Chapter 247: Not suitable for hunting, suitable for ambush

When Li Long climbed up, the sky was already bright.

He hurriedly rubbed his face, put on his clothes, and went out with his gun.

There was no time to eat; Li Long just went to the small room to take a piece of dried meat the size of a palm, and while chewing it laboriously, he hurried into the mountains.

Although the sun hadn't risen yet, the sky was already bright. Usually at this time, the wild boar herd had already finished their foraging and were running into the mountains.

There was still dew on the tips of the grass. Li Long was anxious and walked straight through it. Soon his trouser legs were wet, sticking to his legs coldly, which was very uncomfortable.

The yellow rubber shoes were also soaked through, and his feet wearing socks felt like they were stepping on a bag of water, slipping with every step, which was very awkward.

But he couldn't care about all this. Li Long hurried all the way, rushing to the place where the hot spring was located.

In fact, he already had a vague feeling in his heart that there was a high probability of walking in vain this trip.

But no matter what, he had to make a trip; it was nothing more than a few kilometers of road.

If you want to eat meat, are you afraid of hard work?

People in the village don't even have the opportunity to have such things.

Thinking this way in his heart, Li Long entered the gully where the hot spring was located, and his speed slowed down.

He was afraid that his movements would be too big and scare the prey that might exist.

He hurried to the location of the pools, but he still startled a pheasant that was drinking water here.

The sound of wings flapping echoed in the valley.

Li Long looked around the pool area. He was pleasantly surprised to find that there were indeed hoof prints of animals, but not many, and they were not in groups.

So, could it be that a large group of animals hadn't come over yet?

Hope arose, and Li Long's mood immediately improved. He carried his gun, turned around, went to the ambush position he had thought of beforehand, and squatted down.

There was a tree here that just happened to block his figure, and there were some weeds nearby, so squatting down could avoid being seen.

The wind direction in the gully was downstream, there was no crosswind, and because the hot spring itself had a sulfur smell, he didn't worry about the smell being discovered by animals.

Perfect.

At this moment, Li Long felt hungry. He continued to chew the dried meat. This thing was very hard after being air-dried, and it was very tiring to chew, but after chewing it soft, he found that the taste was not bad.

A few wild rabbits came to the water's edge. They didn't drink water, but played here, jumped for a while, and then left.

Li Long didn't care about these; the meat was too little, and there was no oil.

After a while, a few birds flew over, but they only stayed for a moment and then left.

Next, the sun rose, and the sunlight shone through the trees, shining on the dew on the tips of the grass, creating golden halos, which looked quite beautiful.

Suddenly having time to appreciate these subtle landscapes, Li Long felt that this life was actually quite good.

It was much better than lying on the sofa in his previous life and constantly swiping short videos.

He lowered his head and found that in the moss not far from his feet, there was actually a morel—shouldn't morels be out of season? Why are there still some?

Is it a fish that slipped through the net?

Li Long guessed, thinking that he would pick this mushroom later and take it back to make a soup, and then he heard a huffing and puffing sound.

He looked towards the hot spring and saw a few roe deer rushing out of the forest, jumping and coming to the edge of the hot spring pool.

One of the roe deer's legs seemed to be injured, just standing on the edge, and the hair on the other two had fallen off for the most part; they should have had skin diseases or infectious diseases, which was very ugly.

After these two roe deer came to the edge of the hot spring, they jumped down directly; it looked like they were already familiar with it.

Li Long could see that these three roe deer were considered young, a bit bigger than a two-year-old sheep, but not much bigger, and their weight was about 20 kilograms, not yet steady.

The hot spring pool itself wasn't deep, reaching the roe deer's thighs. After they went down, they squatted down, letting the water submerge their whole bodies.

Li Long raised his gun. There were three roe deer, and he was hesitating about which one to hit.

Hit the one on the shore first?

After hitting the one on the shore, if the one in the pool didn't run out, maybe he could hit another one.

Li Long had planned his plan, so he slowly aimed the muzzle at the roe deer on the shore that was licking its wound from time to time.

Just at this moment, a sound suddenly rang out in the forest again.

Those few roe deer were startled all at once, and the one on the shore rushed directly towards the forest. Li Long didn't pull the trigger, and didn't even look at the source of those sounds. He wasn't confident in hitting such fast-running roe deer, so he aimed at a roe deer climbing out of the pool.

If the skin is bad, so be it; it's better than nothing!

"Bang!"

After one shot, the roe deer that had climbed halfway up tilted its body and fell into the pool.

The blood dyed the pool red all at once.

