Back to 1984: Hunting in the Mountains

Of course, Yu Qiutang is not without companions.

He brought Dahei with him.

This guy is now the head coach of the three puppies. He takes the three puppies around every day and performs the duties of a nanny, father, and teacher very well.

The three puppies are now half their size.

I guess after spring, we’ll be able to take them into the mountains to do some basic hunting work.

When they were leaving today, the three puppies also wanted to follow Yu Qiutang, but he ruthlessly refused.

In the deep mountains after the snow, inexperienced dogs and inexperienced people have only one way to go, which is death.

He is like a dog that is easy to raise, but cannot be taken to die.

Dahei is very professional and can help him with the search.

A man and a dog left the edge of the village and went into the mountains along the familiar yet unfamiliar village road.

Yu Qiutang held a stick in his hand and tied the dog with a rope, letting it explore the way ahead.

The direction towards the mountains is now covered with snow, making it difficult to see the road clearly. If you step in rashly, you may fall into a snow pit or fall off a cliff.

With the dog in front, he just needs to follow the dog's footprints and move forward.

If the dog falls into a snow pit or a cliff, it’s easy to deal with. Just pull the rope up.

This is also an important reason why he brought Dahei with him today.

After leaving the village, there was no shelter in front, and the wind suddenly became strong, blowing down a lot of snow from the trees, forming powder in the air, which occasionally fell on Yu Qiutang's face.

Even though he was wearing the heart-shaped scarf knitted by Mialy, some of the moisture still found its way into his neck, making him feel cold and wet, and his body trembled.

As I walked, I felt a little dizzy. I looked up and saw that the clouds in the sky had become thinner. Although I still couldn't see the sun, I could vaguely make out its position.

The clouds also became soft under the reflection of the sun, no longer as dark and cloudy as they were in the morning.

Today's progress was obviously not as fast as the last time I was with my father.

It seemed as if the father and son were competing with each other. They said they could rest at any time, but in fact, neither of them gave in. Even though they paused by the crooked tree, the total time was still short.

But today the mountains were very quiet, and only occasionally you could see some squirrels jumping around in the woods or floating quickly across the snow.

The squirrel's feet are very light, and the snow here is solid. When it runs across the snow, it can only leave very slight footprints, which cannot be seen unless you look carefully.

Because of the wind in the forest, broken snow fell and some of it was scattered on the ground, making it easy to be buried.

When Dahei saw the squirrels, he just glanced at them casually and didn't bother to pay any attention to them.

That’s the work ethic of a chase dog.

Without orders from the master, it will stay on standby, ensuring both the master's goals can be achieved and its own safety.

What I fear most are those stupid dogs who don’t care about their lives and rush forward to get their heads thrown away.

The dog relies on the power of its master and the presence of its master, so it dares to pounce on any wild animal.

It would be fine if you encounter a wolf or a wild boar, but if you encounter a bear or a leopard, it would be like dancing at the gates of hell.

Yu Qiutang had personally encountered this kind of thing in his previous life.

He originally had four dogs, which he would bring with him when he patrolled the mountains every day. Basically, the dogs would move within two to three hundred meters of him and would not run too far.

As a result, a dog was lured by the wolf pack to a far place, and was eaten up by the wolf pack because of their superior numbers.

This is why people in the mountains always tie up their dogs at night.

They were not afraid that the dog would run away by itself, but they were worried that the wolves would come and lure the dog, and the stupid dog would just rush forward and be beaten to death.

When Yu Qiutang passed by the crooked tree, he wanted to take another look at the words written by his grandfather, but when he got closer, he saw that it was covered with thick snow, and leaves fell on the snow, which looked particularly beautiful.

He then lost interest in cleaning up, smiled and continued moving forward.

At 9:30 in the morning, we finally broke through Huzikou and entered the old birch forest.

The location of Huzikou already looks very narrow when the weather is clear. Now that it is covered with snow, it looks even more cramped and thin like a line.

Dahei ran in, turned around, then ran out and waited outside.

Yu Qiutang walked closer and patted its head. Dahei rubbed his hand obediently, panting with hot air.

Yu Qiutang remembered the location where he buried the bullet last time, looked over there, and his eyes suddenly lit up.

He discovered that there was a small glass bottle opening in that place.

It was a brown bottle, and seemed to be used for some kind of medicine.

The bottle should be half buried in the soil, with only a very short narrow opening exposed. Fortunately, the special terrain of the cliff blocked the wind and snow, preventing them from drifting here, otherwise they would have been covered.

