The Entire Mountain Is My Hunting Ground

"Alright," Yang Yufeng agreed. "You go, Brother. You have more clout; Han Shang will come for you."

Zhao Jun nodded, turned, and left Zhang Yuanmin’s house. He went straight to Han Shang’s home, knocked, and went inside to see Han Shang drinking with his father-in-law on the kang.

Seeing it was Zhao Jun, the two men were taken aback. Han Shang quickly hopped off the kang to greet him.

Han Shang was a live-in son-in-law, having married into the Sun family.

Zhao Jun first greeted Elder Sun, then said to Han Shang, "Brother Han, I know it’s late, but something’s come up. I need you to grab your medical kit and come with me."

"Ah! Okay!" Han Shang agreed at once. He pulled his medical kit out from a compartment in the kang, put on his padded cotton jacket, slung the kit over his back, and left with Zhao Jun.

It wasn’t until they were out the door and on their way to Zhang Yuanmin’s house that Zhao Jun explained the situation to Han Shang.

After hearing the story, Han Shang burst out laughing. "Ah, Zhao Jun," he said, "Big Pants and I grew up together. Even back then, his legs were so short he couldn’t run fast."

"We always used to say, ’Stubby little Big Pants, stuffing corncobs down his pants!’ HA HA HA..."

Han Shang seemed to find this quite amusing, but in the darkness, he didn’t see the grim look on Zhao Jun’s face.

"Stubby" meant short.

And "stubby little" was a deeply insulting term in the Northeast dialect.

People say children are innocent, but it’s precisely that innocence that allows them to joke without limits, paying no mind to others’ feelings.

Stubby little Big Pants, stuffing corncobs down his pants.

Who could imagine that this was a taunt made up by a group of eight and nine-year-olds to mock Zhang Yuanmin?

Zhao Jun brought Han Shang to Zhang Yuanmin’s house. Han Shang checked Zhang Yuanmin’s wound and saw that Zhao Jun had bandaged it well, so he didn’t re-dress it. However, he did set Zhang Yuanmin up with an antibiotic IV drip.

From the moment they arrived and throughout the treatment, Zhang Yuanmin just lay face down on the kang, motionless.

After they finished treating Zhang Yuanmin, Zhao Jun walked Han Shang out. Just as they stepped outside, they saw Li Baoyu walking over and entering the yard.

"Hey, Baoyu!" Han Shang was very enthusiastic when he saw Li Baoyu, raising a hand in greeting.

"Brother Han," Li Baoyu replied coolly before walking to stand behind Zhao Jun, not even giving Han Shang a chance to chat.

Taking the hint, Han Shang said goodbye to Zhao Jun and left.

Watching Han Shang’s retreating back, Zhao Jun smiled at Li Baoyu. "That’s a lot better than before."

Zhao Jun still remembered that after his rebirth, the first time a hunting dog got injured, he had asked Han Shang to give the dog an antibiotic shot.

He remembered that back then, Han Shang’s attitude toward the Zhao and Li families had been different.

"Heh." Hearing this, Li Baoyu gave a cold laugh. "He changed his tune toward me right after the New Year."

Zhao Jun nodded. ’Right, after the New Year, Li Dayong became the deputy team leader in the dispatch office.’

The two went back inside and were surprised to find that Zhang Yuanmin was awake and speaking softly with Yang Yufeng.

"Big Brother!"

"Big Brother!"

Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu hurried to Zhang Yuanmin’s side.

"Brothers!" Zhang Yuanmin struggled to lift his head, a bitter look on his face. "I’m never hunting black bears again."

"Good!" A clear voice came from the kang. Little Lingdang smiled. "My dad said he’s not hunting Black Bears anymore. That’s a good thing."

"Right, right," Zhao Jun laughed. "Our Lingdang is the one who really gets it. Isn’t this a good thing?"

Hearing Zhao Jun say this, Li Baoyu and Yang Yufeng also laughed. Only Zhang Yuanmin, lying on the kang, looked annoyed.

Just then, Zhao Jun moved closer to Yang Yufeng and said, "Sister-in-law, I’m telling you this, but you can’t tell anyone else, alright? My big brother has been in the mountains with me lately, and including today, we’ve dug up a total of five stalks of ginseng. Plus, we got two Black Bears today, and Big Brother has a share of the Bear Galls."

"Tomorrow morning, I’ll give you that two hundred yuan first. We won’t worry about anything else; let’s just buy some nutritious food for Big Brother and focus on getting him healthy."

"No need!" Unexpectedly, Yang Yufeng refused Zhao Jun’s kind offer. "Brother, you don’t need to give us money," she said. "We still haven’t spent the money you all split from selling the wild boar the other day."