Li Long didn't even look at it again, turned the muzzle, and aimed at the direction of the previous sound.

A dozen wild boars had just rushed out of the forest. The first few yellow-haired ones had already rushed into the stream and were swimming towards the pool side. The mother pig, the large wild boar, and seven or eight small wild boars behind were rushing into the stream. Hearing the gunshot, a few stopped to see what was going on, and the smart ones had already turned their heads and ran into the forest!

"Bang bang! Bang bang!"

Li Long started shooting at the wild boars still swimming in the stream.

The position wasn't very good, so aiming was a bit awkward. After shooting several shots, Li Long finally shot a wild boar dead in the water, and the rest had already rushed out of the shallow stream and scattered into the forest.

Li Long could even hear the sound of wild boars hitting trees and the sound of stones they stepped on rolling down.

That roe deer was still in the pool, the blood was still being washed by the water, and more than half of the stream below was red.

The wild boar was washed slowly downstream by the water flow, and then it was stuck by stones.

This wild boar wasn't big either, about 40 kilograms. Actually, Li Long was quite satisfied.

Not to mention that it's not good to eat if it's too big, and it's not easy for him to take it back.

Hunting alone in the mountains has this disadvantage: it's not convenient to take things back.

Actually, if he had been a bit more precise just now, he should have been able to hit another wild boar.

But he didn't shoot; shooting would just tire himself out.

Going to the water pool, Li Long pulled the roe deer out.

This was a male roe deer, with velvet antlers a palm long on its head, and the hair on its body was scarred; it should have had a skin disease.

He didn't know if the acquisition station would accept such a skin. Carrying the roe deer downstream, he walked to the wild boar, put down the roe deer, and fished out the wild boar.

Li Long put the right front leg and left hind leg together, lifted them with one hand, felt it wasn't particularly heavy, so he carried the gun on his back, shouldered the wild boar, carried the roe deer with the other hand, and hurried downstream with big strides.

It was only after walking out of this gully that he remembered he hadn't taken that morel—then let it return to nature; maybe more will grow next year.

After resting twice in the middle, Li Long returned to the wooden house before 10 o'clock.

It was quite tiring.

Panting heavily.

The wooden boards and cutting boards were already full of drying mushrooms. Li Long rested for a while, first took a piece of dried steamed bun, dipped it in red bean curd, and finished it, then rested for a while, carried the wild boar and roe deer, and went to the stream to process them.

Disembowel, two basins filled with internal organs and offal, skin removed, meat not unloaded, it would be easy to take down the mountain later.

Mainly because it's troublesome for one person to turn the intestines.

The stomach is easier to handle; take it out, cut it open, and wash it with flowing water. Anyway, it still needs to be washed when eating in the end.

Eating meat in the mountains, even if it's roasted, Li Long tries to make it cooked, not to mention boiled.

！.

After all, in the entire Tianshan mountain area, hydatid disease is high-incidence. If there are hydatid eggs in the meat, simple roasting won't kill them.

After processing the internal organs and offal, Li Long looked at the small basin of lard and shook his head. It's already July, why don't this roe deer and wild boar have any fat?

But it's not bad to have some.

The roe deer's whip was cut off separately; he didn't know if Li Xiangqian would want it later.

Logically speaking, he should be able to return now. But Li Long remembered Lv Dafeng, so he soaked the meat first, and then carried a wild boar leg to the place where he kept bees.

The weather was clear, and the bees were working hard to collect nectar. When Li Long saw the tent, he saw Lv Dafeng wearing a wind hood and flipping through the bees in the beehive there.

"Is there honey?" Li Long shouted loudly. He was carrying a bloody wild boar leg in his hand and didn't dare to approach.

"Yes, yes." Lv Dafeng saw it was Li Long, smiled, put down the bee board, and said:

"I cut a batch of honey yesterday, not much, but the honey is especially good."

As he spoke, he went into the tent and took out two bottles.

"One bottle is honey, one bottle is pollen. Most of the honey hasn't been sealed yet. When it's sealed, I'll cut it and bring it to you." Lv Dafeng looked much more energetic, "Comrade Li, I don't want this meat; the one you left last time hasn't been finished yet."

"Keep it, pickle it if you have salt; no one can say when the next hunt will be." Li Long said, "I'll take the honey..."

"Um. This pollen can be eaten dry, or mixed with honey; it's good for women." Lv Dafeng said.

Li Long nodded, indicating he understood. In his previous life, there was a lot of marketing for pollen, and some even used it directly as a facial mask.

