Chapter 110: The Hunter Buying Pork, the Closed-Circuit Fishing Method, and “Eat It or Not”

The sight of the man’s shotgun immediately made both Lin Heng and his father tense up. Lin Heng’s father gripped the wooden stick, while Lin Heng tightened his hold on his bow and arrow.

In the deep mountains, the dangers weren’t just wild animals and poisonous insects; people were also among them. If someone had ill intentions and killed a person, it would be nearly impossible to trace in this era.

“Who are you?” Lin Heng asked coldly. It was rare to encounter someone deep in the mountains.

The man opposite them appeared to be a middle-aged man in his thirties. He was carrying a backpack, had a mustache like Lu Xun’s, a square face, high cheekbones, and a joyful smile on his face.

Realizing the seriousness of Lin Heng’s tone, the man hurriedly raised the shotgun and fired two shots into the air, smiling as he said, “Don’t worry, it’s not a firecracker, nothing dangerous.”

This action helped ease the tension for both Lin Heng and his father.

The man stepped closer and said, “I’m from Bai Ma Ti Village. My name is Zhao Aiguo. I heard the dogs barking and came over. Which village are you from?”

Lin Heng furrowed his brow. He hadn’t heard of Bai Ma Ti Village before.

“I’ve heard of a village near Taibai Mountain,” Lin Heng’s father whispered.

“We’re from Fengshu Village, Huangtan Town. I’m Lin Heng, and this is my father,” Lin Heng replied slowly.

Zhao Aiguo smiled and nodded. “Huangtan Town, I’ve heard of it. That’s quite a distance. You’re really hunting with a bow and arrow? Impressive!”

“Not really, it’s pretty similar to a rifle,” Lin Heng casually said, then asked, “What brings you here?”

“I want to buy some wild boar meat. My mother’s been having stomach bleeding, and they say eating wild boar meat can help. I’ve been in these mountains for over 20 days, but haven’t caught anything. You guys managed to catch such a big one—lucky!” Zhao Aiguo said, walking closer.

Then, he apologized with a smile, “I’m sorry for scaring you earlier with the shotgun.”

As he spoke, he handed Lin Heng a roll of hand-rolled cigarettes.

Lin Heng declined, so Zhao Aiguo passed it to his father, who accepted it but didn’t smoke, instead tucking it behind his ear.

“You can definitely buy the wild boar meat, but we’ll have to take it back and clean it first. It’s not easy to carry it back up the mountain after we butcher it,” Lin Heng’s father said, implying that if Zhao Aiguo wanted to buy it, it would have to be done at their home.

Lin Heng didn’t say anything. He believed Zhao Aiguo’s story. In rural areas, medical resources were scarce, and people often relied on folk remedies, and even superstitions, to treat illnesses.

When he was young, he frequently had nosebleeds, and his family had him drink a strange mixture made from the blood of magpies and ash from yellow-doves.

Zhao Aiguo froze. That was indeed a problem. He couldn’t just ask them to slice a piece off right then.

“How about this,” Zhao Aiguo said after thinking. “How much is the wild boar meat per pound? What if I buy half?”

Lin Heng’s father was taken aback. Buy half? Is he really that rich?

He had originally intended to sell the injured piglet to him, but since Zhao Aiguo wanted half of the boar, he decided not to mention the piglet. These days, everyone was poor, and pork wasn’t easy to sell.

“Pork is 80 cents per pound, wild boar meat is 90 cents. This wild boar weighs about 170-180 pounds, so half would be around 90 pounds, costing around 70 to 80 yuan,” Lin Heng said with a smile. That was quite a sum, and even if they traded goods, it wouldn’t usually match the value.

“I don’t have money, but I do have this,” Zhao Aiguo said, taking off his backpack and pulling out a piece of roe deer hide. “Would you be willing to trade?”

As soon as the hide was taken out, a strong, foul odor filled the air, causing Lin Heng and his father to take two steps back and cover their noses.

“Haha, this was from a roe deer I found dead. The meat was rotten, but the skin is still good. Do you think it’s worth 70 or 80 yuan?” Zhao Aiguo laughed, tossing the hide onto the ground and looking at the two men.

Lin Heng examined the skin. It was a yellow roe deer, not as large as the one he had hunted in Baishi Gorge, but it wasn’t small either, likely weighing around 30 pounds.

The roe deer hide was of medium size and in decent condition, which could indeed fetch 70 to 80 yuan.

