Chapter 365

Wild boar bones are naturally not as tasty as domestic pig bones, but at a time like this, there's no point in being so picky. When the water boiled, foam floated on the surface of the soup, covering the bones. After Li Long finished his steamed bun, he took a spoon, skimmed the foam off, and flung it outside into the snow.

It's a crude method, but to lure those wolves over, it doesn't matter. Even if the wolves don't lick it up, it can wait until next year to nourish the green grass.

Of course, the truth is, he was just lazy.

After skimming the foam clean, Li Long found a pot lid to cover it, then took another steamed bun and placed it under the stove to toast.

The consumption of steamed buns has been a bit high these past two days; Li Long felt he should steam another batch—though he didn't know when Li Junshan and the others would be coming over. If they came early, shouldn't he be heading back?

No, better to wait until these few wolves are all dead before leaving—of course, that's assuming these wolves still intend to stay here and seek revenge on him.

He sliced a few pieces of ginger and threw them into the bone pot. Li Long searched around, found a few stalks of green onion, peeled them clean, twisted them into small sections, and tossed them in as well.

The next step is just to wait.

He didn't notice that the steamed bun under the stove had burned.

He felt a bit annoyed; how could he have not kept an eye on it?

He used a knife to scrape off the charred parts, then slowly broke it open and ate it bit by bit.

The charred parts tasted a bit bitter, but this food couldn't be wasted. There aren't many families nowadays who can eat fine flour every day. Most families in the village still use cornmeal as their staple food; occasionally eating a meal of white flour is a luxury.

That is why Li Juan and Qiangqiang are the envy of others—some time ago, Li Qiang was lectured by Liang Wenyu just because he brought a steamed bun to school and then traded his white flour bun for someone else's cornmeal cake—

In Liang Wenyu's eyes, this was clearly the behavior of a spendthrift. There was plenty of fine flour at home, enough to eat, but that was no reason to waste it.

Li Long heard about this incident later, and he just smiled after hearing it. Liang Wenyu wasn't wrong, and Li Qiang wasn't wrong either; it's just that the Li family's life had improved, creating a stark contrast with other families.

After finishing the bun, the bones weren't fully cooked yet, but the aroma of the meat had already drifted out. Li Long sprinkled some salt into the soup, and after it came to a boil again, he ladled out a bowl of soup and sipped it slowly.

Meat soup is still delicious!

After finishing the meat soup, Li Long stopped worrying about the bones and let them simmer, while he took the pig liver and pig heart, preparing to stir-fry the pig offal.

The pig liver and heart were slightly frozen and hard in the small room, which was perfect for slicing into thin pieces, filling an entire enamel basin.

He fished out the soaked chili peppers, washed them, chopped them up, and set them aside for later. Next was preparing the green onion, ginger, and garlic. He hadn't brought much ginger, so he had to use it sparingly—after all, unlike green onions and garlic, this stuff couldn't be grown in his own garden; it had to be bought, and there wasn't much available to buy.

Most families couldn't bear to buy it, after all, it costs money!

After finishing the preparations, Li Long lay half-reclined on the kang to rest.

The meat soup in the pot kept simmering. Li Long lay there for an hour or two. When he climbed up, he saw the soup was already half gone. He poked it with chopsticks and found the meat wasn't very tender yet, but there was nothing he could do.

There was no pressure cooker at this time; if he kept stewing it like this, it wouldn't be tender until midnight.

Li Long found some cloth gloves to pad his hands and took the pot off, setting it aside. Even with the gloves, his hands were burned, so he hurriedly went outside to grab a handful of snow to soothe the burning sensation.

Once the snow in his hand melted into water, Li Long grabbed another handful, held it for a while until it felt better, and went back inside. Seeing the fire in the stove had died down, he added some coal blocks, then set another pot on top. Once the pot was hot, he added oil, green onion, ginger, and garlic. After frying them until fragrant, he poured in the offal, stir-fried for a while, then added the chili peppers—the steps weren't standard, but Li Long liked doing it this way.

After stir-frying for a while, the aroma came out, and he added salt—there wasn't much else in the way of seasonings to add anyway, a handful of salt covers everything—as long as it's stir-fried until fragrant, it's fine.

After dishing it out, Li Long didn't taste it; he covered the stove, washed the pot, and planned to savor it slowly later.

The stove fire was strong, not suitable for toasting bun slices, so Li Long waited.

By the time he finished eating, the sky had already darkened, and the oil lamp was lit.

Li Long looked out through the window, but couldn't see anything.

After a simple cleanup, he blew out the oil lamp and leaned back on the kang to wait.

He couldn't fall asleep immediately after eating, and Li Long was still slightly excited.

They didn't come during the day; surely they would come in the middle of the night, right?

That's what he thought, but no one could say for sure what the reality would be, so Li Long just had to wait.

This wait lasted two hours. In between, Li Long looked outside several times, but didn't see any movement.

Are the wolves not coming?

If they really didn't come, Li Long would actually be relieved, but he was still a bit disappointed.

He had been hoping to wipe out the whole pack.

By the end, Li Long was already drowsy and about to fall asleep. At this point, he even thought, forget it, just sleep! Anyway, with those snares, even if he fell asleep, if a wolf got caught, it likely wouldn't be able to run away; he could just check the results tomorrow morning.

However, he was ultimately unwilling to give up, and he wasn't at ease. Just as he was about to fall asleep, he forced himself to climb up, grabbed his gun, and went to the window to look—and upon looking, he really saw something moving there!

Li Long was about to shout, but then he held back.

The figure didn't look like a wolf; it was a size smaller, like a fox.

Do foxes move at night?

That shouldn't be right!

