Age: Passionate youth, starting from graduation assignment

Chapter 123

Layer after layer of fallen leaves were pushed aside by him, making a creaking sound, revealing the moist black soil below.

After a while, Xu Jichang moved forward and cleared a field about two feet wide and ten feet long.

After cleaning up for a while, Xu Jichang pushed aside a pile of thick fallen leaves, revealing the clusters of stems underneath.

hiss……

So much ginseng!
Xu Jichang shuddered all over, quickly took out the deer bone sticks, and started to excavate this piece of ginseng from the outer soil.

The scale of this piece of ginseng is even larger than those six leaf descendants in the tree hole last time.

When Xu Jichang was digging the soil, he kept thanking the horse he rode this time.

This horse is so spiritual that he found slices of ginseng for himself among the layers of fallen leaves.

I can't afford to buy dozens of catties of fodder for it.

Xu Jichang suppressed his excitement and dug down bit by bit with deer bone sticks.After a long time, the first ginseng in the periphery showed its full appearance under his hands.

This ginseng is not small in size, with an elegant body and light yellow body. It looks like it has been quite old, and it can be sold for a good price at first glance.

Xu Jichang bypassed the beards on the ginseng, thoroughly cleaned all the soil around it, and lifted it out of the ground.

The weight is really not light.

Weighing it with his hands, Xu Jichang reckoned that this ginseng was at least three or two, and felt very satisfied in his heart.

You know, it is the most peripheral of the pile of ginseng in front of you.

When ginseng appears in piles, the inner part tends to be heavier, and the outer part is lighter.

Now there are more than three or two ginsengs on the outside, so what about the few ginseng trees hidden inside?
Xu Jichang stood up, stretched his wrist and waist a bit, squatted down and continued to sit.

The second root, the third root...

Xu Jichang spent a long time working hard, and finally got all the ginseng out.

A total of eight ginsengs were collected, the heaviest one was more than four taels, and the lightest one was three taels.

Get it on the market, this is a great unity!
Xu Ji used a handful of hands, and put the eight ginseng roots on the mud floor together with the five leaves he found earlier, and put them all on the shelf in the space.

After collecting the ginseng, Xu Jichang came to the horse and stroked its neck: "This time, I will buy you whatever I say."

Such a spiritual animal, Xu Jichang can't miss it when he passes by.

Ma'er snorted again, turned his head and looked at the ground, as if reminding Xu Jichang something.

Xu Jichang understood.

He picked up the bundle that was lying on the ground, grabbed a handful of oats from it, and brought it to the horse's mouth,

"I want to eat, right? Eat, eat, this time is enough."

"You are today's hero."

crunch.

The horse ate very sweetly, and wiped out all the oats in Xu Jichang's hands like a storm.

After eating the oatmeal, it seemed that it was still not satisfied, raised its head high, and snorted twice towards the front.

Xu Jichang looked in the direction of the horse's head, and saw a chestnut tree with many ripe chestnuts hanging on it, the branches were bent under the heavy weight.

I understand, it wants to help itself and improve its food.

Xu Jichang understood what the horse meant, so he came to the chestnut tree without saying a word, pulled out a hunting knife and shot down many chestnuts, picked them up one by one, used the knife to pry open the outermost layer of shell with spikes, and held it in his hand Sent to the horse.

Unlike camels, horses cannot eat thorny plants and fruits directly, so Xu Ji often has to help them.

This will take some effort, but this horse is the hero today and deserves such treatment.

Ma'er was overjoyed when he saw the chestnut, he groaned twice, raised his neck and ate the chestnut in Xu Jichang's hand.

The inner layer of husk is not a problem in front of the horse's strong molars.I saw it easily crack open the second layer of chestnut shell, eat the yellow nuts inside, and raised its ears while eating, it was a joy.

"You guys really know how to enjoy life."

Xu Jichang put the chestnuts on the ground first, then patted the horse's back and said, "You are here to eat. I will continue to hunt and pick mountain products."

Chestnuts are nuts, and their water content is much lower than that of apples and other fruits. It doesn’t matter how much a horse eats, so there is no need to worry about stomach upset.

The horse snorted, meaning it heard it, and lowered its head to continue eating the chestnuts, making the sound of cracking the shell.

Xu Jichang lifted his gun and left the place where the horse was tied, observing his surroundings attentively along the way.

After two rounds of snowfall, the linden trees took off their clothes one after another and became bare, but the woods were not lonely at all.

