Return to 1983 Hunting Xing'an Mountains

Chapter 734 Using a Crude Method to Kill a Bear: I'm a Tiger, Scratch and Scratch!
Standing under the tree.

The three Li brothers stared at Tang Er, who was babbling incessantly with his fingers extended in a delicate, orchid-like gesture. They were filled with mixed emotions. They were terrified that the black bear would emerge from the sky-granary. They were standing right under the tree, and if the black bear slowly crawled out, a single forward lunge could crush them both, greatly increasing the danger...

Li Laosan cursed inwardly, "This Tang Er is really clueless. What's he arguing about at a time like this? Hurry up and get moving, light the fire and call the granary!"
The loudspeaker had contacted the Li brothers before. Of the three, Li Er was the most reliable. He was smarter and more worldly-wise than Li Laoda and Li Laosan. However, he also showed his true colors when it came to money and benefits. He couldn't resist the temptation of money, so it's not surprising that he could do such a thing.

Li Er stared at Tang Er, who was panting heavily, and quickly advised, "Brother..."

"Who the hell is your brother?"

"That sister..."

"You, you're being insolent! You're insulting people, you shameless bastard..."

When Tang Er gets angry, he's no different from a shrew, even more so. With his attitude, Li Er feels like a scholar encountering a soldier, unable to reason with him no matter what!
Seeing the three brothers' expressions, Tang Hao advised from the side, "Let them finish speaking. I think I heard some noise in the warehouse just now."

Upon hearing this, Tang Er fell silent. Li Er then said, "Brother, well... it was the three of us who handled this matter unfairly, and I apologize to you, okay? But things have already come to this point, and the black bear in the warehouse is about to come out. Can we put aside our grudges and work together to beat this black bear?"

Tang Er, focused solely on the money, asked, "Then how do we divide it? You tell me how we should divide it!"

"Let's split the profits 30/70 as you've suggested, you get 70%, we get 30%..."

Li Laosan was somewhat unconvinced and was about to step forward to speak when Li Laoda pulled him back and shook his head, signaling him not to get involved.

Tang Er curled his lip and snorted coldly, "Is that even human language! If it were any other time, I would have already started scratching you three like this."

Li Laosan muttered disdainfully, "Are you a cat? You're scratching people."

"I'm a fucking tiger! I'll scratch you all to death!"

Tang Er imitated the way a hungry tiger pounces on its prey, raising both hands into claw shapes and scratching the air twice.

The three Li brothers were completely stunned; this move... seemed to have some skill.

"Then let's quickly light a fire!"

Tang Hao asked, "You can't do anything sabotage when the warehouse is being called, can you?"

"If they dare to do anything bad, I'll scratch them to death! Hao, you stand in the back later. If they do anything bad, just go home and call Dad to collect their corpses!"

Tang Hao nodded calmly. There was nothing wrong with Tang Er's arrangement. He was used to calling him "our dad" because Tang Hao had no parents and had grown up in the Tang family since he was a child. He called Old Tang "uncle," which was no different from calling him "dad."

Li Er quickly tried to smooth things over, saying, "Don't worry, when my parents passed away, it was Uncle Tang who helped us take care of everything. How could we be ungrateful?"

"Heh, didn't you just betray us? What are you bragging about? You can't trust anyone."

Tang Er's mouth rattled off a string of words, completely subduing the three Li brothers. The three of them never expected Tang Er's personality to be like this. They had only heard that Old Tang had a second son who behaved strangely and was like an old woman. Today, seeing him in person, they found him to be extraordinary, even more eccentric than an old woman.

Li Laoda clasped his hands and said, "I surrender, I surrender completely! Don't worry, as long as we can kill this bear, the bear gall is yours, and the bear meat and skin are for the three of us."

Tang Er glanced at Tang Hao before nodding, "Then the three of you get to work."

Li Laosan asked, "Aren't you going to lend a hand?"

"Do we look like we'd be hunting livestock? Hurry up and get to work, or the bears will come out."

The three Li brothers looked helpless and could only reluctantly persuade, "You know how to gather firewood, right? Come with my youngest brother to gather firewood."

"Fine, I told you the three of you can't do without us two brothers."

The Li brothers wisely chose to keep quiet. They realized that they couldn't gain any advantage by communicating with Tang Er, so the best course of action was to remain silent.

Li Laosan, Tang Er, and Tang Hao were collecting tree branches around them, while Li Er and Li Laoda were looking for an open space and planning their escape route. They tied three ropes along the way, similar to tripwires, but the ropes were unlikely to trip the black bear; at most, they would only slow down the black bear's pursuit.

So, Li the eldest and Li the second found three adjacent trees, about three meters apart. Li the second took out a net from his cloth bag, and the two brothers climbed up the trees and tied the net on.

This shows that the three Li brothers did indeed have experience in fighting bears. Ordinary people only know to use axes and guillotines to cut the bear's neck, but they don't know to use ropes and nets to restrain it. Even if it is restrained for 10 seconds, that is a golden time to be gained. They can use this time to swing the axe and kill the bear, greatly reducing the chance of the bear attacking them and increasing their chances of survival.

