My 1995 Small Farm.

Autumn deepens, but the cicadas still sing.

After getting the medical books for Wang Susu and stewing the newly bought pig's trotters, he returned to the village.

That night, he and Chen Ze and a few others kept watch over the greenery, and he deliberately left his stomach empty and didn't eat dinner.

After returning to the village, they prepared a large pot of crabs, fish, and shrimp to eat while keeping watch at the threshing ground that night.

Crabs are in season right now.

In addition, this is the best way to pass the time. At night, with a gentle breeze blowing, you can sit around a fire, eat and chat, which creates a wonderful atmosphere.

Nothing really happened that night.

Two of the men on night watch had their own agendas last year.

This year, however, everyone was in high spirits and very enthusiastic.

Although Chen Baoshuan wasn't a very good person in the past, he was quite skilled at catching birds.

Once autumn arrives and birds stop breeding, they start to get fat.

Every year around this time, when the night is quiet, this man would carry a lantern and a bamboo ladder to go out and catch birds in those old, uninhabited houses.

As we all know, sparrows and doves are lazy and stupid. Sparrows like to live in existing cracks in the wall, while doves don't even know how to build a nest. Sometimes they just lie there and sleep under the eaves.

At night, with the light shining on them, no one would know they've run away.

They can catch a huge net full of fish in one night, and they can't catch them all.

That night, he brought a bunch of birds and pigeons. The pigeons were braised with the braising sauce he had asked Chen Ling for before, and the birds were deep-fried.

That dish, paired with Chen Ling's crabs, fish, and shrimp, was incredibly delicious.

There's just one problem: it consumes too much alcohol.

But I did enjoy eating it.

Everyone says Chen Baoshuan has really invested heavily this time.

They're all willing to deep-fry it.

They praised him so much that their voices rose eight octaves.

He talked at length with Chen Ling and the others.

These days, the villagers who are guarding the animals have caught quite a few deer and roe deer, and some have even caught muntjacs.

It is a small male muntjac.

The original intention was to send it to Chen Ling's house to pair up with the female muntjac deer.

But who knew that this little thing was so timid.

I was so frightened by the dog and goose in the house that I ran around the yard and bumped into things, ending up with a bloody head.

He killed himself by running over.

There was really no other way, so they kept sending meat to Wang Cunye.

Chen Ling also knew this; there were so many water towers.

He was like a king of the kids all day, leading the little ones to eat at home. Except for a few special families, most parents would want Chen Ling for anything unusual or rare they had at home.

The corn on the cob is ready to eat, so I'll bring it over to him.

If you catch prey, share some with him too.

Even if the adults don't say it, the kids still remember their Uncle Fugui.

So even if the prey wasn't found on the spot, Chen Ling's family would definitely get a share.

There are many wild animals in the mountains this year.

Large and small, they were very prosperous.

These days, the corn is gradually hardening, unlike when it was tender and fragrant, which attracted more wild animals down the mountain.

But they didn't come down the mountain.

People come to see the green plants at night but have nothing to do, so they try to lure them down the mountain.

Right at the foot of the mountain, pits and salt pits were dug and set up along the ditches of the cornfields.

There are many wild animals in the mountains. Even if they have enough to eat, they will still search for salt to eat if they have difficulty finding it.

Domestic animals need salt to lick, and wild animals in the mountains also need salt.

They usually find salt on the rocks high up in the mountains to lick.

But how much salt is that?

There aren't enough wild animals to keep licking and eating.

In this way, in addition to the necessary food, salt is also extremely attractive to them.

The group of people who were watching over the deer caught quite a few deer using the salt pits.

It is said that Wang Juxiang's family even caught a wild goat.

But given his family's relationship with Chen Ling, there's no need to say more.

Today, Chen Ling and his team naturally wouldn't just sit idly by. In addition to the necessary patrols, they set up salt pits and traps without missing a single one.

Chen Ling knew better than anyone the location of the animal trails on the outskirts of the mountains and forests.

