Reborn in 80: Starting with hunting in the mountains to get rich

When Sun Weimin and Lu Zhiqiang went into the mountains, they actually found new footprints left by the hunters.

Sun Weimin led the Sun family's four hunting dogs, which barked loudly as they chased after the hunters' footprints in the snow. Song Desheng, Wang Guochang, and their group had followed Lao Qin, the foreman, into the mountains, but Lao Qin had already been led down the mountain by Li Ju'an three days ago, and the hunters had not yet come out of the mountains.

Lu Zhiqiang wondered to himself, "Could there really be a second mountain weasel? Otherwise, why wouldn't so many experienced hunters come out of the mountains? They say no one gets up early without a reason. Experienced hunters are seasoned veterans; the prey that catches their eye must be something truly valuable."

Who knows, maybe there's a big-skinned fox? Or a red fox? Or a snow fox?

The thought of finding something good in the mountains made him even more excited, and he followed the hunters' tracks even more closely.

But this time, Sun Weimin was genuinely there to liquidate his position.

As for why he didn't bring the Sun family with him, it was because he had broken the rules and was afraid of being punished by his elders. He had marked a black bear storage point. However, the female black bear in that storage point had been killed by the Sun family a few days earlier. At that time, the Sun family killed the adult black bear and spared the young ones, releasing three half-grown black bear cubs.

Sun Weimin remembered this warehouse location very well.

“Lu Zhiqiang, I have two guns on me this time, you can choose first. Don’t come back and say I tricked you. Last time it really wasn’t me who tricked you, you were just unlucky, that gun was too old, and it just happened to explode.”

Sun Weimin was genuinely short-handed this time, so he brought two single-barreled shotguns to keep Lu Zhiqiang there.

Lu Zhiqiang was overjoyed to hear such a good deal. He was even offered to choose the gun first, with the promise of a share of the profits. Putting everything else aside, his brother was incredibly loyal. He wasn't one to hold grudges. Since they'd already discussed it openly, and no one could predict a gun exploding, he didn't dwell on it. His only thought was to hunt the little black bear and exchange its pelt for money.

After the four dogs chased the footprints for a while, Sun Weimin scolded them to come back and stop chasing.

He had found the marker left by the Sun family: a particularly thick, familiar old poplar tree with a mark made of withered leaves. There were also traces of bear claw marks on the bark.

Poplar trees grow quickly but have a short lifespan. Therefore, they rot from the inside out, creating a cylindrical space inside that's perfect for black bears to crawl into and hibernate.

The warehouse he found was also a prime location.

The bear claw marks on the tree bark belonged to both adult bears and cubs. The difference was that the adult bear's claw marks went both upwards and downwards, while the cub's marks only showed signs of climbing upwards into the granary, without any signs of coming down. This indicates that the Sun family left behind three and a half bears of varying sizes that they hadn't hunted, and these bears were still in the granary.

The hunt for bears has begun.

Lu Zhiqiang was full of energy. Wearing boots, he rummaged in his cloth bag and pulled out the prepared flint, tinder, tinder, and pellets.

"Hurry up, call Cang, brother."

He instructed Sun Weimin to stand next to the tree trunk with an axe in hand, and to strike the trunk with the back of the axe to scare the little black bear out, so that he could easily shoot it in the head.

Sun Weimin gave him a strange look, then lowered his voice and scolded, "You little brat, you're going to set off firecrackers again? If you blow up the bear cubs, what kind of fur will you sell?"

The Sun family released the half-grown bear cub for two reasons. First, to follow the mountain god's rules of killing the adult and keeping the cub. Second, since bear cubs couldn't be sold for bile, what was the point of killing them? It was better to keep them until they were older and then extract the bile from their granaries.

Sun Weimin was indeed a scoundrel, but he knew he couldn't use explosives to clear the warehouse. He rolled his eyes and cursed under his breath, ordering Lu Zhiqiang to come and get the warehouse. Meanwhile, he could stand ten paces away from the tree trunk with a musket, load the gunpowder and bullets, light the fuse, and aim at the top of the tree trunk.

Lu Zhiqiang started calling for Cang. He struck the tree trunk with the back of his axe, making a thumping sound, which forced the little black bear to crawl out. While calling for Cang, he also put his ear close to the tree to listen carefully.

According to the usual practice when hunting big black bears, the person who calls for the cave cannot leave after hearing any noise inside; they must first stand at the cave entrance as bait.

He called out to Cang for a long time, but the little black bear still didn't pop out of its head, which made him a little discouraged.

Sun Weimin continued in a low voice, "When Little Black Bear comes out, don't rush. Stay there and wait for him to show the protective hair on his chest. That will be the perfect time to shoot."

He had already planned how to take down the three little black bears. He had tried to raid the granary before, but Li Ju'an had intercepted him and seized the opportunity. He remembered that grudge. This time, he was determined to take down three little black bears in a row, sell their hides for money, and let Li Ju'an know that there were plenty of granaries in the Xing'an Mountains. If Li Ju'an could raid them, so could he.

Lu Zhiqiang thought the same thing.

He patiently called out to Cang, his face full of anticipation: "If Li Ju'an finds out that the two of us took down three black bears, he'll be so impressed that he'll kneel down and call me his brother."

Sun Weimin, carrying a musket and ready to light the match and aim at any moment, laughed and said, "Of course, he has to call me 'Grandpa'."

The two were filled with hope when a wary dark figure finally poked its head out of the cave entrance.

But in just that moment, the shadowy figure immediately shrank back, its cowardly behavior suggesting it was terrified.

Lu Zhiqiang realized that this wouldn't do and that he had to find a way to get this thing out.

He walked around "Han Dayang" and made a very meaningful observation: the bear enclosure was not big or deep, and there was an opening on the ground facing north, which stunned him.

"Why is there still an opening?"

Even more bizarrely, besides the north-facing opening, there was a pit opposite the warehouse entrance, covered with a dense and messy array of animal footprints.

There was also a larger footprint, which looked exactly like a feline footprint, making Sun Weimin's heart pound. He couldn't help but wonder: A feline? Had a big cat been here? Could it be a civet cat?

But upon further observation, he noticed that the civet's footprints weren't that big, and he guessed that it couldn't have been such a large civet.

Lu Zhiqiang was very excited and whispered quickly, "We're going to hunt a bigger mountain weasel! Isn't its pelt more valuable than Li Ju'an's?"

There were still some scattered bloodstains at the pit entrance, which made the two men exchange a glance and both see the unspoken message in each other's eyes: something was wrong.

Is there no black bear cub in this warehouse? Has it already been ransacked by wild animals?

"Oh no, let's go in and check."

There was an opening and a pit at the bottom, so it wasn't a complete granary in the traditional sense. Sun Weimin quickly shone his flashlight into the pit, crouching down and squinting as he looked, not daring to get too close. Once he was sure there was no large black bear inside, he mustered his courage and called a hunting dog in.

"Erqing, go!"

The hunting dogs crouched menacingly at the bottom of the pit, then squeezed through the opening. The two men stood outside, listening quietly. Inside the barn, indeed, came the sounds of a fierce struggle and the sharp barking of the hunting dogs.

Before long, the sound of the hunting dogs gradually faded away and could no longer be heard.

Sun Weimin and Lu Zhiqiang exchanged a glance, then both slapped their thighs in dismay. Oh no! Something's happened to the hunting dogs in the barn!