1942, I lived on hunting

Maodan used to follow his grandfather into the mountains to hunt, and was familiar with the mountains and the prey there, so Li Hao asked him to lead the way.

According to Maodan, larger prey generally will not approach human villages unless they have no other choice. If you want to hunt them, you have to go to places where there are few people.

The journey was quite long, and the three of them chatted when they got bored.

Li Hao asked Maodan: "What kind of prey did you catch with your grandfather in the past?"

Maodan: "That's a lot. We don't have any good land. We only have some barren slopes where we can't grow much food. So we rely on hunting for subsidies. After the busy farming season, we carry our guns and go hunting in the mountains. Our main source of income is money earned from hunting fox fur!"

Li Hao: "What is a fox?"

Maodan: "A fox is a fox! We call it a fox because its fur is valuable! Good fur comes from cold regions. People who know the business say that apart from the three northeastern provinces and the grasslands, the fur in our mountains is of the best quality. The rich people here are quite generous when they see good fur. When the world is peaceful, there are also merchants from the south who buy it."

Li Lahu: "The furs in the Qinghai-Tibet region are also very good, but they can't be sold at a good price. In the past, our caravans transported tea to Qamdo. If there were suitable goods on the way back, we would sometimes bring some and put them on the horses' backs. We could sell the horses for a share of the money, and the furs for a share of the money. We would eventually sell them in Chengdu, and I don't know where they would be resold after Chengdu."

Li Hao: "How much can a fox fur sell for?"

Maodan: "That depends. It depends on the grade. Usually, one fox skin costs three to five dollars, and a better one costs ten to eight dollars. There is also a top-grade fox skin that can be exchanged for twenty to thirty dollars. However, the fox skins we hunt usually do not meet the standards. The top-grade fox skins must not only be checked for holes, but also measured for length, and the color must be checked under the sun to see if the hair is dense and long. The conditions are too harsh. My grandfather hunted all his life and only caught one. A merchant from the south offered a high price of 30 dollars, gave 3 dollars to the middleman, and still had 27 dollars in his hand. My grandfather used the money to build a house for my father and to marry him off, and in the end he still had 1 dollar left!"

Li Hao: "Is the dollar so valuable here? Building a house and marrying a wife only cost 26 dollars?"

Maodan: "Farmers have nowhere to earn money, and usually they rely on God and their own physical strength to make a living, so money seems valuable. My family built the house with some stones, wood and straw, and did not spend money on bricks and tiles. We provided two meals a day for the three houses, and during the slack season, we asked the neighbors to help build them, and we spent money to buy two carts of lime. The furniture in the house was also made of wood cut from our own trees, and we spent a little money on the labor of the master craftsman when he made the furniture. The most expensive thing was buying foreign cloth to make a few sets of clothes for my parents and the three dollars for the betrothal gift. Even the wedding banquet did not cost as much as these two things!"

Li Hao: "Do you need a gift at this time? Does the gift for marrying a wife always cost three dollars?"

Maodan: "What you said is very strange. Since ancient times, marriage has required gifts. My grandfather relied on his daughter's beauty, and my father insisted on marrying my mother, so he asked for a gift of three dollars. My grandfather had no choice but to pay. Most people just give a little as a token of appreciation, as long as they can get by."

Li Hao: Is it true that poor people don’t deserve love?

Along the way, wild rabbits and pheasants kept jumping out of the bushes out of fright. Li Hao was about to shoot them with his gun, but the two men quickly stopped him.

Li Lahu: "Don't rush to fight. We are going to hunt a big one. Once your gun goes off, the prey on several hills will be scared away. We can fight on the way back after we have finished fighting. Otherwise, it will be inconvenient to carry it with us!"

Maodan: "That's right. If you want to eat them, wait until we set up camp and catch a few with traps or snares."

Li Hao was a novice, so he agreed without hesitation. If you don't listen to the old man, you will suffer the consequences!

They walked until the sun was setting and came to a valley. Maodan, who was leading the way, stopped and found a corner away from the wind to set up camp.

After putting down his backpack, Li Lahu didn't care about resting and eating, so he asked Li Hao to take out the traps and wire rope snares. He went to set some nearby so that they could eat rabbits tomorrow. Maodan used an engineer shovel to level the ground and collect hay to make a bed. Li Hao was responsible for collecting some dead branches and trunks to make a fire. After the bonfire was lit, he took out a small pot from Li Lahu's backpack and put some water into it from the space while Maodan was not paying attention. He cut some branches and hung the pot on the bonfire to boil water and cook.

The valley is densely packed with shrubs, trees, and thorn bushes. Maodan said that many of them are fruit trees, such as hazelnut trees, chestnut trees, wild walnut trees, etc. Wild boars and wild deer like to come to this place the most, and sometimes even macaques will come down from the cliffs to eat wild fruits here. It is warmer here, and there are food and water sources. It is an ideal place for animals to spend the winter. Where there are wild boars and wild deer, there will be large carnivores. Maodan said that his grandfather has hunted wolves and foxes here more than once.

A dried-up creek ran through the trees, with only some puddles still containing some water, the edges of which were frozen.

Li Hao asked: "Maodan, there is a river here that is convenient for getting water, and there are fruit trees, why don't people build a village here?"

Maodan: "Of course there are. There used to be a few families living in the woods, but later they found that this place was not suitable for farming. Whenever there was a lot of rain, flash floods would break out here, and water would often accumulate after the flash floods. The crops that they had worked so hard to grow were either washed away, drowned, or destroyed by wild animals, so they all moved away. A few years after they left, no one took care of the houses, and they became so dilapidated that people could no longer live in them. I can take you to see them tomorrow."

Li Hao: "Why not build terraces?"

Maodan: "No, the hillside here is too steep, and the soil is too thin. It's okay to grow some grass and brambles, but it's not suitable for growing crops."

Li Hao: "Oh, that's how it is. I thought this was a paradise!"

Maodan: "What peach orchard? There are only a dozen wild peach trees here. The fruits are small and astringent. They are not tasty at all. They are just good enough to feed monkeys. They are all wild fruit trees. No one planted them specially. This is not anyone's peach orchard!!"

Li Hao: "………"

There's no need for me to talk to you, I'll just cook my meal!

Li Hao saw that the water in the pot was boiling, so he exchanged some instant noodles from the system mall, tore open the package and put them in. In the past, Li Hao ate instant noodles until he wanted to vomit, but after coming to this era and not eating them for so long, you know what, I really miss them a little bit, so let's have a deluxe version of instant noodles tonight!

He threw the instant noodle packaging directly into the fire to destroy the evidence, and then redeemed a portion of tomato beef brisket and a portion of braised pork from the system mall and poured them in. He stirred them with a spoon, and a fragrant aroma wafted out. Li Hao took a bite and found that the taste was a bit off, but it was still delicious.

We have meat tonight, so how can we not have wine? Li Hao exchanged three bottles of the cheapest one-pound liquor. He just took it out from the space and was about to try it out to see what kind of aroma it had, when he heard Maodan, who was struggling with a tree root, suddenly ask: "Li Hao, do you smell anything? It seems like someone is frying meat!"

Li Hao ignored him, picked up the branch that the small pot was hanging on, took the pot off the campfire and put it aside, then cut a few bramble branches, put the dry food he brought on the pot, and placed it diagonally next to the campfire to roast it.