmly glanced to his left, and seeing that the two boars there hadn’t turned around, he boldly looked behind him.

Among the four boars, he saw one Cannon Egg and an old sow.

Zhao Jun immediately lifted the rifle standing by his feet and flicked off the safety. As he spun out from behind the tree, the gun was already at his cheek.

Aiming at the Big Cannon Egg rooting in the snow, Zhao Jun fired twice. BANG! BANG!

A pained squeal erupted from the boar. Without even checking the result, Zhao Jun pivoted, turning his rifle south.

To the south were two wild boars, one large and one small.

Startled by the gunshots, the boars flinched and were about to bolt down the mountain.

But Zhao Jun had already aimed at the sow, weighing around two hundred and twenty pounds. As it turned, its entire body was exposed in his sights.

BANG!

With the crack of the rifle, the old sow dropped directly onto the snow, while the yellow-hair next to it took off running.

Zhao Jun spun back around. The Little Yellow that had been facing Li Baoyu’s direction had now turned to face him.

Having heard three gunshots in quick succession, the small boar was filled with nothing but terror. It took two steps toward Zhao Jun, then suddenly started running in circles, trying to get around the rifle-wielding hunter.

BANG!

Another shot!

The little boar fell into the snow without even letting out a whimper.

Zhao Jun looked back and scanned his surroundings. Three wild boars lay on the snow; the other four were long gone.

Without turning his head, Zhao Jun yelled, "Baoyu, come on! Time to gut them!"

Li Baoyu ran out from behind the red pine and all the way to Zhao Jun’s side. He was even more excited than Zhao Jun, grabbing his arm and saying ecstatically, "Brother, that was incredible!"

Zhao Jun laughed, pulled his arm free, and said, "Let’s get to gutting. Hurry up."

The workload was heavy today, so Zhao Jun didn’t let Li Baoyu do it alone. In a rare move, he also took out his Invasion Blade.

He flipped the Little Yellow over, placed the blade at its neck, and slowly sliced downwards.

He gutted it, drained the blood, and hung the intestines and stomach on a nearby tree branch.

This wasn’t an offering to the Mountain God. It was to let them freeze faster. Once they were somewhat solid, he would take them down and stuff them into the belly of the Cannon Egg.

"What’s this for...?" Li Baoyu asked from the side.

Without looking up, Zhao Jun said, "To take back and feed the dogs."

"We’re dragging this one?" Hearing that, Li Baoyu realized Zhao Jun intended to drag the Cannon Egg back. He said in surprise, "My uncle is getting a vehicle tomorrow anyway. Why don’t we just drag a small one back instead?"

It wasn’t that Li Baoyu wanted to be lazy. If it were just one boar, they would simply drag it. But with three of them, the two could drag one home and leave the rest for Zhao Youcai to pick up with Lin Xiangshun’s vehicle tomorrow.

They could even drag none of them back. For one, their two families weren’t short on meat. And for another, since a vehicle was coming tomorrow, why not just haul all three back at once?

But from the looks of it, Zhao Jun not only wanted to drag one back, but he was insistent on taking the big one. Li Baoyu couldn’t figure it out.

"Less talk, more rope!" Zhao Jun didn’t bother explaining. He just told Li Baoyu to get the rope and tie up the boar.

He was the older brother; what he said went. Li Baoyu could only take the ropes from his satchel. They tied two ropes to the Big Cannon Egg’s four legs and began to drag it down the mountain.

As the two of them dragged the boar home, Zhao Jun spent the whole way teaching Li Baoyu his experience in stalking wild boars.

"Baoyu, you have to remember this. When wild boars are feeding, if you hear them CRUNCH, CRUNCH, chewing from a distance, and HUFF, HUFF sounds from their mouths, you can slowly move forward.

"But the moment you hear them SNIFF, SNIFF, you have to freeze. If you move, you won’t get a shot. They won’t stop running until three or four in the afternoon."

"Ah! I’ve got it." Li Baoyu committed Zhao Jun’s words to memory. Then he asked, "So, Brother, how did you manage to sneak right into the sounder today?"

Zhao Jun smiled. "We got lucky with the weather. The wind was blowing hard, so even if we made a little noise, the boars couldn’t hear it."

