Chapter 343 - 281: Slaying the Pig God
The sharp Invasion Blade plunged in under the wild boar’s left foreleg. When Zhao Jun yanked it out, a jet of blood shot out with the blade.
SPURT...
SQUEAL...
The sound of gushing blood mingled with a pained squeal. Zhao Jun immediately followed up with another stab, this time plunging the blade under the boar’s right foreleg.
As he withdrew the blade, unleashing another spray of blood, the wild boar collapsed onto the snow, its body twitching uncontrollably.
The old-timers used to say that whether human or animal, as long as the body is whole and unbroken, it contains a kind of energy called a life force.
If you cut the body open with a blade, this life force will leak out from the wound. That’s what they mean by a grievous blow to one’s life force.
Zhao Jun didn’t know if there was any scientific basis for this saying, but in his two lifetimes of hunting, he knew for a fact that when he pulled the blade out just now, a real puff of air had escaped the boar’s body along with the blood.
Just then, Li Baoyu and Zhang Yuanmin came down to the North-facing Slope. Zhao Jun had already told them what he planned to do on their way up from the gully.
The two men showed no mercy. Each gripping an Invasion Blade, they began the slaughter.
With every thrust and pull of their blades, the sounds of gushing blood and pained squeals were incessant. The death wails of the wild boars echoed across the mountainside.
Gradually, the movements of all three men slowed down. Their arms grew heavy, and they were exhausted from the killing.
Zhao Jun stood in the center, with Li Baoyu to his left and Zhang Yuanmin to his right. They didn’t huddle together or call out to each other, simply leaning on their blades and surveying the scene.
Behind them, stretching up the slope, lay dozens of wild boars. Some were already dead, some were still twitching, and others were still crying out in their death throes.
And before them, down the slope, more boars struggled and bellowed in the snow, their cries filled with both agony and defiance.
After a short rest, Zhao Jun was the first to raise his blade. He slid forward on his boar-hide skis and resumed the work.
The three men killed continuously from nine-thirty until nearly twelve o’clock. In over two hours, they had slaughtered all seventy-five wild boars on the mountainside.
Normally, the thrill of the hunt would be exhilarating, but after killing so many today, Li Baoyu and Zhang Yuanmin felt nothing but exhaustion.
The three of them gathered together. Zhao Jun said to Zhang Yuanmin, "Yuanmin, build a fire. Once you’re done, stay here and watch these pigs. This is a lot of money right here."
Before Zhang Yuanmin could reply, he turned to Li Baoyu. "Baoyu, grab a quick bite, then hurry back to the village. Go find Zhao Guofeng—our Uncle Zhao. Don’t tell him *how* we killed these pigs, just tell him there are seventy-five of them here waiting to be hauled away. Tell him to find a truck, and fast."
"Yeah, I got it, Brother." Li Baoyu had always listened to Zhao Jun, but now he practically worshiped him as a god. He used to admire Wu Erlang, but now he felt that even if the Traveler himself were reborn, he couldn’t possibly compare to Zhao Jun, who could catch a Tiger and slaughter an entire herd of wild boars.
After he finished speaking with Li Baoyu, Zhao Jun squatted and began scrubbing his hands with snow. The slaughter had stained them completely red with pig’s blood.
Once his hands were clean, Zhao Jun opened his satchel, took out some hard buns, and passed them to Li Baoyu and Zhang Yuanmin. He didn’t give them many; including himself, the three of them only took five buns each.
Normally, five hard buns would be plenty, but after trekking through the mountains and fighting all morning, they had burned a tremendous amount of energy.
But Zhao Jun packed the rest of the buns away. "Baoyu," he said, "if I’m not back tonight, tell my parents not to worry. I’ll be back tomorrow for sure."
"Huh?"
Li Baoyu and Zhang Yuanmin were stunned. "Brother, what are you going to do?" they asked in unison.
"Baoyu, Yuanmin might not know, but you do, don’t you?" Zhao Jun asked with a smile. "There’s still the Pig God, remember?"
"Oh, right!" It finally dawned on Li Baoyu. The sheer mental shock of slaughtering so many boars at once had made him completely forget about the Pig God. Now that Zhao Jun brought it up, he instinctively scanned the surroundings.
"Stop looking." Zhao Jun shoved the last half of his hard bun into his mouth and, chewing the dry bread with effort, said, "It’s too big. The snow on this slope wasn’t deep enough to trap it. It must have escaped."
"So what’s the plan?" Zhang Yuanmin asked.
"Brother," Li Baoyu said, his face etched with worry, "how about we wait for the men from the village to get here? I can go with you to track the Pig God then."
