Chapter 190: A Big Haul

There was no sun today, and the wind had picked up. Cold gusts howled through the valley.

Lin Heng and Old Man Gao followed his uncle-in-law, Li Baiquan, through the valley and arrived at a thorn-covered hillside.

Li Baiquan pointed to a hole and said, “This is it. Look at this burrow—there’s definitely a hog badger inside.”

It was a tunnel dug into the mountainside, about fifty to sixty centimeters wide and thirty to forty centimeters high. The ground at the entrance was smooth, and if you looked closely, you could even spot some hog badger fur.

Old Man Gao examined it and nodded. “No doubt about it. This is a fresh hog badger den. There’s definitely one in there. Now we just need to find the other entrance before we make our move.”

Li Baiquan spread his hands. “That’s the strange part. I searched all day yesterday and couldn’t find the other entrance. Help me look around, will you?”

Lin Heng didn’t say anything. He took Xiong Ba and started searching for the second entrance.

Typically, whether it’s a hog badger or a regular badger, their dens have two exits. A single entrance is rare.

After circling the area, Xiong Ba suddenly stopped. He pawed away the snow and cleared off some leaves, revealing another burrow.

“Nice one!”

Lin Heng rubbed the dog’s head. If it weren’t for Xiong Ba’s keen nose, who knows how long it would’ve taken to find it.

“Awoo~”

Xiong Ba leaned into the head rub, clearly enjoying the praise.

While rewarding Xiong Ba, Lin Heng turned and shouted, “Found it! Over here!”

Old Man Gao and Li Baiquan quickly came over to check. Sure enough, it was another hog badger den.

When they heard it was Xiong Ba who found it, both men were surprised. This dog was smarter than they’d thought.

“Since we’ve found it, let’s get started,” Lin Heng said, looking at the two of them, eager to begin.

Li Baiquan nodded. “I brought plenty of wood fungus. Starting a smoke fire won’t be a problem. The main issue now is how to catch them.”

Normally, you’d use a net to cover one entrance and smoke them out from the other. But they were too far from home and didn’t have any nets, and the snakeskin bags they brought weren’t big enough.

Old Man Gao waved it off. “No worries. You go start the fire and smoke them out. Leave this side to me and Lin.”

“How are you two planning to handle it?” Li Baiquan asked curiously.

Old Man Gao handed his double-barreled shotgun to Lin Heng. “We’ll shoot them, of course. Lin Heng, you take the shotgun and wait at the front. I’ll stand behind with my pistol as backup.”

“I don’t know how to use a gun. Let my uncle-in-law do it. I’ll go start the fire,” Lin Heng said, shaking his head. He hadn’t learned how to shoot yet.

Old Man Gao didn’t object and nodded. “That works too. Once we’ve taken down this hog badger, I’ll teach you how to shoot. I brought plenty of ammo anyway.”

Li Baiquan grinned as he took the shotgun and asked Old Man Gao for some pointers. Once he got the hang of it, he crouched by the burrow entrance, while Old Man Gao positioned himself above it.

Once the hog badgers were smoked out, they’d first face a blast of buckshot from the shotgun. If any managed to escape, Old Man Gao and his pistol would be waiting.

With everything ready, Lin Heng went to start the fire.

The kindling had already been gathered. Lin Heng picked up a large rectangular piece of tree bark to use as a fan. Xiong Ba sat nearby, watching as Lin Heng pulled out a lighter and lit some dry pine needles. Thanks to the resin, the needles caught fire easily, even though they were slightly damp.

Once the flame took, he added some twigs. But maybe because it was so cold, the pine needles died out as soon as he placed them on the ground.

He had to relight it twice before it finally caught. After adding a large handful of pine needles and getting a good flame going, he added thicker branches and logs to build up the fire.

Once the fire was stable, Lin Heng tossed in the wood fungus—also known as tree tongue—that Li Baiquan had collected. These burned slowly and produced lots of smoke.

He threw them into the burrow, then added some green leaves he’d chopped along the way. When thick smoke started billowing out, he used the bark to fan it into the hole.

He coughed from the smoke, but most of it went into the tunnel. From a distance, Lin Heng could see smoke starting to pour out of the other entrance.

Even if the hog badgers were hibernating, they wouldn’t be able to withstand that—they’d be smoked awake for sure.

*Bang!!*

After about ten minutes of smoking, a gunshot rang out from his uncle-in-law’s side.

*Bang! Bang!!*

Two more shots followed in quick succession.

Lin Heng looked up and saw two hog badgers burst out of the tunnel, only to be gunned down by Old Man Gao within seconds.

His marksmanship was fast, precise, and lethal. Both shots were headshots—brains splattered, and the animals tumbled mid-run, never to rise again.