When he sets a trap, he reaps far greater rewards than anyone else.

When I went out to hunt traps in the morning, I didn't miss a single spot. Traps, snares, salt pits—I caught them every time.

Most of them are deer.

Grass deer, sika deer, and a musk deer.

There are also small wild rabbits and hedgehogs. These two things, especially hedgehogs, can be quite annoying if there are too many of them.

This is similar to small fish swarming the bait when fishing.

They were originally aiming for big prey, but ended up with all these kinds of things.

Unfortunately, once there were too many of these things, the traps became useless.

Isn't it annoying?
"Uncle Fugui, look! There's a herd of deer!"

Chen Yuqiang, standing on the hillside of Xishan, suddenly exclaimed in surprise.

Everyone hurriedly looked in that direction.

There really were deer stealing corn.

In the misty, humid morning, a group of sika deer were munching on corn in the cornfield.

The way they eat corn is quite comical.

Like a sheep, it stands up with its front legs as if it's hugging a corn stalk, and its mouth is aimed directly at the corn on the top, gnawing on it.

Some people also complained that the corn was too old.

With its head tilted back, it sniffed around at the corn on the stalks.

Their goal is to find sweet, tender corn.

Sometimes it will even stand up and smell it.

At this moment, Chen Yuqiang shouted, and the deer in the cornfield were instantly startled, letting out cries and leaping away in panic.

"boom--"

Seeing this, Chen Ling raised his gun, aimed, and fired a shot at the deer herd.

In an instant, a deer fell to the ground in response.

"Good marksmanship."

"That was a really good shot."

Upon seeing this, everyone quickly trudged into the cornfield to catch the deer.

The deer ran too fast; they didn't have a chance to fire.

Fortunately, Chen Ling reacted quickly and prevented them all from escaping. That's why Chen Ling didn't bring the dogs with him that night.

I only brought a few weasels with me.

Otherwise, not a single deer in the herd would be able to escape.

'Squeak, squeak~'

Just then, we heard the screech of a weasel coming from not far away.

"You guys gut the deer first, I'll go take a look to the south."

Chen Ling shouted and headed south along the gullies and ridges at the foot of the mountain.

Besides raising fish, he has recently developed a great interest in small animals such as weasels.

There's no other reason; ever since I saw that group of ferocious yellow-throated martens, the thought of it has been making me itchy to go back for more.

They thought that since the yellow-throated marten could hunt deer and wild boar, why should their own weasel be any worse?

Besides, it was raised in a grotto-heaven.

Indeed, his weasels are no less formidable.

The rabbit had probably been caught late and was struggling quite hard. As soon as Chen Baoliang untied the snare, the rabbit kicked him, and he limped away.

He hadn't run two steps before two little weasels pinned him to the ground and bit him to death.

The deer too.

Grass deer are mostly solitary and are wilder and fiercer than sika deer.

Some of them, who hadn't exhausted their strength, were all taken down by the weasels.

Chen Ling had just released them, and now he's discovered something else.

We walked along the ditch, cutting through the grass, and entered a sweet potato field.

Weasels are jumping around here.

Chen Ling went inside to take a look.

A wolf and a dog died here.

The wolf was an old wolf, thin and frail, and the dog was just a village mongrel, an ordinary, common yellow dog.

Meanwhile, the weasels were standing on the old wolf's corpse, trying to curry favor with Chen Ling.

"Did you kill this wolf?"

Chen Ling walked closer and saw that the wound on his neck, besides the obvious dog bites, also had bite marks left by weasels.

"Hey, that's a great job, but you guys need to be a bit more aggressive in the future, just a little bit more aggressive would be better."

Chen Ling happily caught them and put them on his body, stroking them one by one to express his appreciation.

Aside from the difference in size, weasels and yellow-throated martens are different.

There are also differences in their respective perspectives.

Yellow-throated martens are incredibly bold, daring to hunt prey several times their own size.

