Chapter 300 - 252: Baoyu Encounters a Bear
After splitting up with Li Baoyu, Zhao Jun and Tao Fei followed the sound of barking. After chasing for about two li, they saw the six dogs had split into two groups.
One group was Hua Xiao’Er and Daqing; the other was Little Bear, Da Huang, White Dragon, and Xiaohua. Each group had a yellow-haired pinned down.
Neither of the two yellow-haireds was very big, both weighing around a hundred-odd jin.
Zhao Jun didn’t waste words. He extended the bayonet on his Type 56 semi-automatic rifle, went over, and finished off the two yellow-haireds with a few stabs.
Then, he and Tao Fei gutted the two wild boars. They took out the heart, liver, and lungs and fed them to the six dogs.
It was noon now. The dogs had fought two battles in a row, and their excitement was waning. So, even though it was still early, Zhao Jun decided to take the dogs home.
He divided the hearts, livers, lungs, intestines, and stomachs of the two small wild boars among the five large dogs.
As for Xiaohua, he specifically picked out the best meat from the boars’ bellies, cutting it into strips for her to eat to her heart’s content, until she couldn’t eat another bite.
This was the most crucial part of training a hunting dog.
After a dog’s first few successful hunts, you let it eat its fill of the prey. You let it feel a sense of happiness and satisfaction. That way, the next time it goes into the mountains and sees a wild boar, it’ll go all out without any prompting from its master.
After feeding the dogs, Li Baoyu still hadn’t returned. Zhao Jun had Tao Fei gather firewood to heat up some buns, and they ate while waiting for him.
They built a fire and finished their buns, but Li Baoyu was still nowhere to be seen.
As Tao Fei shoveled snow onto the fire to put it out, he asked Zhao Jun, "Brother Zhao, you don’t think something happened to Brother Li, do you?"
Hearing this, Zhao Jun frowned. He thought for a moment, then shook his head. "No, that’s not likely."
He felt that Li Baoyu was probably fine. He was likely just unfamiliar with the mountain terrain and couldn’t catch up.
But Li Baoyu should have had no problem returning to the Yongxing Brigade by following their original path. That’s why when they split up, Zhao Jun had told him that if he couldn’t keep up, he should just head back down the mountain on his own.
After waiting in the same spot for another ten minutes or so, Zhao Jun finally said to Tao Fei, "Xiaofei, let’s each carry a hind leg back. We’ll keep one and take one to Uncle Tao’s place."
Zhao Jun was very thoughtful. Tao Fei readily agreed, and the two of them each shouldered a boar’s hind leg and started slowly back along their original path, hoping they might run into Li Baoyu.
Meanwhile, Li Baoyu was lost.
It would have been fine if he had just left the woods the same way he came in.
But most people have this quirk: when they need to squat and relieve themselves, even if no one is around, they still have to find a hidden spot.
Li Baoyu was just like that. No matter how urgent it was, he found a tree in the woods that could hide him.
Things were simple in those days. After he was done, Li Baoyu broke off a stick to scrape himself clean, then stood up and pulled up his pants.
Just as he stood up, he vaguely saw something amiss in the snow ahead.
He walked over to take a look. Under a large red pine, there were faint footprints left by a Black Bear.
The tracks must have been left a long time ago. The surrounding prints were likely covered by snow, but the canopy of the red pine had acted like an umbrella, sheltering this spot and preserving a few faint traces.
Li Baoyu subconsciously wanted to call for Zhao Jun, but when he opened his mouth, he remembered he was all alone.
But Li Baoyu wasn’t scared at all. Instead of returning the way he came, he examined the tracks, saw that the Bear’s Paws were heading west, and started following them.
When he came out of the forest, there were only the tracks of small animals in the surrounding snow. But Li Baoyu didn’t turn back; instead, he wandered around the area.
And that’s when he spotted a blasted pine stump.
The blasted pine stump was over three meters tall. Its upper part had been snapped off by the wind, leaving a base so thick it would take two people to wrap their arms around it. The trunk was already weathered and rotten.
Li Baoyu circled it once and saw some claw marks on the trunk, which looked like they were from a Black Bear.
But all hunters have that damned curiosity.
Li Baoyu took a leap, grabbed the edge of the broken trunk with both hands, and did a pull-up, hoisting himself off the ground.
Once his head was over the edge, he looked into the center of the trunk. It really was a hollowed-out tube.
But the morning sun was bright, shining right over the opening. Not only did this fail to illuminate the inside, but the sharp contrast between the light outside and the darkness within made it impossible to see anything clearly.
Li Baoyu relaxed his grip and dropped back onto the snow. He scrounged around the area and found a forked branch.
He broke off the extra twigs, leaving the branch in a ’Y’ shape. Without a care for how dirty it was, he turned the branch sideways, clenched it in his teeth, and started climbing the blasted pine stump again.