Lin Heng called out, “Need more smoke?”

“Keep it going a bit longer, just in case there are more,” Old Man Gao shouted back.

“Got it.”

Lin Heng nodded and kept fanning smoke into the hole for another ten minutes. When there was no more movement, he doused the fire with snow.

He ran over to join the others. His uncle-in-law had already pulled the two dead hog badgers out of the tunnel.

Looking at the four hog badgers lying on the ground, the three of them were in high spirits. Li Baiquan was so happy he couldn’t stop grinning.

Bagging four hog badgers in one go—this was a first.

Li Baiquan looked at Lin Heng and Old Man Gao with a smile. “I’ll just take two. You each pick one, and I’ll take the rest.”

“Sounds good,” Lin Heng replied without hesitation. He picked up one whose pelt had been badly damaged—probably hit at close range by the shotgun, making the fur unsellable.

He didn’t care about the money and left the better pelts for his uncle-in-law.

Old Man Gao did the same, taking the other one with a ruined pelt. The two with clean pelts—both headshots from his pistol—were left for Li Baiquan.

“You two are too generous,” Li Baiquan said with a hearty laugh, touched by their gesture.

“You earned it. Without you, we wouldn’t have gotten a single hog badger,” Lin Heng said with a smile.

“Exactly. You deserve it,” Old Man Gao added with a nod.

Li Baiquan grinned. “Then let’s dig up some wild yams and treat ourselves to a good meal tonight.”

“Sounds great,” Lin Heng agreed. It was only eleven in the morning, but with a haul like this, they could afford to take the rest of the day off. They’d been running around nonstop lately, and it was starting to take a toll.

Li Baiquan grabbed a hoe and started searching nearby for wild yams.

While his uncle-in-law was digging, Lin Heng took the chance to scout the area for other game.

After searching around for prey without any luck, Lin Heng stumbled upon a yam growing on a rocky surface.

Because the rocky layer underneath prevented the yam from growing deep into the soil, it spread out horizontally along the surface. With just a few casual pokes of a wooden stick, Lin Heng unearthed it with ease.

Two yams, each about a meter long and as thick as a forearm, were dug up just like that—simple as can be.

“This is awesome. These yams must be here to repay a debt or something,” Lin Heng grinned, then dug up two smaller yams nearby and replanted them.

Even though he might never come back to this spot, Lin Heng had a habit of leaving seeds behind—just in case. If he ever returned, he could harvest more of these easy-to-dig yams.

Besides, planting two little yams took almost no effort at all.

Once he was done, Lin Heng went to show off to Li Baiquan. “Uncle, check these out.”

“These are great—straight and round. Where’d you dig them up?” Li Baiquan gave him a thumbs-up. Lin Heng smiled and asked, “How’s your haul?”

Li Baiquan pointed to a nearby bag. “I’ve got about four or five jin. Let’s wait for Old Man Gao to come back, then we can head home.”

“Sounds good.”

Lin Heng nodded and took a look at the yams in the bag. They were pretty big too, but for easier transport, they’d been cut into 20-centimeter segments.

He chopped up his own yams and tossed them in the bag as well.

About half an hour later, Old Man Gao returned, and the three of them slung the hog badger over their shoulders and started heading back.

The hog badger only weighed a little over twenty jin—not a problem for any of them.

Carrying the hog badger, they arrived back at the shelter around 2:30 in the afternoon.

They lit a fire and had some simple pickled vegetable dumpling soup to fill their stomachs before getting to work on the hog badger.

Li Baiquan skinned his two, planning to dry the pelts for sale.

Lin Heng and Old Man Gao, on the other hand, singed the fur off theirs over an open flame, keeping the skin on for better flavor.

Old Man Gao gutted the hog badger and chuckled. “I’ll make you guys some stuffed belly meat.”

“Then I’ll grill a few skewers—I brought some seasoning with me,” Lin Heng said with a grin.

Old Man Gao cleaned the hog badger’s stomach, chopped up the meat, added salt and Sichuan pepper powder, and stuffed it all back into the belly.

He heated up a pile of sand with a fire, then dug a hole in the hot sand and buried the stuffed belly inside.

To speed up the cooking, he added some leaves on top and kept them burning.

“Back during the war, we’d occasionally catch some game, but we couldn’t light fires—had to eat it raw. I used to crave stuffed belly meat like crazy,” Old Man Gao said with a nostalgic smile.

As he talked, Lin Heng grilled the meat.

Two of the four hog badgers were male, and he grilled the testicles and penis too.

The rest were cuts of meat with a nice balance of fat and lean.

As the meat sizzled and dripped with oil, he sprinkled on the seasoning he’d brought from home, or dipped it in fermented tofu for an extra kick—it was a rare and delicious treat.