Li Long watched the creature darting around nimbly. He didn't know why the snare hadn't caught it. The fox arrived at the spot where the wolf offal was, looked left and right, and began to lick it. Li Long could only see a dark, blurry outline and couldn't make out the fox's fur color—it was only a guess that it was a fox.

The fox licked for a while (the meat soup), clearly unsatisfied, and then began to gnaw on the internal organs. But the stuff was frozen solid and it couldn't bite through it, so it just circled around, trying to find a piece it could tear off.

Then the creature suddenly panicked and let out a "chi-chi" sound.

It was caught!

Li Long could barely see that the creature had its leg caught. It struggled desperately, and the more it struggled, the tighter it got; it couldn't break free—with its strength, it couldn't move the frozen-solid firewood.

Li Long held back and didn't go out. Anyway, this was already prey in the bag; it would be fine to go out tomorrow. He hadn't forgotten the plum-blossom paw prints on both sides of the door—who knew if there were wolves lurking on either side of the door right now?

Safety first!

Li Long held his gun without firing, not even aiming; he was certain the fox couldn't break free from the wire.

If it were a wolf, maybe it wouldn't be able to break free either?

But would a wolf appear?

Li Long couldn't be sure.

!.

Let's wait and see...

It appeared!

Just as Li Long was still thinking, a dark shadow, much larger than the fox, darted out from the right side of the wooden cabin and lunged at the fox!

Li Long became excited—the wolf clearly couldn't resist and had treated the fox as prey—with prey right in front of it, it still wanted to eat something alive.

The wolf lunged out and pinned the fox down in one go. The fox had already had its leg caught, and now being pinned by the wolf, it was extremely panicked. It probably knew that if it didn't fight back, it was dead for sure, so it actually bit the wolf back. He didn't know which part of the wolf it bit, but the wolf let out a low growl, and the fox took the opportunity to dart away—held back by the wire, it couldn't go far, just barely managing to escape the wolf's attack range for the moment.

How could the wolf let its prey at its doorstep escape? It immediately jumped up and lunged over, pinning the fox down again—and then, it was caught too!

The wolf's head had thrust into the upright wire snare—if the fox hadn't run here, it really wouldn't have fallen for the trap!

The wolf was clearly stronger than the fox. The moment it was caught, it immediately thrashed its head, trying to shake the snare off. However, thin wire is still wire, and besides, there were several strands twisted together; no matter how strong the wolf was, it could hold it for a while.

As the wolf's struggle intensified, the wire tightened, and the wolf's growls turned into whimpers. This suddenly drew the other wolf that had been hiding over. That wolf ran over from afar, came up to the wolf, but didn't get close, sniffing vigilantly and growling low, not knowing if it was communicating with the previous wolf.

Seeing another wolf arrive, the fox was so scared it crouched low, trying to stay as far away from these two wolves as possible, fearing it would be swallowed up in an instant.

The wolf that arrived later was a size larger than the previous one, and Li Long could almost be certain that this guy was definitely the alpha wolf!

He raised his gun and aimed at the alpha wolf—as long as he took down the alpha, the grudge between him and this pack of wolves could be resolved immediately!

But the alpha wolf was exceptionally vigilant, hiding behind the other wolf and growling low from time to time.

What surprised Li Long was that the alpha wolf quickly discovered the reason its subordinate was trapped, and then it actually lay down and started biting at the firewood in the snow!

The trapped wolf also began gnawing at the wire, clearly intending to escape using this method!

Li Long knew he couldn't wait any longer—although he didn't know where the other wolf was, if he didn't shoot now, once this wolf bit through the wire or moved the firewood, it would be like letting a tiger return to the mountains, and he would be filled with endless regret!

He raised his gun and aimed at the alpha wolf as best he could.

At this moment, the alpha wolf was desperate to save its subordinate, arching its back with half its body exposed. Li Long aimed below its spine and pulled the trigger!

"Bang, bang, bang, bang!"

Once he fired, Li Long shot out four bullets directly.

Holding the gun steadily, the superior performance of the Type 56 semi-automatic rifle was brought to its peak at this moment. Li Long could see blood blooming from both the alpha wolf and the trapped wolf!

The alpha wolf was exceptionally fierce. After being hit by the bullets, it retreated rapidly, wanting to run away, but unfortunately, the bullets had hit its spine, and the wolf couldn't run at all. With every movement it made, blood kept gushing out.

How could Li Long let it run away? As it ran backward and its figure was completely exposed, Li Long aimed again and fired!

Two bullets were fired, and the alpha wolf let out a mournful howl and collapsed into the snow, whimpering.

It still wasn't dead!

Li Long hadn't expected this alpha wolf's vitality to be so tenacious!

But no matter what, it was impossible for it to run away alive. Li Long slightly adjusted the muzzle and aimed at the other trapped wolf. This wolf had been hit in the leg just now and was still struggling desperately, trying to pull off the wire and escape.

Li Long gave it another shot.

The wolf collapsed, twitched a few times, and stopped moving.

At this moment, the one moving the most was the fox.

Li Long still didn't go out. He was waiting for the last wolf to appear.

He waited for half an hour, and even that wolf stopped struggling, yet no wolf appeared.

Li Long guessed that the wolf must have been scared off.

He reloaded the gun with bullets, then opened the cabin door. He swung the bayonet out; there were no wolves on either side. Taking advantage of the slightly brighter daylight than before, he looked around and saw no wolves present.

Li Long finally felt at ease.

This pack of wolves, they've been dealt with, right?

This grudge, it's resolved, right?

That wolf that ran away, it shouldn't come back, right?

Of course, that's just his own guess; as for the facts, it remains to be seen later.

He was quite proud of himself. After all, no matter how cunning the prey, it couldn't escape the palm of an old hunter!

Humans are the head of all spirits, possessing wisdom; it's not called that for nothing! (End of chapter)