Chapter 64: Wild Boars Are Really Not Stupid

The wolf meat was buried in the snow to freeze, and Li Long took one of the two wolf skins. Halimu already had one, and now with another, the wooden kang would soon be covered.

"After hunting the wild boars tomorrow, I’ll head straight back," Li Long said. "I originally planned to be out for two days, but this has been delayed by a day, and the family must be worried."

At Xiaohai, Li Jianguo and Tao Daqiang were estimating while digging for fish that Li Long should be back tonight.

"If you guys go to sell fish tomorrow, then I’ll go to the team leader’s house tonight to extend the horse cart for another day," Li Jianguo said to Tao Daqiang while picking up fish. "I estimate we won't sell anymore after this one time; it’s time to prepare for the New Year. Daqiang, has your family prepared New Year goods yet?"

"Not yet," Tao Daqiang wasn't as reserved when talking to Li Jianguo now. "I used the money to buy coal."

Li Jianguo nodded. He knew very well the "wages" Li Long gave Tao Daqiang; in terms of earnings, it wasn't much, but in terms of current average wages and per capita income, it was already a lot.

The difficulty in Tao Jianshe’s family was that Tao Dayong had been caught last time; after being hit by this, it would take a while to recover.

But what of it? There were many in the team poorer than their family, and at least Tao Daqiang could bring fish home every day.

Some people in the team were envious and jealous and said sour things, but there weren't many families who could truly carry on digging for fish at Xiaohai in temperatures of twenty to thirty degrees below zero.

Some people didn't know how to eat fish, some didn't want to eat fish—saying it wasted oil, had bones, and others felt fish meat didn't taste as good as pork or mutton.

Of course, most had one reason: they were willing to huddle at home and not willing to come out to work.

A bad habit left over from the Great Production days.

Of course, it would be different after this New Year. Once the land was distributed to each family, people’s diligence would come out, and they would be more capable than the next.

Li Jianguo and Tao Daqiang were willing to work because they saw the benefits. Every time Li Long went out to sell fish, Li Jianguo got fifty yuan, and Tao Daqiang got five yuan.

But what the people in the team saw was that three families went out, Gu Ermao was caught, Tao Dayong was caught, and only Li Long was fine.

They would say Li Long was lucky and capable, but they didn't dare to try it themselves.

So far, it wasn't just Li Jianguo and Tao Dayong catching fish at Xiaohai, but only the Li family went to sell fish. Even if others knew there were benefits here, they didn't come. In their view, the risk was too great.

It was just that Li Jianguo and Tao Dayong also discovered that there weren't as many fish today as last time.

When they returned in the dark, Li Jianguo estimated that there were about fifty or sixty kilograms of fish on the sled.

It was a lot, but he was somewhat unsatisfied. It was like selling things at a stall: earning five yuan the first day, thirty the second, one hundred the third, fully expecting one hundred and fifty the fourth, only for it to suddenly become fifty—naturally, he wasn't satisfied.

On the contrary, Tao Daqiang said:

"Uncle Jianguo, there are already a lot of fish. If we eat them, we won't finish them in ten days."

"That’s true." Li Jianguo thought about before Li Long came back, who in the family would have thought of breaking the ice to catch fish? It wasn't that they hadn't thought about it, but at the time, they wondered if they could catch anything even if they broke the ice, and even if they could, it would be at most a few kilograms, but breaking the ice would take at least an hour or two, and the effort didn't match the harvest, so they didn't come.

It still had to be Li Long.

Returning home, Tao Daqiang refused Liang Yuemei’s invitation to eat and went back with a few fish.

"Xiao Long hasn't come back yet." Li Jianguo sighed. "Drink some fish soup, I have to go to the team leader’s place to extend the horse cart money."

"If he hasn't come back, he hasn't come back," Liang Yuemei wasn't very worried. "Xiao Long does things steadily; if he hasn't come back, he must have something to do in the mountains." Li Long certainly had something to do. During the day, Halimu had to feed the cattle and sheep, so Li Long took an axe to chop the wood they had dragged back into sections, preparing to load the cart and pull it away tomorrow.

Pine wood was always considered good wood in the hearts of people here, not comparable to poplar, so it was relatively expensive. Although it was wind-fallen wood, it had probably not been down for long, so it was quite laborious to chop.

Li Long felt he needed to exercise. In over an hour, he barely managed to chop through a log as thick as a person could embrace, and then started to cut it into shorter pieces.

It was truly a waste to burn this wood, but there was plenty of such stuff in the mountains. Even if it wasn't burned, it would rot away in a few years. Halimu and Yushanjiang used pine wood and cow dung cakes to start fires; this stuff burned well, otherwise, in ancient times, they wouldn't have called torches "pine light"—it was probably because they carried pine resin.

By the time he cut the wood into sections of about two meters, with four or five pieces, it was almost dark.

Halimu came over to help transport the wood to the cart frame so it would be easy to load tomorrow.

The horse was tied by Halimu’s fodder pile, contentedly eating dry grass.

Li Long came over, and that No. 76 big red horse even glanced at him sideways. Li Long thought to himself, you’re comfortable now, but you’ll have your fill of exhaustion tomorrow.

He entered the winter shelter—he had now adapted to the smell inside—drank milk tea, rested early, and prepared to hunt wild boars in the middle of the night.

Around five o'clock, Li Long was woken up by Halimu. Dressed neatly, carrying the Type 56 semi-automatic rifle, and wrapped tightly in a sheepskin coat, he walked outside.

Halimu led the way in front, and Li Long followed stumbling behind, stepping deep and shallow, while also having to protect the muzzle, walking very nervously.

!.

Crossing a mountain ridge, passing another valley, and going up another ridge, Halimu stopped.

"Look there." Halimu pointed to the valley below the mountain. "In summer, it’s a meadow, growing many medicinal herbs, and the pine cones from the pine trees on the ridge roll down and pile up there. Now that the wild boars have nothing to eat, they come here to root through the snow to find food."

Li Long looked down through the pine branches. There was an empty space of about several dozen mu, belonging to the mountain meadow, extending to the bottom of the valley. Now, one could only vaguely see traces of having been dug.

"Is it too far here? We need to get closer, right?"

"Yes, we need to get closer." Halimu continued to walk down. "The wind blows from west to east, we’ll find a place on the edge of the pine forest here to lie down and wait."

The two came to a place forty or fifty meters away from the snow that had been rooted up, each finding a spot to wait.

The snow was too deep, and if they lay down, they couldn't see in front, so they had to pile up the place where they lay, or shoot while squatting. Li Long felt that squatting to support the gun wasn't as accurate as lying down, so he simply used snow to build a gun platform, which was convenient for lying down.

Halimu didn't need to; he leaned behind a pine tree and started to close his eyes and rest, very relaxed. Li Long was a bit envious, but he didn't dare to do so, afraid of falling asleep and missing the time when the wild boars came.

After waiting for about an hour, Li Long felt the ground vibrate. The movement came from the mountain ridge on the right, and he hurriedly whispered to Halimu:

"Halimu, they’re here!"

Halimu immediately opened his eyes, turned around, squatted, and aimed the gun.

Seven or eight wild boars started running toward the valley. This group of wild boars wasn't as big as the previous group; the biggest wild boar was only a little over one hundred kilograms, and the small ones were forty or fifty kilograms, and they didn't seem to have any sense of precaution.

Before Li Long could be happy, Halimu suddenly said:

"The wind direction has changed, get ready to shoot, the wild boars might have discovered us!"

Sure enough, the wild boars that had just rushed down suddenly rushed up the opposite hillside together!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 77 =====