Chapter 80

This kind of footprint can only be made by hard-soled leather shoes.

They have deep anti-slip treads, and the heel is higher than the front sole!

Let alone the villagers in each village, even in the county, the prints of these shoes are very rare!

Mu Seeing Mu Xueli might not know what was going on, but Wang An knew!

Because these shoes are especially expensive! And not only expensive, but also very hard to buy!

These are cowhide shoes with hard rubber soles, quite sturdy! Only the children of high-ranking military officials wear them more often!

Because what they wear is issued by their units!

Like those worn by officials or their children, most are gifts from others.

The ones worn by rich people are the ones they bought!

A pair of shoes requires spending two months' salary of a formal employee! And that's not enough; you need to add a bit more!

So, how can ordinary people wear them? How can people with the income level of the county wear them?

This was also why, when Wang An was selling live roe deer, the young man who bought the roe deer and his attire were said to be so stylish!

And he dared to ask for such a high price; although he was mentally prepared for the other party to bargain, there was no doubt he believed in the other party's immense financial power!

Because that young man's attire had already told everyone: I am not short of money!

These leather shoes are also called military boots.

Note, these are the real military boots; in this era, there are no fake military boots!

He hadn't heard of, nor did there exist, "high-quality imitations"! The term "high-quality imitation" had only just begun to appear sporadically in the southern regions!

These shoes have a steel plate sandwiched between two layers of cowhide at the front toe, and the shoes as a whole are very heavy; actually, they aren't very suitable for mountain trekking!

After Mu Seeing Mu Xueli examined them carefully, he asked a question: "Brother-in-law, what kind of shoe print is this? It feels like it's very high-class?"

Wang An looked at Mu Seeing Mu Xueli's curious expression and replied: "This is a leather shoe footprint; there are people in the county who wear these kinds of shoes!"

Mu Seeing Mu Xueli nodded as if he understood, and the two of them continued tracking and traveling.

They didn't know how much longer they had walked when Da Hei sniffed a tree that had clearly been rubbed by the big bear and left brown fur on, and began to bark wildly again.

Following closely, the three dogs darted out.

The two of them instantly had grave expressions, because they hadn't seen what a living big bear looked like yet!

They had only heard that the thing was huge, big and fierce; in these mountains, it was basically an invincible existence, and even big paws wouldn't want to confront it head-on!

The two of them began to sprint after the three dogs, but humans can't even outrun a wild boar, let alone chase after dogs.

In a short while, the three dogs were gone, but the two of them didn't dare to slow their pace at all, because for a black bear or a big bear to kill a dog is as simple as a human killing a chick or a duckling!

They didn't know how long they had been running; in any case, both of them were panting heavily, breathing like the bellows of a stove, huffing and puffing.

And in a place they couldn't see, the three dogs had already surrounded the big bear, but none of the dogs dared to step forward to tear at it; they were all barking wildly from 3 meters away.

On the big bear's face, it seemed to have been injured by a sharp weapon; three bloody marks were exceptionally conspicuous, very similar to the three scars on Sun Sun Dabala's face.

Five or six hundred meters away from the big bear, three people were lying there; he didn't know if they were dead or alive, but the heads of all three were intact, which could be considered fortunate!

Two of them had the cotton-padded clothes on their backs torn open, leaking a lot of cotton, and another person had blood seeping from their leg; the severity of the injuries was unclear.

And the big bear didn't even look at the three dogs, directly ignoring them, and was still sitting there eating something, eating quite happily it seemed.

Looking closely, the thing held in its front paws was clearly a cloth bag commonly seen in daily life, only it had been torn to shreds by the big bear.

And what the big bear was eating was white flour steamed buns, which are common in the city and occasionally seen in the countryside!

After a while, the big bear raised its head and sniffed at the sky, as if it had discovered something; it didn't even want the cloth bag anymore and directly ran off into the distance, running quite fast.

However, it was clearly visible that this big bear didn't seem to be lightly injured; its neck and body were also covered in bloodstains!

The most severely injured part seemed to be the left front leg, where a piece of skin had been torn off, leaving it a bloody mess, and it was limping as it ran.

