Chapter 366: Hunting After the Snow

Li Long came to the wolf head platform. The wolf that had been trapped earlier was already dead, blood soaking the ground and staining the frozen wolf organs red.

The alpha wasn't completely dead yet and was still twitching there. With the help of the faint sky light, Li Long could vaguely see that this guy was still staring at him, probably dying with deep resentment.

It didn't matter; the pack could be considered basically wiped out and would never be able to make any big waves again.

That fox was whimpering, probably scared witless. When Li Long looked at it, he felt that this guy was lying on the ground, wagging its tail constantly, as if begging for mercy.

That pitiful expression—the eyes couldn't be seen clearly, the sky was too dark, but it really looked pitiful, and Li Long smelled feces; this guy must have been scared into defecating.

He walked over and stepped on the fox's neck, and the fox didn't even resist!

It was really scared witless!

Li Long bent down, untied the thin iron wire on the fox's leg, grabbed its neck, and threw it far into the snow. "Go, today I, Dragon Master, am merciful and won't kill you!"

The fox really shouldn't have expected to be let go. It rolled twice in the snow, climbed up, looked at Li Long, and finding Li Long had gone to deal with the two wolves, it hurriedly darted in the snow and ran into the pine forest, disappearing in a moment.

It should have shadows for the rest of its life, right?

Li Long didn't dare to be careless. Holding the rifle in his right hand, he dragged the alpha with his left hand to the front of the cabin, then went to untie the iron wire snare of the other wolf and dragged it back into the room.

The two wolves needed to be processed, so he shouldn't plan on sleeping well tonight.

However, having cleared the hidden dangers, Li Long was also quite excited at this moment. He first lit the oil lamp, cleared the stove fire with a fire poker, added coal to the stove, set the pot, filled it with water, and then began to process the alpha.

There were several bullet holes in the alpha's pelt, so it could only be considered a damaged pelt. However, Li Long didn't care. He first used the handle of his knife to pry out the alpha's fangs—he had to admit, this alpha was much larger than other wolves, and these fangs were also much longer.

In Li Long's view, the difference between wolf fangs and dog fangs was that the part of the wolf fang inside the gum and the part outside were about one-to-one, while the part of the dog fang inside the gum accounted for two-thirds, and the exposed part accounted for one-third.

As for many people saying that wolf fangs have grooves and don't crack, he didn't know much about that either. Besides, he was just a semi-layman and still needed to learn well.

He remembered that twenty years later, he had gone to the International Grand Bazaar, which had just been built and was frequented by many locals, and saw a beautiful Russian girl selling wolf fangs. There were some in beautifully packaged boxes, and some loose ones put together in handfuls. The packaged ones were ten yuan each, and the loose ones were five yuan each—well, Li Long was certain these were all dog fangs.

After prying out the fangs, Li Long chopped off the alpha's head and placed it to the side. He would set this thing up outside tomorrow to make a wolf head platform.

Although to tell the truth, it didn't look like it had much use—it couldn't even scare away a fox—but for Li Long, it still looked quite good, just as a display of his own credit.

Next was skinning, gutting, and removing the patella bones. Skinning before gutting could effectively prevent dirty blood from flowing around the room, but this wolf had gunshot wounds, and dirty blood kept flowing out from the wounds.

Li Long didn't feel there was any problem; he would just clean it up tomorrow morning. Going out to skin it now would be suffering; the temperature outside was already near minus thirty degrees, and he would probably be frozen through in less than half an hour.

The stove fire was roaring, and the light of the oil lamp was flickering, not very bright, but Li Long's eyesight was good, and he could see clearly, so he wouldn't cut the stomach or intestines.

Skinning was a bit more difficult than during the day. After all, the light was insufficient, and it was easy to cut the meat when sliding between the skin and the meat. Li Long tried his best to avoid cutting the wolf pelt.

It was already considered a damaged pelt, but Li Long felt he still had to cherish it. He intended to keep the alpha's pelt as a souvenir. After all, this was the leader of a pack of wolves, and it had fought with him for two or three days, which could be considered a decent opponent.

After the alpha was cleaned up, Li Long moved its meat to the small room next door, rubbed the blood off his hands with snow outside, returned to the main room, and sat on the kang to rest for a while.

The room was full of the smell of blood and a musky stench, which wasn't pleasant. Li Long simply opened the door to let some fresh air from outside in. Although the cold air also came in, opening the door made him much more awake.

After resting for a while, Li Long closed the door and continued to process the other wolf.

This wolf was processed much more roughly. The speed of skinning was much faster, to the point where he directly skinned two holes—besides the bullet holes. The fangs were nearly a centimeter shorter than the alpha's, but the patella bones weren't much smaller.

After Li Long put the fangs and patella bones into a small bag, he rubbed this wolf pelt with salt and placed it to the side, intending to send it to the purchasing station after going down the mountain, selling it for whatever he could get.

For the internal organs, he only kept the heart, liver, and kidneys, and threw the stomach and intestines out, placing them by the wolf head platform. He poured a bucket of water over them, and he figured no animals would dare to come over tonight, right?

Li Long washed the blood off his hands at the spring, fetched another bucket of water back to the cabin, and began to wipe the blood off the floor with a rag.

After cleaning it, he swept the stove ash clean with a broom. He had used some of the water in the pot when washing the internal organs, so now Li Long took down the remaining half pot of water, pressed a shovel of coal dust into the stove to bank the fire, put the two wolf heads in the small room, returned to the main room, bolted the door, blew out the oil lamp, lay on the bed, and fell asleep quickly.

