In fact, by mid-September—the peak season for "red-headed" ginseng that diggers love most—Wang An's body had basically fully recovered.
After all, Wang An was only 21, in the prime of his youth and strength, with a constitution that was incredibly robust. Furthermore, since he had practiced martial arts daily before his injury, his recovery capacity was naturally much faster than that of an average person.
Crucially, the treatment after his injury had been very timely. After he was discharged from the hospital, Fang Xiu'e had prescribed various stages of herbal tonics for him to drink, and he drank them consistently for three months.
Of course, even after he finished the herbal tonics, Wang An's nourishment never stopped.
For instance, he drank a bowl of ginseng soup every day to nourish the whole body, replenish qi and blood, and promote the healing of internal injuries.
Then there was deer blood, which helps stop bleeding and generate new blood; every few days, a small bowl of deer blood porridge would be steamed to give him another boost.
Even when drinking water daily, he would have a glass of water steeped with deer antler slices.
Therefore, with the addition of all these factors, it was actually quite normal for Wang An to return to a healthy state in just over half a year.
Unfortunately, his entire family insisted he stay home and recuperate honestly. They wouldn't let him go out, nor would they let him enter the mountains; in the end, they forcibly compelled him to stay home.
Based on the family's understanding of Wang An, whenever he went out, there was a ninety percent chance he would end up fighting someone. In their eyes, given his current state, he wasn't quite fit for fighting yet.
What if someone beat him into stupidity, or even left him crippled? What then?
As for entering the mountains, that was even more out of the question. Primarily, someone without a top-tier physical condition was not suited for hunting or digging ginseng in the mountains. What if he encountered some wild beast or ferocious creature and ended up dead in the mountains? What then?
Thus, once his health improved, Wang An was forced to stay home for a full three months.
Because of this, his plan to catch the "red-headed" market this year and dig up those old ginseng roots completely went up in smoke.
During these three-plus months, although Wang An stayed home all day, he didn't just sit or lie on the kang as he had before. Instead, aside from practicing martial arts to lose weight, he spent his time wandering aimlessly in the mountains near the village with his four eagles and two lynxes.
He had no choice; the more than half a year of quiet recuperation had made him fat—he had nearly reached 200 jin (approx. 100kg).
Although 200 jin wasn't considered fat relative to his height of over 1.85 meters, Wang An felt he was no longer as agile as before.
Yes, he wasn't as agile, and his physical fitness wasn't as good as it used to be.
Consequently, practicing martial arts for weight loss, training the eagles, and training those two lynxes became his daily routine for these three months.
It must be said that the four eagles had undergone a significant change during this time. Under Wang An's command, they could basically be directed as if they were extensions of his own arms, striking exactly where he pointed.
However, compared to the four eagles, the training of the two lynxes was not nearly as successful. Wang An was truly dissatisfied with their performance.
Of course, this was mainly because lynxes are incredibly wild creatures; up until now, no one had successfully domesticated them for hunting.
The key was that Wang An didn't know how to train them, so he could only use methods meant for training dogs.
Compared to dogs, the combat power of a lynx was undoubtedly terrifying. Even if a large-headed dog like Da Hei or Xiao Hei fought a single lynx one-on-one, they would be completely crushed.
If a lynx decided to kill, Da Hei or Xiao Hei would likely be killed by a single lynx in less than a minute.
One must know that in these great mountains, the lynx is known as a "wolf-slaughtering machine." Of course, a lynx can slaughter a single wolf or two wolves together, but if the number reaches three or more in a pack, the lynx will also keep its distance.
But it must be admitted that in any area where lynxes reside, wolves are indeed very rare.
As one of the three great feline predators of the Northeast mountains, the lynx was just that domineering, just that impressive!
Unfortunately, while the lynx's combat power was impressive, its obedience was completely different from that of a hunting dog.
Wang An always felt that the expensive "Spirit-Opening Powder" those two lynxes had eaten had been a complete waste.
In the end, the result of the lynx training was that it worked only sporadically.
If they happened to be in a good mood and feeling happy, they would follow Wang An's instructions to catch rabbits or wild pheasants.
But if they happened to be unhappy—oh for goodness' sake—they would completely ignore Wang An's orders and wouldn't even spare him a glance.
And if Wang An dared to hit them, although they didn't dare bare their teeth or act aggressively toward him, they would simply bolt straight home. Once home, they would jump onto the roof, making it impossible for Wang An to even touch them.
The creatures made Wang An so angry that if he hadn't raised them from kittens, he would have definitely put a gun to their faces and put a 7.62mm bullet in each of their heads.
That said, the fur of these two lynxes was truly excellent—oily, smooth, and incredibly soft. It felt wonderful to the touch, and when they stood on the roof under the sunlight, it even reflected light faintly.
