The Entire Mountain Is My Hunting Ground

As soon as they reached the hillside where they’d left the Ginseng, Little Bear, held on a leash by Zhao Jun, started straining hard against the rope, pulling westward.

Zhao Jun held him back, causing the rope to go taut. Little Bear’s front paws lifted off the ground as it roared relentlessly.

There was something over there!

"ARF! ARF..."

The barks had barely faded when a bear’s roar echoed from the west.

Hearing the bear’s roar, Da Huang, who was on Li Baoyu’s leash, lunged forward and started barking furiously.

Li Baoyu held on to the rope for dear life, turning his head to look at Zhao Jun.

"Big Brother!" Zhao Jun quickly called to Zhang Yuanmin, handing him Little Bear’s leash. "Hold on tight," he instructed. "Don’t release the dog until I tell you to!"

"Right! Right!" Zhang Yuanmin hastily agreed, taking the rope from Zhao Jun with both hands and gripping it tightly.

Zhao Jun slung the rifle off his shoulder. "Big Brother, Baoyu," he said, "you two take the dogs and lead the way. I’ll follow behind you."

"Huh? Okay..." Zhang Yuanmin hesitated for a second before taking a couple of steps forward. Sensing it could advance, Little Bear strained against the rope even harder.

Li Baoyu, however, said nothing and simply led Da Huang forward.

"Hold them tight!" Zhao Jun reminded them, walking at the rear with his rifle in both hands.

The farther west they went, the more violently Little Bear and Da Huang struggled and the more frenzied their barking became.

Meanwhile, the bear’s roars continued to erupt from the west, overpowering the barking of Little Bear and Da Huang.

"Hold on!" Zhao Jun suddenly shouted, stopping Zhang Yuanmin and Li Baoyu in their tracks.

The two men stopped immediately, using both hands to restrain the dogs as they turned to look back at Zhao Jun.

Zhao Jun pointed west. "You two, listen," he said. "It sounds like that bear hasn’t moved from its spot."

Startled, Zhang Yuanmin and Li Baoyu pricked up their ears to listen. Sure enough, just as Zhao Jun said, the bear’s roars were coming from a single location and not moving.

The din of barking dogs and roaring bear was so loud that Li Baoyu had to yell at Zhao Jun, "Is the bear caught in a snare?"

Zhao Jun nodded. It was the only explanation. Otherwise, the bear would have either chased Zhang Yuanmin when he was yelling at the foot of the mountain earlier, or it would have simply left. It did neither.

Normally in a situation like this, with so much distance between them, a bear would just leave the moment it heard a human.

Li Baoyu, still holding Da Huang with both hands, moved closer to Zhao Jun. "I thought you couldn’t catch a Black Bear in a snare?" he asked.

"It must have just gotten trapped," Zhao Jun said. "The bear wasn’t making any noise when we were calling out about the Fourth-grade leaves. It only started roaring when we shouted about the Sixth-grade Leaves. It must have gotten caught just a short while ago."

"What rotten timing!" Li Baoyu said with some frustration. "Everything’s happening at once. Isn’t this going to delay us from getting the Ginseng?"

"Baoyu!" Zhang Yuanmin chimed in as soon as Li Baoyu finished speaking. "You can’t look at it that way! The Ginseng is right here; it’s not going anywhere. It’ll be ours sooner or later. But this bear... it walked right into a snare on its own. Isn’t this a free delivery of Bear Gall?"

Li Baoyu was taken aback by Zhang Yuanmin’s words. ’He’s right,’ he thought. A smile instantly spread across his face as he turned to Zhao Jun. "Brother, let’s go get it!"

"Of course we have to," Zhao Jun said. "If we don’t kill it, we won’t have any peace while we deal with the Ginseng." With that, Zhao Jun gripped his rifle in one hand, gestured forward with the other, and ordered, "Release the dogs!"

