Chapter 888
Greed
That evening, the villagers who had participated in an autumn hunting expedition the day before went up the mountain together again before dark, carrying warm clothes.
Compared to yesterday, the villagers are much more relaxed today.
It was just a routine night watch; there were no group hunting missions. The main task was to drive away any wild animals that might wreak havoc in the fields, and the lines weren't as tightly drawn as they had been yesterday.
Even if the wild boars came again, the main method was to drive them away, without any mandatory herding to cooperate with the hunting team. The villagers on night watch were quite free.
At a night watch post on the outermost side near the foot of the mountain, Wang Xuegang and Li Zhengkui from Xing'an Village were sitting in a makeshift shack made of tree branches.
After autumn arrives, the dew gets heavy at night. Having a simple shed for shelter makes it much more comfortable for someone to keep watch at night.
These two are experienced villagers. They set up their shelter in advance when they had nothing to do during the day, so it's much more comfortable for them at night compared to other villagers who live in the open.
Wang Xuegang: "Old Li, did you hear about what happened this morning? Our Secretary Yue got into a fight with Zhou Yuansen! They even brought in the police."
As it turns out, Secretary Yue's buddies are pretty shrewd. After beating up Zhou Xueqiang last night, they went straight to the police station to turn themselves in! I think they'll be in jail for three days!
Li Zhengkui took out a pack of grape cigarettes from his bag and handed one to Lao Wang. The two of them lit the cigarettes with their lighters and said while puffing out smoke, "Zhou Xueqiang won't get away with this. You'll see. After he gets out of the hospital, he'll have to go back in jail for a few days. It definitely won't be any shorter than the time Xiao Tao and his two brothers spent in jail!"
Wang Xuegang nodded: "I won't argue with you about what you're saying. Secretary Yue has very close relationships with the city leaders. Dealing with his family is just a matter of a word!"
This is because they're afraid of making a big fuss and having a bad impact. Otherwise, Xiao Tao, Xiao Wen, and Xiao Wu could just go away and hide for a few days until things calm down, and that would be the end of it!
"The Zhou family had been quite quiet for a while, but now they're starting to cause trouble again! Tell me, where did they get the nerve to talk back to Secretary Yue?"
It couldn't be Zhang...
Li Zhengkui didn't continue speaking, as the content was somewhat sensitive. The Zhang he mentioned was the village chief, Zhang Junhong.
Given the current political landscape of the village, it seems that only if the Zhou and Zhang families join forces will they have a chance to barely contend with Yue Feng's side.
Of course, there is only a theoretical chance. In reality, as long as Yue Feng doesn't make any blunders, no one can remove him from his position. At most, he can influence the voting results at party meetings.
The two men were smoking and gossiping about the village in their shack when they heard a rustling sound coming from the woods not far away.
This area is less than 30 meters from the edge of the forest at the foot of the mountain. Instead of planting corn near the edge of the field, some hyacinth seeds were planted.
This thing produces a lot when there's a lot of rain; it grows everywhere, dripping and bubbling, and looks quite pleasing.
As Wang Xuegang was speaking, he heard the noise and slightly raised his hand, instantly silencing the two men.
Li Zhengkui peeked out from one side of the shack entrance and glanced around a few times; his expression immediately turned tense.
"It looks like the bear with cubs that the loudspeaker was talking about this afternoon! It's over there eating lentils!"
Upon hearing this, Wang Xuegang frowned: "Did you see clearly? How far is it?"
"It's not far, less than a hundred meters away. Looking out from the shack, at the very edge of the field, I saw a dark shadow pulling on a bean vine!" Li Zhengkui said.
"Let me take a look!"
Wang Xuegang immediately came over and strained his eyes to observe carefully.
It seemed that the noise from the people in the shack disturbed the bears who were picking beans, and the two black bears, one big and one small, immediately stopped moving.
Wang Xuegang waited patiently for half a minute. His cigarette had barely burned down to half its original size before he saw the dark bear resume eating.
"Yes! It's a bear! I can see its outline! It's a bear, it can't escape!" Wang Xuegang said to his companion.
"What should we do? Light a firecracker to scare them away?"
"Secretary Yue said on the loudspeaker that a black bear with cubs might come down from the mountain to the cornfield. If you see it, try to drive it away and be careful!" Li Zhengkui asked in a low voice, his eyes slightly narrowed.
Wang Xuegang clicked his tongue: "The bold get rich while the timid starve! There's no one else around this shack, and the nearest autumn protection point is a mile away!"
"Do you dare team up with me? Let's give this bear a hand and kill it to make some money off the mountain!"
Li Zhengkui was taken aback when he heard this: "We're going to fight a bear?"
We don't even have a homemade cannon, what are we going to do? With a machete?
