Chapter 458

Li Long did not hesitate in the slightest; he shouldered the rifle and pulled the trigger on the gray wolf!

The pack of wolves was at a gully entrance branching off the east side of the main gully, forty or fifty meters away from the coal seam where Li Long was located, with the main gully in between, at the bottom of which was a stream. Li Long's actions were quite decisive, but the shot was rushed, and he missed.

But the gunshot echoed in the valley, startling those wolves. Ever since guns were issued to herdsmen in the fifties and sixties, these wild beasts in the mountains had come to know the power of this "stick." This huge gunshot was also a deterrent to them. The wolf was startled, let out a howl, and the other wolves immediately abandoned their prey, turned their heads, and dove into the forest!

Li Long did not hesitate at all. After the first shot missed, the second, third, and fourth shots were fired continuously. The "bang-bang-bang" sounds rang out in succession. The fourth shot hit the hindquarters of the last wolf. The wolf let out a miserable howl, its body collapsed, and its speed slowed down instantly, yet it still struggled to run toward the gully.

Hearing the wolf's howling, the other wolves, except for the one closest to it which turned its head to look back, hesitating over whether to save its teammate, had all darted into the forest and disappeared.

Li Long's previous shots had all been extremely rushed; that he could achieve results was an accident and a stroke of luck. Now that a wolf had been hit, he immediately crouched halfway, took a rough aim, and fired again.

After one shot, the wolf's body tilted, and it fell to the ground, silent.

The other wolf, which had been hesitating, immediately darted toward the gully with all its might. Li Long didn't even have time to fire another shot before it had already vanished from sight.

In the past, when hunting and firing, it was usually an ambush, just like a militia member shooting at a fixed target; he almost never missed. And the targets he encountered were always in groups—several or a dozen at a time. Usually, if he hit one, he still had the energy to hit a second.

Now, suddenly meeting on a narrow path, and the distance being neither far nor near, this sudden firing caused him to lose his accuracy.

It seems that in actual combat shooting, he was still quite far off.

While thinking, Li Long took bullets from his satchel, pulled the bolt, reached out to catch the ejected cartridge, and then pressed the bullets in one by one. After filling the magazine, he pushed the bolt to chamber a round, and only then did he carry the rifle and walk toward the gully.

He would rather be steady than rashly advance and get ambushed; he knew that wolves were very cunning. Humans were progressing, and wolves weren't bad either.

Descending into the gully, his shoes got wet when crossing the small stream. This stream was quite wide, the water wasn't deep, but it was cold. Li Long couldn't care about that now; he jumped over the stream to the opposite bank, climbed up a ridge, and saw the ground where the wolves had been hunting the roe deer just moments ago.

When firing, Li Long had mainly aimed at the most threatening wolves, so the roe deer had taken the opportunity to run away, except for the one that had been bitten to death.

Could he count as having saved the life of this roe deer family?

Li Long's thoughts were still a bit chaotic, and then he saw the fallen roe deer.

This roe deer was larger than the one Sun Jia Qiang had snared, probably weighing around seventeen or eighteen kilograms, but it was considered medium-sized in the group from just now.

Li Long looked at its short antlers; it was a male.

The neck had been bitten open; the wolf from just now had a very fierce bite, and this single blow had caused a fatal wound that even a god couldn't save. Now, the wound was still bleeding, and a pool had already accumulated on the ground, attracting flies and ants.

Li Long didn't touch it and continued forward. After walking ten or so steps, he saw the dead wolf in the grass.

This wolf was larger than a domesticated large native dog. It had plenty of food in the mountain forest, giving people the impression of having sleek, shiny fur. In terms of size, it should be around forty or fifty kilograms. Although it was already dead, its mouth was open, its canine teeth exposed, and it still looked very fierce.

The first shot had hit near its hindquarters, passing through the front of the hind leg. The second shot had hit the front leg; it must have been sideways at the time, and the bullet had entered the cavity without coming out, likely shredding the internal organs.

Looking further into the gully, there was no more movement. Li Long didn't dare to let his guard down; one person wouldn't dare to chase inside. In case there was an ambush, even if there were only two wolves, he wouldn't be able to handle it. After all, the grass in this gully was quite deep, reaching his thighs. If a wolf were to lie in the grass, it would be impossible to see.

Li Long dragged the wolf carcass toward the outside of the gully. Walking to where the roe deer was, he lifted the roe deer as well, turned his head to look into the gully—no movement—and only then did he descend the ridge and arrive at the side of the small stream.