Having been tired for most of the night, he didn't dream at all when he fell asleep. When he woke up, sunlight was filtering through the plastic paper of the window, and the sun was already high.

Li Long rubbed his face, feeling that the back pain and leg pain from sleeping last night had disappeared, and now the only feeling was hunger.

The stove fire hadn't gone out, but it was still a bit cold in the cabin. After all, the insulation couldn't be as good as the houses with insulation layers in later generations. He climbed up, put on his coat, opened the door, and the dazzling sunlight made Li Long squint his eyes, taking a good while to adapt.

Looking at the watch on his wrist, it was past eleven. He must have slept for seven or eight hours. Li Long looked out... eh?

The wolf head was still on the wolf head platform, but the wolf's intestines and stomach that he had piled there last night were missing quite a bit!

Li Long hurriedly turned around to get his rifle in the room, then ran over and stopped five or six meters away from the wolf head platform.

It wasn't just the intestines and stomach that were missing; even the wolf head on the wolf head platform had been gnawed off a small piece—perhaps because it was frozen too hard, the guy who finally bit it gave up.

What exactly was this?

The reason Li Long stopped so far away was to observe the claw prints around.

Around the wolf head platform, besides Li Long's footprints, plum blossom prints were the most numerous, of several sizes, including those of the two wolves, the fox, and another kind—smaller than a wolf, larger than a fox.

What was this thing? Was his cabin attracting prey recently?

Li Long looked carefully at the claw prints in the snow but couldn't guess. He wasn't an old hunter and couldn't analyze what species it was through the claw prints.

He could only see that this guy not only ate a lot of internal organs here—there were things that leaked out of the stomach nearby that weren't finished—and then dragged some of the intestines away. Was this to store as food or to feed its cubs?

Li Long could see the traces of dragging all the way. He didn't chase immediately but turned back to the cabin to get something to eat.

With something on his mind, Li Long just toasted a mantou under the stove, then took out two pieces of red bean curd and placed them on a plate. The water on the stove was boiling. Li Long looked for it in the small room but couldn't find any eggs. He had originally wanted to make some egg tea, but thought, forget it, just make do with a meal today and go see what kind of thing dragged away the wolf's internal organs first.

!.

It shouldn't be that stupid fox—that guy shouldn't dare to come over anymore.

After the mantou was heated, Li Long first peeled off the burnt yellow shell and ate it, then dipped the inside with the red bean curd and finished it hurriedly, drank a few mouthfuls of water, added a piece of coal to the stove, pressed it with coal dust, and then went out with his satchel on his back, rifle in hand, and fur hat on.

That thing dragged the intestines forward, and the place where it dragged the traces occasionally leaked things that flowed out of the intestines—although they were frozen hard, they had become brittle, and this guy must have been eating and gnawing, which was why there were fragments.

It was convenient for Li Long to follow.

This thing could really run. Li Long chased for more than two kilometers, all the way to the pine forest. The snow here was thin, so the dragging marks were shallow, and Li Long walked even slower.

The ancients said not to enter the forest when meeting it, meaning that in ancient times, there would often be robbers in the forest, and of course, it also referred to dangerous animals like big insects in the forest.

There were also tigers in the ancient Tianshan Mountains, which were said to have been wiped out in the 1920s. The Xinjiang tigers discovered and recorded in large numbers by foreign cultural relic robbers mainly operated in the Tarim Basin in southern Xinjiang—of course, the main reason was that these cultural relic traffickers shamelessly recorded their theft and excavation of a large number of ancient ruins such as the Loulan Ancient City, and also recorded the human geography and biology of southern Xinjiang at that time.

Li Long naturally knew that the one who took the intestines couldn't be a tiger, but any kind of carnivore in the forest couldn't be underestimated. Maybe if he ran into a fierce one, it could leave him half-crippled.

Passing through this sparse pine forest and passing through a shrubbery, Li Long saw a pile of loose stones. The claw prints ended here. There was no animal existence visible in the pile of loose stones, or rather, Li Long couldn't see clearly where that guy was hiding.

He held his rifle and looked vigilantly at the pile of loose stones. The snow in the stone crevices had all been trampled solid, indicating that animals often frequented here. The stones were high and low, some quite sharp. Li Long guessed that there should be stone caves inside that could provide shelter and concealment.

He held his rifle and walked a few steps inside. The pile of loose stones was difficult to walk on. Just as he lifted his foot to avoid a stone, a thing the size of a local dog suddenly darted out from the side. This thing darted to a place five or six meters to the right front and bared its teeth at Li Long!

Lynx!

Li Long looked at the animal with golden fur and distinct ear features, feeling surprised and happy in his heart, and then raised his rifle and fired!

That lynx seemed to know the power of the gun. When Li Long raised his hand and rifle, it turned and jumped off the stone, darting into the stone crevice. Li Long missed with one shot. He only saw the golden tail shaking in the stone crevice, and then it disappeared!

How could Li Long let the thing in front of his eyes run away? He hurriedly held his rifle and chased forward, but the stone pile ahead was even harder to walk on, and it was difficult to find a place to step, and those stones had very sharp corners, making it impossible to stand on them, which put Li Long in a dilemma.

He finally walked to the stone crevice where the lynx had just darted in, but found that he hadn't seen anything at all.

It had already darted away without a trace.

Looking at this pile of loose stones that was five or six hundred meters in circumference, Li Long was in a dilemma. Chase or not?

Since he had arrived here, Li Long still bit the bullet and chased in. He held his rifle even more cautiously. In the summer, he had been scratched by this guy with a large wound on his arm, and he felt it was better to be careful.

It was just that it was really hard to find in this pile of loose stones! (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 367 =====