Mother bears with cubs can be extremely fierce; if you provoke them, it's a fight to the death!
"My father still has a Type 38 rifle in his house! I'm sneaking home to get it now, and I should be back in an hour at most!"
"So, are you in or not? If we really take it down, you get a share of the profits from the bear sale!"
"A Type 38 rifle? Do you have a lot of bullets?" Li Zhengkui continued to ask.
The Type 38 rifle was a type of rifle used during the early 20th century. It could hold five bullets and had a manual bolt-action mechanism for ejection. If there were enough bullets, it was theoretically quite possible to kill a bear at that distance.
Although Li Zhengkui was not a hunter by profession, he still knew some basic hunting knowledge.
Bears have thick hides and tough flesh, making it difficult to kill them with a single shot from an ordinary hunting rifle.
If it were a homemade cannon that was difficult to load or a weapon that was only capable of firing one shot, he would rather not get involved than take the risk.
Of course, if it's a Type 38 rifle with a five-round magazine, it's a different story. As long as there are enough bullets, you can fire several shots before the prey gets close. Even if the first shot misses a vital spot and causes a problem, there won't be any danger. You can calmly follow up with a few more shots.
Wang Xuegang replied, "I remember there are still four bullets left! Original, old stock, not re-installed junk! I just haven't had a chance to use them yet."
You know how good I am at marksmanship. Back when the militia was shooting, I always got at least 45 rings!
Four bullets are enough. Li Zhengkui gritted his teeth and said, "Okay, let's take a gamble!"
I'll wait for you here. Go quickly and come back soon. Crawl out from under the south side of the shack, but don't startle the bear!
I'll stay here and keep watch. If anything happens, I'll light some firecrackers! If nothing happens, we'll wait for you to come back with your gun so we can kill the bear together!
"Okay! I'll go home and get my gun. Be careful!" Seeing that Old Li had agreed, Wang Xuegang immediately bent down and crawled under the south side of the shack.
Soon, Wang Xuegang quietly slipped out of the shack, then tiptoed south. After walking about a hundred meters, he took off running home with his long legs, sprinting all the way.
A bear is extremely valuable. Even the lowest grade of bear gallbladder can be worth several hundred yuan, not to mention the bear skin, bear meat, bear paws, and other valuable items.
This kind of mountain wealth is worth the risk!
After Li Zhengkui and Wang Xuegang went home to get their guns, leaving only one person in the shack, they dared not breathe loudly, leaning against the shack and quietly listening to the sounds outside.
The mother bear with her cubs seemed to know there were people in the den, but she didn't seem to want to hide or run away.
They ate voraciously, plucking handfuls of beans and stuffing them into their mouths; in no time, their bellies were already slightly swollen.
The opportunity to "stick to autumn fat" is very precious. Bears can eat at least dozens of kilograms of fresh food a day, turning all of it into fat stored in their bodies for the winter.
After waiting for a while, the sound of husking flat beans came over again.
After his eyes adjusted to the dim light, he slowly observed the surroundings and soon spotted the half-grown bear cub following its mother.
This should be a bear cub that is a little over a year old. It is not as big as its mother, but it is quite mischievous. When it can't reach the beans, it will stand up and bite the vines to pull them down. It will even pull down the surrounding branches and not let go.
Li Zhengkui secretly thought that if Lao Wang came back with a gun, he would be able to shoot down both bears, and the cub would also be of some value.
This is all money!
The time Li Zhengkui spent waiting for Wang Xuegang to return felt like an eternity.
He was afraid that if his partner returned late, the mother bear and her cub would escape again.
At this moment, he was already blinded by the potential gains and was no longer afraid of the danger of the bear. On the other side, Wang Xuegang had put all his strength into running. When he got home, his wife asked him why he was back so early. Old Wang just waved his hand, pushed open the door, and went straight to his father's room.
Wang's father said, "Dagang, what are you doing? You're all flustered. You're such a grown man, why are you so unsteady?"
Wang Xuegang: "Dad, where's that old gun from home?"
At the foot of the mountain outside our autumn shelter, I saw two blind black bears, one big and one small! Give me the gun and bullets, I'll shoot them and get some meat!
"A bear is coming down the mountain? Are you sure you can handle it?" Upon hearing that there was a bear, Wang's father immediately perked up.
"About a hundred meters away, we should have a chance! Stop dawdling, where are our guns and bullets!"
"It's under the kang (heated brick bed), I'll get it for you!"
The old man stopped nagging his son and immediately went to the kang (a heated brick bed) to take out the old gun that he had polished until it was gleaming.
"You only have four bullets left, so be careful! The rifling on this gun is a bit worn down, so your accuracy will suffer! Be mindful of that! If it jams, pull the bolt to eject the bullet and fix the problem!" Mr. Wang reminded him.