Squirrels, hedgehogs, blackbirds and other small animals that fly in the sky and walk on the ground appear in the woods from time to time. Often, when Xu Jichang stepped on the dead leaves and made a sound, he would startle all the birds away.

Xu Jichang didn't bother to beat them either, as such a bird didn't have two taels of meat on it, and three of them wouldn't be enough for a plate of food.

Walking along the forest for a while, Xu Jichang saw a figure flashing in the distance, which looked like a big dog.

In such deep mountains and old forests, unless someone brought hunting dogs to hunt, it was impossible to have dogs.

So this is most likely a wolf.

Based on the sound of the animal stepping on the dead leaves, Xu Jichang judged that it should be running towards him, so holding the shotgun, he hid behind a tall linden tree and waited for the rabbit.

After a stick of incense, the animal reappeared in Xu Jichang's field of vision.

Now Xu Jichang could see clearly that there was indeed a wolf with its tail and tongue sticking out in front of him.

I saw this wolf was running forward in a hurry, turning its head while running, as if it was hiding from something.

When running about [-] meters in front of Xu Jichang's hidden tree, the wolf stopped and began to sniff the air vigorously, as if it smelled Xu Jichang's scent.

Unless it is hungry in winter and there are dozens or hundreds of wolves, wolves are generally afraid of people.

Xu Jichang didn't give it a chance to escape, he appeared directly from behind the big tree, picked up the shotgun and didn't give it a chance to escape.

"boom!"

With a muffled sound, the wolf was shot in the forehead, and blood and brains flowed out from it.

"Boom..."

The wolf suddenly fell to the ground, and the fallen leaves creaked and creaked under the weight of the fallen leaves. The front paws twitched twice and then became silent.

Xu Jichang looked at the wolf that had lost all signs of life, and did not rush forward. Instead, he observed for a while and made sure that there were no other wolves around before he stepped up and put the wolf carcass into the space.

The wolf corpse was too big to fit on the space shelf, so Xu Jichang put it on the ground under the shelf.

After coming out of the space, Xu Jichang was also very curious. The wolf just now looked like he was being chased. What kind of beast scared it to run all over the forest?

Xu Jichang decided to explore along the direction the wolf ran over just now, thinking that there might be something to gain.

This time he was more careful, deliberately controlled the weight of his footsteps, and avoided making noise as much as possible.

Xu Jichang walked forward, left the linden grove, came to an open and empty dam, and came to the back of a big rock.

At this time, there was a smell of blood in the air.

Xu Jichang immediately raised his attention: the smell of blood meant that there were likely to be carnivores, or even large beasts.

Scanning along the dam for a week, he soon discovered the source of the bloody smell.

On the hillside on the side of the dam, a bear as strong as a hill was gnawing on the carcass of some animal.

It's a black bear.

Behind the boulder, Xu Jichang saw this scene and clenched the shotgun in his hand, ready to lift it up at any time.

There are mainly two kinds of bears in the Northeast, one is the brown bear, and the other is the black bear, which is often called the blind bear.

The easiest way to distinguish between the two is to look at the chest. There is a crescent-shaped hair on the black bear's chest, so it is also called the crescent bear.

Black bears are very smart, they can recognize guns in people's hands, and they will run away quickly when they see people raising guns, so when hitting a blind bear, you must shoot very quickly.

Xu Jichang stayed behind the tree and observed quietly for a long time, estimated the distance between Xiong Xiazi and Xiong Xiazi, and simulated the height of raising the gun in his mind based on experience, and then stood up from behind the stone when he was sure, raised the shotgun in his hand, Aimed at the blind bear.

At this moment, Blind Xiong raised his head and looked around.

"boom!"

"boom!"

Without giving it a chance to react, Xu Jichang aimed at the bear's neck and pulled the trigger one after another, firing two shots.

Large animals like bears are particularly tenacious in their vitality. Even if they are shot in a fatal part, they can often escape with the bullets. It takes two bullets to be considered safe.

"Ow!"

Xiong Xiazi was caught off guard, staggered twice, and finally couldn't support himself and fell to the ground suddenly, the four bear paws were still digging in the air.

Xu Jichang looked at its bear paw, which was the size of a child's head, and then at its several-inch-long paws glowing white, and he already thought of what happened to the wild wolf that escaped just now.

It must have been scared and fled in panic because it couldn't compete with the blind bear for food, and came to him. As a result, it not only killed him, but also let him follow the clues to find out the location of the black bear.