He flipped it over, inspecting it again. The hide wasn’t rotten, though the smell came from some decaying flesh stuck to it. If they cleaned it thoroughly, it would be fine.

Lin Heng stood up and said, “This roe deer hide looks fine. But I’m not sure if the hair will fall out when it’s cleaned or if people will refuse it because of the smell. I think cash would be better.”

“The hair definitely won’t fall out. I tried pulling it and couldn’t get any off. You can try if you want. If you think it’s not enough, I’ll add a civet cat hide, but in that case, I’d need 100 pounds of wild boar meat.”

Zhao Aiguo could tell Lin Heng was bargaining and pulled out a civet cat hide.

“By the way, is the Black River far from here? Is there a lot of carp in that river?” Lin Heng suddenly changed the subject.

Zhao Aiguo was curious. “Why do you ask that? My home isn’t far from the Black River. There are a lot of carp in the river. Every year, people use nets and catch hundreds of pounds at a time.”

“Oh, nothing, just asking,” Lin Heng replied with a smile.

He was gathering information. The Black River, being fed by the snowmelt from Mount Taibai, was perfect for breeding Qinling salmon.

If there were a lot of them, Lin Heng planned to catch a large batch to raise himself, as they weren’t a protected species yet.

“I can introduce you or even take you to catch some. If you want, come to Bai Ma Ti Village and look for me,” Zhao Aiguo said with a smile.

“Great, I’ll contact you if I get the chance,” Lin Heng said.

Turning back to the wild boar meat, Lin Heng looked at his father and asked, “Dad, what do you think?”

His father smiled and said, “The wild boar was your hunt, you handle it.”

“Well, I won’t charge you much, I’ll sell you one half, plus a pig’s head. How about that?” Lin Heng asked Zhao Aiguo.

“That won’t work. You need to add one front leg. I can tell this wild boar doesn’t weigh 200 pounds; one half is at most 90 pounds, probably even less,” Zhao Aiguo said, shaking his head. He was a frequent hunter, so he could tell the weight of a wild boar at a glance.

“Alright then. Consider it the price of friendship. Add the front leg, but the pig’s head is off the table,” Lin Heng said, not dwelling on it.

“Alright,” Zhao Aiguo nodded.

“What should we do about the pig hair? Do you want to try burning it off, or leave it for you to handle when you get back?”

Lin Heng asked. It was rare to meet someone in the wild and even rarer to have them want to buy wild boar meat.

He was happy to sell it because wild boar meat was hard to sell cheaply in the village.

“Just gut it and clean it here,” Zhao Aiguo said.

With the decision made, there was no hesitation. Lin Heng put away the roe deer hide and civet cat skin.

The three of them used vines to hang the wild boar, allowing it to drain the blood first. The dog, Xiong Ba, happily licked the blood off the ground like it was a buffet.

Lin Heng used his small knife to slice open the boar’s back, exposing the spine.

“Two fingers thick, fatty enough. Not bad,” Lin Heng’s father said with a laugh.

They continued to butcher the boar, using a machete to sever the neck and remove the head, then opened the belly to remove the entrails. Afterward, they used the machete to split the spine, dividing the boar into two halves.

Lin Heng’s skills weren’t as good as a butcher’s, but with enough strength, he managed to break down the wild boar without much issue.

“Do you want me to cut it into smaller pieces?” Lin Heng asked.

“Sure, that would be great,” Zhao Aiguo said with a smile.

Lin Heng started by cutting off the front leg from his portion and handing it to Zhao Aiguo.

Zhao Aiguo pulled out a large bag of salt from his backpack and began rubbing it on the meat. He had prepared it for preserving the wild boar meat while hunting.

They worked quickly, but it was tiring. Lin Heng and his father took turns butchering the meat, and it took them two hours to divide everything into long strips of about ten pounds each.

They hadn’t even split the ribs yet, otherwise, it might have taken even longer.

After finishing with Zhao Aiguo, Lin Heng estimated that he was left with about 50 pounds of meat, plus the organs and pig’s head, making it around 70 to 80 pounds in total.

They placed the meat into a backpack and went to the river to clean the intestines. There was only rainwater pooled here, so they could only do a basic cleaning, with proper washing to be done back at the camp.

“Thank you both. I’ll be leaving now. If you ever come to Bai Ma Ti Village, be sure to look me up,” Zhao Aiguo said as he packed up the meat.

He was quite satisfied. Lin Heng had given him plenty of meat without trying to cheat him.

