Wang An was in the middle of collecting money when he heard the group of people playing mahjong nearby talking about news of a Great Brown Bear!
Lu Deshu and Zhang Tiegang were clearly eavesdropping as well.
They were saying that a few days ago, a hunter from Heishan Village saw a Great Brown Bear chasing a Black Bear at Qingshigang, about fifteen or sixteen li south of Heixia Gou.
That Great Brown Bear had also taken the opportunity to kill two of the hunter's dogs. The hunter was using a double-barreled shotgun and didn't dare to test his luck, so he went straight home!
Wang An didn't listen to anything else; he was simply lost in thought.
Both the Great Brown Bear and the Black Bear were bears. The Great Brown Bear was a brown bear, and the Black Bear was a black bear.
It was just that whenever a Great Brown Bear saw a Black Bear, it would inevitably chase it down and kill it, but it wouldn't eat the Black Bear's meat. No one could figure out the exact reason why!
At this time of year, Black Bears were basically hibernating. But Great Brown Bears were different; some hibernated, while others stayed out roaming around.
Digging into a Black Bear's den was dangerous enough, but if the Black Bear wasn't hibernating and was out roaming, the danger increased several times over.
However, a roaming Great Brown Bear would weigh at least 500 jin, and a normal one was usually seven or eight hundred jin, with the largest exceeding 1,000 jin!
Furthermore, when a Great Brown Bear killed a Black Bear, the Black Bear had almost no ability to resist! Just how dangerous would a Great Brown Bear be? How hard would it be to fight?
Besides, Wang An had never fought one! Most importantly, not only had he never fought one, he had never even seen one! How the hell was he supposed to deal with that?
Wang An pulled his thoughts back. After finishing the collection, he began shuffling the cards, noticing that after Lu Deshu and Zhang Tiegang heard it was a Great Brown Bear, they seemed to lose interest!
It seemed that even if hunters heard about a roaming Great Brown Bear, they didn't care! They probably didn't want to test their luck, fearing they might lose their lives. If they truly died for the sake of a Great Brown Bear, then everything would have been for nothing!
Wang An couldn't settle his mind either, so he wasn't even focused on the Zha Jin Hua game. This game didn't make much money anyway; even if you cheated, it was a waste. There is always someone stronger than you!
In gambling, the longer you play, the deeper you sink, because as long as you are human, you want something for nothing and want to get rich overnight!
Wang An was no exception, of course, but he had experienced enough to see through it!
He played for a while longer, winning a few rounds and losing a few, always maintaining a profit of about ten yuan. He didn't try to guess the cards based on the players' micro-expressions!
There was only one reason: it wasn't worth it!
Feeling that it was truly boring, Wang An passed around a round of cigarettes, said his goodbyes, and turned to head home!
That was how Zha Jin Hua went—sometimes people joined, sometimes people left. Under normal circumstances, no one cared at all.
Walking on the road home, Wang An still couldn't make up his mind. The shadow of the Black Bear lunging at him that day was simply too massive; just thinking of that image made his heart race with lingering fear!
But Wang An's sources of information were far too limited. For such highly valuable mountain game, knowing where to find it was truly difficult!
Of course, most ordinary hunters were like this. If it were news about a Black Bear den, the news might not even get out; it would have been dug up by that hunter from Heishan Village himself!
Or, they would tell another skilled hunter to go secretly, while they took a cut of the profit! Just like the den Feng Chengmin had taken Wang An to dig up.
Why say "secretly"? Because they were afraid others would find out!
A hunter's wealth was the accumulation of various valuable prey!
And bear gallbladders accounted for a huge portion of that! Why could a "gunner" get five or six gallbladders a year, while many hunters struggled to get even one?
It was because veteran gunners knew many of these dens. Every year, there would be a few dens where a new Black Bear or Brown Bear would go to hibernate.
Once the first snow of winter had fallen, and about ten days later, once the Black Bear or Brown Bear had fallen into a deep sleep and entered thorough hibernation!
Then one could go scout those known dens. If there was no stock, skip it; if there was, just go for it!
In this way, for those gunners or veteran hunters, making money was that simple!
One must know that even the cheapest "Grass Gall" could be worth over 200 yuan. That was the price for a gall from a Black Bear that had just reached adulthood and weighed around 200 jin.
If it was an "Iron Gall" or a "Gold Gall," the prices were 300 and 500 yuan, respectively. Furthermore, there were Black Bear skins, paws, noses, meat, and even the claws, all of which could be sold for money!
Thus, one could conclude that a gunner or veteran hunter, by only digging dens throughout the winter, could earn four or five years' worth of a government employee's salary. What kind of concept was that?
Bear gallbladders were always calculated by the gram. Of course, in the early days, they were calculated by the "qian," which was the unit following "liang."
China's own units of measurement are "jin," "liang," "qian," and "fen"... originally a base-16 system, but since the Liberation, it has been base-10!
Naturally, the commonly used ones are "jin," "liang," and "qian." Because of the presence of the gallbladder membrane and impurities on the skin, bear gallbladders were measured precisely to the "qian"!
"Fen" was generally a unit used for weighing gold, silver, wild ginseng, and so on.
Later, to be more precise, precious items were basically all calculated by the "gram." 1 jin = 10 liang, 1 liang = 50 grams.
A normal Black Bear that had just reached adulthood would have a gallbladder weighing over 50 grams after being air-dried.
In other words, a Grass Gall was 4 yuan per gram, an Iron Gall was 6 yuan per gram, and a Gold Gall was 10 yuan per gram.
A Great Brown Bear's gall was not as valuable as a Black Bear's; the best Gold Gall was the same price as a Black Bear's Grass Gall.
But, however, it was huge! That massive thing!
When first extracted, it was as big as a child's head, and after air-drying, it would weigh at least 100 grams!
Even the cheapest Great Brown Bear Grass Gall at 2 yuan per gram—even if it was always a small bear and always a 100-gram small gall—that would still be at least 200 yuan!
What kind of concept was that? Half a year's salary for a government employee!
Therefore, mountain foragers basically followed in their fathers' footsteps. Aside from hunting experience, skills, and methods...
The veteran foragers themselves were a genuine living treasure!
In the thousands of miles of mountains, they knew not only where the Black Bear dens and Brown Bear dens were, but also where large skins or tiger cubs frequently appeared, which mountain ranges had muntjacs, and even where many ginseng old patches were, and so on—all these extremely valuable things! They knew where they all were!
Muntjacs, also called fragrant muntjacs, are essentially musk deer. They are much smaller than common roe deer. The males have a scent pouch on their buttocks that produces musk, a medicinal ingredient more expensive than gold, which could also be called a spice!
An "old patch" refers to a "bangchui wozi" (a cluster of ginseng), a large area containing several large and small ginseng plants!
This was also why, years later, when the era and circumstances became less strict, they or their descendants could suddenly become wealthy!
In fact, those gunners nowadays were also quite rich or possessed many valuable items, but in this day and age, if people knew you had money, it would cause big problems!
The most miserable ones were like Wang An, who had no inheritance and no one to provide long-term mentorship! Naturally, no one would tell him the locations of these valuable things!
Hunting skills, methods, and everything else had to be learned, and experience had to be summarized by oneself. He had no information or resources!
Everything had to rely on himself! And he could only rely on himself!
Besides, wealth is sought amidst danger. If he does it!
Please follow, please follow, please follow! My dear big shots!
The data is trashed! One day in heaven, two days on earth, oh my god!
(End of Chapter)