Back to 1984: Hunting in the Mountains

Chapter 101 A Dog Head Falls from the Sky

Feeling that the wild animal in the bushes was coming fiercely, Yu Qiutang and the other two stood up together, picked up their weapons, and held their breath waiting for the thing to rush out.

Judging from the height of the bushes, this thing couldn't be a bear or an adult wild boar. So no matter what wild animal it was, Yu Qiutang was confident that he could kill it with one shot.

It actually actively attacks humans, so it must not be a smart creature.

"Come on, come on!"

Wang Haofeng, who had not performed well, also clenched the axe in his hand. He followed Yu Qiutang out and had not made any contribution yet. He felt that his axe was thirsty.

Just waiting to kill the enemy and make merit.

Yu Qiujiang was also staring at the bushes intently, his knife glowing red in the light of the fire.

"Bah!"

The thing finally burst out of the bushes.

Seeing the three aggressive people, he was not panicked at all, and had no intention of attacking. Instead, he squatted beside the fire like a puppy, staring with his two round eyes, motionless.

Yu Qiutang and the other two were dumbfounded.

What kind of rhythm is this?

They never expected that after going around in circles, they would meet the eagle owl they met in the morning here again.

Oh.

It must be the eagle owl.

Eagle owls of this size are rare to see. If Yu Qiutang had been told that he could see two in one day, he would never have believed it.

But even if he believed that this was the eagle owl they had seen, so what?

They didn't disrespect it at the time.

Even though this guy is known to be vengeful and revengeful, he can't find them to blame.

What are you doing here now, trying to scam me?

Yu Qiutang signaled Wang Haofeng and Yu Qiujiang to put down their weapons. He felt that the eagle owl had no hostility towards them, so he ran to the fire and started roasting it.

The three of them sat down slowly again, and Yu Qiutang placed the steel fork in a convenient place just in case.

The eagle owl is definitely no match for humans. After all, it is not as big or heavy as the golden eagle, its claws are not as sharp as those of the golden eagle, and its flying speed is not as fast as that of the golden eagle.

Golden eagles will not actively attack adult humans, and this eagle owl should not be able to do so either.

If by any chance it suddenly goes crazy, Yu Qiutang will use a steel fork to make it fly back to heaven.

"Hey, are you here just to get some warmth?" Yu Qiutang said to the eagle owl.

The eagle owl ignored him and slowly closed one eye.

"Yo ho."

Yu Qiutang was completely confused. This guy actually fell asleep in front of the three of them.

One eye open and one eye closed is the most common sleeping pattern of owls. This way, the two eyes rest alternately, ensuring that they can see prey or natural enemies first.

Generally, an owl's living habits can be judged by its eyes.

If it is yellow, like the eagle owl, it will not be affected by day and night and can move freely at any time.

Some owls have orange-red eyes and can only come out during the day, not at night.

Some owls have purple or black eyes, and these owls come out at night.

"What's going on?" Wang Haofeng didn't understand either. He found that the eagle owl didn't move, so he sat right opposite the eagle owl and stared at it for a long time, but couldn't figure out what was going on.

Yu Qiutang shook his head.

Among the knowledge he knew about eagle owls, there was no explanation for this special situation. After all, he was not a bird expert from the Forestry Bureau. Perhaps those people knew why.

"Do you want……?"

Wang Haofeng made a gesture of wiping his neck.

Yu Qiutang shook his head. "It's good to do it. You won't get much money from it, and you won't get half a pound of meat. It's a waste of life. Besides, it's not auspicious."

The number of eagle owls in the Qinling Mountains declined rapidly, and they were officially listed as protected animals in 1989. After all, Yu Qiutang came from the future, and he could not hunt them recklessly when he knew that they were endangered.

He tries to hunt animals that are not particularly endangered in the future. Under this general principle, and continuing to follow the rule that hunters do not kill lactating and pregnant animals, there will be basically no impact on the ecology.

Of course, he couldn't tell Wang Haofeng and Yu Qiujiang about this thought. Given their current levels of awareness, they couldn't understand it and didn't realize its importance.

It would be more convenient to take advantage of the fact that people are wary of owls and think they are an unlucky bird.

But it was true that the eagle owl could not eat much meat.
Although the eagle owl has a large wingspan and weighs several kilograms, if you remove its wings and just look at its body, you will find that it is actually very thin and its thighs are only long, not thick.

It is totally incomparable with the thick thighs of the golden eagle.