“Take care, and safe travels,” Lin Heng waved.

His father also politely handed him a homemade cigarette.

After Zhao Aiguo walked away, Lin Heng’s father smiled and said, “We’re really lucky today. Not only did we catch a wild boar, but we also found someone willing to buy this much meat.”

“Yes, we might not even be able to sell this much if we brought it back to the village,” Lin Heng laughed.

Wild boars are definitely the most common prey in the wild. They give birth to many at once, making it easy for their population to surge.

When you hunt them, you usually only sell the meat, as the fur is of little use. However, meat is often hard to sell too, since this isn’t the 21st century and people are barely getting by.

Lin’s father chuckled, “Luckily, we got here early. If he’d found the wild boars first, we would have had to share the meat.”

Lin Heng smiled, noticing that Zhao Aiguo probably had the same idea, but was just a bit slower.

After cleaning out the intestines and removing the feces, the two packed the internal organs into a snake-skin bag and headed back with their baskets.

“Woof woof!”

Xiong Ba walked beside Lin Heng, clearly hungry.

“Back to camp, I’ve got something tasty for you.” Lin Heng patted the dog’s head.

By the time they returned to the area with the baby wild boars, it was already noon.

“Awoo!!”

The two baby wild boars squealed as they saw people approaching.

“At least they’re alive. Son, you carry one of the baby boars, I’ll carry the heavier meat,” said Lin’s father with a smile.

Lin Heng sighed and reluctantly carried the two baby boars back to the camp.

The plan to visit Sancha Valley had to be postponed, and fishing would have to wait.

Often, plans don’t go as expected. No one had anticipated encountering a group of wild boars, and being able to sell most of the meat.

“Hey, why didn’t Lin Wei come out to greet us?”

As they neared the camp, Lin Heng felt something was off. The piglets were making a lot of noise, yet his eldest nephew didn’t respond.

He quickly quickened his pace back to the camp and was surprised to find his nephew lying on a stone, asleep. It gave him quite a scare, thinking something had happened.

He looked over at Lin She, who hadn’t run off, and felt relieved.

“Lin Wei, wake up! See what we got.” Lin’s father set down the baby wild boar and went over to wake his grandson.

“Grandpa!”

Lin Wei rubbed his eyes and sat up, still disoriented from sleep.

Lin Heng didn’t pay him any attention and went to hang the meat.

Lin Heng asked his father, “Dad, there’s not much meat here. How about we just cut the pig skin off and feed it to the dog? I don’t feel like taking it back and processing it slowly.”

“Alright, Xiong Ba deserves that much meat,” Lin’s father said with a smile, now quite fond of the dog.

“My gosh, you two caught two baby wild boars and have so much meat. Did you stumble upon a wild boar nest?”

At this point, Lin Wei belatedly exclaimed in surprise, then started dancing around and shaking his head, looking like a caveman.

Lin Heng and his father laughed and continued cutting the pig skin.

After slicing the meat, they salted it and hung it up to dry.

“Lin Wei, go start a fire.” Lin’s father handed him a lighter.

Lin Wei ran off to make a fire, taking a piece of wild boar meat to cook for himself.

Lin Heng and his father went to the creek to handle the boar’s innards.

“The pig heart, liver, and kidneys can only be eaten here. We can’t take them back,” Lin’s father said while cleaning out the pig’s intestines.

“Well, let’s eat them. You have some too,” Lin Heng said with a smile.

“Guess that’s all we can do. We’ll keep the small and large intestines, stir-fry them and bring them back to eat later.”

Lin’s father sighed, wishing he could bring them back to share with the family.

After cleaning the intestines, Lin Heng burned off the hair on the pig skin and boiled the lungs and pancreas together, feeding it all to Xiong Ba.

Lin’s father took out the muntjac hide, scraped off the rotten meat, cleaned it repeatedly, and then set it out on a stone to dry.

Once everything was finished, the sky had turned a deep red.

“Here.”

Lin Heng chopped the boiled pig lungs, pancreas, and skin into small pieces and poured them into a bowl for Xiong Ba.

“Woof!”

Xiong Ba happily barked and eagerly started eating.

These past few days, it hadn’t been able to eat its fill since there wasn’t much rice or flour, and it had to eat less to save some for the humans.

Now, with a big bowl of meat, Xiong Ba devoured it greedily, enjoying every bite.

After feeding Xiong Ba, Lin Heng quickly blanched the rest of the pig’s internal organs, adding some wild pepper and green onions to get rid of the smell.

