During dinner that evening, the family had steamed rice. Wang Xiaomei and Wang Xiaoli were overjoyed, their eyes twinkling with delight.
Eating coarse grains every single meal—children naturally hated that!
In truth, it wasn't just the two little girls who loved rice; the whole family did!
While chatting, Wang An mentioned to his family that he had asked Shen Wei to bring Xiao Laizhi over to play. Unexpectedly, both his mother and Mu Xueqing were very fond of the little girl!
When speaking of Xiao Laizhi, the two women were full of praise, which piqued the interest of Wang Xiaomei and Wang Xiaoli. They began clamoring to go play at Aunt Shen Wei's house tomorrow.
After a while, Wang Yi suddenly said to Wang An with a smile, "Big brother, my fountain pen is broken. Could you buy me a new one?"
Wang Yi was thirteen years old and in the fifth grade of primary school. He would enter junior high next year. At this time, the school system consisted of five years of primary school and three years of junior high!
Before Wang An could speak, his mother spoke up in a dissatisfied tone, "If you need a pen, just tell your mother. Why go to your big brother? Do you think your mother wouldn't buy one for you?"
The fact that Wang Yi went to Wang An for money instead of his mother seemed to trigger the family's matriarch, Liu Guilan, once again!
Or perhaps it made Liu Guilan feel that her status in the household was being shaken!
Wang Yi didn't say anything; he glanced at his mother and lowered his head.
Liu Guilan pulled fifty cents out of her pocket and handed it to Wang An, then commanded, "When you go to the county tomorrow, don't forget to buy the second son a pen."
"Got it!" Wang An agreed, suppressing a smile as he took the fifty cents. He wasn't sure if his mother was doing this to assert her authority or to put on a show!
***
Early the next morning, Wang An organized everything needed for the mountain trip and placed it on the sled.
As he hitched the three dogs to the sled, they were incredibly excited since they hadn't been to the mountains in a few days! They took turns leaping onto Wang An; he had to soothe them one by one before they finally settled down.
Because these three dogs ate meat every day, they were now plump and round. The largest, Da Hei, weighed over 110 jin, and the smallest, San Hei, was over 100 jin!
Their coats were now jet-black and glossy, smooth as oil!
The areas where they had previously been injured had grown soft fuzz, and it was estimated they would soon return to the same color as the rest of their fur.
Once everything was ready, he drove the sled to pick up his brother-in-law and headed toward the mountains.
Having not checked the snares for a few days, these traps were truly effective!
Aside from a dozen or so empty snares that hadn't caught any jumping mice, the rest all had yields—though a considerable number had been half-eaten or left with almost nothing remaining.
The two of them did a rough count: there were 69 intact jumping mice, 7 half-eaten ones, and about 20 to 30 that were basically just heads or heads attached to a piece of skin!
No one bothered to carefully count the useless remains.
After this harvest, including the dozen empty ones, they only had about 60 usable snares left. The number was getting a bit low, so they quickly set them all out.
They drove the sled further into the deep mountains.
Along the way, the brother-in-law and brother-in-law-to-be bragged and chatted, occasionally struggling to light a cigarette.
Smoking wasn't the hard part; the difficulty was lighting them. The big horse ran quite fast, and the wind whipped across the sled; it took over ten matches just to light one cigarette!
Normally, once one person lit up, the other would use their cigarette to light the next. Trying to use matches was an exercise in extreme frustration!
Mu Xueli suddenly said, "Brother-in-law, I learned how to set large-skin traps from my partner's sixth grandfather. Should we find some time to try it out?"
Hearing about such a great opportunity, Wang An naturally agreed, smiling as he said, "We definitely have to try! Whether there are minks or not, it's worth a shot!"
"Hehe, I heard that if you catch even one of those things, you've made a profit!" Mu Xueli chuckled.
"That's true. We'll set plenty of traps; we should be able to catch at least one over the winter," Wang An said cheerfully.
They sped along. Even when Da Hei barked upon discovering prey, or when the two saw wild boar or roe deer tracks, they didn't stop.
Finally, at 10:03 AM, they arrived at the depression.
After hitching the big horse and feeding it fodder, Wang An and Mu Xueli led the three dogs to the spot where the bear had been shot. Finding several blackened bloodstains, they released the dogs.
For hunting dogs, with a scent as obvious as bloodstains, if they couldn't find the bear, they would be useless dogs—completely worthless, a waste of food to keep.
Thus, after smelling the blood, Da Hei began to lift his head and sniff the air. Perhaps because too much time had passed, Da Hei's "head-up scenting" skill failed!
Da Hei spun in circles, sniffing the sky thoroughly, then sneezed and stood there looking bewildered, appearing somewhat confused!
He was likely thinking: *Is my proud nose damn broken? Why the hell can't I smell anything? I haven't even had a cold these past two days!*
After a moment, Da Hei lowered his head to smell the blood again, looked left and right, and seemed to suddenly remember that he could also scent from the ground.
He abruptly lowered his head, employing the less-frequently used "head-down scenting" skill, and began trotting forward, following the tracks left by the bear.
Seeing Da Hei trotting, the two men and the other two dogs, Er Hei and San Hei, followed suit.
Once they started trotting, it was like a watermelon rind rubbing against a backside—endless!
Tracking's ultimate goal is to kill the prey, but tracking a black bear is much harder than tracking other prey.
Because although black bears look clumsy, they are not clumsy at all in terms of agility or intelligence!
Whenever a black bear wants to rest, it first selects a resting spot and then begins circling the area in various patterns.
Large circles within large circles, large circles overlapping small circles—it just wanders. Because a bear's vision and hearing are very poor, it uses its incredibly powerful sense of smell to scout the entire vicinity!
The purpose of this is, on one hand, to check for hidden dangers; if any are found, it eliminates them or changes its resting spot.
On the other hand, it is to memorize all the surrounding scents. This way, while it rests, if another scent approaches, it can distinguish whether it is dangerous based on the smell!
This is why a "walking-dropper" bear is so dangerous. Experienced hunters, without a good gun and good marksmanship, would never dream of hunting such a bear!
Even hunters with good guns and excellent marksmanship generally avoid provoking a "walking-dropper"!
Da Hei proved his worth as a master scent-hound. After running for an hour and a half, he stopped following the ground tracks and instead lifted his head to determine the direction, then broke into a full sprint.
As Da Hei sprinted, Er Hei and San Hei naturally followed, but it was miserable for Wang An and Mu Xueli.
The two of them had run for less than a minute before the three dogs vanished from sight!
At this moment, Wang An and Mu Xueli didn't dare relax. Although Wang An had discovered during the previous chase that the three dogs were very smart and wouldn't fight a bear head-on, a dog is still a dog. If an accident happened, Wang An would be heartbroken!
So, the two of them ran for their lives.
The three dogs were fast; within a few minutes, they found the bear.
At that moment, the bear was sitting with its back against a large tree, staring blankly at the arriving dogs, who knows what it was thinking!
This time, the three dogs didn't engage in the hit-and-run tactics they had used during the previous chase. Upon discovering the bear, they first circled it a few times, then bared their teeth and lunged!
These three dogs had actually chosen to go head-to-head with this bear!