"Got it! I can shoot!"
Wang Xuegang took the old gun from his father, loaded the last four bullets into the chamber, slung the weapon over his shoulder, and left home.
What would normally take nearly an hour to walk back was covered in less than forty minutes by Wang Xuegang's sprint.
As he approached the shack area, Wang Xuegang noticeably slowed his pace, circling around from the cornfield on the south side into the shack, panting heavily.
"How's it going? Did you get the gun? The bear is still here, but it's moved a little further to the side of the ditch. It looks like it's picking some soft dates to eat!" Li Zhengkui reported the results of his continuous observation to Wang Xuegang.
"Got it! Look!" Li Zhengkui pulled back the bolt, revealing the bright orange bullet inside.
"What's next? Should you fire the shot, or should I?" Li Zhengkui asked.
"Let me handle this! It's my gun; I know its temperament better than you do!"
"You hold the line for me. If you don't kill it with one shot and it charges, just hold the bear off for a bit, and you can smash its head in at close range!"
"Fine, I'll do as you say! Give me the machete!"
"Let's do it! We can't let it get away; this opportunity is too good to pass up, it's practically delivered to our doorstep!"
"Hmm, go out, climb out from this side of the shack, we should be able to see where it is! We can even move a little closer!"
"I know what I'm doing!"
……
After a brief whispered conversation, Wang Xuegang, gripping his old gun, slowly crawled out of the shack and followed his partner's directions to find the location of the black bear mother and cub.
After a few minutes of observation, the bear's location was quickly pinpointed.
They were about ten or twenty meters away from the hut, still picking and eating the soft dates, completely unaware of the approaching danger.
Wang Xuegang imitated the shooting posture, crawling forward slowly to find a good opportunity to fire. When he got close to a position of about 95 meters, a small mound of earth was just right to serve as a shooting platform, and he decisively set up his gun.
Load the gun, release the safety, aim, and decisively pull the trigger.
Bang! A gunshot rang out, and the wild birds at the edge of the woods were startled and flew out.
next second.
A splatter of blood appeared on the shoulder of the mother bear as she was feeding, and she immediately stood up from her quadruped position.
Awoo!
The injured mother bear let out a low roar, her nostrils twitching as she sniffed, immediately locking onto the attacker's location.
The gunshot wound and the maternal instinct to protect its cubs aroused its aggressive desire. It could have turned and run away, but it did not choose to do so. Instead, it charged at Wang Xuegang, who had fired the shot, on all fours.
Wang Xuegang hit the target with his first shot. Seeing the bear running towards him, he immediately pulled the bolt, reloaded, and continued firing.
puff!
The shell went unfired.
Wang Xuegang remained lying still, pulled the bolt again to eject the dud, loaded the third bullet, and continued firing.
Click!
It failed to fire again; the Type 38 rifle's tendency to jam at crucial moments proved terribly wrong.
He tried to pull the bolt, but couldn't budge it several times; instead, it became even more firmly stuck.
For an adult black bear sprinting at full speed, a distance of a hundred meters or so is almost just a few leaps.
In the blink of an eye, the bear rushed up to them.
"Old Wang, the bear is charging!"
Li Zhengkui gripped the machete tightly in his hand, completely panicked.
If the bullets don't fire, you can't deal with a bear with a machete.
He hurriedly went to get the firecrackers, but after striking the match, his hands were trembling so much that he couldn't find the fuse. The more anxious he became, the less his hands and feet would obey him.
The bear had already charged within ten meters, and a stench accompanied by a strong gust of wind swept over them. The terrifying pressure made everyone lose their composure.
Li Zhengkui's psychological defenses completely collapsed. Fearing that the bear would pounce on him, he threw the unlit firecrackers on the ground and turned to run away.
When Wang Xuegang saw that his partner had run away and he couldn't reload, he scrambled to his feet.
"Li Zhengkui, you son of a bitch! You betrayed me!"
Before he could finish speaking, a strong gust of wind came from behind and knocked him to the ground.
Wang Xuegang felt a gust of foul wind and hurriedly tried to block with his old gun. He felt a strong force hit him, the gun was violently pushed aside, and he lost his balance.
Then, the injured bear plopped down on Wang Xuegang and began angrily biting and scratching him.
At this time of year, people are only wearing two layers of clothing, nothing like the thick winter coats. The bear's claws are extremely powerful; one swipe and the skin is torn and bleeding.
Soon, Wang Xuegang's screams echoed outside the cornfield.
Upon hearing the gunshots and screams, the villagers from the distant autumn protection team immediately rushed towards the scene, flashlights in hand. (End of Chapter)