Back to 1984: Hunting in the Mountains

Chapter 107 Black Bear Becomes a Spirited Young Man from Hunger
Yu Qiutang walked out of the door and found the black hunting dog squatting not far away. He walked over, but the dog avoided him and stared at him with wide eyes.

"What are you going to do? Don't you go back to your master?"

Yu Qiutang asked with a smile.

Talking to animals is a legacy of his, or it can be called an instinct.

It is lonely in the mountains. He often patrols for half a day without seeing a single human hair. The only one who keeps him company is his dog.

The dog is also very sensible. After a long time of contact, he can basically understand some common words and will respond to him from time to time.

After getting used to it, he started chatting with many animals subconsciously.

Of course, the animals basically didn't understand what he said, and most of the time he was just being sentimental.

The same is true of the hunting dog in front of me.

Although she seemed to have a good impression of Yu Qiutang, she still couldn't understand what he said and just stared at him in silence.

"Well, how about this, you stay here, I'll let Brother Jiang take care of you for the time being, wait for your master to come, or you can go back if you want, okay?"

The dog still said nothing.

"I'll take it as your acceptance. Don't regret it."

Yu Qiutang called Yu Qiujiang out, pointed at the dog and said, "Leave this hound here for now. You'll be lonely anyway. Besides, with so many things here, you need someone to watch over the house."

Yu Qiujiang glanced at the dog and said calmly, "It's ok to leave it there. I'll help you watch it."

Yu Qiujiang was not very interested in dogs.

People who like animals are like this, some people want to play with animals when they see them, while others feel disgusted by them.

There is no right or wrong.

As long as it doesn't harm other people's lives.

Yu Qiutang insists that if you like it, then you can raise it yourself. If you like a stray dog, you can take care of it and keep it at home, but you can't just feed it basic food, which will make these guys dependent and affect the lives of people nearby.

"This kind of hunting dog usually grows up eating meat, so it must maintain its craving for wild animals. So don't feed it anything else. We have bear meat now, so cut some off the edges and feed it with that."

"It's just a dog I picked up. Why do you care so much about it?" Yu Qiujiang agreed but didn't understand.

Yu Qiutang smiled.

"I can't really say why, but I just think it shouldn't become a stray dog ​​and be caught by dog ​​dealers and served as dog meat."

Yu Qiujiang was slightly stunned and nodded immediately.

"it is good."

After Yu Qiutang explained all this, he walked over and tried to rub the hound's head. The hound took a half step back, but slowly rubbed over again with its tail, and rubbed its head lightly against Yu Qiutang's trouser leg.

"Be obedient and stay here. I'll come to see you tomorrow. If you don't behave, I'll send you away. Do you understand?"

The dog seemed to understand now.

With a "woof", he wagged his tail at Yu Qiutang.

"Let's go~"

Only then did Yu Qiutang go home carrying the bear oil and bear gall.

Bear meat is not easy to cook and requires a lot of oil, so he doesn't plan to eat it at home. At most, he will bring some back to taste it.

But the bear fat had to be divided and taken home.

Wang Haofeng and Yu Qiujiang had few family members, so only a small portion was left for them, and 80% of the oil was carried back by him.

At least several dozen kilograms.

Bear oil has many uses. In terms of traditional Chinese medicine, it can eliminate rheumatism, treat frostbite, and treat injuries from falls. If taken internally, it can also replenish blood and kill insects.

If used as cooking oil, it is even more useful.

Let’s not talk about anything else, just the crispy fruits fried with bear oil are not too hard to bite, while ordinary fried crispy fruits are very crispy when hot, but once they cool down, they are either too soft to bite or too hard to bite.

These dozens of kilograms of bear's fat can be fried and put into jars, which can last for at least half a year.

This tastes much better than lard.

But then again, this bear actually doesn’t have a lot of oil, and bears with really a lot of oil need to be hunted in the winter.

In order to cope with the energy needed throughout hibernation, bears will desperately store fat, also known as bear oil, in the fall.

