Chapter 305 - 255: Old Dog
When Zhao Jun announced he was going to help Tao Dabao catch the Tiger, everyone in the room stared at him in utter shock.
Even Li Baoyu reached out, tugged on Zhao Jun’s sleeve, and whispered, "Brother, you haven’t even been drinking. Why are you spouting such nonsense?"
If Li Baoyu had been drinking, he would’ve dared to say such crazy things himself. He might even have tried to imitate Wu Erlang and go up the mountain to fight a fierce tiger one-on-one. But Li Baoyu had just poured his drink; he hadn’t even taken a sip yet.
When he was sober, Li Baoyu knew that a Northeast Tiger was just like a wild Black Bear. If you wanted to kill it, you might be able to pull it off with a few tricks. But capturing one alive? That was a different story entirely.
Not to mention, the Yongxing Brigade had over a thousand militiamen. If Tao Dabao took them all up the mountain, what couldn’t they kill?
But capturing a Northeast Tiger alive was much harder. After all, if you wanted to take it alive, you couldn’t use guns.
And if a man didn’t have a gun, he was no threat to a Tiger. One swipe of its massive paws, and your flesh would be torn wide open. If it got you in a chokehold, it was lights out.
Normally, Li Baoyu was the one who believed in Zhao Jun the most. If even he didn’t believe him now, who else would?
But for the Tao Family, Zhao Jun was still their guest, no matter what. Li Baoyu could voice his doubts, but they couldn’t.
Just then, Tao Fulun gave his eldest son a meaningful look.
Tao Dabao saw it, but what could he say?
He simply said, "Well, Zhao Jun. How are you planning to catch it? With a net, or with traps?"
"Neither." Zhao Jun pushed his bowl aside and, using the heated kang table, began to explain his plan with words and gestures.
But to Zhao Jun’s surprise, after he finished his explanation, the people in the room just looked at each other in silence.
"Ahem." Tao Dabao cleared his throat and said to Zhao Jun, "Alright, I’ve got it all, Zhao Jun. I’ll remember what you said. When I get back, I’ll discuss it with Elder Yu. If we really can’t come up with anything else, we’ll do it your way."
The way Tao Dabao phrased it—that they’d only try Zhao Jun’s plan if they were out of options—made it clear to everyone, even young Tao Fei, that he was just humoring Zhao Jun to be polite.
"Alright, you all go on and eat. I’m heading back," Tao Dabao said, then got up and left.
At this, Tao Fulun, afraid Zhao Jun would take it the wrong way, tried to change the subject by urging everyone to start eating.
But Zhao Jun didn’t seem to mind at all. He wolfed down two large bowls of rice.
After dinner, Zhao Jun, Li Baoyu, Tao Fulun, and Tao Fei all went to their respective rooms to rest.
Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu were sharing a room. Right now, they were soaking their feet in a large basin of hot water. Zhao Jun sat on the edge of the kang, while Li Baoyu sat on a stool, both of them with their feet in the same basin.
Li Baoyu was the first to speak. "Brother, what were you thinking today?"
"What?" Zhao Jun was taken aback by the question.
Li Baoyu continued, "That plan you told Uncle Tao for catching the Tiger... it’s just not practical at all."
Hearing this, Zhao Jun shot Li Baoyu a glare and retorted irritably, "What do you know? This is how the Elder Russians catch Tigers."
"Huh?" Li Baoyu was surprised. "How do you know how the Elder Russians do it?"
"Well..." Zhao Jun was stumped again, at a loss for words.
In his past life, he had indeed seen the Elder Russians catch a Northeast Tiger while he was gathering Ginseng in the Far East, but he couldn’t very well tell Li Baoyu that.
Seeing Zhao Jun fall silent, Li Baoyu pulled one of his feet from the basin, grabbed a cloth to dry it, and said, "Brother, that plan of yours sounds like it’ll never work. I have a feeling that if Brother Zhang were here, he might have a good idea."
"Who?"
"Zhang Yuanmin, of course," Li Baoyu said. "Say what you will, the old guy’s luck is terrible, but he’s got some real tricks when it comes to hunting Black Bears."
"Oh, get out of here." Zhao Jun snatched the cloth from Li Baoyu’s hand, dried his own feet, and said irritably, "Go dump out the water."
"I’ll do it tomorrow," Li Baoyu said as he climbed onto the kang and crawled under the covers.
「The next morning.」
When Zhao Jun got up to wash, Li Yunxiang was already making dumplings.
The day before, the Yongxing Brigade’s Hunter Team had returned from the mountains with a good haul. That evening, the brigade had distributed some of the meat to the militiamen guarding the mountain, and Tao Xiaobao had received a roe deer leg.
Li Yunxiang had deboned the roe deer leg, soaked the meat in cold water overnight to draw out the blood, and this morning, she had minced it with scallions to make a filling for the dumplings.
With five men of varying ages to feed, two hundred dumplings wouldn’t be nearly enough.
Li Yunxiang cooked some extra. After boiling them, she drained them, let them cool, and packed them into an aluminum lunch box for Zhao Jun and the others to take. Since they wouldn’t be back for lunch during the hunt, they could build a fire in the mountains and roast the dumplings.
Li Yunxiang then used the leftover dumpling water to scald some salted cornmeal. She put it in a large basin and set it aside to cool before feeding it to the dogs.
For the past two days, Li Yunxiang had been helping feed the dogs. But with Little Bear there today, the dog wouldn’t eat food given by anyone else, so Zhao Jun had to feed it himself.
So, after breakfast, Zhao Jun carried the basin of cornmeal outside to feed the dogs.
With six dogs eating at once, the Tao Family certainly didn’t have enough dog bowls. However, they had a large horse trough. Zhao Jun scooped the cornmeal into the trough, portioning it into separate piles for each of the six dogs to prevent them from fighting.
The six dogs had just started to eat when Li Baoyu and Tao Fei, who had also just finished breakfast, came outside. They stood side-by-side, watching Zhao Jun continue to add more food for the dogs.