Weasels don't have that concept; they just find mice, birds, insects, and the like to fill their stomachs.

At most, they'll target some wild animal cubs.

They won't be able to keep up if they get any bigger.

What Chen Ling needs to do is make them even fiercer and bolder.

However, after praising these little guys...

Chen Ling frowned as he looked at the wolf and dog on the ground. "Why has another old wolf come down the mountain?"

"Are there so many old wolves culled in the mountains this year? Why do they have to come down from the mountain to compete for food?"

Filled with doubts, he squatted down and began to poke at the wolf and dog to examine the situation more closely.

Just then, Chen Ze and his group arrived.

“Fugui, I recognize it. That’s my second aunt’s land. Although her two sons came back to the village this year, they planted their corn later than everyone else. No wonder those deer were eating the corn there…”

It turns out hers is tenderer than the others.

Chen Ze spoke as he walked.

When they got over there and saw Chen Ling lying there silently with two dogs in front of him, they assumed something had happened to Chen Ling's dogs, so they quickly ran over and asked, "What's wrong? What happened?"

"Another wolf has come down from the mountain, old wolf."

Chen Ling stood up and patted the mud off his hands: "This even killed a dog."

"A dog? How did a dog get here?"

Chen Baoliang was taken aback, but then fell silent. He remembered asking Chen Ling last night why he had brought the weasel.

Chen Ling recounted his recent experience of hunting yellow-throated martens in the mountains and what he saw on the animal trails.

Those animal trails weren't just frequented by wild beasts.

The animal trails on the outskirts of the mountains are relatively safe, and the village dogs and cats often pass through them when they go up the mountain to find food.

This dog was clearly one that didn't get enough to eat during the day and had to go up the mountain at night to find food.

They happened to run into an old wolf coming down the mountain.

"There are their footprints next to the trap here. There was a small deer on the trap, and it was bitten so badly that only its head was left. It must have been eaten by wolves."

The dog came smelling the aroma and started fighting.

Seeing the weasel run to the other side to lead the way, Chen Ling went over to take a look and knew roughly what had happened.

"Goodness, this old wolf is pretty fierce."

Chen Ze glared at the wolf and then kicked it: "This dog could have been trained into a good hunting dog if it had come up the mountain on its own. Let it kill it."

"A wolf is a wolf after all, but it should be considered a lose-lose situation..."

Chen Ling said.

The wolf wasn't quite dead; his own weasel finished it off with a final blow.

"This is the second time this year that an old wolf has come down the mountain. You all know the last time, it was the time at Lishan's house, where it was gored to death by that old boar."

"Old Wolf, Old Wolf... you'd better be careful."

Chen Ling didn't say some things, but everyone understood.

Who among the families living near the mountains doesn't know how ferocious wolves are?
Don't let your guard down just because a lone wolf has come down from the mountain.

Lone wolves are the most likely to cause harm.

Especially the old wolves and hungry wolves, they are very cunning.

Most of those who steal children are wolves like this.

When wolf packs commit crimes, they often target livestock and animals.

While it's not uncommon for them to attack people, it's relatively rare.

"It's almost harvest time, everyone be on high alert. Watching the green plants is fine, but don't let this beast sneak into your house. There are kids in the house."

Chen Ling's joy at the bumper harvest was now overshadowed: "If there are still wolves like this coming down the mountain after the autumn harvest, then we'll have to go into the mountains to see what's going on."

If there are old wolves, specifically target and kill these kinds of wolves.

“Okay, I won’t go out to work this year. I’ll go hunting with you, Fugui.”

Chen Ze responded loudly.

Everyone took this matter to heart.

Older wolves are the weaker, sicker, and disabled members of the wolf pack. Many of them have lost the ability to hunt large wild animals. With plenty of wild animals in the mountains, they can only watch helplessly.

And in order to avoid being killed by their own kind or other ferocious wild beasts.

Many of them would come down the mountain and prey on the elderly and children in the village. (End of Chapter)