Then you can go without food or drink for four or five months, or eat and drink very little.

When many bears hibernate, they are fat and have very smooth fur, looking beautiful and full. But when the snow melts in spring, they come out of tree holes and often become skinny and with messy fur, like young men.

This is because all the fat has been consumed and some of the muscles have been melted away.

Then they start to replenish their food in the spring, and when their bodies are full again, they start to think about reproduction.

Repeatedly.

Yu Qiutang walked back to the courtyard under the moonlight. As expected, the door was locked from the inside. He peeked around through the crack in the door and found that all the other caves were pitch black. Only the window of his own cave still had a dim light.

It must be that Xiaowei is still catching up on his homework.

Speaking of which, this guy is really ruthless.

I didn’t feel that before.

Sure enough, the person who came to help him open the door was Yu Xiaowei. He was wearing a tattered woolen hat, yawning constantly, and holding a bamboo pencil in his hand.

When children from poor families could no longer hold a pencil in their hands, they would find a bamboo tube of suitable thickness, put the pencil head in it, and then they could use it until the length was within one centimeter.

Yu Qiutang used to do the same thing.

This is still the method he taught his nephew.

Although he earns more money now, his family situation has not changed. At the same time, he also wants his nephew to suffer a little from an early age, which will be more beneficial to his future development.

Children from different families have different education methods.

If you are from a wealthy family, there is no need to force your children to learn to endure hardships. Since they have a higher starting point, they should let their children pursue higher goals.

But children from poor families cannot be raised in wealth.

Because the society they will face in the future will not have any external help, and their families will not be able to support them, they will need to fight for everything.

So we must know from a young age that nothing comes easily.

"Uncle, why did you come back in the middle of the night? Didn't you say you would be back in three days? I thought you wouldn't be back until tomorrow afternoon at the earliest."

When Yu Xiaowei saw Yu Qiutang, his confused eyes became clearer and he walked behind Yu Qiutang to help him hold the things on his back.

In fact, Yu Qiutang didn’t care about this weight at all, and Yu Xiaowei knew it, but that’s what a sensible child is like, he would involuntarily look for things he could do to help adults.

"If you finish early, you will come back early. Is there anything going on at home?"

"No, I'm fine. What's in your bag? It smells fishy."

"guess?"

The two walked towards the kitchen.

"I don't know. There are so many things in the mountains. It must be meat from something."

"Hey, let me tell you, it's bear oil."

"It's a bear?! Really?" Yu Xiaowei shouted. He subconsciously tilted his head back to imagine what a bear looked like, but he couldn't figure it out. He had only heard adults tell stories about blind bears eating people's eyes, but he had never had the chance to see a real bear.

"How can it be fake? I'll call you aunt..."

Just as Yu Qiutang was about to ask Yu Xiaowei to wake up Yu Chunmei and Yu Xiaoyun, he saw the light in the old kitchen turn on and heard Yu Chunmei's voice, "Xiaowei, is your uncle back?"

"Well, my uncle is back."

"Oh, so early, in the middle of the night..."

Most people couldn't understand what Yu Chunmei said, but Yu Qiutang still knew what she meant. This is the tacit understanding between siblings.

Two minutes later, the kitchen door opened with a creaky sound, and Yu Chunmei and Yu Xiaoyun were both dressed.

"You're back so early?"

"Well, I was planning to go down the mountain at dawn tomorrow, but I caught something good, so I didn't delay and came down overnight."

Yu Qiutang put the bag on his back in front of his sister and said, "Look, what good stuff there is."

When Yu Chunmei untied the bag and looked, Yu Qiutang rubbed Yu Xiaoyun's head. The little girl's hair was messy and there was a little eye booger in the corner of her eye. He saw it and helped wipe the eye booger away.

"Hee hee~"

Yu Xiaoyun smiled and dodged, running to get the towel on the washbasin rack to wipe her eyes.