...

When the two entered the village, the villagers saw they’d brought back a wild boar and all gathered around to help Zhao Jun get it home.

There was an old hunter’s saying: the Mountain Wealth cannot be kept for oneself.

Besides, in those days, wild boar and Black Bear meat didn’t fetch a high price. As long as there were no grudges, any fellow villager who came to help out, no matter how much or little they did, would be given some meat to take home.

The crowd dragged the boar to the doorstep of Zhao Jun’s family home. Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu dropped their two Invasion Blades, then went to their respective houses to get kitchen knives from Wang Meilan and Jin Xiaomei.

More than twenty villagers showed up. They helped skin the boar, butcher the meat into pieces, and then moved it all into the storeroom at Zhao Jun’s house.

Afterward, Wang Meilan gave each of them a few pounds of meat, and they all left satisfied.

This Cannon Egg originally weighed over three hundred and eighty pounds. After skinning and butchering, less than three hundred and thirty pounds of meat remained. Nearly one hundred and ten pounds of that was given away, leaving about one hundred and ten pounds.

After seeing the villagers off, Wang Meilan invited Li Baoyu and Jin Xiaomei into her house to chat.

Wang Meilan said to Jin Xiaomei, "Little Sister, take as much of this meat as you want. We can’t possibly eat it all ourselves."

Jin Xiaomei nodded. "Alright. I’ll send a message for my brother to come and get some tomorrow."

Hearing this, Zhao Jun said, "Auntie, don’t take this one. Wait for my uncle to come and give him the sow meat."

"There’s a sow too?" Both Wang Meilan and Jin Xiaomei were stunned. It turned out the two boys had gone up the mountain and bagged two boars in a single morning. They were truly impressive.

Li Baoyu grinned from the side. "Not just a sow, there’s a yellow-hair, too."

"What? A yellow-hair too?" Wang Meilan asked in astonishment. "How many did you get?"

"Three!" Zhao Jun made a gesture to his mother.

"My, you’ve really gotten good," Wang Meilan praised, her admiration genuine this time.

Jin Xiaomei agreed. "Sister-in-law, with Zhao Jun’s skill, it wouldn’t be too much to buy him his own gun."

"Mom, my skills are pretty good too." Hearing this, Li Baoyu immediately sidled up to Jin Xiaomei and said, "You should buy me a gun too."

"In your dreams," Jin Xiaomei retorted. She suddenly remembered something and asked, "If you two got three boars, why didn’t you drag a small one back? The meat from a yellow-hair is so much tastier, isn’t it?"

In the past, Jin Xiaomei wouldn’t have been picky. Just having meat to eat was good enough, whether it was from a Cannon Egg or a yellow-hair.

But since the beginning of winter, their family hadn’t been short on meat. They’d been eating bear, wild boar, and roe deer in rotation.

Eating like that would make anyone’s palate picky.

As soon as Jin Xiaomei said this, Li Baoyu felt a surge of agreement. "I said we should drag the yellow-hair back too, but my brother wouldn’t let me! He insisted on dragging the big one."

Zhao Jun smiled. "If we’d dragged the yellow-hair back, what would have been left for us after everyone took their share?"

Li Baoyu wasn’t convinced. "What about the sow, then?"

Hearing this, Zhao Jun chuckled. "See? None of us really like the meat from a Cannon Egg, so we just gave it to them. They’ve already taken their share of meat today, so how could they have the nerve to come back for more tomorrow? This way, we get to keep the yellow-hair and the sow all for ourselves."

Wang Meilan stared at her son with even greater surprise. After a long moment, she said, "You’ve gotten cunning, boy."

’That doesn’t really sound like a compliment from Mom,’ Zhao Jun mused, so he didn’t reply.

Seeing Zhao Jun didn’t respond, Wang Meilan felt a little disappointed. But then she remembered something and said to Jin Xiaomei, "Little Sister, I had an idea. What do you think?"

"Go ahead, Sister-in-law."

"The New Year’s pig slaughter is coming up, and neither of our families raised a pig. Since the boys brought back so many wild ones, why don’t we just use these for our New Year’s pigs?"