The Entire Mountain Is My Hunting Ground

"Alright," Li Baoyu agreed. He gutted the roe deer, cut out its heart, sliced it in half, and tossed it to the dog.

The dog snatched up the roe deer heart and began chewing on it heartily. Even with Zhao Jun standing right next to it, the dog wasn’t protective of its food.

Zhao Jun kept sizing up the black dog. It weighed over eighty pounds, with pricked-up ears and a sturdy, block-headed build.

The dog finished the entire roe deer heart, but its owner was still nowhere to be seen. Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu needed to head back, though. Having bagged two roe deer this morning, the trip hadn’t been for nothing.

Following their usual routine for lighter game, Li Baoyu started dragging it off by himself.

He turned his back to the roe deer, grabbed its two hind legs, and began to pull it along like a small cart.

But to Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu’s surprise, as they started to leave, the black dog got up and began to follow them down the mountain.

Seeing the black dog trailing them, Li Baoyu asked Zhao Jun again, "Brother, what do we do?"

"What do we do?" Zhao Jun glanced at the black dog, then turned to Li Baoyu with a grin. "What else can we do? If it wants to follow, we’ll let it."

"Take it home?"

"Yep." Zhao Jun nodded. The black dog was a fine-looking animal. "If it wants to follow, we can’t just chase it away. Let’s take it back for now. When we get to the Yongxing Team, we’ll find Uncle Tao and have him ask around to see who lost a dog. If someone comes looking, we’ll give it back to them."

"Oh!" Li Baoyu understood what Zhao Jun was getting at. He said, "So if no one comes looking, we’ll just keep it for now."

"Exactly," Zhao Jun said with a laugh. "It’s perfect timing, since our dogs are all injured. If no one claims it, we can just ’borrow’ it for a while."

Hearing this, Li Baoyu laughed too. Among hunters, you might return a borrowed gun, but a borrowed dog was usually a one-way transaction.

But this dog wasn’t stolen or snatched. They’d take it back first, and if no one really came looking, then they could just decide later whether its new surname would be Zhao or Li.

When they got further down, they came to the roe deer Zhao Jun had shot earlier. Zhao Jun thought for a moment, then told Li Baoyu to stop. He took out his knife and began carving strips of meat from the deer’s belly, feeding them to the black dog one by one.

Since they were taking the dog home, it was only right to feed it its fill.

Once the dog had eaten its fill, Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu each dragged a roe deer, while the dog ambled along slowly behind them.

All the way back to Yongxing Brigade, the dog never darted ahead but stayed right behind Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu.

At that point, Zhao Jun realized something. ’This dog probably doesn’t belong to anyone in the Yongxing Team. Otherwise, why would its owner have abandoned it in the mountains?’

The two of them dragged the roe deer back to Tao Xiaobao’s house, and the black dog followed them into the yard. When Xiaohua saw it enter, she started barking at it.

The black dog wasn’t shy around strangers; it was actually quite docile. It didn’t react to Xiaohua’s barking, just stood there and watched her.

Zhao Jun took a rope and tied the black dog to the other side of the lean-to, where Xiaohua couldn’t reach it, preventing a fight between the two dogs.

Hearing the barking outside, Li Yunxiang pushed the door open and came out. She exclaimed in surprise, "You got two roe deer this morning... Oh, and what’s with the dog?"

"Found it. Found it in the mountains." Zhao Jun said with a smile, pointing to the roe deer he’d dragged back. "Auntie, the ’lantern’ is still inside. I had Baoyu take it out. Let’s stir-fry it."

"Alright, alright, I’ll go peel some scallions," Li Yunxiang readily agreed. She went inside and called Tao Fei out to help Li Baoyu skin the roe deer.

Meanwhile, Zhao Jun headed out toward the brigade headquarters.

When he arrived at the headquarters, he found that Tao Dabao wasn’t there. Only Secretary Yu Xuewen was in the office.

Yu Xuewen was very enthusiastic when he saw it was Zhao Jun. Ever since the day they’d captured the tiger, Yu Xuewen felt that this young man, Zhao Jun, was resourceful and capable, and was sure to have a bright future. Even someone in his position was willing to get closer to Zhao Jun and make a friend of him.

Zhao Jun had come over to tell Tao Dabao about the dog he’d found and to ask for help locating its owner.

Since Tao Dabao wasn’t around, telling Yu Xuewen was just as good.

And after Zhao Jun explained his reason for coming, Yu Xuewen even praised him for his "honesty in not keeping a found dog." Zhao Jun didn’t feel the least bit ashamed by the praise. He just asked Yu Xuewen to help ask around the various teams to see who had lost a dog, telling them to go to Tao Xiaobao’s house to claim it.

To this, Yu Xuewen readily agreed.

Zhao Jun then took his leave. When he got back to Tao Xiaobao’s house, he saw Li Baoyu and Tao Fei skinning the roe deer in the yard, while Tao Fulun stood by with his hands behind his back, watching the two boys work.

Zhao Jun took off his thick mittens and joined in.

But before long, Li Yunxiang came out to call them in for lunch, taking over the half-skinned roe deer herself.

Originally, for lunch today, Li Yunxiang had planned to make stewed frozen tofu and potatoes, with steamed sticky bean buns as the staple. The stew would simmer on the bottom, with the buns steaming on top—all cooked in a single pot.

But after Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu dragged the roe deer back, she did as Zhao Jun had suggested and sliced the roe deer’s heart, liver, and tripe, blanched them, and then stir-fried them with plenty of oil and scallions.

And just like that, the lunch had both meat and vegetables.

Meanwhile, in Cafeteria No. 1 of the Yong’an Forest Farm.

During lunchtime, long lines formed in the cafeteria, but at Window No. 1, only a few people were waiting.

"Bro." Li Dayong slapped his open aluminum lunch box onto the counter and called out to Zhao Youcai, "Four cornbread buns, one serving of vegetables."

He remembered that on the first day of work at the Forest Farm, the meal had not only included meat, but the staple food had been steamed scallion rolls.

But today, the only dish was stewed cabbage and potatoes. And the only staple food was cornbread buns.