The Entire Mountain Is My Hunting Ground

"Huh?" Zhao Jun paused, finding this a little odd.

Wang Qiang was different from other people. When it came to guns, he went to extremes, always preferring immense power. He also rarely hunted Black Bears, so he used a 16-gauge shotgun modified with a custom barrel.

The gun Zhao Jun had secretly borrowed from Wang Qiang before was that very gun—a 16-gauge frame fitted with the barrel of a semi-automatic rifle. It still chambered 7.62mm rounds, but unlike a standard Type 56 semi-automatic rifle which spun its bullets, this custom firearm simply shoved them straight out of the barrel.

As a result, the modified gun’s stopping power was actually even greater.

This was why, when the four-man "Black and White Impermanence" team went after the Pig God, Wang Qiang had refused a semi-automatic rifle and insisted on using his custom-barreled gun. He believed that the greater the round’s stopping power, the more of a threat he would be to the Pig God.

After the New Year, Wang Qiang had somehow gotten his hands on a machine gun barrel. Once he used it to replace the semi-automatic rifle barrel on his gun, its power became even greater.

After the modification, Wang Qiang treated the gun like a priceless treasure. He would never even consider borrowing someone else’s firearm, let alone trading his custom gun for a standard Type 56 semi-automatic rifle.

Curiosity demanded an answer. Zhao Jun asked Wang Qiang, "Uncle, what are you doing with a gun?"

"Damn it!" Wang Qiang cursed. "A Black Bear got into our cornfield! It’s not about how much it eats—the problem is that it flattens a huge patch!"

Tao Dabao had called before, asking Zhao Jun to come to their Yongxing Brigade to help protect the crops when the corn silks turned red and the kernels began to swell.

And that time was now—the corn tassels were red and the kernels were plumping up. At night, mountain beasts from the hills near the village would descend to wreak havoc on the cornfields.

The task of crop protection meant guarding the fields at night. Some people lit torches and carried weapons, others beat gongs and drums, and still others used Mazes and two-shot firecrackers, but none of it really worked.

Especially once the animals grew accustomed to the noise and lights, they weren’t afraid of anything at all.

The best method for crop protection was to use hunting dogs. By exploiting the mountain beasts’ fear of injury, the dogs could drive them away.

But in the height of summer, with the cornfields thick with stalks and the surrounding land overgrown with weeds, a dog fighting a wild animal would have no room to maneuver. They could easily be injured, or even killed.

So, the responsibility for crop protection fell back on human shoulders. But Yong’an Village couldn’t compare to the Yongxing Brigade. The brigade was large and prosperous; they had a Hunter Team that guarded the crops in shifts and could even pay the Hunters a wage.

Yong’an Village lacked those kinds of resources, so villagers were left to protect their own fields.

On the night of the light rain two days ago, a Black Bear got into Wang Qiang’s cornfield.

As the saying goes: a Black Bear picking corn picks one cob, and drops one cob.

The saying describes how a Black Bear will break off a corncob and tuck it under its arm. But when it breaks off a second cob and tries to tuck that one away too, it lifts its arm, and the first cob falls out.

In the end, it’s still left holding only one cob.

The phrase means that if you act without a plan, you’ll accomplish nothing.

But it also perfectly illustrates that when a Black Bear gets into a cornfield, it doesn’t just eat; it leaves a trail of destruction.

Unlike dogs, when their bulky bodies enter a cornfield, they simply bulldoze their way through. Everything in their path is flattened.

That’s the part that makes you furious!

Lately, Wang Qiang had first been busy helping Zhao Jun build his house, and then had spent two days playing cards. Zhao Ling told him to go check on the fields, but he wouldn’t go.

Wild boars and Black Bears sometimes hid in the cornfields, so Zhao Ling didn’t dare go by herself. All she could do was worry anxiously at home.

Just a moment ago, maybe an hour or so, Liu Hanshan had shown up at Wang Qiang’s house.

Although their families weren’t next-door neighbors, their fields were. Liu Hanshan told Zhao Ling that with the rain over the past couple of days, he’d been worried about the low-lying areas flooding, so he had just gone to take a look.

That’s when he found his own cornfield in a total mess, with a huge patch of stalks flattened.

Liu Hanshan cautiously entered the field to investigate and found Black Bear droppings.

Liu Hanshan followed the trail of flattened corn and discovered that the Black Bear had cut through his field and gone straight into Wang Qiang’s.

When Liu Hanshan went over for a closer look, he saw that Wang Qiang’s cornfield was in far worse shape than his own.

Seeing this, Liu Hanshan had come to find Wang Qiang.

When Zhao Ling heard a Black Bear had ravaged their corn, she grew frantic. She told Liu Hanshan to wait at their house while she went to the general store to drag Wang Qiang back.

Liu Hanshan had sought out Wang Qiang because he knew he had a gun. He wanted Wang Qiang to take his weapon and stand watch at night to shoot the Black Bear. If they managed to kill it, even if Liu Hanshan didn’t get the Bear Gall, he would at least get a share of the meat.

But hunting a Black Bear was extremely dangerous. A single failed shot could easily lead to a vicious counter-attack.

You either needed dogs to stall it, or you needed a semi-automatic rifle so you could fire off several quick shots without taking the stock from your shoulder.

Wang Qiang had neither of those things, but his nephew did. So, after Liu Hanshan left, Wang Qiang discussed it with Zhao Ling. ’I could go ask Zhao Jun to borrow his dogs,’ he’d reasoned, ’but that’s not even mentioning the risk of them getting hurt. Even if Zhao Jun let me take them, they don’t know me. They might not even work for me.’

’So if I want to use the dogs, Zhao Jun has to come too. In that case, I might as well just borrow his gun.’

And between an uncle and his nephew, it wasn’t really ’borrowing.’ And so, Wang Qiang had come.

After hearing the whole story, Zhao Jun didn’t go back inside to get the gun for Wang Qiang. Instead, he said, "Uncle, I’m not going to just give you the gun. I’ll go with you tonight."

"What for!" Wang Qiang said, quickly waving his hands in refusal. "No, you just stay home and get some rest."

Wang Qiang didn’t want Zhao Jun to come, and it wasn’t because he was afraid of splitting the Bear Gall. He was just concerned for his nephew. After all, standing watch over the crops all night was a grueling task. Losing a night’s sleep couldn’t be fixed even by sleeping the entire next day.

Besides, the Black Bear had come two days ago; there was no guarantee it would show up tonight. Wang Qiang felt that it would be wrong to make his nephew lose a night’s sleep for potentially nothing.