Now that the child's life has improved, he has gained a little weight and his complexion is much better than before. Even in the dim light of the kerosene lamp, you can still see that his little face is rosy and his eyes are big and watery.

I heard that she studies very hard in school. She can memorize texts and recognize words much faster than others. Her handwriting is also very good. Less than a month after the start of the school year, she had already received a notebook as a reward from her homeroom teacher.

If I continue like this, I might even skip a grade.

There was also a grade skipping system in this era. If you studied well, you could skip the middle grades and jump directly to a higher grade.

In his previous life, Yu Qiutang's son was a very good student. He skipped two exams and took the college entrance examination at the age of 16. He was admitted to a key university and became the first key university student in Wangjiazhuang.

"Is this lard?" Yu Chunmei opened the bag and couldn't figure out what it was for a long time. She poked it with her hand and shook her head, "No, this is not lard. Pork doesn't have this taste."

"It's bear grease."

"what?!"

Yu Chunmei's mouth opened even wider than Yu Xiaowei's just now.

Unlike Yu Xiaowei who was concerned about bear oil, Yu Chunmei first thought that since he could get bear oil, he must have fought with bears. Yu Qiutang actually did such a dangerous thing.

She closed the bag, quickly grabbed Yu Qiutang's arm, and turned him around twice. "You are not hurt, are you? How dare you go looking for trouble with a bear? Bears are very powerful. What if you get hurt? You kid..."

"I'm fine, sister. Look, I'm back safe and sound." Yu Qiutang felt his sister's care and felt very comfortable and warm in his heart.

This is what a good family is like. It gives people a natural and beautiful feeling, which is different from love.

Love seems to be more of a mutual understanding, a fusion of each other, or a fit. Without this foundation, there is naturally no love.

But family affection seems to be natural and should be so.

To make an analogy.

Love seems to be like wine. Drinking it can quench thirst and make people more intoxicated. Drinking too much can even make people drunk.

But family love is like water.

If you don't drink, you will feel thirsty.

No matter what delicious wine or beverage you drink, as long as you don’t drink water, you will feel uncomfortable. Nothing can replace the sense of security that water brings to people.

It took him a lot of effort to convince Yu Chunmei that he was not injured, and he also told her about the great harvest.

Yu Chunmei was also pleasantly surprised about the money, but still very nervous. She once again reminded Yu Qiutang not to be too reckless in the future, saying that money can be earned slowly, but people should not be exposed to risks.

They even put their entire family's hopes on him, believing that if anything happened to him, everyone's life would go back to the way it was before.

Yu Qiutang was not annoyed by his sister's nagging.

Just smile and treat it with a smile.

When people are young, they hate nagging and think that these family members do nothing well and are just restricting themselves.

But only after a certain amount of time has passed, when all the people who have nagged you have left one after another, and you look around and find yourself alone in an empty place, will you feel particularly sad at some point.

I really want someone to nag me, even if it’s just to tell me to wear long johns, to take a shower on time, to sweep the floor if it’s dirty, to stop complaining and to take the initiative to face life…

Unfortunately, life is full of regrets.

Including those things that I once firmly believed I would not regret, slowly they became poison that tortured me.

"Is the tofu for tomorrow ready?"

"Yeah, okay, look over there on the chopping board."

"Then sister, please boil some hot water for me. I need to process the bear gall. Also, wash a jar and control the water at night. Then, fry the bear oil tomorrow."

"Okay, I'll boil some water for you to wash yourself. You smell fishy and your clothes are dirty. What are you going to do?"

After Yu Chunmei said this, Yu Qiutang looked down at himself and found that his clothes were indeed very dirty.

This is no way.

If you're just picking herbs, it's fine, but if you're hunting, it's normal to have dirt, mud, and blood on your clothes.

No hunter can get down the mountain cleanly.

After putting down the bear meat, Yu Qiutang returned to his room with the bear bile and mulberry fungus.

As soon as I entered, I heard three puppies barking.

He put the three little ones in a small basket with a few small holes so that the dogs' heads could stick out but their bodies couldn't climb out.