There is also a folk legend that an eagle owl can defeat a golden eagle. It is probably that the adult eagle owl bullies the young golden eagle. If they are both adults, their fighting power is not at the same level at all.

After hearing what Yu Qiutang said, Wang Haofeng gave up his negative thoughts about the eagle owl. He started to watch the eagle owl, but later found that this guy was squatting on a piece of wood and didn't move at all. Gradually he lost interest in it and fell asleep by the fire.

Yu Qiujiang asked Yu Qiutang to go to bed first while he would watch the fire. Yu Qiutang did not refuse and asked Yu Qiujiang to watch over the Coriolus fungus. He also had a good sleep.

We still rely mainly on him during the day, so there is no need to be polite about this kind of duty work. If he doesn't sleep well at night, it will be a bit dangerous to go down the cliff during the day.

Perhaps because he was too tired during the day, he slept very comfortably. When he woke up, it was already past five in the morning. He found that Wang Haofeng was propping up his eyelids with four fingers, trying hard to keep himself awake.

Seeing him wake up, Wang Haofeng breathed a sigh of relief.

Yu Qiujiang rested his head on a piece of wood and held the bag of Coriolus versicolor tightly in his arms.

"You're awake." Wang Haofeng greeted quietly.
"Ah."

Yu Qiutang responded softly, and suddenly felt that something seemed to be missing by the fire. After thinking again, he realized that the eagle owl was missing.

"?"

Yu Qiutang pointed to the spot where the eagle owl had been squatting, and looked at Wang Haofeng inquiringly. Wang Haofeng pointed at Yu Qiujiang and said, "Ask Brother Jiang. I woke up at around three o'clock, and the thing was gone."

"Oh."

Yu Qiutang thought that the guy was quite unique. He came without saying hello, did whatever he wanted to do to attract attention, and left without making a sound.

Do you treat this place as a hotel or your mother's home?

What a free bird.

At this time, Yu Qiujiang also opened his eyes. Seeing that Yu Qiutang was awake, he sat up and stretched. "The eagle owl left before three o'clock. It seemed that it suddenly smelled something and flew away directly."

"It won't run away this time?" Wang Haofeng laughed. "No," Yu Qiujiang shook his head, and after a little thought, he said, "I guess it might have been slightly injured last night, and after resting here for a night, it recovered and flew away.

"That still doesn't answer my confusion. Tell me, why is that creature so bold? How does it know that we won't hurt it? Or does it think too highly of itself and doesn't take the three of us men seriously at all?"

Wang Haofeng once again raised this question that they had not figured out in front of Eagle Owl last night.

"I don't know about that." Yu Qiujiang shook his head.

Yu Qiutang suddenly had an idea and guessed, "I guess this eagle owl was either fed by humans or had lived with humans before, so it doesn't dislike humans..."

At this point, he felt that his guess had no basis and was pure conjecture. There was no point in speaking it out and it might even mislead people, so he did not continue and changed the subject.

"Our mission today is still arduous. I know a total of four places. We will try to finish them today. If it's early, we will go down the mountain early. If it's dark, we will stay overnight."

"Okay, then pack up and leave."

Wang Haofeng and Yu Qiujiang began to clean up the firewood and other garbage. These things had to be taken away when they went down the mountain, otherwise they would become forest garbage if left in the mountains.

Yu Qiutang did not participate in such small tasks as cleaning up. While wiping five or six things, he was thinking about what kind of ferocious beasts might appear around those locations.

After thinking about it, the only possible animals that could appear were a red fox or a wolf, so I stopped worrying.

As long as clouded leopards and golden leopards don't appear, the three of them can basically defeat the enemy with their combat power.

"Okay, let's go."

At Yu Qiutang's command, Wang Haofeng and Yu Qiujiang followed closely behind.

With yesterday's harvest of Coriolus mushroom as a guarantee, they are more motivated today than yesterday. Even if they get nothing else, at least they have made a small fortune.

As if they heard their calls, they searched the two places they found in the morning for a long time, but as expected, they didn't find any Coriolus polyphylla at all.

Only the last two spots remain.

"Find a place nearby to rest, out of the sun, and wait until the weather is a little cooler before continuing. Don't get heatstroke."

Yu Qiutang once again acted as an encourager.

Wang Haofeng and Yu Qiujiang were a little tired at the moment, so they naturally did not object.

The three of them searched for rocks everywhere. As they were searching, a large bird suddenly flew over their heads. They looked at each other and wondered at the same time, could it be...

Just as I was thinking about it, something fell from the sky.

