Back to 1984: Hunting in the Mountains

Chapter 20: Black-footed raccoon hiding in a tree
With joy in his heart, Yu Qiutang ran quickly towards the sour jujube tree, and Yu Xiaowei hurriedly followed.

When he arrived, Yu Qiutang discovered that the tree was even thicker than it looked from a distance. Not only could the trunk be used, but the first layer of branches could also be used to make a few hoe or shovel handles if they were slightly trimmed.

Tools made of jujube wood are more expensive than those made of elm, jujube wood, and apple wood. They are sturdy to use, and if you take good care of them, they can probably be used for decades without breaking.

Therefore, the farm tools of many families are old tools left by their grandparents.

Unlike later generations, people no longer cared about many things, and the quality and materials of the wood used continued to decline, so that poplar wood began to be used as raw material.

A poplar tree can grow a handle in one year. Although it looks balanced and smooth, it will crack or break if you are not careful. It can only be used for purposes that do not require great force. It is definitely not useful for hoes, axes, etc.

Putting the bag of tofu firewood aside and motioning Yu Xiaowei to stand further away, Yu Qiutang spat on his palm and started chopping the tree.

He knew that the jujube wood was hard, and originally planned to spend an hour to cut the tree down before lunch. However, when he chopped it down with the axe, he found that the cut was several times deeper than he had imagined.

At least one tenth of it can be cut in.

At this rate, it would probably take less than twenty axe blows to fell the tree, and it would probably take at least 100 or 200 blows to accomplish that goal.

Sure enough, the effect of the next few axes remained. After seven or eight axes, more than half of the tree trunk had been chopped off.

"Uncle, do you want me to help you?"

"Why, do you want to try it?" Seeing that his nephew was eager to try, Yu Qiutang handed him the axe.

"Hehe~, try it, let's see how good you are at chopping."

In fact, Yu Xiaowei also chops wood at home and knows how to use an axe, but the blade of the axe for chopping wood is thicker, not as sharp as this one for chopping trees.

In addition, the handle of the axe used to chop wood will also be slightly shorter.

Yu Xiaowei took the axe, and imitated Yu Qiutang by spitting on his palm, then swung the axe and chopped down the tree.

"Snapped!"

He was originally aiming at the notch made by Yu Qiutang, but for some reason, the axe landed a few centimeters away from the notch. It only slightly cut off some bark and then shook the axe away. His arm was numb from the shock and the axe almost flew out of his hand.

He turned around awkwardly to look at Yu Qiutang, only to find that Yu Qiutang had already stepped far away and was looking at him with a smile.

My face turned red immediately.

It seemed that my uncle had known that he would be like this and looked down upon him.

This aroused Yu Xiaowei's fighting spirit. He was a strong-willed child and how could he be looked down upon?

After a brief pause, he raised the axe high and chopped at the gap again.

"Oh!"

He still didn't hit the right spot, and he hit the place where the axe had just landed. He then created a new point for the axe to land.

The next few axe strikes all had the same outcome.

After chopping six or seven times, he was already out of breath, but the axe never hit the target once.

Now he had to stop and look at Yu Qiutang with a sad face.

"Haha~ Tired?"

Yu Qiutang came back and took the axe. "Stand aside and watch. You can't chop trees with this axe the way you do. If you chop like this, the wood will be full of holes made by the axe. How can you use it?"

"How did I chop it? I aimed at it, but it hit the side instead."

"Haha, that's because you only used your strength to swing the axe. Your eyes were not looking at the right place, so your arm strength was not enough, so it didn't fall to the right place. Look, I'm chopping for you... Look, you don't need to swing the axe too far. If you swing it too far, will you also need to expend strength in the process of going out and coming back?" Yu Xiaowei simulated it several times with his bare hands, his eyes lit up, "It seems to be like this."

"No need to seem, just like that," Yu Qiutang taught as he continued chopping. When there was still a little bit of the tree left, he asked Yu Xiaowei to stand further away and prepared to break the tree directly.

But at this moment, a shadow suddenly came down from the treetops, jumped to the ground more than one meter above the ground, and started to run.

"What?!"

Yu Xiaowei screamed.

Yu Qiutang clearly saw that it was a small brown-gray thing and thought it was a weasel, so he threw his axe at it.

"puff!"

The axe circled in the air and hit the guy on the back, knocking the little guy over. He got up and struggled to run a few steps crookedly before collapsing to the ground.

The two of them then ran over.

Squatting on the ground, I found that this guy was still alive, but his leg was injured.

"What is this?"

Yu Xiaowei picked up a dry stick and moved its body.

Yu Qiutang could see clearly that the front edge of the eye socket and the back of the ear of this guy were dark brown, there were two dark brown neck stripes from the back of the ear to the shoulder, and there were four or five darker back stripes from the shoulder to the hip. The four legs were dark brown, and the tail was white and dark brown ring-shaped, with a grayish white tip.

It turned out that the little guy was not a weasel, but a civet cat.

The small civet, also known as the black-footed civet, is a typical migratory animal species. It originally liked to live in slightly warmer places, but as the climate continues to warm, its presence has begun to increase in the Qinling Mountains.

It looks a bit like a weasel's face and a bit like a mouse, but it does not belong to these two families. Instead, it belongs to the genus Civet of the family Civetidae and is an omnivorous animal.

Anything smaller than itself is on its food list. During the autumn harvest season, it will also eat various tree fruits, grass fruits, and will even run to nearby homes to steal corn and other grain products.

This guy is full of treasures, with very valuable fur and even more valuable civet scent, so it was hunted and killed, and its number decreased sharply. By the 21st century, the number of Qinling civets had dropped significantly, and its habitats across the country began to be protected, making it a national first-class protected species.

Among them, civet is a very precious Chinese medicinal material. It is found in both large and small civets. However, because the scent sac of small civet is underdeveloped, it secretes less, produces less fragrance, and is more valuable.

"It's a little civet cat."

"What is a civet cat? Is it also a weasel?"

Yu Qiutang smiled and said, "You only know about weasels. There are many kinds of animals in the mountains. Civets are civets."

“Oh,” Yu Xiaowei saw that the little civet cat was motionless and tried to poke it with his finger, but Yu Qiutang pulled his hand back, “Don’t want your hand anymore!?”

"Will it bite?"

"Then you try it. Do you know how it lives? It's not a vegetarian. It can bite off your little finger in one bite."

"So fierce."

Yu Xiaowei quickly withdrew his hand.

Yu Qiutang had never expected to encounter such a thing. At first he was thinking about how to send it for protection. But then he thought, why send it? At this time, this thing was not a protected animal at all, and there were quite a lot of them. Even if it was not an infestation, at least it could be hunted and killed for money.

Suddenly, I felt happy.

Such an adult civet cat can be sold for at least 10 or 20 yuan if sold to a wild animal dealer at the market.

(End of this chapter)