When he went in, he just saw three little heads popping out of the hole and calling out to him.

He threw the things on the eight-immortals table, squatted beside the basket, and rubbed the heads of the little ones one by one.

"You three have to grow up quickly. By this time next year, you will be my good partners and friends. Then I will take you into the mountains and show off your prowess. What do you think?"

How could the dogs understand what he said?

Instead of saying this, it would be better to feed them more delicious food.

He played with the puppy for a while. Yu Chunmei shouted that the water was ready. Just as he was about to go to the kitchen, Yu Xiaowei shouted, "Uncle, wait in the kiln. I'll bring it to you."

"No... OK, thank you for your hard work."

He instinctively refused, but changed his mind and didn't say it out loud.

Perhaps this feeling of being needed can also make my nephew more responsible.

Sometimes a boy’s growth comes from the sudden discovery that he not only needs others, but is also deeply needed by others.

Often the happiness we get from others is not as great as being needed by others.

His nephew can feel his kindness and is willing to give him feedback, so why not?

This thought became more real when he finished washing his body and watched Yu Xiaowei carry his dirty clothes out, saying that Yunyun would help him wash them.

Haha, it’s really worth loving them.

After taking a bath, Yu Qiutang asked Yu Xiaowei to rest first, while he began to process the bear bile according to traditional methods.

It’s actually very simple.

Just use hot water to scald the bear bile thoroughly.

Why do this?

This has been mentioned before, so I won’t repeat it here.

Although the ancients' liming method was effective, it made the bear bile look darker in color.

If it is iron gall or grass gall, it doesn’t matter, as the color is dark anyway.

But what he was holding in his hand now was a golden gallbladder, which was bright in color. If it was not handled properly and turned gray, it would be difficult to ask for a good price.

When selling medicine, efficacy and ingredients are important, and quality is also very important.

It's just like looking at people.

If a medicine looks very poor in appearance but you insist that it is very effective, most people would not believe it.

Subconsciously, we have already discounted it.

"Tangtang, do you think this water is enough?" After taking a shower, Yu Qiutang felt refreshed and every pore felt comfortable.

The conditions in the mountains were poor, I was always worried about things, and I was physically exhausted. Now that I’m back home, I feel relaxed, just like coming back from outside in the hot summer and drinking a glass of iced happy water.

He glanced into the pot and found that there was half a pot of water. Just as he was about to say that it was almost done, he suddenly smelled a faint aroma of oil. "Sister, the water I use cannot have any oil in it. This pot of water cannot be used."

"I see. It's all my fault for not cleaning the pot thoroughly. I'll change it for you."

Yu Chunmei shamelessly took a washbasin and scooped the water out of the pot with a ladle.

Yu Qiutang knew that Yu Chunmei could not be blamed.

The pots at that time were not like those in later generations, which had to be cleaned thoroughly with detergent every time.

There is a shortage of water here, and there is no detergent, so you basically just use a rag to wash it.

It is normal to have oil spots on the pan.

Water can't wash away oil.

"I didn't explain it to you clearly," Yu Qiutang pulled his sister to sit down on the kang, "If you're not feeling well, just take a rest. I'll take care of the fever."

"It's okay. I'm not tired. You must be exhausted after a hard day's work. Let me do it..."

"Sister," Yu Qiutang pressed Yu Chunmei to sit on the edge of the kang, "Don't fight with me about this matter. Why do you have to fight for everything? Look at my strong body. Can I die of exhaustion if I do more work?"

"I……"

"Just sit down, Yunyun, and pull your aunt onto the kang."

"Hey, uncle."

Yu Xiaoyun was making insoles on the kang where she was sitting.

It was time to go to bed at this time, but Yu Qiutang needed to use the kitchen, so she simply started making insoles under the dim light.

Girls these days are all very clever and dexterous, and they learn these skills from watching their elders do it when they were young.