Yu Qiutang walked over, squatted down, took out a dagger and started digging.

He didn't think that a glass bottle would appear in such a huge mountain range.

When coincidences are so completely untrustworthy, they are deliberate.

Sure enough, when he removed the surface snow, he saw that the bottle was 90% buried in the soil. Normally, the mouth of the bottle is covered with snow and is not usually noticed.

Because the ground was frozen solid, Yu Qiutang didn't know what the bottle represented. He was afraid that the bottle would break, so he could only use a dagger to dig up the surrounding ground that was as frozen as stone bit by bit and carefully take out the bottle.

This was an open bottle. Yu Qiutang found a bullet inside. Apart from that, he carefully looked around the bottle and did not see anything unusual.

That only means that the clues are all on the bullet.

He had to pour out the bullets carefully.

Because they were buried underground, the bullets were not as cold as imagined.

But when he looked at it carefully, he found that the bullet was just an ordinary 7.62mm caliber bullet, and there were no other special marks on the bullet.

It seems that the real clue lies not in the bullet itself, but in the fact that the bullet is just a tool.

"Wang!"

Dahei suddenly shouted towards the front.

Yu Qiutang immediately closed Dahei's mouth, as something was obviously happening ahead.

Professionally trained hunting dogs will not make any sound unless they encounter danger.

He looked in the direction of Dahei's roar and found a shadow running towards him at a rapid speed a few hundred meters away.

At first, I couldn't see clearly what kind of beast it was because of the flying snow. When I got closer, I found out that it was actually a fat man running hurriedly.

Yu Qiutang had amazing eyesight and soon discovered that the fat man was the one he met at Huzikou last time.

But at this moment, he seemed very flustered. While running, he looked back as if something was chasing him.

He pulled Dahei and hid behind a tree. When the fat man came up to them, he saw that the fat man was holding a dagger in his hand, his hands were covered in blood, and the hem of his clothes was covered in blood and mud.

He didn't even look around, but just ran desperately towards Hu Zikou. He didn't stop until he stepped out. He actually knelt on the ground, kowtowed three times, then stood up and left in a hurry.

What's happening here?
Yu Qiutang looked at the fat man's back and pondered for a long time.

He has a good memory for people. This fat guy is the one he met last time at Hu Zi's residence.

Logically, there should be three people in their group. Why did he flee in such a panic? What about the remaining two people? And what about the blood on his hands? Did he encounter a wild beast?
Or was there a fight?
In that case, there might be some danger ahead. Yu Qiutang turned back and looked in the direction of Hu Zi's residence. Fatty had trampled two messy footprints on the snow. One of the footprints was shallow, and the other was deep, indicating that there was something wrong with Fatty's feet or legs.

No wonder he looked so uncoordinated when running just now.

It turned out that he was injured first.

He walked out from behind the tree, stood on the road the fat man had come from, looked around, and smiled faintly, "I came here today just to get rich, there is really no point in looking ahead and behind."

After the thought came to him, he took Dahei and headed in the direction the fat man came from.

Walking forward, the last time I was with my father was still vivid in my mind. This time, it felt much more familiar.

In addition, the fat man's footprints are still very clear for the time being, which can serve as a guide for him.

It took about ten minutes, maybe longer.

The surroundings were all covered with white snow and there was no sun in the sky. The creeks that were originally flowing were now frozen and covered with snow, with no trace of them visible.

When moving forward, it is easy for people to have illusions about direction and time.

Suddenly, the big black cat in his hand roared again in one direction.

Yu Qiutang turned around and saw two yellow-throated martens quickly passing in front of him and jumping into the woods on the right.

Didn't even look this way.

Dahei was so angry that he grimaced.

Yu Qiutang stopped and looked in the direction where the yellow-throated marten disappeared.

Yellow-throated martens generally live in trees and are rarely seen on the ground. They are alert and afraid of people, and their food is generally birds or rodents.

But if a crisis really occurs, their population will quickly expand from two or three to a dozen or even dozens, and they will be very dangerous animals.

Although they are martens, they are the largest and heaviest animals in the marten family.

Yu Qiutang once saw a yellow-throated marten that was nearly half a meter long and weighed more than five kilograms. If there were more of these creatures, even dogs would be afraid of them.

In fact, there are many heroic stories about the yellow-throated marten in the Qinling Mountains.

