Chapter 454 - 386: A Leopard That Only Eats Sheep
"A leopard!" The word jogged Zhao Jun’s memory. He finally remembered the leopard he had once taken a shot at.
He’d been so busy lately that he had almost forgotten about it.
At home, Wang Meilan had mentioned the leopard a few times. But in her nagging, the leopard was just a supporting character. The main character was undoubtedly Zhao Youcai, the man who had bought a sheep to feed it.
Traveling a thousand li in a day was an exaggeration, but a leopard could definitely cover a hundred li in a day.
This leopard had gone from Yong’an to Yongsheng, then back to Yong’an. It had disappeared for a while, and now it had reappeared near the Yongxing Brigade.
’This leopard sure gets around.’
On the other end of the line, Tao Dabao explained, "Our production team raises cattle and sheep, and we have an old man named Zheng in charge of them. He takes them out to graze every day, heading up to the fishpond our brigade built in the mountains. He herds and fishes at the same time."
The Yongxing Brigade had a lot of people and was quite prosperous. They had dammed a valley between two mountains to create a fishpond and stocked it with fry every year.
Ever since spring began, the herdsman, Elder Zheng, had driven the cattle and sheep up there daily. He’d let them graze freely while he fished by the pond.
Everything had been fine until the last couple of days, when Elder Zheng noticed that some of his sheep were missing.
Even though it was only one, the sheep belonged to the brigade. Losing one was a big deal.
Losing even a single one was unacceptable!
Elder Zheng stopped fishing immediately. He tossed his rod aside, went home to get his two sons, and they scoured the mountainside, but they couldn’t find the sheep. Elder Zheng decided to report it to the brigade the next day, but to his surprise, when he checked again that evening, another sheep was gone.
Now it was a real problem. Early the next morning, Elder Zheng went to Tao Dabao’s house to report the news. As soon as Tao Dabao heard, he rushed to the Brigade Office and used the loudspeaker to summon the Hunter Team, telling them to grab their guns and dogs and head into the mountains to investigate.
Once in the mountains, the dogs either chased roe deer, pursued wild boars, or cornered Black Bears. By the end, they had bagged a lot of game, but no one knew what had actually eaten the sheep.
And so, the Hunter Team swept through all the mountains surrounding the fishpond. A host of large wild animals were either killed, fled, or were wounded.
But after the Hunter Team withdrew, no sheep were lost the next day. On the third day, however, another one disappeared.
Helpless, Elder Zheng had no choice but to move his cattle and sheep to a different grazing area.
But after just a few quiet days, another sheep went missing!
’Whatever this thing is, it’s only targeting the sheep!’
The brigade leaders also wondered what it could be. It didn’t touch the cattle, only the sheep. They figured it wasn’t too big—it couldn’t be a Tiger or Xiong Ba.
But the ground was too hard and dry to show any tracks. Without tracks, they couldn’t identify the culprit.
Then one day, a villager went into the mountains to clear land for planting corn and saw a leopard dragging a half-eaten sheep up a tree. The sight terrified him, and he scrambled back, dragging his hoe behind him.
When he got back to the brigade, he found Tao Dabao and told him what he’d seen. Tao Dabao immediately gathered thirty men, all armed with semi-automatic rifles, and led them personally to kill the leopard.
But by the time they got there, the half-eaten sheep was still there, but the leopard was gone.
Tao Dabao refused to give up and ordered the Hunter Team to continue the search, but they found nothing.
When everyone returned to the village, Elder Zheng, the shepherd, heard that a leopard had eaten his sheep and began stamping his feet and cursing in a rage.
As an older man, he knew how formidable leopards were. He knew they could hunt roe deer and catch rabbits in the mountains with ease, yet this one just had to come and steal the sheep he was herding.
The next day, Tao Dabao dispatched two Hunter Teams. One team had dogs, the other didn’t. Both teams entered the mountains together to conduct a grid search.
But when the men went, they couldn’t find a trace of the leopard. When they sent the dogs, the hounds didn’t get far before they all came back with their tails between their legs.
The dogs were scared!
Tao Dabao and Yu Xuewen discussed it and decided they had to ask for Zhao Jun’s help. After all, Zhao Jun had left a deep impression on them. Nothing else needed to be said; the method Zhao Jun used to capture the Tiger was something no one else could have come up with, even if they wracked their brains.
So, even though it was late, Tao Dabao made a call to the Yong’an Village Office.
As it happened, Zhao Guofeng was still at the Village Office. When he answered and heard Tao Dabao was looking for Zhao Jun, he quickly left the office to go notify Zhao Jun’s family.
But just as Zhao Guofeng stepped out of the Village Office, he ran into his son, Zhao Jinshan, who had come to call him home for dinner. This worked out perfectly. Zhao Guofeng sent Zhao Jinshan to run the message to Zhao Jun’s family, while he went back inside, picked up the phone, and made small talk with Tao Dabao.
After all, compared to Tao Dabao, the village Zhao Guofeng managed was much smaller, putting him a whole rank below. He couldn’t pass up a chance to build a connection, could he?
"Uncle Tao," Zhao Jun said directly into the phone, "I have a matchmaking meeting the day after tomorrow, so I can’t come over for the next couple of days."
"Oh?" Tao Dabao heard this and understood. Marriage was a serious matter, not child’s play; it couldn’t be delayed. He simply told Zhao Jun to be sure to let him know once the wedding date was set. He said his whole family would come to attend the wedding.
Zhao Jun agreed. He hung up the phone, exchanged a few more pleasantries with Zhao Guofeng, and then they left the Village Office together, each heading home.
When Zhao Jun got home, everyone had already finished dinner, but Wang Meilan had left his food for him, covered in a large pot. It was still warm.
Zhao Jun carried his plate and bowl into the east room, where he heard Zhao Youcai ask, "Who was that calling you?"
Hearing this, Zhao Jun glanced at Zhao Youcai, then shook his head with a smile and said, "No one."
Zhao Youcai was taken aback and immediately grew displeased. He sneered, "My son’s gotten too big for his britches. He won’t even talk to his old man anymore."
Just then, Wang Meilan came in with a plate and chopsticks. She set the dish on the kang table, handed the chopsticks to Zhao Jun, then glanced at Zhao Youcai and said, "Now, why would you talk about your son like that?"
"Isn’t it true?" Zhao Youcai pointed at Zhao Jun, a sneer on his face. "I’m his father, and nobody ever calls for me."
This expression was a complete one-eighty from the face he’d worn yesterday when Zhao Jun gave him money.
’Sigh.’ Zhao Jun sighed internally and gave a helpless smile. "It was Uncle Tao from the Yongxing Brigade," he said. "He called to say a leopard has shown up over there."
The moment Zhao Jun said this, Zhao Youcai’s expression changed dramatically. At the same time, he felt a pair of murderous eyes land on him.
’This is bad,’ Zhao Youcai thought, frantically trying to signal Zhao Jun with his eyes. But Zhao Jun had just picked up the plate of cabbage and potatoes and was busy scraping the vegetables and their sauce into his bowl, completely missing his father’s look.
Zhao Jun continued, "The leopard went over to Yongxing, and it’s not eating anything else. It’s only preying on the brigade’s sheep. In the last ten days or so, it’s killed five or six of them, and nobody knows why."
"Why? Hah!" As soon as Zhao Jun finished speaking, Wang Meilan said coldly, "It’s developed a taste for it. How could roe deer from the mountains taste as good as a domestic lamb?"
At this, Wang Meilan turned to Zhao Youcai and demanded, "Isn’t that right, Zhao Youcai!"