As soon as Wang An agreed, Wang Li's face immediately lit up with a smile, and he said
"Yeah, I know they're cracking down on this stuff right now. I'll just learn it first and we'll see; sooner or later, it'll come in handy, hehehehe."
Looking at Wang Li's sleazy expression, Wang An truly couldn't be bothered to lecture him.
Mainly, Li Xiuyu was a genuinely good girl, and her family weren't the type of greedy people who would push their luck.
So, while Wang Li was perhaps a bit too subservient toward Li Xiuyu, that was ultimately a matter between the young couple. Wang An could give a few hints, but saying too much would only be annoying or even breed resentment.
As they talked, the two of them walked into the vegetable garden behind Wang Li's house.
While they were picking ripe fragrant melons, Wang Li suddenly slapped his forehead and said with a mysterious look on his face
"Oh man, with everything going on, I almost forgot. Fourth Brother, do you know why Xiuyu came looking for me?"
Wang An rolled his eyes at Wang Li and said irritably
"Are you out of your mind? Why she came looking for you—how the fuck am I supposed to know?"
Wang An finally understood why the phrase "femme fatale" existed.
Because the people who said such things were definitely irrational people like Wang Li—or rather, people with poor self-control who easily became obsessed with women.
To put it bluntly, they were just useless idiots, but they fucking attributed the mistake to the beautiful woman, eventually concluding that because the woman was too beautiful, this or that happened!
It had to be said, the people who spoke like that were truly fucking disgusting.
Seeing that Wang An's tone wasn't great, Wang Li stopped acting mysterious and told him directly
"Xiuyu came to tell me that her big brother is watching a herd of sika deer in the mountains."
The moment Wang An heard the words "deer herd," he immediately perked up and asked hurriedly
"Roughly how many? Did she say where they are?"
Wang An's enthusiasm for raising deer was currently very high, mainly because deer were just so fucking valuable; there wasn't a single part of a deer that wasn't worth money.
Furthermore, so far, Wang An had found that no matter what he raised, nothing was as profitable as deer. Most importantly, deer were very easy to keep; you could just raise them the same way you'd raise mules or horses.
Wang Li answered immediately
"They're over by the saline-alkali land at the 16th ridge to the southwest. He's watching them right there on that saline land. He said there are over 30 of them, so it's a large herd, and there are big bucks in there too."
Hearing this, Wang An carefully considered the terrain and landscape of that area, mainly the surrounding vegetation, before continuing to ask anxiously
"This is right before the big bucks rejoin the herds; there definitely have to be big bucks in the herd. Did he fire a shot?"
The reason Wang An was so concerned about this was that sika deer were different from other animals.
If someone fired a gun while watching a herd and even one deer was shot dead on the spot, the remaining deer would immediately flee and would never appear in the vicinity again.
Simply put, the herd would vanish from the area forever and would no longer return to that saline land to lick the salt.
The saying "Deer have a thousand years of life, and every step is filled with worry" was not spoken in vain.
After Wang An finished asking, Wang Li immediately shook his head
"No, I heard from Xiuyu that my brother-in-law—no, I mean Xiuyu's brother—took a couple of aims, but his marksmanship is poor. He felt he wasn't sure of the shot, so he didn't dare fire."
Hearing this, Wang An immediately broke into a happy smile.
As long as the herd wasn't spooked, these deer, which were currently in mating season, wouldn't travel too far, meaning Wang An still had a chance to make a move.
As for Wang Li's slip of the tongue calling him "brother-in-law," Wang An didn't think twice about it. Wang Li and Li Xiuyu were already engaged; it was perfectly fine for Wang Li to call Li Dashan his brother-in-law.
After thinking for a moment, Wang An couldn't help but mutter
"I wonder if Xueli learned how to set foot-traps from Old Xiao Pao. No, I feel like single foot-traps aren't a sure thing; I need to think of some other way. Those are over 30 deer; I can't just settle for catching a few."
Seeing Wang An muttering endlessly, Wang Li couldn't help but suggest
"Fourth Brother, why don't we go find Great-Uncle? See if he has any good methods?"
Wang An's eyes lit up. An experienced mountain-goer like Feng Chengmin knew a lot of things.
Although Feng Chengmin had never taught Wang An how to catch sika deer, nor had he heard of Feng Chengmin catching a live one himself, perhaps the man was truly a hidden expert.
Even if Feng Chengmin didn't know how, an extra person meant extra strength. After all, over 30 sika deer were not something two or three people could handle.
However, when it came to asking others, Wang An truly didn't trust people much.
After thinking for a bit, Wang An said
"Yeah, no time to lose. He probably isn't busy right now; I'll head over to his house and see."
As he spoke, Wang An picked up the small basket of fragrant melons and stood up to leave. After two steps, he turned back and asked Wang Li
"Are you coming?"
Immediately after saying it, Wang An negated himself
"Actually, don't come. Just stay home and keep Xiuyu company."
Then, without paying further attention to Wang Li, Wang An turned and strode back toward his house.
When Wang An arrived home, Li Xiuyu was chatting with Mu Xueqing. Wang An placed the basket in front of Mu Xueqing and said
"I'm heading over to Great-Uncle's for a bit; I'll be back soon."
Turning around, Wang An said to Li Xiuyu
"Xiuyu, eat some salted melons."
After greeting them, Wang An ran to the west room to grab a gold ingot, then hopped on his sidecar motorcycle and headed toward Linjia Tun.
In less than ten minutes, Wang An's sidecar drove into Feng Chengmin's courtyard.
At this moment, Feng Chengmin and his wife were busy flipping and drying mushrooms.
Not far from the couple, a brand new walk-behind tractor was parked in the yard.
Clearly, this tractor had not been brought back long.
This season was the time for picking mushrooms and digging wild vegetables, so basically every household was busy with these tasks.
Mainly because in this region, winter was exceptionally long. Aside from cabbage, potatoes, radishes, and pickled vegetables, the primary dishes on the dinner table were dried wild vegetables and dried mushrooms.
If they didn't dry large quantities of mushrooms and wild vegetables now, they would have nothing to eat when the depths of winter arrived.
Seeing the sidecar stop in front of him, Feng Chengmin said in surprise
"Yaha! When did you get yourself a sidecar?"
Wang An first greeted Great-Aunt Wang Yulian, then said with a grin to Feng Chengmin
"I got it a while ago, I just haven't ridden it over yet, hehehehe."
Feng Chengmin stood up, rubbed his hands, and began circling the sidecar to inspect it, clicking his tongue as he looked
"This thing is alright; this thing is actually quite good."