He wasn't in a hurry to process these two carcasses but continued to dig coal. Although he had come across a windfall, his main business couldn't be neglected. These two carcasses would mainly bring Li Long meat to eat, and the pelts would only sell for a few dozen yuan. It wasn't too important, so Li Long just put them aside for now.

The coal seam was very shallow. Li Long dug a few times with the shovel, and a large chunk of coal was pried off. Mainly, the surface ones were easily weathered, but those didn't burn well. Li Long wasn't picky; he wanted the outer layers, and he wanted what he could dig out from inside. He filled a little less than half a sack with coal, carried it on his back, and walked out, holding the wolf carcass in his hand.

He would put them on the tractor and deal with them when he got back.

Tossing and turning back and forth like this, he got more than half a tractor bed's worth of coal, about six or seven sacks, and only then did Li Long move the roe deer onto the vehicle.

After resting for a while, he cranked the tractor and drove back.

It was slow coming, and even slower going back because it was loaded with coal. Although the tractor was heavier and more stable, he was even more careful when crossing gullies and ridges; otherwise, it would be troublesome if it overturned. He was alone in the deep mountains; if the tractor were to overturn, there would really be no way out.

Carefully driving back to the wooden cabin, the sun was already slanting to the west. Li Long had neither the energy nor the heart to unload the coal. He opened the large room, set a fire in the stove to boil water, and then carried the wolf and roe deer to the spring to skin and gut them.

What made him a bit depressed was that flies had already laid maggots on the wolf carcass's wound. Tiny, white maggots were densely packed, so he had to use a knife to cut off that piece of meat and throw it away before skinning it.

Fortunately, Li Long didn't have any psychological burden. When there were flies, it was normal for carcass wounds to grow this; although it looked a bit off-putting, it wasn't nauseating. After all, some people even specifically ate this stuff—it was all high protein, and it was raised on meat.

Of course, people with trypophobia couldn't look at it.

After skinning the wolf, the fire on the stove in the room was already burning brightly. He brought over a few large basins filled with water, gutted the wolf, put the wolf meat and internal organs into the basins to soak, and then went to process the roe deer.

He rubbed salt on the pelts and spread them out on the wooden floor in front of the house first, planning to nail them up when he was free.

After finishing both creatures, Li Long felt his waist was aching uncomfortably. He didn't know if it was because he had been using it too much lately; he had skinned two or three animals in a row before and hadn't been this tired.

It seems the roe deer's "whip" needs to be saved.

What needed to be processed among the internal organs were the stomach and intestines. Now that it was spring, the grass was lush and prey was plentiful, so the wolf and roe deer weren't thin, and there was caul fat outside the intestines. Li Long first cut the meat into chunks, planning to make dried meat later. As for the stomach and intestines, he would process them in a little while.

He set up the fire on the outdoor stove and filled it with water; the heart, liver, and lungs needed to be boiled or braised, otherwise, they would spoil easily.

Now Li Long missed having a refrigerator or freezer immensely. He remembered that during the mask era in his previous life, his family had specifically added a freezer to store food. During that time, he felt he could eat more than usual; a three or four-kilogram native chicken made into a large basin of chicken could be finished by three or four people in one sitting. This was an era not lacking in oil and fat.

Conversely, after things opened up later, his appetite actually went down; he couldn't eat meat, and he couldn't eat much rice either.

It was very strange.

He boiled the internal organs in two pots and threw two leg bones with meat into each side. As for the rest, Li Long planned to rest for a while and then trim the meat off later.

He wouldn't boil the rest; after trimming some meat later, he would rub salt on the bone-in meat to make dried meat. He figured that the people digging for fritillaria later would be willing to trade fritillaria for dried meat, and even if they weren't willing to trade, he could take it back himself. After all, this stuff stored well.

Planning in his heart, he had no movement in his hands for the moment. The fire under the stove was burning fiercely, the water in the pot above was boiling, and internal organs like the heart and liver were floating and sinking with the water. Foam was being extracted, then drifting away as the water boiled.

The smell wasn't good, but Li Long was hungry.

He got up and went into the wooden cabin, took a steamed bun, put it under the stove to toast, and then continued to process the meat.

The sun was almost setting. The meat had been rubbed with salt. Although there were wooden poles and ropes outside, it wasn't suitable to hang them up at night, as it would attract wild beasts. Li Long couldn't watch them all night either, so he put them into the small room to store temporarily, waiting until tomorrow to hang them outside to dry.

Without waiting for the meat to get tender, Li Long scooped up a piece, put it in an enamel bowl, sprinkled salt on it, and slowly started eating.

It was quite fragrant, although it carried the gamey smell that only wild beasts had.