In this area, in addition to the usual small animals, they also prey on monkeys, tufted deer, and even giant pandas.

Of course, it is the giant panda cubs or the giant pandas that have just left the group and exist independently.

But the ferocity of an animal often depends on the specific environment.

If you put the yellow-throated marten in the Northeast, he would be nothing.

In Lesser Khingan Mountains and Changbai Mountain, there are many carnivores that are more ferocious than martens, so martens do not have much advantage.

The most fierce marten is the fisher marten, which does not exist in our country. The fisher marten is about the same size as the yellow-throated marten, but it can prey on lynxes, so you can imagine how ferocious it is.

Yu Qiutang had spent more than a decade in the latter half of his previous life working on protecting animals, so when he saw this kind of rare animal, he would subconsciously analyze their movement trajectories and the reasons for their appearance.

After analysis, I felt that it was very abnormal for the yellow-throated marten to appear here.

Judging from the direction they were coming from and the speed they were running, it was obvious that they were focused and had a clear purpose.

That only means that they are not hunting prey freely, but are summoned by their leaders or scouts.

Either there is danger ahead or food has been found.

But the fact that they were so eager to go there showed that the food there was not ordinary stuff. If it was just a small creature like a red-bellied tragopan or a gray-headed flying squirrel, they would be too lazy to spend so much effort.

“Woof! Woof woof!”

Dahei started shouting again, towards the direction the yellow-throated marten was heading.

Yu Qiutang patted its head and asked, "Is there something over there?"

Dahei was spinning in circles, looking very anxious. Yu Qiutang was stunned for a moment, but without further delay, he quickly caught up with Dahei.

Hounds have their own language and movements.

Dahei's behavior was actually telling Yu Qiutang that there was danger ahead.

It must have smelled human blood.

Then there can be no delay.

Everything can be explained at once.

The yellow-throated martens gathered together, probably because they saw a human corpse or a person who was about to die.

When food is plentiful, these guys won't think of attacking humans, let alone using such a huge animal as human as imaginary food.

It might be because of the heavy snow and they haven't found any food yet, so they are getting so scared.

Yu Qiutang didn't care too much and quickly caught up with Dahei, shuttling through the woods and heading straight for the destination.

He almost fell several times along the way, but he managed to control himself with his strong balance. Dahei was not easy either, as he fell into a snow cave twice and was pulled out by Yu Qiutang using a rope.

Ten minutes later, Yu Qiutang saw another yellow-throated marten jumping over from the west.

Almost crashed into them.

The yellow-throated marten was also very confused when it saw Yu Qiutang and Dahei. It probably never expected to meet humans and dogs here.

In a hurry, I had to turn my head and almost bumped into the tree next to me.

Not long after walking forward, Yu Qiutang also smelled the smell of blood in the air, and a row of lonely footprints appeared on the ground, half buried in the snow and almost invisible.

Following the blood and footprints, he soon saw a huge birch tree in front of him, with a circle of yellow-throated martens surrounding it. From a distance, they looked like a group of rats.

And under the tree, there was a person sitting against the tree.

His body and hair were covered with white snow, and the snow on the ground in front of him was melted by the blood, forming a sad and strange picture.

Yu Qiutang didn't care too much and just shot away the big marten at the back of the yellow-throated marten.

The other yellow-throated martens were crouching, ready to attack, but that marten was almost standing upright. It was obviously the leader of this group of yellow-throated martens.

really.

The leader fell into the snow in response, and the other yellow-throated martens were frightened by the gunshots and fled in all directions quickly.

Yu Qiutang was not polite either, and he killed three more with the same skill.

Unfortunately, five or six half-dozen yellow-throated martens are a bit of a waste of talent, like using a butcher knife to kill a chicken.

It is possible to kill it, but its fur will be damaged and its price will be greatly reduced.

Fortunately, he tried his best to hit his head and managed to minimize the losses.

Besides, human life is at stake, so I can’t think too much about it right now. I’ll just have to save the person first.

After the yellow-throated martens dispersed, Dahei rubbed his hands in preparation, kicking the snow on the ground frantically, still thinking of chasing them.

Yu Qiutang refused and tied the rope tightly around his arm.

This kind of environment is not conducive for the dog to go out. It might not catch the yellow-throated marten, but fall into the snow cave or become a delicacy in the stomach of the yellow-throated marten.

He squatted in front of the man and put his hand to his nose. (End of this chapter)