Chapter 175: Musk Extraction and the Forest Musk Deer Breeding Plan

After securing the newly captured male forest musk deer, Lin Heng packed his compound bow back into its case and dismantled the trap. Then he went to fetch the female musk deer and started leading her back home. She had been domesticated quite well by now and showed no signs of stress.

With a flashlight in hand, he guided her along. The deer walked at a leisurely pace, calm and unhurried.

The more Lin Heng looked at her, the more pleasing she seemed to the eye. Half a year ago, when he first caught her, he’d been disappointed—he had wanted a male. But now, he realized the female was actually the better catch. Not only could she give birth, but she could also attract males.

A win-win investment.

Lin Heng shook his head with a chuckle. “Lust is a blade hanging over your head.”

Even powerful figures like Dong Zhuo and Lü Bu couldn’t resist the honey trap—how could a brainless male musk deer stand a chance?

Good thing he only had eyes for Xiulan and wasn’t easily swayed by other women.

He hadn’t walked far when he saw the beam of a flashlight up ahead. His older brother Lin Yue and Li Shiwei were running toward him.

From a distance, Lin Yue called out, “Hey, little bro, how’s it going? You suddenly went quiet. Don’t tell me the musk deer got away?”

“Keep it down! Don’t scare my newly caught musk deer!” Lin Heng whispered urgently.

“Newly caught?!”

The two exchanged a stunned look, then rushed up the mountain. In no time, they reached Lin Heng’s side and saw the female musk deer he was leading.

“There’s another one?” Lin Yue asked in a hushed, excited voice.

Lin Heng turned around to show them the male strapped to his back.

Li Shiwei’s mouth dropped open. “Holy crap, you actually caught one alive? That looked way too easy!”

Lin Yue was beaming. “Damn, you hit the jackpot, little bro!”

Capturing one alive wasn’t just a one-time payout of fifteen hundred yuan. As long as it stayed alive, that was fifteen hundred every year.

In this era, in such a poor and remote mountain village, that was an astronomical figure.

And Lin Heng had a pair now. Two fawns a year—before long, he’d have a whole herd. That would be an incredible fortune.

Both of them swallowed hard, momentarily speechless.

“Not bad, huh?” Lin Heng laughed, then turned to his brother. “Big bro, bring the basket over. Let’s carry the female back.”

“Got it.” Lin Yue nodded, barely able to contain his excitement as he walked back.

“Man, your luck is unbeatable,” Li Shiwei said in awe.

“This isn’t luck. It’s skill,” Lin Heng grinned.

He was in a fantastic mood. He’d thought it would take days, but he’d succeeded in just one.

Even with the cold wind biting, he felt warm and exhilarated.

Down below, Lin Yue emptied the basket and loaded the female musk deer inside. After putting out the fire, the three of them made their way back with flashlights.

Halfway down, the male musk deer started howling from all the jostling—and then peed all over Lin Heng’s back.

“Damn it. If you weren’t worth so much, I’d have roasted you for dinner,” Lin Heng muttered, disgusted by the pungent stench.

“Haha! You deserve a little suffering. Can’t have wealth coming too easy,” Li Shiwei laughed.

He was genuinely happy for Lin Heng, though he couldn’t help but feel a bit envious. Still, he knew this wasn’t just luck—it was skill.

Catching the female might’ve involved some luck, but the male was all skill. Even if today hadn’t worked out, Lin Heng would’ve succeeded in a few days anyway.

“Well, well,” Lin Heng said with mock seriousness, “I was thinking of giving you a couple musk deer to raise once the herd grows, but now? Forget it.”

“Bro, big bro, I was wrong! Don’t do me like that!” Li Shiwei immediately groveled.

“Hahahaha…” Lin Yue burst out laughing.

The three of them joked and chatted all the way home.

Lin Heng wasn’t planning to stick to just musk deer breeding. Once things scaled up, both his brother and Li Shiwei would get a share of the pie.

By the time they neared home, the male musk deer had finally tired out and stopped making noise.

They quietly slipped back into the house. It was already past nine, almost ten. The village was mostly asleep, save for the occasional barking dog.

Lin Heng called out, and soon Xiulan came out holding Xiao Xia to open the door.

She looked at Lin Heng, then asked curiously, “Did it work?”

“Of course. Look.” Lin Heng turned around to show her the musk deer in the basket.

“You really did it! Amazing!”

Xiulan was stunned. It felt almost unreal.

Fifteen hundred yuan—most families would have to save for six or seven years to scrape that together.