At Zhao Jun’s command, Zhang Yuanmin and Li Baoyu both unfastened the clips on the dogs’ collars.

Freed from their leashes, the two dogs bolted west. The bear was roaring nonstop, so Da Huang didn’t even need Little Bear to lead the way; he charged directly toward the sound.

Now that he was no longer being pulled by Little Bear, Zhang Yuanmin freed up his hands. Coiling the rope as he walked over to Zhao Jun, he said with a grin, "Brother, I knew you could snare a Black Bear. I’m telling you, if I hadn’t seen that Wild Leopard the other day, I would’ve gone with Chen Dalai to trap one myself."

"What are you talking about?" Zhao Jun frowned. "When was this? When were you planning to go trap a Black Bear?"

"Oops!" Zhang Yuanmin thought. ’I let it slip.’ He just gave Zhao Jun an awkward grin and said nothing more.

Zhao Jun shot him a look. "Big Brother, I don’t have time for this right now. Just wait. When we get back, I’m telling your wife on you." With that, Zhao Jun gripped his rifle and ran west.

He only had Little Bear, Da Huang, White Dragon, and Xiaohua left. Even though the bear was trapped, he had to get up there fast to keep his dogs from getting hurt.

To the west lay a wide, gentle slope. On that slope was a single snare.

It was a boar snare someone had set last year. They must have come back to check their trapline later, collected the others, and somehow missed this one.

Who would have thought that this one forgotten snare would end up catching a Black Bear.

The Black Bear wasn’t huge, maybe around two hundred pounds. The snare had cinched tight around its midsection. The loop of Steel Wire Rope held it fast; it could neither pull free nor slip out.

The Black Bear struggled and thrashed from side to side, churning up the dry grass and dead leaves on the slope into a total mess.

Just then, Little Bear and Da Huang charged in, one after the other. They stopped about five meters from the Black Bear, baying loudly.

Being trapped was frustrating enough, but now two pests had shown up. The Black Bear lunged, charging at Little Bear and Da Huang.

The two dogs spun around and fled, but before they’d taken two steps, the Steel Wire Rope yanked the Black Bear to a halt.

In the Northeast, mongrels are called "stupid dogs," but these dogs are anything but. When it comes to hunting, of all the famous breeds in the world, only Laikas and Malinois can even compare; no other dog comes close.

Dogs like Dogo Argentinos or Pit Bulls are no good for this. Their bite might be strong, but they have a one-track mind—once they bite, they don’t let go. Whether it’s cannon eggs or a Black Bear, a single hit from their prey would be enough to cripple them.

If you actually wanted to use those two breeds for hunting, you’d have to crossbreed them with a "stupid dog" to produce offspring that aren’t so foolhardy.

Little Bear and Da Huang were veteran hunting dogs. They couldn’t speak, but they understood. This bear was just like some of the boars they had cornered in the past—caught in a snare, its movements were restricted to a small area.

Little Bear made the first move, attempting to circle around behind the Black Bear. But the bear watched its every move, turning as Little Bear turned.

By the time Little Bear had moved from the south side to the north, it was still face-to-face with the bear.

But the Black Bear had forgotten one thing: Da Huang.

Da Huang charged forward and sank its teeth into the Black Bear’s hindquarters. After one bite, it immediately turned and fled.

With Little Bear still in front of it, the Black Bear didn’t turn around, only swiping back with its right paw.

But by the time its paw swiped back, Da Huang was long gone.

The Black Bear had just turned to face Little Bear again when Da Huang darted in from the left, sinking its teeth into the bear’s left thigh.

The Black Bear, enraged, spun around angrily. But as it turned, Da Huang simply followed, staying right on its tail.

In its frenzy, the Black Bear had managed to turn so that both Little Bear and Da Huang were now behind it.

The two dogs lunged almost simultaneously. Little Bear latched onto the Black Bear’s hind leg, while Da Huang bit down hard on its rump.