Chapter 28: Fire Oil and the Bucket

In our country's traditional archery, almost everyone uses the hooking technique like Li You; one must pay close attention to the word "hook," and absolutely must not "pinch" the string.

Besides Li You's technique, the more mainstream method is the "Three-Finger Archery Method," which uses the index, middle, and ring fingers when drawing the bow; to prevent the rapidly recoiling string from injuring the fingers upon release, the archer must wear a three-finger tab for protection.

During the Hundred Years' War, the French army, in revenge against the English longbowmen, wished to chop off their middle fingers so they could not shoot arrows, so they often roared about chopping off the middle fingers of English longbowmen.

Upon hearing this, the English longbowmen took it as a glory; on the battlefield, they would always raise their middle fingers to the French army first, proving their middle fingers were still there, urging them to chop quickly, as a provocation; this is the origin of the modern "raising the middle finger."

"Whoosh..."

After Li You released the string, his right hand touched behind his ear, and his left hand reflexively pressed the bow tip; his heart immediately grew joyful.

There is a saying in the Way of Archery: "True shooting must hit," which explains this principle; often, before the arrow even lands on the target, the archer knows whether it will hit just by letting go.

If one discovers their form is incorrect, they know without looking that the arrow will not hit.

Li You's shot this time was spiritually complete and qi-sufficient, flawless; after releasing and pressing the bow tip, he knew it would surely hit.

Sure enough, with a "whoosh," the arrow pierced the string and flew out; the entire head of the furry rat that had been on the persimmon tree earlier sank into the big persimmon fruit; hearing the sound of the bowstring, it finally pulled its head out, but it was already too late...

With a "bang," the pitch-black, cold arrowhead pierced into its waist, going straight through and still retaining momentum, knocking down two branches as thick as a wrist before finally falling into the earthen slope over there.

"Dear Mother, he really drew the bow? This is a hard bow of over ten jin of force!"

Wa Qingyun, originally at the foot of the opposite hillside, could not hear the conversation over here, but when the bowstring sounded, he reflexively looked over, just in time to see Li You's posture of releasing the string, followed immediately by an arrow hitting the furry rat over a hundred paces away!

This simply left him completely stunned; what kind of divine strength was this?

Able to kill people, able to heal people, and now able to draw such a heavy bow?

One must know that the Dragon Spine Bow remained in the hands of the Lame Liu not only because of Liu's spirit of "bow exists, I exist," regarding it as a family heirloom, but also because no one in the stronghold, from top to bottom, could draw this bow.

Even Shi Dayong, Niu Jinku, and their group unanimously agreed that this bow was simply not meant for humans to draw!

Yet this bow was drawn by a Li You who did not look particularly strong, and so easily, so accurately!

"It must be innate divine strength!"

Wa Qingyun only came to his senses after seeing Li You rush quickly toward the persimmon tree; he rubbed his face and hurriedly continued searching.

Everyone had gained something today; he could not be the only one returning empty-handed and losing face before Master Li.

Li You naturally did not know Wa Qingyun's mental changes; after he hit one furry rat, the other, startled, quickly descended the tree.

Li You did not draw the bow again; he dropped it and chased after it in a flash; he did not intend to catch the furry rat, but rather to see exactly where it hid, for this furry rat was best at hoarding winter provisions, and its winter storage in the den must be plentiful.

"There... there..."

Hei Liuzi had sharp eyes and nimble feet, following closely behind Li You; Xiao Juzi was not even as tall as the mugwort grass, so naturally she could not catch up to the two of them, yet she looked anxious and struggled to rush forward.

"Hmm, I'm watching!"

Li You watched closely, but the furry rat seemed to know Li You's thoughts; for a while it simply would not enter the den, finally leaping into the mountain forest, quickly climbing a tree, and then soaring among the treetops like riding clouds.

"You damn thing, playing with me!"

Li You wanted to draw his bow, but upon touching his back, he realized he had thrown the bow behind him long ago.

"Sigh, so frustrating..."

Li You sighed and was about to turn around when he suddenly saw a grayish animal with a body like a wolf-dog but a pig's snout, staring directly at him at the foot of the mountain.

"A wild boar piglet!"

Li You immediately froze; he was extremely familiar with this creature from his past life and present life.

The wild boar piglet is the animal farmers hate most for ruining crops; when eating corn, it is particularly clever, always using its neck to bump the corn stalks to test if the corn cobs are big enough; only if they are big enough does it uproot the corn to eat.

For this reason, in his past life, he often stayed in the fields with his grandfather guarding the corn.

At the same time, because it favors the crop corn the most, its meat is precious, and it is also a valuable medicinal herb; under normal circumstances, it is very difficult to capture. Adults weigh around twenty jin; many people mistake it for a small wild boar, but its meat is far tastier than the dry, gamey meat of wild boars.

Li You's heart surged with excitement; he slowly squatted down to pick up a stone, then suddenly arched his body and smashed it toward the wild boar piglet's head...

But at such close range, he actually missed; the wild boar piglet was startled, grunted a curse, turned around, and burrowed into the small earthen hole behind it!

"Ah, it went into the hole... hahaha..."

Li You truly did not know what to say; this was completely just selling its meat.

He hurriedly walked a few steps to the cave entrance and sat cross-legged; tilting his head to observe, the entrance was as thick as the pickled vegetable jar Wa Qingyun had given him; inside were dried leaves, very dry; at a depth of about half a meter, the earthen hole branched.

Li You knew this was the wild boar piglet's old trick: one was a fake hole to deceive, and the other was the real den for hiding.

But the wild boar piglet is very lazy; its fake hole is merely deceiving itself, because it is dug extremely shallow and can be distinguished by the naked eye!

"Smoke it out; I have never failed before!"

In his past life, Li You's family was poor; basically, in his memory, they had not bought meat before junior high school; occasionally eating meat meant his grandfather had taken him to the mountains to catch wild boar piglets.

Outside, even a wolf could not catch it, but once inside a hole, as long as smoke is used, this creature will only bury its head in the dirt, eventually being smoked to death or smoked unconscious inside.

"Hei Liuzi, don't come closer; go quickly fetch Brother Liu's bucket; I need to use it!" Li You shouted to Hei Liuzi, who had just caught up.

"Okay!" Hei Liuzi replied, then turned and went back.

Li You had placed the bucket of fire oil where he had met Yu Zhengchun earlier; the distance was not close, yet Hei Liuzi was extremely nimble; making a round trip, he arrived before Li You at almost the same time as Xiao Juzi.

"Good! Little feet are diligent, making one feel pity... Eh?"

Li You patted Hei Liuzi's small head, but upon looking closely, he saw there was not a single drop of fire oil in the bucket.

Li You panicked; he clearly remembered that when he placed it on the roadside stone, there was still more than half a bucket of fire oil inside!

"Where is the fire oil? Where is the stuff inside?"

"I poured it out! If I didn't... carrying it over such a distance, do you think I'm stupid?"

"I need the fire oil; why did you pour it out?"

"Didn't you say you needed the bucket? Isn't what I brought the bucket?"

"What would I do with just the bucket? I definitely need to use the fire oil to smoke out the wild boar piglet!"

"Then why did you say you needed the bucket?"

Hei Liuzi paused, tilting his head like a husky, and looked at Li You, saying: "Master, you clearly said you needed oil just now, but now you say you need the bucket!"

"I... you... damn..."

Li You's heart instantly twisted with excruciating pain...