“Let’s talk inside.”

Lin Heng grinned and led Xiao Xia into the house.

He set the musk deer down. It was exhausted and barely struggled anymore.

Everyone gathered around to take a look, still finding it hard to believe.

“What now? Where do we keep it tonight?” Xiulan asked.

Lin Heng shrugged. “We’ll have to use the old wooden frame to pen it in the house. It’s too late to build a proper pen now.”

Once the male and female mated, they couldn’t be kept together.

Lin Heng led the female musk deer to the pen he’d built on the back hill. The male stayed in the house. There was no helping the mess it made—he’d clean it up tomorrow.

Once everything was settled, Lin Yue and Li Shiwei headed home. Xiulan handed them some meat pies she’d made earlier.

“Find me some clothes. I need a bath,” Lin Heng said to Xiulan, grabbing a wooden basin and heading to the heated room.

Soon, Xiulan brought him a set of clothes. “You really need a new winter coat. I doubt this one even fits anymore.”

“Yeah, next time we go to town, let’s buy one.” Lin Heng nodded. After washing up and changing, he realized the dark blue cotton coat really was too short.

He remembered—it was from when he was fifteen. At least five years old now, patched all over.

“Still not bad,” Lin Heng laughed.

Xiulan rolled her eyes and brought over the meat pies she’d kept warm by the stove.

“So good,” Lin Heng said between bites, chatting with Xiulan and occasionally feeding a bite to Xiao Xia. Xiong Ba lay by the fire, staring longingly, while Jinbao sat on a chair warming himself.

Lin Heng ignored Xiong Ba—Xiulan had already fed him earlier.

“Can you extract musk from a live musk deer?” Xiulan asked curiously.

“Of course. It’s not that hard,” Lin Heng replied.

In his previous life, he’d worked in animal husbandry and had looked into many related industries. He’d seen musk extraction done before.

He then gave Xiulan a rundown of how to care for musk deer. The biggest concern in breeding was disease, so prevention was key. First, make sure they eat and drink clean, healthy food—nothing spoiled. Second, keep their living area clean and disinfect it regularly with lime.

Generally, if you nailed the prevention, you’d eliminate 90% of the risks. The rest came down to catching problems early and isolating and treating them quickly.

Looking at his wife, Lin Heng shared his plan: “I’m thinking of building a small musk deer facility on Red Maple Mountain for initial breeding. Once the numbers grow, I’ll set up a full-scale Breeding Farm.”

To raise them well, you needed a secure, enclosed environment.

Red Maple Mountain would be the main base going forward. After the New Year, he planned to buy two large guard dogs to keep there and fence off the entire area for controlled management.

Xiulan nodded. “Sounds good. I suggest we keep this a secret for now. A fortune this big is bound to attract attention—and trouble.”

Lin Heng squeezed her hand and smiled. “We’re really on the same page. I was thinking the same thing. For now, we’ll keep the male musk deer in the backyard near the grape trellis. Not a word to anyone.”

“Daddy~ story time~” Xiao Xia yawned, clearly sleepy.

“Alright, alright, let’s go to bed.”

Lin Heng kissed his daughter, buried the fire under ashes, and the three of them went to bed. He placed Xiao Xia in the middle, blew out the candle, and began telling her a story in the dark.

She snuggled into his arms and fell asleep before he was halfway through.

Early the next morning, there was no snow outside, but the ground was covered in white frost, and the sky looked a bit gloomy.

The first thing Lin Heng did after getting up was check on the musk deer he had caught the day before. Only when he saw it was still alive did he finally relax.

He lit the fire, and just as the three of them were about to wash up, there was a knock at the door.

Lin Heng walked over and opened it to find his parents, his uncle, and a few others standing outside.

“Where’s the musk deer? Let us have a look,” Li Baiquan said with a grin.

Lin Heng had expected this and nodded. “Keep your voices down. It just got here and is still scared of people.”

He locked the door behind them and led everyone inside, reminding them to keep this a secret and not to tell anyone.

Everyone understood and nodded in agreement.

When they saw the musk deer, the room fell silent. It wasn’t exactly a pretty animal—its body was gray with two vertical white stripes on its chest, no antlers, and long canine teeth curving back from the corners of its mouth.

But somehow, it seemed like a spirit of the mountains, and even from a distance, they could catch a faint whiff of musk.

Back out in the yard, Father Lin shook his head in amazement. “You know, Lin Heng really does have a knack for things.”