Then he sliced it up and stir-fried it. The pig heart and kidneys weren’t much, and he had to stir-fry the liver in two batches in his small iron pan.

He decided to leave half a pound of the liver behind, planning to use it for fishing the next day.

“Son, look at this muntjac hide. After washing, it still looks great. We’ve made a profit.”

Lin’s father smiled as he held up the dried hide.

“Of course, it’s a profit. This muntjac hide has no holes burned by gunpowder. We can easily sell it for 80 or 90.”

Lin Heng grinned. He wouldn’t engage in a losing business deal, and the wild rice husk hide was also a big profit.

“This trip to the mountains was really worth it,” Lin’s father said with a smile.

“Naturally, as long as you know what you’re doing, there’s plenty of valuable stuff in the mountains,” Lin Heng chuckled.

“I can only say, Uncle, you are the greatest person in the world, even better than my dad,” Lin Wei said loudly in praise.

While chatting, Lin Heng continued scooping the fried pig liver into a wooden bowl.

Then, he cut a piece of pig lard, fried some intestines with it. Using lard makes it less prone to spoilage.

The fried intestines and stomach were set aside, seasoned only with salt and wild pepper.

That night, they mainly focused on the heart, liver, and kidneys, with the pig kidneys and chili stir-fried, which tasted the best. They drank sugar syrup wine as they quickly finished the meal.

The pig heart also tasted good. Lin Wei ate a lot of it, and the rest was shared between Lin Heng and his father.

Lin Wei didn’t eat the liver, and Lin Heng and his father couldn’t finish it, so they set it aside to eat the next day.

“I didn’t expect to get so full from eating meat. I never thought I’d experience this,” Lin’s father laughed after the meal.

“It’s alright, Dad. The days of eating until we’re full on meat are still ahead of us,” Lin Heng said with a smile.

“I’m looking forward to that,” Lin’s father laughed again, then asked, “What’s your plan to go back? Are you going to continue hunting?”

“No, we’ll head back the day after tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll gather some tea tree mushrooms and see if we can catch any catfish or something.”

Lin Heng said that once this was done, they might come back in autumn.

During the hot summer, it would be hard to bring back any game.

“I think so too. Tea tree mushrooms are everywhere now, so we should pick some. When your brother arrives tomorrow, he can take Lin Wei and the wild boar meat back.”

“The day after tomorrow, let’s call your mom and Caiyun to help carry things. Otherwise, it’s too much for us to carry back.”

Lin’s father smiled, noting that with a muntjac, two baby wild boars, wild boar meat, and the mushrooms they would gather, there was no way they could carry everything.

After all, they’d been here for nearly 20 days, so it wasn’t wasted time.

The next morning, they made a soup with the leftover pig liver from the night before and ate it. Then Lin Heng and his father set out for Sancha Valley.

“Looks like it’s been about a week since we last checked. I wonder what it’s like over there,” Lin Heng said as they walked.

Lin’s father smiled and replied, “We’ll find out when we get there. You never know. Just like yesterday, no one expected to run into a group of wild boars.”

“That’s true.”

They arrived at Sancha Valley, and most of the water on the ground had already dried up.

After two days of intense sun, the moisture had mostly evaporated.

“Looks like everything’s gone,” Lin Heng sighed as they walked ahead, triggering the traps. There were no catches.

From the tracks, it looked like the rain had flooded up to 50 cm, and the animals that couldn’t swim had run off.

“Seems that way. But it doesn’t matter. We’ve already made a profit,” Lin’s father said with a smile.

They gathered the ropes and decided not to set any more traps. With only a day or two left, it wouldn’t be worth it.

When they reached the pond, it was hard to tell where they had last set the fish hooks.

“Let’s try two rods. We’ve got the pig liver, and we’ve cut the bamboo.”

Lin Heng grinned, thinking it was a good opportunity to turn his father into a fishing enthusiast.

He needed a hobby. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be good to keep working nonstop; everyone needs a rest.

Though the sun was coming out, the fisherman had no fear.

They tied the nylon lines to the bamboo tips, hung the pig liver on the hooks, and cast the rods with a flick, then propped them up at an angle using tree branches.

After setting up four rods, Lin Heng and his father sat under a tree to watch. As long as the tip of the bamboo bent, they could stand up to reel in the line.

This was the “lazy” fishing technique, where you let the fish eat if they wanted, but if they didn’t, it didn’t matter.

(End of chapter)