Chapter 29: Utter Disappointment

At a distance of about 200 meters, once a wild boar picks up speed, it is incredibly fast.

Wang An had just reached the top of the large boulder and hadn't even stabilized himself when Li Biao's upper body climbed up, but his legs were still dangling below!

The boars arrived. The first to reach them was a "yellow-hair"—a young boar. These creatures are light and fast, but this one merely brushed against Li Biao's leg as it passed!

A "yellow-hair" is a wild boar about a year old; they aren't fully grown yet, and their fur is still a pale yellow.

Though the force wasn't massive, for someone hanging in mid-air, it was no different from someone grabbing and pulling at their leg from below.

This caused Li Biao, who was just about to climb up, to slip back into his previous state. Just then, Wang An managed to steady himself!

He wanted to reach out and grab Li Biao, but the shape of the rock was irregular, leaving Wang An with no leverage. In his desperation, sweat began to pour down his face despite the freezing weather!

He looked left and right for a solution, but on this smooth, bare rock, there was no solution to be found!

At that moment, another "cannonball" arrived!

It sounded slow, but it all happened within three or four seconds.

Gritting his teeth and making a split-second decision—to hell with it!

He shouldered his rifle and aimed at his face. At this distance of four or five meters, there was no need for precise aiming. *Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!*

He pulled the trigger repeatedly, and bullets poured out alongside the screams of the wild boars!

Meanwhile, Li Biao was subjected to a series of hits: first a brush from a yellow-hair, then a cannonball squeezing against his leg against the rock, then another cannonball slamming into his leg!

He hung there like a pendulum, constantly on the verge of climbing up, yet never quite making it!

By now, five boars had already fallen beneath the rock—cannonballs, sows, and yellow-hairs!

In any case, these boars were either trying to get close or were being pushed toward Li Biao's legs by the others!

Finally, Wang An ran out of ammunition!!

However, two cannonballs and two yellow-hairs with emerging tusks had returned!

"God dammit! I thought we were safe!" Those protective cannonballs really couldn't be messed with!

The key was that they weren't afraid of death! They charged the gun with a single-minded determination to kill you!

But even if you shouldn't mess with them, you ended up doing exactly that! Dammit!

As everyone knows, the Type 56 semi-automatic rifle doesn't have a stripper clip!

Loading bullets actually means pressing them into the chamber one by one. While using the feed tray can speed things up, it still takes a few seconds!

The four boars below were acting like they were in a video game—one coming, one going, all slamming hard into Li Biao's legs!

Though Li Biao was terrified out of his wits, he knew he had to dodge! "Ah! Ah!" he wailed, twisting his waist and kicking his legs back and forth!

While the scene was terrifying for Li Biao, it was honestly a bit ridiculous to watch!

Listening to Li Biao's wretched wails, Wang An was consumed by anxiety!

The more anxious one becomes, the more panicked they get; the more panicked, the more the hands shake; and the more the hands shake, the slower the reloading!

A reload that usually took three or four seconds took Wang An five or six seconds this time!

The moment he finished loading, he shouldered the rifle and went again: *Bang! Bang! Bang!*

He pulled the trigger one after another until all ten bullets were spent once more!

Things went quiet below. After wailing for a while longer, Li Biao finally fell silent!

Wang An looked around and found that near the large rock, besides Li Biao still hanging there, there were no other living things!

His legs went weak, and he sat down hard on the rock, then slumped down, lying flat against it!

He stared blankly at the sky, seemingly forgetting how to blink! He couldn't recover his senses for a long time!

It had to be said, Li Biao's psychological resilience was actually quite good!

Before Wang An could even recover, Li Biao started calling out: "Brother Wang, Brother Wang, pull me up, my arms are sore."

After several shouts, Wang An finally regained some strength!

He also snapped out of it. Sitting up, Wang An looked at Li Biao hanging there.

In truth, the thing he most wanted to do was fire a shot at Li Biao's head! No, two shots!!

This large rock was a little over two meters high!

Below the rock was a snow pit about fifty or sixty centimeters deep; the pigs had likely dug it out to lie in!

The snow, which was now quite hard and thick, had been packed down by the boars slamming into Li Biao's legs. Even packed snow has thickness.

This meant Li Biao's feet were only about a meter above the ground! He was likely scared shitless and didn't dare jump!

Or perhaps his calves or feet were injured! But looking at his expression, it didn't seem so!

So, Wang An ignored him and carefully climbed down from a lower rock nearby!

He walked up to the pile of boars and inspected the nine animals killed by the twenty bullets!

Three large cannonballs—the biggest was nearly 500 pounds, which was no small feat; the other two were also over 350 pounds!

Two old sows, both around 300 pounds, which was a normal weight for a sow!

Four yellow-hairs; the two largest were the ones that had returned just now upon the command of the large boars, their tusks already starting to poke out!

They were about 180 pounds, and their yellow fur was almost gone; they were about to shed it all and become cannonballs.

The other two were year-old pigs weighing around 130 to 140 pounds, which is when wild boar meat is at its best!

Actually, the best meat comes from the "striped piglets"—the very young ones! As long as they are cooked, they are delicious! No matter how you prepare them, they taste great!

After a while, realizing Wang An was ignoring him, Li Biao seemed to have finally realized the situation.

He performed a free-fall and landed in the snow pit!

He landed on his feet first, then sat in the snow pit. He didn't get up; he just sat there looking like an idiot!

Perhaps his nervous system finally reached his brain, and he finally understood what fear was!

Wang An ignored him as well, pulling out a knife to bleed the pigs one by one. The goal was to let out as much blood as possible, otherwise, the meat wouldn't taste good!

Gutting them was out of the question in this freezing weather! He hadn't regained his strength and was still quite weak!

Besides, with this many pigs, using Wang An's method, he would be working until midnight!

Meanwhile, Li Biao was still sitting facing the large rock, perhaps contemplating where he had gone wrong!

After bleeding the pigs, Wang An went to fetch the sled!

By the time Wang An returned with the sled, Li Biao seemed to have finally come to his senses!

With a sheepish grin, he said, "Brother Wang!" then opened his mouth, but said nothing more!

Wang An was utterly disappointed in Li Biao!

The man he considered his best brother had performed far too poorly!

Disobedient, stubborn, willful, self-righteous, and overly ambitious! His work was clumsy and lacked even a shred of steadiness!

When the boar herd charged, if they had been two or three seconds faster, those four pairs of large tusks would have surely struck them!

It was certain that they would have been killed or maimed! Not to mention the several large sows following behind, charging and trampling!

If that scene hadn't sent them to the grave, one could only say that Heaven didn't want them to die!!

Seeing that Li Biao had stopped talking, Wang An began dragging the boars onto the sled!

Seeing Wang An dragging the boars, Li Biao hurried forward to help!

It seemed that although Li Biao had been hanging from the rock for a long time, he was indeed unhurt, which was a stroke of luck!

Wang An made a silent vow: from now on, they would only be "brothers" in name!

But they would never go mountain hunting or work together again!

Go play in the dirt!

This brother was too much trouble! Unmanageable! Truly unmanageable!

As Wang An thought these things, the space on the sled was limited, and the boars wouldn't all fit!

He decisively left the three cannonballs behind and hauled the two sows and four yellow-hairs back first!

On the way back, he tossed the sacks containing wild chickens and rabbits onto the sled, and the two men drove the sled toward home!