Chapter 23: Mother's Scolding

"To be blessed is my fortune, to lose is my fate!"

Constantly comforting himself, he dragged the sika deer and the leopard onto the sled, hitched the big horse, and headed home!

It suddenly occurred to him that the gallbladder of a leopard seemed to have very high medicinal value!

But the thing about gallbladders is that once any animal dies, they slowly dissipate; given enough time, there's nothing left!

He dragged the leopard off the sled again, cut it open, and took the gallbladder first.

He kept the heart, liver, and lungs, and hung the intestines on a tree branch.

Wang An didn't know exactly why the intestines had to be hung on a tree branch!

Anyway, whenever he heard hunters bragging, they always included this part, saying it was to show respect to the Mountain God.

Whether a Mountain God actually existed, Wang An didn't know either!

Regardless, he just hung the intestines on the tree!

This thing—a carnivore, not nearly as delicious as wild boar intestines—if they said to hang it, he'd hang it; he wasn't one to be stubborn!

He stuffed the heart, liver, and lungs back into the snow-filled belly and dragged it back onto the sled.

Over twenty minutes had passed, nearly half an hour!

This gutting work wasn't suited for him! He had heard his brother-in-law say he knew how to gut animals and had plenty of strength; he could study it in the future!

By the time he was done with all this, it was almost ten o'clock!

He immediately drove the sled home. It wasn't that Wang An didn't want to hunt more wild boar, but there were all kinds of livestock in the mountains!

There were too many unpredictable variables! The sika deer and the leopard were too valuable; if the leopard were left there and its fur suffered even the slightest damage, that would be a loss of pure money!

Just from what Wang An had caught today, the money from selling this single leopard would be more than what many hunters earned in several years!

Not to mention there was also a sika deer; the deer penis, antlers, hooves, tail, hide, tendons, heart, kidneys, and bones were all valuable items!

Even the deer meat, which was the most abundant part, was a great tonic for qi and blood, much more expensive than even farm-raised pork!

Furthermore, these two together weighed nearly 300 catties. Adding his own weight, the sled was already pulling about 450 catties!

Though for a big horse, it was almost like pulling nothing at all!

And today's harvest was truly quite decent! Plenty of meat, and high value! Being too greedy wasn't good!

With a series of "gee-haw" and "whoa," he arrived home near 12 o'clock.

With a long, loud shout, the whole family came running out again.

Whether it was because Mu Xueqing had married into the family or not, none of the three youngsters ran out to play.

Ignoring the family's exclamations and commotion, he unhitched the big horse from the sled and tied it in the shed.

He then used a large bowl to scoop a heaped bowl of corn kernels for the big horse, and a level bowl for the idle mare!

These corn kernels were called "feed"! The "feed" part of forage is actually grain.

It is actually best to grind the grain and feed it that way!

Because mules, horses, and donkeys are straight-gutted animals; they don't chew the cud!

Once swallowed, not much nutrition is absorbed; there are even grain particles in the horse manure—the grain is wasted.

Cows and sheep chew the cud!

Chewing the cud is rumination; they swallow food first to ferment in the stomach, and when they have nothing to do, they bring it back up to the mouth to chew before swallowing it again!

The best horse feed is soybeans, black beans, and bean meal, followed by corn, sorghum, and millet.

Of course, other grains are perfectly fine; it just depends on whether you can afford it!

It's best to feed them a bit of feed every day; otherwise, they'll lose weight incredibly fast!

Mules, horses, donkeys, cattle, and other large livestock all need feed; without it, they can't work hard and will get thinner and thinner!

And salt—you must feed them salt! Just take those old, discarded salt blocks, break them up, and that's enough!

You don't need to feed it every day; a big handful every three to five days is sufficient!

The big horse had worked hard today, running over 80 li round trip! Feeding it a bit more wouldn't hurt!

This was also why Liu Guilan and Wang Dazhu had looked so worried when Wang An rode the two horses back!

