Chapter 355 - 293: The "Dog" Climbed a Tree
After entering the mountains, the brothers Minister Li and Li Erchen each cut a thick wooden stick to carry.
The stick was useless for fending off a bear. However, if you encountered one from a distance, you could bang it against a tree. The bear would hear the noise without seeing anyone and would usually wander off.
Minister Li led the way, guiding Li Erchen over mountains and ridges. After walking for about an hour, they arrived at a sun-facing slope.
There was a patch of woods on the slope, and at its edge grew numerous thorny stalks.
Even the shortest stalks stood over a meter high, with pale yellow leaves and sharp thorns covering their main stems and branches.
These were aralia stalks.
The aralia shoots, then, were the tender buds that sprouted from the very top of these stalks.
You could snap off these tender buds and take them home. Those who could afford it would scramble them with eggs; those who couldn’t would simply blanch them and eat them with a dipping sauce.
Aralia stalks lie dormant through the winter and reawaken with the spring warmth, sprouting new shoots. That’s why the ones on the sun-facing slope, bathed in sunlight, woke up and budded earlier than the rest.
"What do you think?" Minister Li said to Li Erchen, sweeping his arm in a grand circle as if he were king of the world. "We can gather a whole basketful today!"
Li Erchen grinned from ear to ear. The radishes, cabbages, and potatoes their family had stored in the root cellar last fall were long gone. They had been surviving on pickled vegetables lately, and life was tough.
Seeing such a large patch of aralia shoots, the two brothers got right to work.
But before they could start picking, they had some prep work to do—they needed to find a forked branch.
The tallest aralia stalks could grow up to three or four meters, far out of reach.
Plus, the stalks were covered in thorns, so you couldn’t just grab one and bend it down by hand.
That’s why Mountain Gatherers always broke off a forked branch from a nearby tree when they went to pick aralia shoots.
The branch needed to have a hook at the end, like the shape of a sickle.
To get the shoots from the tall stalks, a Mountain Gatherer would use the branch to hook a stalk, pull it down until it was bent over, and the tender buds at the top would be right in front of them.
These buds were thornless. You could just pinch one and snap it right off.
Then you’d let the stalk go and move on to the next one.
The brothers had been mountain gathering for many years and were experts at picking aralia shoots. They split up, one taking the east side and the other the west, planning to work their way toward the middle.
Li Erchen, on the east side, bent stalk after stalk, snapping off the shoots and tossing them into the basket on his back.
Before long, he had already covered the bottom of his basket with shoots.
The more Li Erchen picked, the happier he became. It wasn’t a delicacy, but at least they’d have fresh vegetables to eat.
Just then, the sun emerged.
Even though spring in the Northeast wasn’t particularly warm, the sun beating down on the slope made his forehead break out in a light sweat.
As Li Erchen straightened up to wipe the sweat from his brow, he caught a glimpse of something running through the woods ahead.
’What was that?’ Li Erchen froze. He hadn’t gotten a clear look, but he could tell from its size that it wasn’t huge, but it wasn’t tiny, either.
’It’s not a Black Bear.’ Li Erchen first reassured himself, then wondered, ’Could it be a big badger? No, badgers don’t get that big.’
Whatever it was, as long as it wasn’t a Black Bear, Li Erchen was brave enough to go take a look. After all, wild vegetables were nice, but they were no substitute for savory meat.
The Li Brothers hadn’t tasted meat in almost half a year.
Carrying his basket, Li Erchen entered the woods. He headed toward where the creature had disappeared, stepping as carefully as possible to avoid making a sound.
Li Erchen had sharp eyes. He hadn’t gone far before he spotted a dark, furry animal weighing about twenty or thirty pounds hiding behind a tree ahead.
It was doing a poor job of hiding; half its rear end was sticking out in plain sight.
When Li Erchen took another step forward, the animal darted out. The little thing wasn’t very fast as it scurried straight to the west.
"Big Brother! Big Brother!" Li Erchen shouted at the top of his lungs. "Get in the woods, quick! There’s a dog!"
"Hmm?" Minister Li, still picking shoots on the west side, faintly heard his brother calling out. He was too far away to make out the words clearly.
But from the sound of it, his brother hadn’t run into danger. If anything, it sounded like he’d stumbled upon something good.
Regardless, Minister Li had to go into the woods and see what was going on.
By the time Minister Li got into the woods, Li Erchen had already chased the animal up a tree. He still hadn’t figured out what it was and just yelled, "Big Brother, get over here! The dog climbed a tree!"
The brothers were closer now, and hearing this, Minister Li hurried over.
Seeing Minister Li run over from the west, Li Erchen pointed first at him, then at the creature in the tree. "Big Brother, look! Whose dog is that?"
"You son of a..." Minister Li looked up and was about to curse, but he stopped mid-word, suddenly remembering that he and Li Erchen shared the same mother. He swallowed the rest of his sentence.
Li Erchen, however, was still giddy with the prospect of fresh meat. He said to Minister Li, "Big Brother, some family’s dog must have gotten lost in the mountains. Who cares whose it is? Let’s just knock it down, skin it, and carry it home. Nobody will ever know."
"Get the hell outta here!" Minister Li found a different way to finally let the curse fly.
The outburst left Li Erchen completely stunned, and he just stared blankly. He couldn’t figure out why his older brother was cussing him out. ’What did I do wrong?’
Seeing his younger brother’s clueless expression, Minister Li seethed with anger. He pointed at the tree and yelled at Li Erchen, "That’s not a dog! That’s a damn Black Bear!"
"What!" Li Erchen stumbled back a few steps in fright, his eyes wide with horror as he stared at the little creature in the tree.
It wasn’t that Li Erchen was an idiot; there are no Black Bears back in Shandong, so he’d never seen one in his life.
He’d been chased by a Black Bear a couple of times before last winter, but those encounters had created a false image in his mind: Black Bears were supposed to be huge, ferocious, and terrifying.
This little thing in the tree, on the other hand, had looked rather cute.
"Big Brother, let’s get out of here," Li Erchen pleaded. Now that he knew it was a Black Bear, his heart was pounding, and any thought of eating meat had vanished completely.
"Go where?" Minister Li snapped, growing agitated again. "Are you an idiot? We knock this thing down, and that’s money right there!"
"Big Brother! Don’t even think about it! It’s a Black Bear!" Li Erchen said, shrinking behind Minister Li.
"What’s there to be afraid of?" Minister Li pointed up at the tree. "It’s just a little thing. You’re scared of that? We’ll get it down, finish it with a knife, and we can sell the Bear Gall!"
As he spoke, Minister Li glanced around. Seeing no large bears nearby, he said, "Look, there’s no Big Black Bear around. What are you scared of? Let’s do this! No more thinking, just get it done!"