The sun set behind the mountains, and Li Long rested for a while longer before he started processing those stomachs and intestines. There was no help for it; one person would always be slower. By the time he finished processing everything, it was already dark. There were wolf howls in the distance; he didn't know if it was this wolf's companions mourning, or if they had smelled the fragrance and were calling their companions.

Li Long was tired after a day, and although he wanted to rest, there was still a pile of things outside. He didn't have time to boil the stomach and intestines, so after washing them, he soaked them in a basin to draw out the blood, waiting to boil them tomorrow. He scooped the things boiling on the outdoor stove into a basin and put them into the small room to cool. As for the fire under the stove, he didn't care about it, nor the soup in the pot; he closed the door and went to sleep.

In the middle of the night, he did vaguely hear movement outside, but Li Long didn't think about hitting anything. For one thing, it was dark and he couldn't see; for another, it was dangerous. This stuff didn't make money if you killed it, and it was troublesome to deal with; having enough to eat was enough. Getting up early the next morning, seeing the sky was already bright, Li Long went outside and saw dark, black paw prints on the stove. The paw prints had come from the spring, and the soup in the pot was dirty too. Looking at the paw prints, they weren't small, and he didn't know if they were a wolf's or something else's.

Fortunately, the pot was fine; at most, he would just wash it. And that pot of meat soup, because it had internal organs added, Li Long hadn't intended to drink it anyway.

When he went behind the house to pee, he felt that the urine he passed carried a gamey smell, very strong.

Going to the spring to wash his hands, he found that the meat with maggots he had cut off yesterday was gone. The scraps, lymph nodes, and such that had been left on the ground from skinning and gutting were also gone, and even the bloodstains on the ground had been licked clean.

It really wasn't wasted at all.

Li Long poured out the soup from both pots, washed them twice with warm water, set a fire with kindling and coal under the stove, and after the water in the pot heated up, he scrubbed the pot again to get it clean before going to boil the stomach and intestines.

Taking advantage of the boiling time, he took out the dried meat and hung it on the rope strung between wooden poles outside. With the wind blowing, the meat swayed back and forth.

Only then did Li Long have the leisure to eat. He had cooked some porridge in the pot inside the house. He had eaten wolf meat and roe deer meat yesterday, which was a bit "drying," so drinking some rice porridge would cool him down. He toasted some steamed bun slices as a staple, dipped them in some red bean curd, and that was enough; he didn't have the energy to make dishes. The heart and liver he had braised yesterday were cut into a few slices, and that was enough.

Finishing his meal in the midst of his busyness, he let the stomach and intestines boil and started unloading the coal from the tractor. This coal had to be placed by the kindling, and to avoid weathering, he also had to cut some tree branches to cover it. However, Li Long planned to find time to get some more back so he could burn it until next year.

Since it was here, he would prepare enough. When he had time, he also had to find some older wind-fallen wood, chop it up, and prepare it for use. The shed that Yushanjiang and the others had brought to keep horses in, although it wasn't needed for horses now, could serve as an outdoor warehouse; he needed to pull the open "door" inward.

These were all things that needed to be done, but Li Long wasn't in a hurry; anyway, since he could collect fritillaria now, he wasn't in a rush to hunt.

!.

Of course, the information provided by Sun Jia Qiang still needed to be looked into; maybe he could get something good?

In the past, when he first entered the mountains to hunt, it was mainly for meat, to be able to eat something good. Hunting after life got better was, first, an interest—they say a man is a boy until he dies—and second, of course, to earn money; meat was secondary. Hunting valuable prey like deer was naturally the first choice, and if he could hunt a lynx, that would be even better. A single pelt was worth a few years of hard work for an ordinary person, so of course, that was acceptable.

However, it wasn't possible to hunt everything, so he could only rank them downward. Deer and roe deer were relatively better; if he hunted a wild boar, then there would only be meat to eat.

Stacking the coal well, he went to the stove and saw that the stomach and intestines were boiled enough, and the fire under the stove was almost out, so he washed his hands, took a basin and chopsticks into the room, and scooped out all the stomach and intestines; these added up to a basin full.

Added to the heart, liver, and lungs from before, he wouldn't be able to finish them for a while, and Li Long was a bit worried.

But if he sent a trip back, it wouldn't be worth it; he didn't want to run back and forth and toss and turn, so he carried this to the shelf in the small room and put it aside for now.

When putting down the basin, he used a small knife to cut a piece of stomach and chewed it in his mouth, then carried an axe to the forest in front, planning to cut some tree branches to bring back.

