Return to 1983 Hunting Xing'an Mountains

Chapter 365: No Bear, No Fish

The next day, it was still dark.

Xu Ning got up early, put on a cotton jacket, cotton pants, and a belt, and carrying the 56, he and Guan Lei hurried out the door. Wang Hu was waiting at the gate of the courtyard, and the three of them met up and walked towards Li Fuqiang's house together.

In the morning, Yang Shuhua made egg cakes, baked more than ten brown sugar cakes, stir-fried cabbage with vinegar, and a pot of stewed sauerkraut that she brought back from Old Xu's house last night.

The four of them sat on the kang and ate their food without saying anything. They were all a little anxious because it was about making money and they really couldn't wait.

After the meal, Li Fuqiang hurriedly tied his belt, picked up the cloth bag he had prepared last night, and walked to the outer room. He asked Wang Hu to put the lunch box on the stove into the cloth bag, while he picked up the Bingchuanzi he brought home last night and ran towards Xiaoshi River.

They walked quickly along the way. Wang Hu, Guan Lei and Li Fuqiang were all a little excited. If the fish hanging on the tree branch was eaten by a brown bear, then they would definitely be able to feel the bear's shadow by following the bear's trail downwards. There was no doubt about it, because the brown bear was in its territory and would not run too far. It would walk and stop, always on the way to find food.

Li Fuqiang carried Bingchuanzi on his shoulders and said, "What are we afraid of now? We're afraid that the little fox will eat the bait we threw, and then our trip will be in vain!"

"Brother Qiang, what you said is correct. Ever since I started hunting with my second brother, I have felt that begging for food in the mountains is too difficult. There are too many uncertainties, and you can never predict what will happen in the next second."

Guan Lei nodded: "Yeah, I used to think that if I wanted to run in the mountains, I would just run in the mountains. But now I don't think so."

Li Fuqiang said with a smile: "Like my brother said, you have to be respectful to the mountains. Only when you respect them will they cherish you."

Xu Ning turned his head and looked at the three people, saying, "Sometimes what you think in your heart is often contrary to reality... It's useless to think too much. The more you think about beautiful things, the easier it is to get nothing."

"Yeah! Second brother, you are full of jingles now too."

"What? Why didn't I hear it?" Guan Lei asked.

Li Fuqiang laughed and said, "It's just a waste of time!"

"Ha ha……"

Several people laughed as they walked. Guan Lei turned around and said, "Hu Zi's chat is quite humorous now."

"Hey, how can I not be funny when I'm hanging out with my brother? I've become a bit mean now."

Xu Ning said: "Brother, forget it, you were not fun before..."

"Hahaha……"

The weather was a little gloomy today. The blue sky was covered by a large patch of thick clouds, blocking the sunlight, so it felt a bit cold after entering the mountains.

When they arrived near Xiaoshi River, the four of them slowed down their pace. They followed the edge of the hill, jumped over the Xiaoshi River, and came to the ditch pond where they had fished yesterday.

Xu Ning walked around the ditch and pond for half a circle, then led the three people straight to the tree where the bait was placed. After seeing the snow on the ground and the fish hanging on the tree branches, the three people looked indescribably lonely.

Guan Lei hung his head and said, "Brother, the brown bear didn't come over to eat the fish. It must have run away, right?"

"Second brother, can I take the fish off?"

Xu Ning nodded: "Pick it up. This brown bear might be injured and run to Baishilazi again."

Li Fuqiang was puzzled and said, "No, what on earth is there in Baishilazi? Why does it always run to Baishilazi?"

"Maybe he has a lover!" Xu Ning said nonsense.

"It's really unprepared!" Guan Lei nodded seriously.

After Wang Hu took the fish off the tree branch, the three of them stared at Xu Ning. He said, "Why are you looking at me? Go pick up the fish! Luckily my eldest brother thought about it, otherwise we would have made a wasted trip today."

Li Fuqiang scratched his face and said, "Brother, if I don't take the glacier, will we encounter a bear?"

"What's the idea? If there was a brown bear nearby, it would have eaten the fish after we left. What does it have to do with you taking the glacier seeds?"

Xu Ning waved his hand and said, "We can now basically conclude that the brown bear that attacked Li Ye and Hu Zhiyong was the same one that killed Li Shan."

"Second brother, how did you figure that out?"

"It's very cunning. Uncle Ma encountered it before and shot it with a gun. It ran away. Brother Li Shan and the two brothers from the Niu family encountered it, and it also ran away..."

"Ah, then it's possible."

Xu Ning pointed at the tracks on the ground and said, "We spotted these tracks yesterday, but we didn't see any new tracks today. Okay, let's not think about this brown bear now. We'll see when we meet one."

"OK."

After they got off the ditch and pond, they looked for floating fish on the ice. There were not as few floating fish as in early winter, because they had been frozen under the ice for several months and were more susceptible to lack of oxygen.

So he chiseled seven holes in the ice in one afternoon and took out seven silver carp, carp and crucian carp. These three kinds of fish were mostly in the ditch and pond. There were also bighead carp, but the water on this side of Xiaoshi River is from the mountains and the fish are not very big.

