Chapter 4: Harvesting the Fire Fox

The fox is a very famous animal in the Northeast and even across the entire country. Of course, there is also the yellow weasel (weasel).

Whether in folklore or mythology, these two animals have been endowed with extremely legendary colors. Various strange tales and anecdotes make many people hold them in great awe.

Therefore, in the Northeast, many hunters avoid hunting these two animals, but there are also many hunters who specialize in making a living by hunting them. Their fur is truly valuable!

As for Wang An, his attitude toward them is that he won't go out of his way to hunt them, but he certainly won't let them go if he happens to run into them! In his past life, didn't so many people who farmed these things live quite well?

Actually, Wang An initially thought it was a red dog (dhole). Normal mountain animals run far away when they hear gunfire, and given the fox's cunning, it would never let a hunter discover its tracks.

Only the red dog is both cunning and treacherous, and extremely ferocious; a pack of a dozen or so dares to go head-to-head with a big clawed beast.

Unexpectedly, truly unexpectedly! I don't know if it's because of my rebirth and good luck, or if this fox just didn't want to live anymore.

Anyway, this piece of fur will definitely accelerate the progress toward a happy life.

Right in the middle of the neck, white blade in, red blade out! After draining the blood, throw it into the sack, job done!

Small animals like these will freeze stiff in a short while at this temperature of over 20 degrees below zero! Besides, in this freezing cold weather, who would want to squat in the snow to dress these things!

He checked the prey: one jumping cat, two pheasants,

and one fire fox... these things—there isn't much meat on them!!

He looked at the sun; it was past 12 o'clock. With the sack on his back, his left hand carrying the gun, his right hand pulled a large cornmeal bun out of the flour bag.

In this world of ice and snow, he gnawed on the large bun while searching for prey.

This large bun was frozen cold and hard, and it was so scratchy on the throat that it made Wang An stretch his neck repeatedly as he choked.

He grabbed a handful of snow and stuffed it into his mouth... Oh my god!... It's so damn refreshing! It made his teeth ache from the cold!

There was a water canteen at home, but at this temperature, Wang An felt that being able to drink a drop of water when thirsty was a sign of disrespect to the Northeast winter.

After finally managing to transfer the entire large bun into his stomach, Wang An decided that after selling the fox fur, he must buy a small pot that he could carry with him.

At least he could boil some hot water to drink! Otherwise, suffering like this every single day is just too damn miserable!

After wandering aimlessly for another hour, wherever his gaze fell, apart from two mountain rats peeking at him from a hole under a tree, he didn't know where the other animals had hidden themselves...

He carefully recalled the places mentioned by the hunters and villagers when chatting in the village, such as Roe Deer Gully, Black Bear Gully, and Wild Boar Forest.

Wang An carefully observed his surroundings and suddenly realized that he was on the outskirts of Roe Deer Gully, as mentioned by the hunter Sun Da from the same village.

After forty-some years of his past and present lives, Wang An really couldn't remember what Sun Da's full name was.

In fact, Wang An couldn't remember the names of many villagers.

But Wang An still had a deep impression of many nicknames! After all, for a nickname to spread widely, the person bearing it must have done something "earth-shattering"!

Sun Da was different; he didn't make himself... what you'd call "earth-shattering," but truly "heart-shaking"!

To tell this story, one must start from the beginning!

In this Northeast, the number of hunters who can truly be called "Gunner" is very small, such as Zhang Gunner, Li Gunner, Wu Gunner, and the "Wang Gunner" who will inevitably appear in the future!

Let's not talk about this Wang Gunner for now!

All hunters who can truly be called "Gunner" are not ordinary tough guys. Not only must their marksmanship be top-notch, but they must also be hunters who have wrestled with big clawed beasts, wild leopards, or lynx cubs!

And they are all people proficient in various hunting methods, such as tracking, chasing, following, and sticking to tracks when searching for prey.

There are also hunting methods like encircling, assisting in the encirclement, battle encirclement, dog encirclement, pit encirclement, snow encirclement, ice encirclement, and so on!

In the early days, there was also fire encirclement, but it was too overbearing and often caused forest fires, so it was strictly prohibited after the founding of the country! We won't mention it in the future!

Kaoshan Village has no "Gunners," though there are seven or eight hunters. Usually, hunters being called so-and-so "Gunner" is just an honorific or a personal aspiration; it's just people flattering each other!

Therefore, Sun Da is naturally just a hunter, but Sun Da himself doesn't think so; he always calls himself "Sun Gunner" and makes others call him "Sun Gunner."

However, the tone others use when calling him that is completely different.

To prove himself, back when he wasn't called Sun Da, he went into the mountains alone after drinking, carrying a 16-gauge single-barrel shotgun to hunt bears. No one knows the process; they only know he crawled back to the village!

Xu Laonian, a gambler from the same village, was passing by his home at night and found him lying unconscious at his own gate, his face covered in congealed blood, making it impossible to see his features.

The cotton-padded jacket and trousers on his body had turned into rotten cotton wool, also covered in blood!

This sight scared Xu Laonian so much that he screamed. In the middle of the dark night, he let out a loud wail.

With Xu Laonian's scream, all the dogs in the village started barking... It is said that ever since then, Xu Laonian always went home at dusk when gambling and never dared to play until the middle of the night again!

It was also Sun Da's good fortune that he was out of the house in about two months, and he was jumping around.

It's just that on his entire face, from the left corner of his left eye, across the tip of his nose, to his right cheek, three long scars remained there forever!

At a glance, it was truly damn scary! Looking closer... forget it... it was even worse than the first glance!

Ever since then, Sun Da has been called Sun Da.

Wang An moved slowly into Roe Deer Gully, trying his best not to make any sound, because although roe deer are called "silly roe deer," they aren't truly stupid enough to stand there and let you hunt and kill them at will.

Everyone knows how dangerous the mountains are and how ferocious the carnivores are, yet roe deer have lived quite well for generations!

Their nickname is "Grass Flyer" or "Snow Flyer," which shows how fast they are! It's just that they are particularly curious and especially heartless.

Many old hunters do indeed use only a stick to hunt roe deer, but the success rate... that's really nonsense.

After walking two or three miles, he finally discovered six or seven roe deer less than 300 meters away, gnawing on the tender buds at the tips of the trees. Although the effective range of the Type 56 semi-automatic rifle is 400 meters,

to be honest, at this distance of less than 300 meters, what Wang An saw were animals only as big as chickens! He could vaguely tell they were a few roe deer.

He would definitely hit them if he fired, but where he hit them was entirely up to fate.

Fortunately, he was now upwind, otherwise Wang An would have had to take a wide detour to approach these roe deer! Hiding his figure in the forest, he finally reached a spot about 100 meters away from the roe deer, where he could distinguish exactly where the roe deer's heads and bodies were.

He raised the gun to his face, steadied his breathing, and fired four shots in rapid succession while moving the muzzle: "Bang," "Bang," "Bang," "Bang." He paused for a moment and fired two more shots, but he had no idea where those two went.

Anyway, the white fur exploding on the roe deer's rumps was truly amusing; they were so cute!

In a few seconds, they bounded into the forest and disappeared!