Zhao Jun shook his head, his gaze drifting down toward the gully. "If I don’t kill it this time," he said, "I’ll never get another chance."
"Brother," Zhang Yuanmin interjected, "look, it took us two, three hours just to kill these boars. If there really was a huge one, wouldn’t it be long gone by now?"
Since Zhang Yuanmin hadn’t seen the Pig God that Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu were talking about, he was skeptical.
"It’s fine," Zhao Jun said, getting to his feet. "I’ll track it until nightfall. It’ll have to stop to forage eventually. I’ll still have a chance to get a shot in."
With that, Zhao Jun pushed off on his skis and headed down the slope.
Li Baoyu and Zhang Yuanmin watched his retreating back, shouting after him to be careful.
Zhao Jun waved a hand over his shoulder without looking back. He skied all the way to the bottom of the gully. Since this area was shaded, the snow hadn’t melted, and the Pig God’s tracks were clearly visible where it had passed through.
Zhao Jun followed the tracks along the gully. The farther south he went, the sparser the snow became until the ground ahead was nothing but mud. He took off his skis, tucked them under his arm, and continued following the boar’s tracks through the muck.
He skied where there was snow and trudged through mud where there wasn’t. Zhao Jun kept on like this from noon until dusk.
Normally, a boar startled in the morning would have stopped to forage for food around four in the afternoon.
But this one was still running at five o’clock, showing no signs of stopping.
This was the reason Zhao Youcai and his men hadn’t been able to catch the Pig God during the last heavy snow that had sealed off the mountain.
It had far more stamina than any other boar.
Even without eating since morning, it could still keep running.
However, a body that large also consumed a great deal of energy. It couldn’t hold out forever.
And the Hunter pursuing it?
At that moment, Zhao Jun was climbing a ridge up the mountainside, stuffing a hard bun into his mouth as he walked.
This was another North-facing Slope, and the snow here hadn’t melted either. He could see a trail stretching ahead, covered in the boar’s tracks.
But from the look of the tracks, it was no longer just running blindly. It had started using its snout to root around in the snow, digging here and there.
Seeing this, Zhao Jun knew from experience that the boar was less than a mile ahead of him.
Zhao Jun immediately shoved the half-eaten bun into his jacket pocket, slung the rifle from his back, and began to move forward cautiously.
By now, it was late. The sky wasn’t completely dark, but the fading light severely hampered his vision.
Zhao Jun knew he was no match for a wild boar’s senses in the dark. ’If I move rashly and startle the Pig God again,’ he thought, ’I’ll never get another chance.’
So he took off his satchel, pulling out only two boxes of matches to stuff in his pants pocket. He hung the satchel on a nearby tree branch.
Then, Zhao Jun slung his rifle over his shoulder, got down on his stomach, and began to crawl forward through the snow, slowly, inch by inch.
Around five-thirty in the evening in the Northeast mountains, the temperature was already dropping below freezing. Zhao Jun had been on the move all day, and the inside of his padded cotton jacket and trousers was soaked with sweat. Now, as the cold air hit, the outer layer of his clothes began to freeze solid.
Zhao Jun continued his slow, silent crawl, eventually entering a grove of trees that looked like an oak forest.
He stopped, lying motionless in the snow. He couldn’t see a thing, but he listened intently.
Suddenly, a gust of wind carried a faint sound to his ears: CRUNCH... CRUNCH. Zhao Jun began crawling into the wind, toward the sound, and it grew louder.
Zhao Jun’s movements became even slower, even lighter. He tried to peer ahead, but the forest was a tangle of branches and twigs, and now it was pitch-black. It was impossible to see anything clearly.
But he could hear the CRUNCHING sound from up ahead, and he could also smell the rank odor unique to a Big Cannon Egg.
Zhao Jun raised his left hand, unslung the rifle from his right shoulder, and slowly maneuvered the muzzle forward.
He lay flat on the ground, his left hand cradling the rifle’s forearm. With his right hand, he flicked off the safety and placed his finger on the trigger.
SNUFFLE, SNUFFLE! Suddenly, the Pig God seemed to catch a scent. It raised its snout, making a sharp noise, and pricked its ears, listening for any sound around it.
BANG!
A single shot rang out. For the briefest instant as the bullet left the chamber, a line of fire erupted from the muzzle.
In that fleeting flash of light, Zhao Jun couldn’t see clearly, but he had the distinct impression of a colossal shape just three to five meters in front of him.
The gunshot startled the creature, and it whirled around with a deafening crash of movement.
But a second later, a rapid series of shots—BANG! BANG! BANG!—tore through the air as he emptied the rifle’s entire magazine.