If he skinned them to sell, the two pelts combined would sell for at least 3,000 yuan. As he thought about this, Wang An sighed inwardly
*Forget it. After all, I've raised them since they were small; I really can't bear to kill them.*
Early this morning, just after breakfast, Mu Xueli and Wang Li each arrived from their homes.
The purpose of their visit was to go to Anguo City with Wang An to sell the bear gall and musk received before the New Year, as well as the bear gall, bezoars, and musk pods received from the New Year until now, along with several wild ginseng roots below Grade 5.
As for the deer antler and deer blood, most of the antler and all of the blood had been used by Wang An to infuse wine, and a small portion of the remaining antler had been steeped in water for him to drink.
Therefore, the 11 jin and 2 liang of deer antler produced by Wang An's family this year had all been consumed; selling them was impossible.
As for ordinary deer blood, some was made into deer blood wine and given to Zhang Shuya, Wu Dong, Fang Xiu'e, and seven others, while another portion was dried into deer blood powder and distributed among them. There wasn't much left, so Wang An didn't plan to sell any this time.
The reason the three of them were in such a hurry to go to Anguo City was that none of their families had much money left!
That's right, they were short on cash because everything was tied up in bear gall, bezoars, musk, and ginseng.
Including the bear gall collected by Feng Chengmin before the New Year, the three of them had over 140,000 yuan worth of goods tied up.
From the New Year until now, it was even more terrifying; they had over 440,000 yuan worth of goods—three times the amount from before the New Year!
Combined, they had a total of 580,000 yuan in goods!!
The reason they had collected so much bear gall after the New Year was that many mountain-goers from the neighboring LQ County had heard the news from somewhere and flocked to Wang An's house to sell their bear gall.
Of this 580,000 yuan in stock, Mu Xueli's family and Wang Li's family each contributed 90,000 yuan; the remaining 400,000 yuan were all provided by Wang An.
Consequently, among the three families, only Wang An's could produce another ten or twenty thousand yuan in cash; Mu Xueli's and Wang Li's families truly had nothing left, perhaps only a few thousand yuan.
To be fair, since his rebirth, Wang An had certainly brought a lot of money home. He took 120,000 from the Stone Mountain, 300,000 from Jia Renlu's cellar, 100,000 from the doghouse of that loan shark Wei Cheng, plus money earned from selling bear gall and pelts, shares from Qiao Xiaohu, shares from the pharmaceutical factory... and so on. Added together, it exceeded 600,000 yuan.
But while he earned a lot, his expenses were also quite large: building a house, walling the courtyard, buying a crawler tractor, a walk-behind tractor, a four-wheel vehicle, a GAZ car, a large color TV, a seeding plow, a harvester... and so on. Each item cost a significant amount.
Moreover, Wang An had always been a big spender and never considered the price when buying things; his expenditures were definitely a substantial sum.
Thus, it was perfectly normal to be out of money after tying up over 400,000 yuan in goods.
Of course, for this trip to Anguo, Wang An planned for the three of them to take the GAZ. Although the combined value of the bear gall and bezoars was 580,000 yuan, their total volume was small—less than two sacks—which could easily fit in the GAZ.
Most importantly, Wang An also wanted to take a detour to TL City, not far from Fengtian, to retrieve those two sacks of money and gold and silver jewelry.
Wang An remembered clearly that the place where the train had stopped was in the area between CT County and DBS County—specifically, within the jurisdiction of DBS.
Those two sacks of money and jewelry were loot from a "black-eat-black" encounter near the railway tracks back in January, around the New Year, when Wang An had led Mu Xueli and Wang Li to Yi Province to find medicinal herb suppliers.
Of course, who cared if it was loot? As long as it was in his hands, it was money, and as long as it could be spent, it was fine.
The only thing the three of them worried about was that the money had been placed in an earthen hole. They didn't know if, after a year of wind and rain, the hole had been washed away by water, leaving the money moldy and rotten.
Or perhaps the small earthen hole had been discovered by someone herding sheep, cutting firewood, herding cattle, or hunting in the mountains, and the money had been taken.
Of course, it was also possible that the railway security had searched the area and taken it.
In short, all sorts of accidents were very possible.
But regardless, with such a large sum of money, the three of them had to go see for themselves; they absolutely could not rest easy without checking.
After Mu Xueli and Wang Li arrived, Wang An turned and picked up Xingfu and Kuaile, one in each arm, and said with a face full of smiles
"Daddy has to go on a long trip. Come on, give Daddy a kiss each."
Although the two little ones didn't know what a "long trip" was, they obediently kissed Wang An's cheeks on both sides.
After kissing him, the two little ones hugged Wang An's neck affectionately, calling "Daddy, Daddy" incessantly.
Those two kisses, combined with the continuous stream of "Daddy, Daddy," almost made Wang An not want to leave.
Yes, he truly didn't want to leave. Wang An only wanted to stay with them forever, watching them grow up, watching them become adults, and then watching them start their own families...
He didn't know why, but Wang An felt he was becoming more and more "gone" in the head. (End of Chapter)