"Alright then." Zhao Jun thought for a moment and said, "In that case, Sister-in-law, we’ll head home for now. After we finish skinning the Black Bear, I’ll bring your share over tomorrow."

...

As Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu left Zhang Yuanmin’s house and walked home, Li Baoyu said to Zhao Jun, "Brother, I have to deliver something over to 102 tomorrow."

"Mm," Zhao Jun nodded. "Good timing. I have to make an appearance at the Logging Camp too. Just like today, you can pick me up at No. 77 Logging Camp."

"Alright."

When the two arrived home, Li Dayong and Jin Xiaomei were in the yard at Zhao Jun’s family home, helping Wang Meilan skin the Black Bear.

Although it was already dark, Li Dayong had lit two kerosene lamps, hanging one on each side for light.

Zhao Jun took Li Baoyu inside to eat. By the time they finished their meal, the other three had already finished skinning the Black Bear.

Because the weather was getting warmer and they didn’t have a refrigerator, they had to soak the lean bear meat in cold water.

As for the bear fat, though there wasn’t much, the three of them had cut it all into small pieces.

This was to be rendered into oil.

It was nearly nine o’clock at night by now. Everyone went back to their own homes. When Zhao Jun and Wang Meilan went inside, they found that Zhao Hong and Zhao Na, tired from playing, were already asleep.

"Sigh!" Wang Meilan heaved a heavy sigh, got onto the kang, and pulled a mattress pad and quilt from the bedding stack. Then she laid out the mattress pad for Zhao Hong and Zhao Na.

Zhao Jun helped move the two sleeping little girls onto the mattress pad, then said to Wang Meilan in a low voice, "Mom, I’m going to bed."

...

When Zhao Jun woke up the next morning, he heard Wang Meilan CLANGING and BANGING around in the outer room. He went out to see her tying up a Bear’s Paw with a rope.

"Mom, Mom!" Zhao Jun went over and asked, "Are you putting the Bear’s Paw in the cellar?"

"Nope," Wang Meilan said. "I’m going to your eldest sister’s house in a bit to bring them a Bear’s Paw."

"Ah." Zhao Jun understood immediately. His mother delivering the Bear’s Paw was just an excuse; her real purpose was to bring Zhao Youcai home.

Then again, Zhao Youcai had been away for over a week. It was perfectly reasonable for Wang Meilan to go get him; there was nothing wrong with it.

So, Zhao Jun gave Wang Meilan a few more reminders, then ate breakfast and went to work as usual.

His job today was the same as before: go to No. 77 Logging Camp and supervise the timber transport. While it wasn’t a critical task, skipping work right from the start wouldn’t look good.

The moment Zhao Jun walked through the gate of No. 77 Logging Camp, he heard a dog bark nearby.

"WOOF! WOOF! WOOF..." Zhao Jun paused and looked in the direction of the sound.

What he saw was a large yellow dog with a big head, droopy ears, and a powerful build. It looked like it weighed over a hundred pounds.

Next to it was a smaller yellow dog that looked similar, but was quite a bit smaller, probably around seventy or eighty pounds.

Besides these two, there were three more dogs to Zhao Jun’s left: one black and two mottled.

The black dog was just the Logging Camp’s watchdog, but the two mottled dogs next to it, like the two yellow ones, were covered in scars from head to toe.

One of the mottled dogs was missing its front teeth.

Seeing the way they snarled at him, Zhao Jun had a pretty good idea of what was happening. ’These dogs must have been brought here by Du Chunjiang,’ he thought. ’Looks like I won’t have to spend money on dogs after all.’

"Technician Zhao!" At that moment, Du Chunjiang’s voice called out from a distance. He strode over to Zhao Jun, pointed at the dogs, and said, "I heard you’re an avid hunter, so I went and got you a few dogs."

"These are all for me?" Zhao Jun asked, puzzled.

"All for you." Du Chunjiang nodded and smiled. "The other day I heard you telling Jie Zhong that you wanted to buy a few hunting dogs. I asked around, and sure enough, I found some and brought them over for you."

"Alright then, thank you." Zhao Jun smiled. "Du Leader, how much did you spend? I’ll pay you back."

In his past life, Zhao Jun had asked Du Chunjiang to help him buy dogs, and Du Chunjiang had skimmed a hefty profit from the deal, scamming Zhao Jun out of a lot of money.

’I wonder how much Du Chunjiang will dare to ask for in this life.’

Just as Zhao Jun’s mind was racing, Du Chunjiang shook his head and said, "Technician Zhao, I don’t want a single cent for these four dogs. They’re a gift to you."

"Oh?" Zhao Jun smiled upon hearing this. ’When someone is overly courteous,’ he thought, ’they must be after something.’