This time, he scrambled all the way up, braced his waist against the top of the tree hole, supported his body with one hand, and used the other to take the stick and poke it down inside.
The moment he reached in, Li Baoyu realized something was wrong. He saw a layer of white frost coating the inside of the hollow.
’There’s something in here!’
The frost wasn’t thick. Based on Li Baoyu’s limited experience, it didn’t seem like a Black Bear.
But he had forgotten that this tree hollow wasn’t like a normal den entrance.
Usually, tree hollows were like windows on the side of a tree. But this one was a hollowed-out tube, straight up and down.
Moreover, the blasted pine stump wasn’t that deep. The top was only just over three meters off the ground, and the hollow itself was only about two meters deep.
Most importantly, if a Black Bear was actually living in here—and if it was the same one whose tracks Li Baoyu had seen—then it was a rogue bear.
Although it hadn’t moved in recently, it couldn’t have been in this hollow for more than two weeks.
It was almost spring, and the weather was getting warmer, so the Black Bear had just found a random sheltered spot to hole up for a few days.
But it never expected Li Baoyu to come snooping around.
Li Baoyu shoved the forked branch inside until he hit something. He didn’t stop, but instead pressed down on the branch and gave it a twist.
This couldn’t hurt the Black Bear, but that twist caused the V-shape at the end of the branch to snag a tuft of bear fur.
Li Baoyu yanked hard. When he pulled the branch out, he saw the bear fur tangled on it and heard the grunting sounds coming from inside.
"Holy crap!" Only then did Li Baoyu truly feel fear. His hands slipped, and he slid right down.
Because he came down in such a hurry, he landed hard on his butt.
Li Baoyu scrambled to his feet and took off running, not caring which direction he was going.
You have to understand, it was almost April, the time when all hibernating black bears emerge from their dens.
The Black Bear in the stump had only been there for about ten days and hadn’t been sleeping very soundly. Startled by Li Baoyu, it came right out.
But Li Baoyu was famous for his speed. By the time the Black Bear poked its head out of the blasted pine stump, there was no sign of him.
But the stump was no longer a viable home. The Black Bear climbed out and headed for a sunny slope.
Li Baoyu ran straight downhill. At the bottom of the ridge was the mountain path leading to the Yongxing Brigade, where a militia patrol was on guard.
The squad leader was watching people drag down wild boars and roe deer, and was just about to joke with his men when he suddenly saw someone racing down the slope.
"Whoa! What did this guy see?" Seeing this, the squad leader eagerly went to meet him, waving and shouting at Li Baoyu from a distance, "Stop running, stop running! Whatever you ran into, we’re not afraid of it!"
Seeing the armed militiamen, Li Baoyu’s fear instantly vanished. He stopped, bent over with his hands on his knees, and gasped for air.
Seeing that he had stopped, the squad leader walked over to him, clapping him on the back. "What’s wrong, little brother? What did you run into in the mountains? How come you’re all alone? And no gun? Did you get into some trouble?"
Li Baoyu didn’t know how to answer the squad leader’s barrage of questions. But he knew one thing: he couldn’t say he’d run into a Black Bear. Otherwise, this group would swarm in and kill it, and then he and Zhao Jun wouldn’t get the Bear Gall.
At this thought, Li Baoyu waved his hands repeatedly. "It’s nothing, it’s nothing. I’m just in a hurry to get home."
"Which team are you from? How come I’ve never seen you before?" This squad leader was quite the inquisitive type.
"First Team!" Li Baoyu stood up and started to leave. It was impossible to go back up the mountain to find Zhao Jun now. He just wanted to get back to Tao Xiaobao’s house and tell Zhao Jun about it when he saw him.
At that moment, the squad leader was still shouting from behind him, "Whose family are you from in the First Team?"
Li Baoyu ignored him. Asking for directions along the way, he made it back to the Yongxing First Team. When he entered Tao Xiaobao’s yard, he saw all the dogs were there, even Little Bear.
But when he went inside, he saw only Li Yunxiang was home. As soon as she saw him, she said, "Child, you’re finally back! Xiaofei said you got lost in the mountains. You must not have eaten. Let me heat something up for you."
"Okay, sorry to trouble you, Auntie."
"It’s no trouble at all. The food’s already made." As Li Yunxiang spoke, she went to the outer room to heat up the meal for Li Baoyu.
Li Baoyu walked around the room and, not seeing Tao Fulun, rushed back out to ask Li Yunxiang in surprise, "Auntie, Master Tao didn’t go back up the mountain, did he?"
"No, no," Li Yunxiang said, putting down what she was doing. "Your Master Tao took Zhao Jun and Xiaofei to the Yongxing Second Team."