Forage is easy to handle—corn stalks, sorghum stalks, rice straw, all that is easy to get!

But this feed must be pure grain! And it must be fed every day! In this era, what kind of family could afford that??

After feeding the two horses, Wang An found that the others had already carried the leopard and the sika deer to the outer room!

Not hearing any joyful discussions from them, Wang An went into the west room himself, pulled the money and coupons he had scavenged yesterday from the *kang* chest, and counted them carefully.

Fine grain coupons: 84 catties, quite good.

Coarse grain coupons: 236 catties, not bad.

Sugar coupons: 11.3 catties, very good.

Biscuit coupons: 17.5 catties, also quite good!

Bicycle coupon: 1, absolutely amazing.

Refined salt coupons: 13 catties (In the countryside, people eat large-grain salt that doesn't require coupons, or they buy old salt blocks and wash them with water before eating).

Cloth coupons: 2 bolts. This was incredible; one bolt is about 33 meters, so how many clothes and pants could 66 meters of cloth make??

Meat coupons: 16.2 catties. This wasn't very useful to Wang An unless he went to a state-run restaurant; otherwise, he'd have to exchange them for other coupons or sell them!

He then counted the money again. Including the 300 he had taken out when going to Mu Xueqing's house yesterday, the four of them had a total of 546.4 yuan.

Looking at it this way, these items were all stolen goods from those four!

The coupons might even be from other cities; luckily they all belonged to Heilongjiang Province, otherwise they wouldn't be usable within the province at all!

Those four guys had certainly stolen or robbed quite a bit!! This worked out in my favor, hehehehe.

Adding the money from the three animals and the sale of the roe deer, subtracting the money spent at the supply and marketing cooperative and the money spent buying the dog, and subtracting the 10 yuan given to his old man!

He still had 360 yuan and some small bills in his pocket; he counted the money and it balanced!

He had to keep making money! Go into the mountains! Hunt! He couldn't let his money be a finite amount!

Anyway, no more business; he wouldn't do business even if it killed him!!

In a few years, when everything is deregulated, animal husbandry will be a decent business!

For example, raising sika deer—the whole thing is a treasure!! Roe deer are also good; that patch of white fur on their rear is quite fun!

He also needs to raise some flying dragons; they taste good and are valuable! Such a small thing, weighing about half a jin to seven or eight taels, sells for 5 yuan a piece at the market!

Just as he was pondering a beautiful future, he heard his mother calling him from the outer room!

As soon as he walked into the outer room, Liu Guilan unleashed a torrent of scolding upon him.

"You little brat! You actually dared to hunt a leopard? Do you not want to live anymore?"

"Before you came back, I thought you'd been injured by some beast and had just gotten lucky!"

"That damn leopard only has one eye on its head! You death-defying little thief, you might as well just scold your mother to death!"

"What did I tell you? Huh? Didn't I tell you not to provoke that kind of thing? Told you to stay away from it!"

"What? Did you think you could hold your own if you ran into a big paw?"

"You think you're so tough? You think you're so brave?"

"You bastard, I'll just beat you to death with a fire poker! Save me the trouble of being kicked by a mountain beast!"

Wang An didn't say a word, quietly listening to his mother's scolding!

In his heart, he was actually quite moved. Although every word was unpleasant, they were full of care, worry, and lingering fear!

His mother, though just an ordinary rural woman with a bit of a love for money, possessed a love for her children that was earth-shaking and incomparable!!

Wang Dazhu and Mu Xueqing had also lost their previous cheerfulness, silently skinning and butchering the leopard.

Day after day, they had forgotten about his mother! They were only thinking about how much this thing was worth!

Sigh!!

To speak plainly and without concealment

San Tu wants coupons, please show your face!

Recommend, collect, monthly tickets, and comments!

As long as you give, anything will do!

San Tu bows, immensely grateful!

Tickets! Tickets! Tickets!!!

(End of Chapter)