Walking two steps, he retreated, shouldering the 56-style semi-automatic rifle. The thing that looked like a tiger he had seen last time was right in that position; although the place to cut branches was closer now, he didn't dare to be careless.

Maybe a big guy was hiding inside?

Carrying the axe to the vicinity of the forest, Li Long slung the rifle over his right shoulder, disengaged the safety, kept the strap hanging, supported the rifle with one hand, and pressed his hand on the trigger, slowly walking into the forest.

If there was something in the forest, he could fire in time.

Arriving at the edge of the forest, he found it quiet inside. Li Long walked a few more steps inside, didn't find anything, so he set his mind at ease, retreated to the side, and cut some tree branches.

The commotion wasn't small, with echoes reverberating in the forest—this forest was relatively sparse, with trees scattered, and one could see quite far.

Cutting an armful of branches with dense leaves, Li Long held them and walked back. Arriving at the coal pile, he covered it, looked at it, and it seemed about right, so he prepared to continue cutting.

As a result, he hadn't walked far when he saw a person walking over from the east.

Li Long looked; it wasn't Sun Jia Qiang, nor Bolati, nor did it look like Li Zheng Tang or Li Zhengting.

A stranger, he hadn't seen him before.

Seeing that the person was heading toward the wooden cabin with a clear goal, Li Long turned back, arrived in front of the wooden cabin, put down the axe, hung the rifle on his shoulder, and waited for that person to come over.

That person also discovered Li Long, hesitated for a moment, but still walked over. He was carrying a bag in his hand. What was somewhat unexpected was that his hair wasn't very long, just cut in a messy way. Li Long seriously suspected that he must have cut or trimmed it himself with a knife; it was somewhat similar to being chewed by a dog.

"You trade things here?" That person walked to a spot seven or eight meters in front of Li Long and stood still, his gaze glancing at the rifle on Li Long's shoulder before asking.

His voice carried a bit of a southern accent. Looking at his appearance, he must be forty years old, though it was also possible that because he was busy in the mountains, he appeared more weathered.

"Trade. What are you using to trade? What are you planning to trade for?"

"I picked up some jade, and a bit of fritillaria, planning to trade for some rice." That person took a stone out of the bag he was carrying.

Li Long walked closer to look, shook his head, and said:

"This jade... the quality is too poor, I can't trade for this."

It was very ordinary jasper, and not a pebble; it looked like mountain material, with cracks and many black spots.

Li Long remembered watching videos in his previous life where a blogger, after the Nanshan jasper in Maxian was closed off, went into the mountains alone to explore for jasper mines and found the mining sites where jasper was extracted during the Qing Dynasty; the ground there was covered with this kind of material everywhere.

"It really is jade." That person was a bit anxious. "You wouldn't be unable to recognize good goods, would you?"

Li Long waved his hand and said:

"The quality of your jade is too poor. There is good material in these mountain gullies; I don't know where you picked up this kind of material, but to tell the truth, this material really won't do. You can take it out and try; no one should be collecting it."

That person had a look of disappointment, obviously feeling that Li Long still didn't recognize good goods.

"Fritillaria, I have over two jin here." That person said, "How much rice can I trade for?"

Speaking in jin, it should be from the "mouth" (the interior). Li Long said: "One jin of fritillaria trades for two kilograms of rice, which is four jin; your two jin will trade for eight jin."

"Good, good, good." Hearing he could trade for eight jin, this person became happy. "Come, come, come, this is my fritillaria."

He poured the fritillaria out of the bag and spread it all over the ground. Li Long looked; it could probably touch one kilogram, with all sizes present, and there were grass leaves, mud, and sheep dung pellets too. This person was even a bit embarrassed.

"Fine, you put it here; I'll clean it up in a while. Did you bring a bag? I'll come to load the rice for you."

"Just use this to load it; I don't have any extra bags." That person was a bit embarrassed.

"Fine, I'll get you a bag." Li Long thought, if he used this bag to load rice, wouldn't it be off-putting to eat? Anyway, he still had a few bags, so he would just give it; it wasn't worth much money anyway.

Leading that person into the small wooden cabin, he started loading rice for him. That person saw the meat on the shelf, his throat moved, and he suddenly said:

"Can I have a little less rice and you give me some cooked meat?"

"Sure." Li Long naturally didn't mind. "Meat and rice aren't the same price. I can give you four jin of rice and another kilogram of meat, how about that?"

Raw meat and cooked meat weren't the same price, but Li Long didn't intend to haggle that much; his small shop had just opened, so he could count it as a promotional discount.

"Good, good, good, thank you." That person felt he had truly met a good person. (End of chapter)