Carrying this bottle of more than 2 kilograms of honey, Li Long returned to the wooden house, collected all the semi-dried mushroom slices, put them into a sack, and also packed the wild boar meat, roe deer meat, and internal organs, put them on the bicycle, carried them, and went out of the mountains.

He first went to the large courtyard. Today is Monday, and at this time, Gu Xiaoxia was still at work. Li Long put the meat and internal organs in a basin, continued to soak them with water, and then took that sack of mushroom slices to the acquisition station.

"Xiao Long, it's my fault for not making it clear to you." Chen Hongjun looked at Li Long very happily, but after seeing those dried mushrooms, he said with an apologetic look:

"The black tiger palm mushrooms we collect must be whole mushrooms, not the sliced kind. You sliced them, so we don't know what the original shape was, and it's not easy to grade them. Customers don't accept them like this either."

"Then that's fine." Li Long wasn't too disappointed, "I didn't ask clearly at the time; it's a habit to slice mushrooms when drying them, it's convenient to eat. Then I'll just dry the whole head of this kind of mushroom later—but to be honest, it's not easy to dry them like that, and it's not easy to eat them."

"Then you don't have to worry about it." Chen Hongjun said with a smile, "The grading from above is like this. As long as you bring them, I'll collect them. Are there many mushrooms in the mountains?"

"Many, there are quite a lot. It's just the season."

Li Long took out more than 2 kilograms of dried mushrooms from the sack and placed them on the counter:

"Comrade Chen, since you don't collect them, I'll take them back and eat them myself. I'll give these to you; the taste of this mushroom is still quite good."

"It's indeed not bad, then thank you." Chen Hongjun didn't decline either. He had been dealing with Li Long for a while and knew that this young man was generous, and he also liked to communicate with such young men.

Li Long left the acquisition station and rode his bike to the supply and marketing cooperative, leaving some dried mushrooms for Li Xiangqian, asking him to pass some on to Old Man Li who used to watch the door.

Now the person watching the door had been changed to a young man. Li Long also asked before he knew that Old Man Li's health hadn't been good these days, so he hadn't come out.

Returning to the large courtyard, Li Long estimated that Gu Xiaoxia was about to get off work, so he started cooking.

There were quite a few things brought back, so Li Long steamed rice, stir-fried a roe deer meat, and stir-fried a mushroom meat.

When Gu Xiaoxia rode her bike to the entrance of the large courtyard and saw the lock wasn't there, she was startled at first, and then happy: Li Long had said that only the two of them had the key, so Li Long was back?

Pushing the door open, she smelled the fragrance of the food. Gu Xiaoxia was both happy and ashamed.

In this era, that kind of traditional concept was still quite stubborn; usually, it was the woman who cooked, even if the woman had a job, she would still cook and look after the children after work. The man would at most help out.

Now that she came back and had ready-made food to eat, how could she not be surprised?

"Back?" Li Long had just finished serving the stir-fried mushroom meat, and seeing Gu Xiaoxia standing there pushing her bike and staring at him, he said with a smile:

"What are you stunned for? Hurry up and put the bike away, wash your hands, and eat. Is my timing accurate? You just entered the house and it's time to eat... hehe, come and taste my craftsmanship! I shot the roe deer meat this morning, the taste should be not bad..."

Li Long said while placing the food on the dining table.

Seeing Gu Xiaoxia still not moving, Li Long asked suspiciously:

"What's wrong? Were you wronged at work?"

"No... no." Gu Xiaoxia then hurriedly went to put away the bike and wash her hands. When she got to the dining table, she looked at Li Long and said:

"You are too good to me!"

"Isn't it expected for me to be good to you? You're going to be my wife soon." Li Long said with a smile, "You are also quite good to me."

"Then I'm not as good as you..." Gu Xiaoxia lowered her head.

"That's the same." Li Long somewhat understood Gu Xiaoxia's mood and said with a smile:

"I have time. If you have time, you will also be good to me; I definitely believe this, don't you think?"

Gu Xiaoxia nodded vigorously.

She felt that compared to the two colleagues in the office who were nagging about all kinds of annoying things at home, she was really too happy.

"After eating, we'll both rest, then you go to work, and I'll leave some meat here, then take some back, leave some at your dad's, and leave some at my brother's." Li Long said while eating, "The family should be reaping wheat, I'll leave as soon as I finish... I don't want to stay and reap wheat, it's too tiring! Just thinking about it is terrifying!"

"I don't want to either..." Thinking of those wheat awns, Gu Xiaoxia felt itchy all over, and her attention was diverted, "Such a big sun... although I know hard work is meaningful, I really don't want to experience it!"

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 248 =====