The area of Wild Boar Forest was more than a little smaller than that of Wild Boar Ridge.
This was because Wild Boar Forest was merely a patch of mixed forest containing various nuts, wild fruits, shrub branches, and wild vegetables that wild boars loved to eat; once one left this mixed forest, it was no longer considered part of the Wild Boar Forest's range.
Wild Boar Ridge, however, spanned several ridges and hollows, essentially forming a small mountain range.
Nevertheless, Wild Boar Forest was closer to the village, making it very suitable for Wang An and his companions to visit at the moment.
After deciding on their destination, Wang An gave the horse's rump a pat and shouted "Giddy-up!", and the Oroqen horse began to gallop.
Seeing this, Wang Li, Mu Xueli, and Huang Zhong followed suit, spurring their horses into a fast run, and the speed of the four of them increased instantly.
For this trip into the mountains, Wang An, Mu Xueli, and Wang Li each still had two horses—riding one and leading another—while Huang Zhong had only one.
However, the horse Huang Zhong was riding this time was no longer one of Wang An's family's horses, but his own.
In order for his son to be able to keep pace with Wang An, Comrade Huang Baoguo had spent the period before the spring plowing visiting the livestock market every time the Xing'an Township grand market was held, with the sole purpose of buying a good horse for Huang Zhong.
Of course, besides riding it into the mountains, they also needed it for pulling carts, plows, and rollers in their daily lives. After all, their family had settled in Kaoshan Village, and having a horse as a laborer and means of transport was absolutely necessary.
Hard work pays off, and after several consecutive visits, Huang Baoguo did indeed find a seven-year-old Oroqen horse.
He successfully secured it for only 450 yuan.
The reason this Oroqen horse was so cheap was primarily because its coat color wasn't very attractive; it had a "yin-yang face."
A so-called yin-yang face meant that the hair on the horse's head was not a single color: the hair on the left side of its face was black-grey, while the hair on the right side was grey-white.
The coat on its body was the same—patches of grey-white and black-grey, with occasional patches of pure black. Overall, it was asymmetrical and irregular; no matter how one looked at it, it seemed uncoordinated.
But horses are like people; once you get used to it, no one cares about beauty or ugliness. Moreover, in these great mountains, utility is the priority, and aesthetics are secondary.
On the first day Huang Baoguo brought the Oroqen horse home, Wang An helped test-ride it. Wang An's final conclusion was that aside from looking a bit homely, the horse had no other issues.
And so today, Huang Zhong rode it into the mountains with Wang An and the others.
About an hour later, the four people, seven horses, and twenty-four dogs arrived at the outskirts of Wild Boar Ridge.
After each of them tied their reins to trees using a backhand knot, the four of them led the pack of dogs and wolves deeper into the Wild Boar Forest.
Wang An and the other two were quite familiar with the Wild Boar Forest. They had a general idea of where the water was, where the gullies were, and which areas were sunny yet sheltered from the wind—the places where wild boars were most likely to appear.
However, before the four of them could reach such a spot, Da Hei, Xiao Hei, and Xiao Bai barked simultaneously.
Immediately following this, the two dogs and one wolf lifted their noses to sniff the air and led the way, running toward the southeast.
Wang Li's four adolescent Oroqen dogs and Mu Xueli's five adolescent yellow dogs naturally followed suit.
Perhaps because it was their first day in the mountains, these nine adolescent dogs were very excited and quite disobedient.
On the way here, they had been frolicking everywhere and even tried to run back home, only to be forcibly nipped and bitten back into line by the pack of old dogs—Da Hei, Xiao Hei, Da Qing, and Da Huang.
Yes, they were driven back by the old dogs through a series of nips and bites.
Of course, Xiao Hei couldn't really be counted as an old dog since he was only four years old this year, but compared to those nine adolescent dogs, he was indeed a veteran of the dog gang.
With the old dogs supervising and disciplining them, the nine adolescent dogs couldn't cause much trouble. After being nipped and bitten a few times, they all followed the old dogs obediently; then they were well-behaved.
Disobedience was impossible; the nips were real, the bites were real, and it hurt a lot.
This was the benefit of old dogs leading new dogs: without the need for excessive worry or intervention from the owners, the new dogs naturally learned what they were supposed to do and gradually learned how to hunt.
However, what left Wang An and the others feeling quite helpless and saddened was that after the New Year, the ten old dogs—including Da Hei, Da Qing, and Da Huang, who were the first to follow the three of them into the mountains to hunt—looked even older.
The hair on their muzzles and backs had turned whiter, their lips had begun to droop, and even their once full and rounded coats had become somewhat loose.
There was no helping it; the aging process of mountain dogs is very rapid. Once they begin to age, they truly decline day by day.
By next year, when they turn ten, the situation will certainly be worse, and it will be unknown whether they can still follow Wang An and the others into the mountains.
One could only wonder if they could break through the twelve-year shackle of a hunting dog's lifespan.
The main reason was that very few mountain dogs lived past twelve years.
Fortunately, as they grew old, a new generation of mountain dogs would soon form to take over. For their owners, there would only be a period of melancholy and maladjustment.
After all, having spent several years by one's side, it would certainly feel unsettling when they could no longer follow.
As the dogs bolted, the four of them instinctively started chasing. Thus, the grand drama of humans chasing dogs played out once again in the forest.
But no matter how high Wang An and the others' martial arts were or how fast they ran, they could absolutely not outrun dogs, so the figures of the dogs soon vanished from their sight.
Fortunately, the dogs' barking could still reach their ears, so the four of them didn't risk losing them.
A few minutes later, the barking became indistinct, and the four of them could only run in the general direction of the sound.
But in a place where Wang An and the others could not see, the pack of dogs and wolves led by Da Hei had already startled a group of wild boars from their warm nest.
At this time of day, wild boars usually wouldn't leave their nests; normally, they wouldn't come out to forage until after noon.
This group of wild boars was truly numerous, totaling over forty head.
However, more than thirty of them were newly born "striped sticks" (piglets). Judging by their weight of only about three pounds, they were likely only around twenty days old.
April and May were exactly when wild boars in the great mountains gave birth, so the appearance of striped sticks was normal.
Only three female wild boars weighing two hundred and forty to fifty pounds, two "year-olds" weighing around two hundred pounds, and four "yellow-hairs" weighing just over a hundred pounds counted as proper meat.