Injured fierce beasts are all like this; as long as they discover danger, the first thing they do is run; they absolutely won't fight the other party!

Otherwise, with the big bear's status as a top-tier combatant in the mountains, even if it smelled a human's scent, it would directly ignore it!

Unless it was injured by a gun and then ran away, knowing the power of a gun, as long as it smells a human or gunpowder scent, it will never fight and will immediately flee far away!

Becoming a "gun-shy" beast in the true sense; of course, this isn't just for bears and black bears, other mountain beasts are all like this!

As long as the first shot hits, a minor injury might not have much of an effect, but if you let them be severely injured and they don't die!

Then the next time you want to hit them, the difficulty is indescribable; let alone hitting them, their tracks are simply hard to find!

It's just running, all kinds of running; smelling a human's scent or gunpowder scent from far away, they directly run until they disappear!

Unless a large group of people and dogs surround them, wanting to kill them is truly very difficult!

The three dogs were barking wildly while following the big bear, looking back every now and then.

It seemed they were looking at why their master hadn't come over yet, their hearts seemingly hoping their master would come quickly so they could kill this big guy and eat meat!

Actually, normal hunting dogs, when encountering a big bear or a black bear, would tear at it without knowing their own limits.

It's just that these three dogs, because when they were following their previous master, they had fought with a black bear; not only did they not win, but their master was also mauled quite miserably by the black bear, and two companions died.

It's estimated that these three dogs were also severely injured at the time; besides, four-year-old dogs are at the peak of their abilities in every aspect, and they are also the sharpest and most cunning!

So these three dogs had become cunning now, or you could say they had become shrewd, knowing that they and their partners couldn't beat the other party, so they just followed along; in any case, the big bear definitely couldn't catch the three of them.

If their master was by their side, they might still fight to the death, but with their master not by their side, and knowing they couldn't win, the dogs naturally became cowardly!

"Dogs rely on their master's power"—this saying isn't just for fun; dogs without their master by their side, no matter what kind of dog, including any breed! As long as they feel they can't beat the other party, these dogs will become cowardly, cowardly to a certain degree, and might even drip urine!

The two panting people hadn't even gotten close when they heard the dogs barking; both of them were overjoyed—the dogs' sound wasn't a scream of pain, so the dogs were fine!

Finally, they could walk a few steps to slow down; this was truly too damn tiring, they were almost unable to catch their breath!

Before they could even rest well, the dogs' barking got further and further away! F*ck, what's the point of resting? Keep running!

The two of them continued to run following the sound of the dogs barking; when they passed the place where the three dogs and the big bear had confronted each other just now, they ran past it directly, naturally not noticing the three people lying five or six hundred meters away!

Finally, the two of them were completely exhausted, and they really couldn't run anymore; their faces were pale, and sweat had soaked the inside of their cotton-padded jackets and trousers.

Especially the crotch, it was soaked through, full of sweat; this uncomfortable feeling!

This made Wang An think of the day he was chopping trees; as soon as he thought about how his crotch would be ice-cold in a moment, like putting a big ice cube there, that sour and refreshing feeling! Wang An began to feel uncomfortable!

The cotton hat on his head seemed to be soaked through with sweat, and sweat was flowing down from the gaps; although he was hot as hell, no one dared to take off their hat—once the hat was taken off, the head would be covered in a layer of ice in no time!

In that case, it would be absolutely impossible not to catch a cold, and it would be a severe cold at that!

The two of them opened their mouths to pant heavily, their two legs feeling like they were filled with lead, moving forward step by step!

Even if the sky collapsed in front of them, the two of them would have no interest in paying attention!

Wang An felt his current physical state and pondered secretly: "This damn big bear hasn't even been seen yet! We've already been exhausted like turtles!"

The two of them couldn't hear the dogs barking either; although they were anxious, their physical strength was extremely depleted, running was impossible, and being able to walk to the dogs would be quite an achievement!

Just asking for a follow-up read, just asking for a follow-up read! As long as you read it every day!

Of course, this is assuming you are interested in this book; thank you, thank you!

(End of chapter)