Chapter 341 - 279: The Sound of a Whistle
「The next morning.」
Zhao Jun was up a little after five. He had told Wang Meilan his plans the previous night, so she had made breakfast for him early.
After Zhao Jun finished eating, Li Baoyu came over from next door while he was back in his room wrapping his leggings.
"Uncle! Auntie!" Li Baoyu called out as he entered, greeting Zhao Youcai and Wang Meilan first before going into the other room to find Zhao Jun.
No sooner had Li Baoyu entered the room than Zhao Youcai followed. But he didn’t come inside, instead standing at the entrance and leaning his side against the doorframe, silent and motionless.
Seeing Zhao Youcai plant himself in the doorway, Li Baoyu glanced back at him, then turned to Zhao Jun and shot him a meaningful look.
Zhao Jun looked at Zhao Youcai and asked, "What is it? Dad, you need something?"
Hearing his son’s question, Zhao Youcai didn’t hold back. He retorted, "You’ve only been quiet for two days. What are you up to now?"
Zhao Jun jutted his chin at Li Baoyu, who then explained to Zhao Youcai, "Uncle, a trapper from the Logging Camp spotted a lone Big Bear Dominator and told my brother about it. We’re going to go hunt it today."
If Zhao Jun had said this himself, Zhao Youcai might have questioned it. But hearing it from Li Baoyu, he didn’t give it a second thought. He just gave Zhao Jun a look, then turned and went back to his room.
By the time Zhao Youcai left, Zhao Jun had finished tying his leggings. He got up, pulled a white overcoat from the kang cabinet, and put it on over his cotton-padded jacket.
Once he was fully dressed, Zhao Jun stood up and took the semi-automatic rifle down from the wall.
The instant Zhao Jun took the rifle in his hands, the three dogs, who had been craning their necks with their ears perked, all leaped to their feet and rushed toward Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu.
Zhao Jun pushed away Little Bear and White Dragon as they jumped on him, then called to Li Baoyu, "Let’s go!"
"Okay," Li Baoyu grunted, pushing Da Huang back inside. The two of them then left the room, closed the door, and ignored the sound of the three dogs scratching frantically at it.
"Dad, Mom, we’re leaving now!" Zhao Jun called toward the inner room. Wang Meilan, who was sitting on the kang with Zhao Youcai sorting beans, called back, "You two be careful!"
They both called back in affirmation and headed out of the house. As they walked toward the courtyard gate, Li Baoyu turned to say something to Zhao Jun.
But when he turned, he saw that Zhao Jun wasn’t beside him. Instead, he was walking toward his family’s root cellar.
Reaching the cellar, Zhao Jun moved aside the wooden plank covering the entrance and climbed down. When he came back up, his satchel was bulging, clearly stuffed with something.
’What could possibly be in the root cellar at this time of year?’
’Besides potatoes, there were just cabbages and radishes.’
So Li Baoyu asked Zhao Jun, "Brother, what did you stuff in there?"
Zhao Jun didn’t answer. He just glanced back at the window of the east room. Seeing no one peering out, he quickly ducked into the storeroom.
A moment later, Zhao Jun came out carrying three pairs of skis. They were a gift from Tao Dabao, from before he came back from the Yongxing Brigade.
That brigade really had deep pockets; they had given Zhao Jun ten pairs of these skis, but he didn’t need that many today.
"What are those for?" Li Baoyu asked, looking at the skis in Zhao Jun’s hands in confusion.
Zhao Jun didn’t say a word, simply leading him out of the courtyard with large strides.
Once outside the gate, Zhao Jun said to Li Baoyu, "Hold your satchel open."
Hearing this, Li Baoyu quickly opened the satchel on his back. Just then, Zhao Jun pulled a bundle of Mazes from his own satchel and stuffed it into Li Baoyu’s.
"Brother, this..."
Li Baoyu knew this bundle of Mazes was left over from when Zhao Youcai and the others had surrounded the Pig God. It had been stored in the root cellar at Zhao Jun’s family home ever since.
Zhao Jun remained silent, merely jerking his head at Li Baoyu before leading him east.
Li Baoyu was surprised, but as always, he did as Zhao Jun said. Since Zhao Jun wasn’t elaborating, he didn’t ask any more questions.
The two of them arrived at the small store. Zhao Jun told Li Baoyu to wait outside while he went in alone. He said to the proprietress, "Aunt Wang, give me two jin of hardtack."
"You got it!" Zhao Jun always bought a good amount whenever he came, so the proprietress was naturally pleased. She deftly weighed out two jin of hardtack for him.
After paying, Zhao Jun asked the proprietress for another sheet of Butter Paper. He used it to wrap the already-wrapped package of hardtack a second time before stuffing it into his satchel.
With two layers, he wouldn’t have to worry about any grease seeping out and staining his bag.
When Zhao Jun came out, Li Baoyu saw his bulging satchel and said with a grin, "Brother, we’ve really made it, huh? We don’t even pack food from home anymore."
Zhao Jun just smiled at his words and didn’t say much.
They had just left the village when Li Baoyu pointed ahead and said to Zhao Jun, "Hey, look! Who’s that?"
"That’s our Brother Zhang." Zhao Jun didn’t even have to look to know who Li Baoyu meant. He simply said, "I asked him to come."
"Huh?" Just as Li Baoyu was expressing his surprise, he saw Zhang Yuanmin up ahead waving his arm at them.
"Brother," Li Baoyu finally sensed something was off. He grabbed Zhao Jun, who was still walking forward, and asked, "What are we actually hunting today?"
Zhao Jun looked at Li Baoyu, smiled, and said, "The Pig God!"
"What?!" Li Baoyu was both shocked and delighted to hear this, and he remembered something Zhao Jun had once said.
He recalled Zhao Jun telling him that once the snow froze into a hard crust, it would be time to hunt the Pig God.
For a moment, amidst his excitement, Li Baoyu felt a pang of annoyance. "Brother, then why didn’t you let me bring my gun when I mentioned it yesterday?"
"What for?" Zhao Jun handed the three pairs of skis to Zhang Yuanmin. The three of them were heading into the mountains, and he was the Leader. ’As the boss, how can I be the one carrying things?’
"To shoot, of course!" Li Baoyu said. "There are so many pigs. You can go for the Pig God, Brother, and let me shoot the others."
"Wouldn’t that just scatter them?"
"If we don’t scatter them... if the herd doesn’t break up, how are you supposed to get the big one?" Li Baoyu was puzzled. If they didn’t break up the herd of wild boars, how would they even get a glimpse of the Great Pig God?
Zhao Jun knew what he was thinking but shook his head. "I’ve already made a deal with our Village Chief. For any wild boar we get, once they’re bled, he’ll buy them hide, meat, bones, and all for twenty cents a jin. So, once we’re on the mountain, you all listen to me. We’re going to round up all the small ones first."
"Round them all up..." Li Baoyu was dumbfounded. Zhao Jun hadn’t let him bring a gun and was only carrying a semi-automatic himself. Even if the rifle could fire in succession, trying to take down a herd of seventy or eighty wild boars sounded like a fool’s dream.
Zhang Yuanmin had mentioned driving a sled yesterday, but Zhao Jun had said no. The three of them entered the mountain forest on foot, walking all the way to the foot of Yingbei Mountain. There, they split up to search for fresh tracks left by the boar herd.
After searching for about ten minutes, Zhao Jun suddenly straightened up. A whistle sounded from the southwest.