After shooting the black bear, Xu Jichang first reloaded the shotgun, then watched from a distance for a while, and waited until the blind bear stopped struggling before stepping forward to collect the hunt.

During the whole process, he pointed his gun at Xiong Xiazi without any hesitation.

Xiong Xiazi can pretend to be dead. Sometimes when you see it is still, it will struggle and give you a fatal blow.

As an experienced hunter, Xu Jichang naturally had to be vigilant about this.

When he came to Xiong Xiazi more than ten meters away, Xu Jichang waited for another 2 minutes with his gun in hand, and then went around behind it, took out his hunting knife and started to take the bear bile.

Bear bile is a rare and precious medicinal material, and the part that exerts the medicinal effect is bear bile.

However, bear bile will be absorbed after a long period of time, and bear bile will not be sold for a price at that time, so it is necessary to take the bile as soon as the bear just dies.

Holding a hunting knife, Xu Jichang cut a hole in the bear's belly, and took out the still warm bear bile.

I saw that the bear bile was black as a whole, with a few touches of golden yellow in the middle. Judging from the texture, it should be between iron gall and gold gall.

Bear bile is divided into three grades, the order of value from high to low is gold gall, iron gall, and vegetable gall.

Of course, in addition to these three grades, there are oil galls that are of the lowest value and not in the same grade, that is, the gall that is taken out when the bear has been dead for a long time, and the bile with medicinal value has basically been absorbed.

Among them, golden gallbladder is mostly collected in winter, and iron gallbladder is more common in summer. Now autumn is the turn of summer and winter, so the mined bear gallbladder has shown a transitional state between iron gallbladder and golden gallbladder.

After harvesting the bear bile, Xu Jichang put the huge body of the black bear into the space and piled it with the wolf corpse.

After Xiong Xiazi was taken away, there was only a pool of blood left by him and the crushed dead grass left on the ground.

gone.

Xu Jichang put the shotgun behind his back and walked quickly towards the linden forest where he tied his horse. On the way, he ate two steamed buns and meat pies made by Shen Qingrui to satisfy his hunger.

When he came to the linden forest, the horse had eaten up the chestnuts and was rubbing against the tree.

Xu Ji often stretched out his hand, scratched the place where it was rubbing on the back twice, and then untied the rein tied to the tree.

"Is it not itchy? Drive!"

Xu Jichang jumped on his horse and ran forward.

The horse was full of food and drink, and drove him happily. After a while, he came to the mountain road and followed the mountain road to the foot of the mountain.

"Call..."

Xu Jichang went down the mountain, so he temporarily reined in the horse, tied a bell to it, and galloped to the grass in front of him.

Today's weather is very good, the sky is clear and cloudless, and the grassland stretches as far as the eye can see. Xu Jichang rode his horse on the grassland, listening to the whistling wind in his ears, he felt very cool.

The same as when he came, he still drove all the way back home along the sparsely traveled suburban roads, without meeting anyone on the way.

After returning to the yard and tying the horse, he immediately took out the warm wolf carcasses, the blind man Hei, from the space and put them in the yard, preparing to skin and cut them up.

Wolf fur is a fur that can sell for a good price in the market, especially bear fur.

So be careful when skinning them to avoid damaging the fur.

Speaking of which, going into the mountain this time is really rewarding.

The priceless five-leaf ginseng, and eight four-leaf ginseng, plus large beasts like wolves and bears.

Ordinary hunters who have been busy in the mountains for several years may not be able to get such a harvest.

Xu Jichang thought happily.

After some thinking, he decided in his mind how to deal with these mountain goods.

The combination of wolf meat and bear meat was too much, and considering that there was still a lot of uneaten roe deer meat in the yard, he planned to sell most of the meat except the bear paws and exchange it for money and tickets.

The bear bile is also sold, and the fur is kept first.

Among the ginsengs, the eight four-leaf ones were sold, and the five-leaf ones were kept, because ginseng with five leaves is valuable for collection.

After Xu Jichang made up his mind, he went to the kitchen to boil hot water.

Just as he picked up the kettle and was about to put it on the stove, Du Xiaojing's surprised voice came from the outside yard: "This...where did you get these..."

Xu Jichang put the hot water bottle away, and walked out of the kitchen unhurriedly: "I got it from the mountain, and I'm about to clean it up."

"Then... then I'll help... clean it up for you."

Du Xiaojing overcame the fear in his heart, carefully walked around the wolf corpse and Xiong Xiazi, and came to Xu Jichang's side.

(End of this chapter)