Xu Ning was given a hot meal, while Li Fuqiang, Guan Lei and Wang Hu were working hard in the ditch, sweating profusely. What were they doing?

Xu Ning marked a position for them and asked them to dig an L-shaped eye channel, two and a half meters long and one meter wide. Since there was only one ice shovel, the three of them took turns to dig ice. Li Fuqiang also made a scoop net with a cloth bag and branches to scoop out the broken ice...

"Brother, let's eat first and fix it later."

"Okay!" Li Fuqiang responded, then he inserted the glacier into the ice and called Wang Hu and Guan Lei to walk towards the shore.

"Brother, do you think you can get ten kilograms of loaches with just one glance?"

"Ten kilograms is a bit heavy, but there must be loaches..."

Guan Lei wiped the sweat off his face and said, "It's OK to cook some loaches. I'm craving for them. I'll ask my sister-in-law to fry them and serve them as a snack. They'll be really delicious!"

"What else is there to say? We just didn't bring a scoop net today. Otherwise, we could have gotten some willow roots. Willow roots smell good when they're fried!"

Wang Hu said: "Second brother, I want to eat hash ants!"

"You look like a hashtag to me."

"Hahaha……"

After lunch, after packing up the lunch boxes, Xu Ning, carrying his gun, went down the ditch with the three men. Standing next to the hole, Xu Ning took a closer look and said, "Brother, this piece of ice is too thick, and there is a cavity underneath. Shoot this way."

"Okay, but we don't have a net, so how are we going to catch the small fish later?"

Xu Ning said, "You made a landing net, right? Tear up the cloth bag, find a bigger branch, tie it up, and poke a few holes in the cloth."

"Hey, brother, when we get home, won't my aunt say you're a spendthrift?"

"Just say it, there's nothing you can do about it."

Guan Lei said: "Brother, if it really doesn't work, I'll take off my autumn clothes and use them as a scoop net."

"You are even more ridiculous. Isn't your autumn uniform new? All right, let's do this. After we finish this one, we'll go to Xiaoshi River to dig out hash ants."

"It's done!"

"Hey, second brother, don't you say I look like a hashtag?" Wang Hu grinned.

"I'll throw it into the river for you to chisel!"

"Haha... Huzi, you are such a talker."

Wang Hu smiled foolishly: "I learned it from my second brother."

Xu Ning rolled his eyes feeling a little helpless, these brothers followed him, but they didn't learn anything good from him, instead they imitated the bad ones.

This hole was drilled at more than two points. When Li Fuqiang used a glacier chisel to chisel away the thin ice at the bottom, he clearly felt a suction force, and muddy water seeped out from the tip of the glacier chisel.

"Brother! Chisel it open!"

Xu Ning pointed at the small hole that Bingchuanzi had chiseled and said, "After you pull it out, quickly chisel away the surrounding ice. Be careful not to throw Bingchuanzi in there."

"That's not possible." Li Fuqiang grabbed the two handles of the glacier with both hands and lifted it up with great effort. He then saw a stream of water coming out from the eye of the ice, but the water did not spray very high, only more than ten centimeters.

After the glacier fell, a big hole opened up in the ice, and then a stream of black water gushed out, reaching half a meter high!
"Oh my god! It's quite powerful." Wang Hu said in surprise.

Xu Ning took the cloth scoop net that Li Fuqiang had just made, stirred it in the black water, and threw the ice chips and a small amount of old man fish in the black water onto the ice surface, while Guan Lei squatted down and reached into the cloth bag to pick up the fish.

"Hit harder!"

Li Fuqiang chiseled more than ten times in a row, and a big hole had been chiseled in the thin ice at the bottom. Many loaches and old men were floating on the black water, which was visible to the naked eye, and there were even a few snappers.

Xu Ning handed the scoop net to Wang Hu, who stirred the black water and scooped the fish out.

"Brother, chisel open the edges of this piece, and then put the scoop net in to stir it up..."

"That's it."

This 'L'-shaped fish was pretty good. After working for more than three hours, I finally caught five or six kilograms of loaches, more than three kilograms of old man fish, eight big fish, and even six palm-sized catfish.

The spot Xu Ning chose was a fish nest, but there were too few fish in the nest. Nowadays, if you don’t catch 20 to 30 kilograms of fish, it would be a waste of time.

There are far fewer fish like in later generations, because all the fish have entered the reservoirs, the small rivers have dried up and there is no habitat for them, and even the wild ditches and ponds have been bought by people and turned into fish ponds.

"Huzi, stir it up a little more."

Upon hearing this, Wang Hu took the scoop net and stirred the black water five or six times, and all he caught were small fish. Guan Lei threw the old man fish and a few loaches into the cloth bag, and kicked the small fish back into the black water.

"Oh my god! Brother, look, there's a big grass root here!"

Li Fuqiang was wandering in another ditch when he suddenly shouted.

Wang Hu and Guan Lei had already packed up. Xu Ning, carrying a gun and a scoop net, walked over to the shore.