It fell right in front of them.

"Damn it, this..."

When the three of them saw the appearance of the thing clearly, their scalps suddenly went numb and Wang Haofeng cursed out loud.

It turned out that what fell... oh, to be more precise, was thrown in front of them was the head of a black dog.

The broken neck was jagged, as if it had been pecked off piece by piece. The blood had not completely dried up at this time and splattered everywhere on the ground.

Yu Qiutang looked up subconsciously, and saw the eagle owl from last night staring at them from the birch tree next to them, with round eyes, but he had no idea what it meant.

He was wondering when he suddenly heard two dog barks, and then saw two hunting dogs rushing out of the birch forest. They must have come following the scent of the dead dog. When they saw the dog's head on the ground, they first circled around it in shock, then put their front paws on the ground and started to whine.

Yu Qiutang recognized that these were two Eastern Sichuan hunting dogs, the same breed as the dogs on the ground. Seeing them crying so sadly, the dog heads on the ground were indeed their dead companions.

The appearance of the East Sichuan Hound in such a place must mean that there is a hunter nearby. It looks like he is going to meet his fellow hunters at the top of Houtouling Mountain.

Yu Qiutang reacted quickly.

This is not the time to feel sorry for or pity the dog. He, or they, have been framed by this damn eagle owl.

Although it is not known why this great hunting dog was killed and beheaded by a mere eagle owl, what would the owner of the dog think when the eagle owl threw the dog's head in front of them?

There are not many people in this mountain.

If the dog owner comes and sees this now, he can’t wash himself clean even if he jumps into the Yellow River.

"What should we do?" Wang Haofeng was not a fool, he quickly thought of this, "Will we be targeted?"

As he spoke, he raised his head and glared at the eagle owl fiercely.

The eagle owl still stared with its round eyes, without any emotion at all, and it was impossible to tell what it was thinking.

While Yu Qiutang was still thinking, Wang Haofeng stepped forward and prepared to pick up the dog head, and hurriedly stopped the reckless guy.

"If you really touch us, we will be covered in mud and our pants will fall off. We will die if we don't."

"What about..."

Wang Haofeng was just asking when he noticed two whimpering hounds looking towards the oak tree. The next moment, two people walked out from the edge of the woods.

One is old and the other is young, one is tall and the other is short, one is fat and the other is thin. They look somewhat similar and appear to be father and son.

Compared with Wang Gaofeng and Yu Qiujiang, these two were obviously dressed like professional hunters. They were all wearing thick camouflage uniforms, hats, and their faces were painted in colors similar to the surrounding environment, as if they were integrated with nature.

The older hunter was tall and strong, with sharp and focused eyes. He held a single-barreled shotgun tightly in his hand, his eyes sharp and vigilant, looking at Yu Qiutang and the other two like a venomous snake.

The young hunter was relatively thin, and his eyes were a little frivolous, as if he didn't take the three people in front of him seriously. Seeing Yu Qiutang was also looking at him, he waved a dagger in the air a few times provocatively, looking very fierce.

The two men quickly noticed the dog's head on the ground, and their faces suddenly changed.

They all rushed to the dog's head in two or three steps and stared at it in disbelief. The older hunter's eyes were full of sorrow and his hands holding the gun were shaking a little.

The young hunter had a sinister look on his face, showing more anger and disgust, and not much sadness.

Yu Qiutang felt that the look in the young hunter's eyes was just like the way his father looked at him before, completely looking at him as a piece of trash.

"Where did he go? Turns out he died here. This idiot, I told him not to run around, but he just wouldn't listen."

The young hunter complained unhappily.

The older hunter slowly squatted down, put the gun aside, held the dog's head with both hands, looked at the dog's eyes that were still open, and finally couldn't hold back his tears.

"You, you, what can I say? I told you that you are old, so just stay at home and be a good person. You have been with me for half your life, and I am willing to support you until you die. But you refused to listen. Look at what has happened to you now. I...I..."

After the two men came, although one was sad and the other complained, neither of them took the initiative to talk to Yu Qiutang and the other two. Yu Qiutang ignored them, turned around, greeted the two men and prepared to leave.

But at this moment, the eagle owl in the tree suddenly let out a shrill "Woo...roar" sound.

The screams were particularly sharp and high-pitched, instantly breaking the relatively quiet atmosphere. There were sounds of sadness, complaints, confusion, and speechlessness...

Everyone looked up at it.

At this time, the young hunter suddenly shouted: "Dad, look, it's that owl!"

(End of this chapter)