Chapter 220: The Purple Sable Stolen
A few days later, the snow froze solid enough that they could enter the mountains.
Tracks were easiest to find after a snowfall because every animal that didn't hibernate had to come out in search of food; naturally, the corresponding dangers were also greater.
However, fortune favors the bold, and that was the nature of a mountain hunter's trade.
After eating breakfast, Wang An checked his gear and drove his sled to find Wang Li.
Wang An had been living quite comfortably these past few days. During the day, he cut fabric for Liu Guilan and Mu Xueqing to sew, and at night, he messed around with Mu Xueqing. He had even taken a few strolls to "exchange sounds in broad daylight" with Shen Wei twice.
The deepest impression left on Wang An was that doing it frequently was quite taxing on the waist.
Especially when Wang An stood and let Mu Xueqing or Shen Wei hang onto him; that position was the most exhausting.
Seeing Wang An in his hunting gear, Wang Li greeted him happily, "Fourth Brother, we can finally go into the mountains."
The main reason Wang Li was so excited was that the gun had been bought, but in all these days, he hadn't fired a single shot!
"Yeah, hurry up and pack. Hitch the sleds and bring the dogs. The three of us will drive sleds today. The snow isn't shallow, so it's hard for one horse to pull a sled. Besides, there are bound to be plenty of mountain beasts looking for food," Wang An said with a smile.
"Aye, you got it, Fourth Brother!" Wang Li agreed and began to get busy.
Seeing Wang Li packing a large handful of wire snares into a sack, Wang An thought to himself: *I'm going to be busy for a while again today.*
The Wang Daliang family were now genuine people of means, which meant the family members had smiles on their faces at every waking moment. All of this change was because of Wang An.
Although Wang An was only Wang Daliang's nephew, he was now the honored guest of the household. Both Wang Daliang and Yao Ping treated him with great importance.
In the short time it took for Wang Li to prepare, the couple treated Wang An like a VIP, bringing out cigarettes from Ice City, brewing sugar water, and laying out pine nuts, walnuts, and melon seeds.
All of this made Wang An feel quite helpless. Perhaps, aside from one's immediate parents and kin, everyone measured their relationships based on money and interest.
Ten minutes later, Wang Li was fully prepared and said to Wang An as if presenting a treasure, "Fourth Brother, I brought a flask of liquor too."
Wang An nodded with a smile.
The two of them drove their respective sleds toward Mu Xueli's house.
When they arrived, Mu Xueli was heading toward the outskirts of the mountain carrying his Type 56 semi-automatic rifle.
"Xueli, where are you going?" Wang An pulled the reins and shouted to him.
"I thought I'd go practice my shooting. Are we heading into the mountains today, Brother-in-law?" Mu Xueli asked instinctively upon seeing Wang An and Wang Li with their sleds.
It was clear that Mu Xueli hadn't been idle these past few days; he had been going into the mountains to practice every day.
He had already trodden a path into the mountains on the snow outside the main gate.
"Yeah. Hurry up, then hitch your sled. We'll hunt whatever we run into," Wang An said.
Mu Xueli agreed readily and turned back home.
It had to be said that Mu Xueli was the most serious and dedicated when it came to the trade of mountain hunting. Setting aside his knife skills for skinning, butchering, and deboning—which had already reached a level unattainable by ordinary people—his marksmanship was actually qualified. However, with a sharpshooter like Wang An and a late-joining genius like Wang Li to compare himself to, Mu Xueli's shooting seemed somewhat unremarkable.
But Mu Xueli's diligence was the most precious trait. After all, diligence could make up for a lack of natural talent. Besides, shooting was a matter of practice; as long as there were plenty of bullets, anyone could become a sharpshooter.
And the three of them certainly didn't lack bullets.
Once Mu Xueli hitched his sled and checked his gear, the three of them headed into the mountains.
Because of the heavy snow and the fact that they hadn't entered the mountains for several days, the rabbit snares they had set previously needed to be reorganized.
Basically all the snares, whether they had caught a rabbit or not, were mostly buried in the snow. Aside from digging out the rabbits caught before the snowfall, they had to reset the empty snares.
Additionally, since Wang Li had brought some new rabbit snares, the three of them worked hard for a while to reorganize all the snares and traps.
Food was scarce in the snowy weather. Even rabbits and pheasants frozen stiff under the snow were often dug up and eaten by ferocious beasts. Not a few snares had vanished along with the rabbits after branches were snapped.
However, it must be said that when it's your time to get rich, nothing can stop it. A snow-white fox had somehow wandered into a rabbit snare and been strangled to death by the wire.
Mu Xueli happily retrieved it.
The white fox's fur was smooth, beautiful, and emitted a faint white glow, which the three of them spent some time stroking.
Most fortunately, except for the wire cutting deep into the fox's neck, the fur on its body was undamaged.
In this era, the most valuable fox skins were white, as there were no fox farms at the time.
Therefore, white fox skins were very rare. Since rarity creates value, a common fox skin cost 60 yuan, while a white fox skin doubled that to 120 yuan.
After tallying the harvest, there were only 72 complete rabbits, 30-odd partial ones that were still usable, only 7 complete pheasants, 9 partial pheasants, and 5 flying dragons.
They had lost a total of 40-odd snares that were missing or dragged away, and 10-odd traps. Fortunately, compared to the harvest, these losses were negligible.
The three of them then went to the location of the purple sable traps, intending to dig out any traps they could. Unsurprisingly, the traps in the first five locations yielded nothing.
But when the three arrived at the final trap array, they discovered the hoofprints of three horses outside the perimeter. The prints were fresh and were not heading out of the mountain.
Following the hoofprints, Wang An and the others looked around and discovered that these three people had used branches to sweep away the tracks leading into the trap array and had filled one of the trap pits with snow.
If Wang An and the others had come tomorrow or in a few days, the mountain wind would have swept everything away, and because of the branch sweeping, no traces would have remained in the trap array.
This discovery made the three of them furious, because it was obvious that a trap had caught a purple sable, but the sable had been stolen!
"Fuck those motherfuckers, those three bastards are pretty cunning!" Even Mu Xueli, who rarely cursed, couldn't help but let out a profanity.
It was understandable. Mu Xueli had made these traps one by one. One could imagine how much time and effort he had spent making those 200 wooden traps.
How long had it been since he set the traps before there was finally a harvest?
And now that hard-won harvest had been fucking stolen!
Anyone would find this intolerable. A single purple sable skin had a minimum purchase price of 350 yuan at the supply and marketing cooperative—nearly ten months' salary for a formal employee!
"Let's go. Hunt them down," Wang An said gloomily, then turned and climbed onto his sled.
Hearing this, Mu Xueli and Wang Li did the same.
"Giddy-up!" "Giddy-up!" "Giddy-up!"
With three loud shouts, the three of them drove their sleds and chased after the hoofprints.
Actually, Wang An wanted to ride a horse to pursue them, but when driving sleds, no one puts a saddle on the horse.
In the mountains, if one rode without a saddle and stirrups, no one would dare accelerate. Falling off the horse would be an absolute certainty.