"How old are you?"

"This long!" Li Fuqiang gestured with his hands. It was about the length of his calf and estimated to weigh around ten kilograms.

Grass carp refers to grass carp. To be honest, people in Qing'an are not very fond of eating grass carp. It is not a precious toy and people can have it or not. But in the end, Xu Ning still asked Li Fuqiang to chisel open the ice.

After all, I have only eaten silver carp, carp, snapper, loach and other fish this winter, and have never tasted grass carp, so I want to try something new.

After breaking the ice, Li Fuqiang looked at the grass carp and said, "It's dead. It looks like it's turning white."

Xu Ning lowered his head and took a look. "It's not useless, it can still be eaten..."

In winter, you have to look at the eyes of dead fish. If the eyes are completely white, then you can’t eat them. In summer, you have to look at the gills…

Li Fuqiang pulled out a grass carp weighing about 10 kilograms and threw it on the ice. Wang Hu laughed and said, "It's really big!"

He ran over and glanced at the fish's eyes, pressed them with his hands, and said, "It's edible!"

"Carry it." Xu Ning looked down at his watch and said, "It's half past one now. Let's go for a walk in Xiaoshi River."

"Got it."

Wang Hu put the grass roots into a cloth bag, but did not carry it on his back. Instead, he held it in his hand. Now that the weather is warmer, the water cannot be frozen quickly, so water is still dripping from the bottom of the cloth bag.

After walking downstream along the Little Stone River for a while and moving two stones away without finding Hashma, Xu Ning waved his hand and said, "Let's go home. We didn't bring any water shoes today. We'll definitely get a fever if we walk barefoot in the water."

Li Fuqiang said, "Okay, it's okay to get some old fish, just treat it as a trip."

"That's great, second brother. After the water clears, shall we go to Mudanjiang to catch some river fish?"

Xu Ning turned around and said, "You should be thinking about building a house then, right?"

"Yes."

Li Fuqiang said while carrying the glacier: "It won't delay us. When the water thaws, we can't dig the foundation. Hey, brother, go to the street to find my brother-in-law sometime. He seems to be in contact with several brick factories."

"Yes, my brother told me last time that Brother Liguo had dinner with some brick factory owners."

"...Brother, Yang Jun said you need a car, so he drove his car away. Last time we were drinking and talking about building a house."

Xu Ning shook his head: "Forget it, he has to work, right?"

"If you work during the day, you will be free at night. Anyway, it's close, and one cart of wood and bricks a day is enough."

Xu Ning thought for a moment and said, "Well, let's get a few more cars and try to bring it back in one trip."

"Row!"

When we returned to Old Xu's house, it was already past half past three.

When Liu Lizhen saw that they had brought back so many fish, she knew that the four of them had not caught any trace of the brown bear, and she felt relieved. She was afraid that Xu Ning would get too excited. The brown bear and the black bear are two different animals. Compared with the brown bear, the black bear is a more gentle animal.

"Fry some old man fish tonight? We can eat the rest in two days."

Xu Ning said, "Okay, Mom, you decide. I don't care what we eat."

Liu Lizhen asked, "Are you going up the mountain tomorrow?"

"No, I'm going to the mountain to play with air rifles tomorrow..."

"Alright, go play."

After entering the house, Guan Lei sat on the edge of the kang and said, "Brother, I will go back to the studio tomorrow."

"You should wait until the holidays are over. There are only a few days left. Stay home and rest for a few more days."

"That's okay too."

Li Fuqiang grabbed the air gun and said, "Brother, let's go to the backyard and fire a few shots. I'm itching to do it when I see this thing."

"Okay! How about finding two boards as targets and shooting at a 30-meter target first?"

"Then what shall we do?" Li Fuqiang asked.

The "ga" in this sentence "gadiansha" means to make a bet.

"What's the matter?" Wang Hu tilted his head and looked at Xu Ning.

Xu Ning said with a smile: "The loser gets to be the donkey!"

"Okay!"

Wang Hu pouted and said, "Second brother, my shooting skills are the worst..."

"Let's split up into four groups, holding hands."

"That's fine!" Wang Hu said with gritted teeth.

The four of them were in a playful mood and came to the backyard with two air guns. Wang Hu found two wooden boards and stood them against the wall. Xu Ning and others stood next to a corn pile thirty meters away. They were divided into groups based on the palms and backs of their hands. Xu Ning and Guan Lei were in one group, and Li Fuqiang and Wang Hu were in another group.

Guan Lei had rarely touched a gun, so Wang Hu was very confident in competing with him in shooting skills.

Each person fired ten lead bullets, and the scores were recorded according to the targets. Li Fuqiang and Wang Hu fired twenty bullets first. It was easy to miss targets with an air gun because the gun was heavy and the lead bullets were light. After pulling the trigger, there was only a "pop" sound, just like clapping, and there was almost no recoil.

Li Fuqiang and Wang Hu's first few lead bullets missed the target, and in the end only fourteen bullets hit the target, giving them a score of 74.

(End of this chapter)