The method of making insoles is similar to that of Thousand-layer soles, but they are thinner than Thousand-layer soles, only one or two millimeters thick, and the surface will be glued with a layer of white or light-colored cloth.

Various beautiful patterns are painted on the cloth according to the person's age, gender, purpose of the insole, etc., such as flowers, birds, fish, insects, auspicious clouds, and some auspicious words.

After drawing, you need to use different colored threads to embroider the pattern onto the insole like embroidery.

It would be best if you have colorful threads. If not, you can also use a combination of blue, red and white threads to embroider a nice style.

In recent years, when people get married, they often receive a lot of insoles, from aunts, cousins, sisters-in-law, mothers, sisters, etc. As long as they are women, they will basically have a pair of embroidered insoles to take with them.

However, when getting married, the most common patterns are mandarin ducks, butterflies or double happiness characters.

On the wedding day, a platform will be set up at the door of the new house, covered with various wedding favors and dowry, including various types of insoles.

The more insoles there are, the more blessings the newlyweds receive, which is a very face-saving and ceremonial thing.

Of course, appearance is not the main criterion for people here to judge a girl. When talking about a good girl, they will say that she is good at “needlework, tea and cooking”. Such a girl will be very popular in the village.

Once you marry into your husband's family, you will be especially popular.

Among the considerations for needlework, one needs to look at the quality of the insoles, whether the pattern is beautiful, whether the size of the embroidery stitches is even, whether the overall color matching is beautiful, etc.

If you are clumsy, can't cook delicious food, and can't do needlework well, then life will be really difficult.

Different eras have different requirements for the expression of human value. In the agricultural era, as long as the work required physical strength, men were stronger and inevitably dominated. With the advent of the industrial age, the gap in the ability of men and women in operating machines narrowed, so their status was basically equal.

Yu Xiaoyun has already started to hone himself at a young age.

Although Yu Qiutang wanted her to go to college in the future, leave this mountain village and realize her value in a big city, he did not say anything against her doing these things.

Having this skill is never a bad thing.

He thought carefully and realized that after the new century, as the older generation gradually grew old or passed away, many interesting cultural heritages lost their successors.

I have to say, it’s a pity.

After "exiling" his sister to the kang, Yu Qiutang took some alkaline noodles for steaming buns and put them in the pot. He carefully scrubbed the pot, then filled it with clean water and changed the water twice.

After the third time, he sat in front of the stove and started to boil water.

By doing this, the oil content in the water can basically be reduced to a very low level to meet his needs.

While boiling water, I chatted with my sister.

It is said that the bear bile that is being processed now can be sold for 1,800 yuan if we are lucky. Then we can build a house and move in with our family.

Yu Chunmei was confused by what she heard. She couldn't imagine what more than a thousand yuan meant, just like a farmer couldn't imagine how many meat buns the emperor would eat in the palace.

She just felt a lot.

They felt happy, but also had an unreal sense of insecurity, as if these things were a house that was about to collapse and they were living inside it.

Yu Qiutang didn't expect his sister to understand immediately.

He was just slowly trying to make his sister bolder and dare to think about things she had never thought about before.

Steam rose up and the water boiled.

Yu Qiutang quickly put the bear gall hanging with a hemp rope into the hot water. After a few minutes when the hot water completely covered the bear gall, he lifted the gall up again and drained the water underneath.

When the bear bile was first taken out during the day, it was still very full, but after half a day, it began to shrink a little.

This is because part of the bile is gradually absorbed by the gallbladder.

After soaking in hot water, it becomes full again.

He brought the bear bile to his room and hung it in the corner. The bear bile could not be dried in the sun because the temperature would be too high and the bile would be lost. In this way, the bile would slowly seep in, be absorbed, and finally be enriched in the bile.

This action often needs to be continued several times until the gallbladder is placed in hot water. The gallbladder will become like an old man and will never be full again. The treatment is considered complete.

The premise is that this thing must be well protected and not stolen by mice or wild cats.

So he decided to watch over it carefully and make sure nothing went wrong.

(End of this chapter)