Old Man Gao had two skewers, but Lin Heng and Li Baiquan ate the most.

With each bite, the rich aroma of meat and spices exploded in their mouths—utterly addictive.

“This seasoning of yours is amazing. You gotta make me some,” Li Baiquan said between bites.

“Haha, no problem at all,” Lin Heng replied with a nod and a smile.

Grilling meat deep in the mountains had a flavor all its own.

Once they were almost done eating, Old Man Gao’s stuffed belly meat was ready too.

He dug it out of the sand, and a rich, meaty aroma wafted out.

“Here, give it a try,” Old Man Gao said as he sliced it open and handed some to Lin Heng and Li Baiquan.

Lin Heng took a small piece and tasted it. The flavor of the belly and meat was intense, with a distinct hog badger taste that hadn’t been completely removed—but it wasn’t too bad.

He dipped it in some fermented tofu, and the flavor improved significantly.

“If we had some vinegar soup to go with this, it’d be perfect,” Lin Heng said with a shake of his head.

Old Man Gao nodded in agreement. “Yeah, hog badger stuffed belly meat is alright, but if it were lamb, it’d be amazing.”

“Would go great with some booze too,” Li Baiquan said, pulling out a pouch of yellow wine and pouring a bit for Lin Heng and Old Man Gao.

By the time they finished eating, it was only 5:30, and the sun hadn’t set yet.

“Come on, I’ll teach you how to shoot,” Old Man Gao said with a smile, glancing at the sky.

“Alright,” Lin Heng nodded, clearly interested.

The two of them found a spot in the valley, and Old Man Gao started with the basics—how to hold the gun, how to aim, and other fundamental skills.

The principle of aiming was the same: align three points in a straight line. This double-barreled shotgun didn’t have a scope, just a simple iron sight.

Once the lesson was mostly done, Old Man Gao said, “Go ahead, fire a shot. It’s not that different from a bow.”

“Okay.”

Lin Heng nodded, stuffed some tissue in his ears, took aim, and pulled the trigger.

With a loud bang, the firing pin struck the primer, igniting the gunpowder inside the shell. The bullet exploded out with immense force.

As the shot fired, Lin Heng felt a powerful recoil slam into his shoulder.

With a sharp metallic ping, the bullet struck a granite rock over a hundred meters away and ricocheted off.

“Damn, that’s powerful!”

Lin Heng was amazed. Even though it was his first time, he instantly fell in love with the feeling.

It was the innate male fascination with the aesthetics of power—guns were the pinnacle of human killing tools.

Ever since firearms were invented, nothing in nature could truly stand against humanity.

Even a black bear would drop dead with a single shot.

“Haha, not bad—you didn’t miss on your first try,” Old Man Gao laughed and complimented him, then loaded another round and gestured for Lin Heng to go again.

“Alright.”

Lin Heng fired three more rounds and discovered that as long as he held the gun steady, the accuracy was incredible.

No wonder modern compound bows were only considered the kings of cold weapons. Compared to firearms, they didn’t stand a chance.

At best, they were just a step above homemade shotguns from the countryside.

After firing five rounds in total, the sky had begun to darken.

“Thanks, Grandpa. That really scratched the itch,” Lin Heng said with a wide grin. The experience had been exhilarating.

“So, thinking about buying a shotgun now?” Old Man Gao asked with a chuckle.

“Yeah, I kinda want one just for fun. But for hunting, I still prefer a bow,” Lin Heng said with a smile.

He was planning to ask his older brother, Lin Yue, to buy a double-barreled shotgun. It was much easier to learn than archery.

Especially with buckshot, the spread was wide enough that even if your aim wasn’t perfect, you’d still likely hit something.

Teaching his brother to use a bow would’ve been way too hard.

Old Man Gao nodded and said, “Shotguns are nothing. If you ever get your hands on a rifle or a sniper, I bet you’d fall in love. Now those pack a real punch.”

“This one’s good enough for me, I’m not picky,” Lin Heng replied with a smile.

He had a feeling Old Man Gao was trying to lure him into joining the army.

But that was never going to happen—he wasn’t about to leave his wife and kid behind.

Besides, this was a golden age for making money. Business was the way to go.

After chatting for a bit, the three of them shut the door and lay down to sleep.

Tomorrow, they’d be tracking down traces of the takin—a task that would seriously test their stamina. Rest was essential.

Lin Heng drifted off quickly, cuddling Xiong Ba in his arms.

Early the next morning, Old Man Gao was the first to get up. He stepped outside for a look, and a startled shout rang out: “I knew I heard something last night—there was a bear here!”

(End of Chapter)