Chapter 332: What Was Feared Has Happened
While eating, Wang An said to Mu Xueli and Wang Li, "That big gully to the north—a few wild boars fell in earlier. Did you two see them?"
Mu Xueli said with a look of regret, "Yeah. I was too busy firing my gun at the time, so I only caught a glimpse, but there must have been five or six boars."
Wang Li added, "Yeah, Fourth Brother, I saw them too. They looked like yellow-haired ones."
Wang An nodded. "When we head back in a bit, we'll get them all out. Otherwise, it'd be a waste."
Mu Xueli and Wang Li were momentarily stunned. Neither of them knew that the gully was accessible by driving a sled directly into it.
Consequently, they believed that getting the wild boars out from the bottom of the gully would be an incredibly difficult task fraught with danger.
This would mean someone had to descend to the bottom to tie the boars with ropes.
Furthermore, during the descent, they would have to clear away tree branches or shrubs on the gully walls; otherwise, the boars would likely get stuck while being hauled up.
Mu Xueli reacted quickly and immediately said, "Alright, Brother-in-law. I'll go down to the bottom in a bit; you guys just pull from the top."
Wang Li followed up, "I should be the one to go down. I'm less strong than Brother Mu, so I'm more suitable for going down."
Mu Xueli rolled his eyes at Wang Li and said with disdain
"Give it a rest. With that huge frame of yours, even pulling you up would be..."
Before Mu Xueli could finish, Wang An interrupted him
"What are you arguing about? Neither of you needs to go down. We'll just drive the sled straight in from over there."
As Wang An spoke, he pointed toward the ice surface.
The two turned to look in the direction Wang An was pointing but couldn't see anything. Nevertheless, they both breathed a sigh of relief simultaneously.
After all, descending into a gully with a rope was fundamentally no different from descending a cliff with one.
If one were to accidentally fall, no matter who it was, it would be fucking disastrous—if they didn't die, they'd end up crippled.
Once the matter was settled, the three of them finished their meal. Unsurprisingly, all three felt full without having eaten much.
In truth, when people eat, the worst thing is to stop halfway. Once you stop, you find that when you want to continue, you're no longer hungry and simply cannot eat much more.
After eating, the three began loading meat onto the sleds. However, Wang An's sled remained empty, as he needed to leave one free to enter the big gully and pull back the boars that had fallen in.
Zhang Shuya was perceptive this time and helped move the chunks of meat.
Once the sleds were loaded, the four of them walked toward the ice surface.
Since finishing the meal, Zhang Shuya had been in a state of wanting to speak but hesitating. A shrewd person like Wang An had naturally noticed long ago, but he was rarely the type to push for an answer.
As the saying goes: being too eager is bad for business.
Moreover, to Wang An, Zhang Shuya wasn't even a passing acquaintance; it was her status that had prompted him to rescue her.
If Zhang Shuya had something to say but didn't say it, waiting for others to ask proactively—was that even possible?
Upon reaching the ice surface, they tied Mu Xueli and Wang Li's sleds to a tree at the entrance of the gully, and the four of them drove the sled into the gully.
It must be said that this gully was truly long; it took over two li just to reach the spot where the boars had fallen.
Furthermore, the deeper they went, the greater the height difference between the bottom and the top. By the time they reached the boars, the distance from the bottom to the top was at least thirty to forty meters.
There were many small holes in the gully walls where numerous sparrows lived. Because of the four intruders, the sparrows were all startled, flying out of the gully in a chaotic swarm.
The main reason Wang An dared to enter the gully was that it was early spring and the temperature was still very low. In Northeast China, it was still considered winter.
If it were summer, Wang An would absolutely not dare enter so easily.
By then, the gully would be teeming with venomous snakes, giant black mosquitoes, and all sorts of insects.
Especially the giant black mosquitoes.
The giant black mosquitoes of the Northeast were famous nationwide. When they landed, they looked almost as large as hornets, though not as thick.
But now, in the ice and snow, such things simply didn't exist.
When the group reached the boars, the souls of the five yellow-haired boars had already gone to see the Buddha.
Only five carcasses remained, having smashed deep pits into the thick snow at the bottom, and many branches on the gully walls had been snapped.
Because the temperature at the bottom of the gully was much higher than outside, the five yellow-haired carcasses had not yet frozen hard.
In other words, now was the perfect time to skin them.
The three of them didn't hesitate and began gutting, bleeding, and skinning the five boars.
Just as the three were dancing with their knives, Zhang Shuya finally couldn't hold back and spoke.
"Big Brother, can you take me to your commune in a bit? I want to make a phone call."
At this time, the entire Xing'an Commune had only one telephone, and it was the crank-handle kind.
However, Wang An remembered that in his previous life, shortly after the land was divided to households—around 1982—the various villages in the Northeast began installing power lines.
It was only then that the homes of the village chiefs gradually began to have telephones installed.
After Zhang Shuya spoke, Wang An checked his watch; it was nearly two o'clock. After a moment's thought, he said
"Sure, there's still time. We'll go to the commune first, then head home."
Having said that, Wang An went back to his work.
As a public security officer, Zhang Shuya certainly had a reason for wanting to make a call, and Wang An had to cooperate.
Moreover, Wang An felt that Zhang Shuya's call must be related to the bandits in the forbidden zone. If she could resolve them, Wang An wouldn't have to seek help from Wu Dong.
Soon, the three had finished gutting and skinning all five yellow-haired boars.
To save time, Wang An decided not to disassemble the carcasses. Aside from the hearts, livers, lungs, and stomachs, all the intestines were thrown away.
Mainly, there was no time to dump the waste outside. Furthermore, Wang An discovered that although the intestines of these five boars hadn't burst from the fall, many parts were reduced to a thin membrane.
He felt that with the slightest pressure, the intestines would explode, leaving excrement everywhere.
Therefore, for the sake of safety, it was better not to be overly reluctant to discard them.
Tossing the five carcasses onto Wang An's sled and covering them with the boar skins, the four left the gully and headed toward the Xing'an Commune on three sleds.
In fact, the road to the Xing'an Commune was the same as the road to Wang An's home; after all, the Xing'an Commune was just Liu Family Village, only two li away from Kaoshan Village.
About three or four li away from Boar Ridge, the sharp-eyed Wang An spotted a fresh footprint—a leather shoe print.
A person like Wang An paid great attention to such anomalies.
Whether it was when they first came to Boar Ridge, when Wang An had tracked those two people, or when he led Zhang Shuya back after the tracking, this footprint had not existed.
This was enough to prove that the person who left the print had passed by very recently.
Wang An stopped the sleds and followed the prints back for a distance, then concluded that this person had come out of the forbidden zone.
Wang An's actions naturally drew the attention of Zhang Shuya, Mu Xueli, and Wang Li.
Zhang Shuya also realized at that moment that someone had emerged from the forbidden zone.
What Zhang Shuya feared had finally happened.