“My second brother’s always been full of ideas,” Caiyun said with a smile.

Li Baiquan chimed in, “Yeah, who else would think of something like this? No wonder he’s become a Ten-Thousand-Yuan Household.”

He had made up his mind—he was going to cling tightly to his nephew’s coattails. Even if he only got the scraps, his family would still prosper.

Liu Juan was thinking the same thing.

Lin Heng laughed heartily at their praise, not the least bit embarrassed.

Mother Lin said, “If you need any feed, just let me know. We’ll raise it properly.”

“I already told Xiulan. You don’t need to worry, Mom,” Lin Heng replied with a smile.

Father Lin asked, “You planning to keep it in the backyard? You’ll need a pen. Want me to help?”

“Of course,” Lin Heng nodded.

“It won’t take long. Let’s get started now,” Father Lin said. He went home to fetch some tools and wooden planks, and within forty minutes, they had built a rectangular pen for the musk deer.

They added a slatted cover on top, which could be opened when adding feed but stayed closed most of the time.

“Should we pick an auspicious day to install it?” Father Lin asked.

“No need. That’s too much hassle,” Lin Heng shook his head.

Then he brought out a box of small transparent glass bottles from the house. “Hold the musk deer down for me. I’m going to extract the musk.”

These bottles had been specially bought for storing musk. Catching a musk deer had always been his goal, so of course he had all the necessary tools ready.

“Alright!” his uncle Li Baiquan was the first to respond, clearly intrigued by the process.

“Awooo!!”

With pitiful howls, the male musk deer was firmly pinned to the ground by two people. It was so terrified, it soiled itself again.

The musk gland was located just in front of its genitals. Lin Heng used a small iron spoon to carefully scoop it out bit by bit.

The musk was a dark brown color, resembling soil. Its scent was so strong it was almost nauseating, making people dizzy.

Once he had collected enough, Lin Heng stopped. You couldn’t scrape it all off a live musk deer; that would be too cruel. He sealed the glass bottle with a rubber stopper, carefully placed it on a shelf, then gently comforted the deer before putting it into the pen.

“Eat well and grow strong,” he said, patting its head.

“Awooo~~”

The musk deer immediately cowered in a corner, trembling as it stared at Lin Heng. Humans were terrifying.

Xiulan brought over a basin of water and placed it inside the pen. After a quick glance, she closed the lid. They wouldn’t feed it just yet—better to let it calm down first.

“This can’t be a full tael, can it?” Father Lin asked, eyeing the musk.

“Definitely not. If we scraped it all off, maybe we’d get a tael. This looks like thirty or forty grams at most,” Lin Heng said, looking at the bottle.

Musk sold for around thirty yuan per gram, so this batch wouldn’t fetch more than fifteen hundred yuan. But given the choice, anyone would prefer a live musk deer over just the musk.

“That’s still pretty good,” Father Lin nodded.

“Once it gets used to us, we can collect a few times a year and get a full tael,” Lin Heng said.

Just then, lunch was ready. After a simple meal of pickled cabbage noodles, Father Lin and the others headed up to Red Maple Mountain to check things out.

After a quick look around, Lin Heng headed back. There was too much going on lately—he didn’t have time to linger.

On the way home, he ran into Tian Baishun, who was walking toward him. Tian looked at him and asked, “Heard you went to Gateng Gully yesterday. Any luck?”

Lin Heng shook his head. “Nearly froze to death. Waited till seven at night and still nothing.”

Tian Baishun burst out laughing. “Haha, that’s normal. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve failed. Musk deer aren’t easy to catch.”

Lin Heng gave a wry smile. They chatted for a bit before he headed home, secretly feeling pleased with himself.

By midday, the sun had come out. Mother Lin was drying sweet potato starch, getting ready to make sweet potato noodles in a few days.

There was also a pile of sugarcane and wild dates at home that needed to be turned into wine, but they hadn’t had the time.

Father Lin planned to wait until the first batch of fish ponds was dug, then take a couple of days off to brew the wine.

Back in the house, Lin Heng said a few words to Xiulan, then rode his horse into town.

Riding a horse in summer looked impressive, but in winter it was pure torture—still better than walking, though.

On the way to town, he saw some utility poles already installed, while others were still being dug in. The work was moving fast.

Because of the cold, Lin Heng rode slowly and didn’t reach town until half an hour later.

Today was the twenty-first day of the tenth lunar month—not a market day—so the town was quiet and chilly.

(End of this chapter)