"Start from these two fires, circle around them two or three times, then lead them this way. You call the third brother, right?"

Boss Li nodded: "If we don't go and call the warehouse, are we going to let that woman go?"

Li Er smiled and said, "This is indeed our fault, so don't be upset."

"It's inevitable to be tempted by money, and I'm not really bothered by it, it's just that this woman's insults are too awful."

“Hey, why are you doing the same thing as him? When our parents passed away, Uncle Tang didn’t even mention money. It took us two years to pay off our debt.”

"I know, otherwise I would have beaten him up just now for this favor."

Nearby, Tang Er, Li Laosan, and Tang Hao returned carrying firewood. Under Li Er's command, the group built two fires about 30 meters apart in the east and west directions, with six or seven not-so-dense trees in between. To make it easier to escape, Li Laoda cleared away the messy branches.

After Tang Hao noticed this, he whispered to Tang Er, "The three of them are quite professional."

"Professional my foot! After all these years, he's even managed to get by with a gun. Is that what you call professional?"

These words left Tang Hao speechless. After a moment, Li Er walked over and said, "You two go up the hillside later. We don't need you to fight the black bear, okay?"

"Why not use it? Use it or not, it's up to you..."

Hearing this, Li Laosan got excited and said, "Hey! Don't you know what's good for you? We're afraid you'll get attacked by black bears, you know?"

"Are you trying to be kind? This isn't the time when you were secretly hunting black bears behind our backs."

Boss Li glared at him and said, "Are you not done yet? You've already cursed us, and we've apologized, what more do you want?"

"You've scolded me, apologized, but does that mean nothing happened? Huh! Let me ask you, if a pane of glass falls to the ground and breaks, can it be put back together? Can it?"

Upon hearing this, the three Li brothers were so angry that they gritted their teeth. They simply couldn't argue with Tang Er's mouth; he was too good at talking.

“Okay, then we two brothers will go to the hillside and wait. If things don’t look right, we’ll run away.”

Boss Li waved his hand and said, "Just don't cause trouble, let's go quickly."

Li Er said, "San'er, you go with your elder brother to call Tiancang. Remember, as soon as Tiancang hears any noise, he should run..."

"I know." At this moment, Tang Er and Tang Hao had already stood on the hillside. Li Laoda and Li Laosan carried their large axes and cleavers and walked to the front of the tree. They swung their axes and cleavers and pounded the tree hard with their backs.

The sound that came through was a muffled clang, and after knocking for half a minute, movement came from inside.

A clear panting sound and the scratching of claws on the tree alerted the two, and they immediately ran towards the fire.

However, the black bear that was squatting in the granary did not crawl out as they wished; it seemed to have changed its position and continued to sleep.

"Brother, I'll knock a couple more times, can you listen for me?"

"Yes, be careful."

Li Laosan ran to the tree and swung his axe at it again.

Dang Dang Dang...

Woohoo~
This is the sound made by the black bear, only the sound is not loud.

"Hurry! We're coming out."

Li Laosan turned and ran, stopping with Li Laoda about 20 meters from the fire, then turned and stared at Tiancangkou.

Before long, a black claw rested on the edge, followed by another black claw. The claws of these two black claws were very long. With a slight scratching at the edge, they scraped off some wood chips, which was enough to prove how sharp the black claws were.

After its two paws rested on the edge, the black head emerged, with round ears and a black nose that twitched twice toward the sky before finally opening its dazed eyes.

Tang Er covered his eyes with both hands on the hillside. Through his fingers, he saw the bear peeking out with its head. He was excited and was about to shout when Tang Hao covered his mouth.

"Don't shout, you'll startle the bear!"

Putting everything else aside, Tang Er takes his younger brother's words very seriously. If someone else spoke to him like that, he would have already started cursing.

Standing beside the fire, Li Er whispered, "When it comes down, you two run over here, circle around twice, and go to the rope over there..."

Boss Li stared intently at Black Bear, then raised his hand and waved behind him to indicate that he had heard.

About 10 seconds later, the upper body of the black bear emerged from the Tiancang Pass, its fur already matted into a thick, felt-like mass.

It made occasional humming sounds, as if it wasn't quite satisfied with this hibernation.

Let alone animals, even a person sleeping soundly will feel angry if they are suddenly disturbed and woken up, let alone a wild beast that has no sense of human nature.

This black bear is quite strong. Although it has been sleeping in the barn for more than three months, it still has a lot of fat all over its body and weighs about 350 kilograms, which is considered a standard weight for an adult black bear.

Black bears living around mountain villages are generally not very big. The black bear that Xu Ning killed last year, which weighed over 400 pounds, was already considered one of the best in the black bear community.

However, deep in the mountains, there are some giant black bears that reign supreme. Their size alone is comparable to that of brown bears, and their ferocity is no less than that of brown bears, and may even surpass it!

Xu Ning has been running around lately, dealing with one thing after another; otherwise, he would have already gone into the mountains to find the big black bear and catch the big skin dog.

At this moment, the black bear clumsily pushed off with its hind legs, its claws landing on the tree, slowly climbing down. If they had guns at this moment, they only needed to shoot it in the head, and the killing would be complete. Unfortunately, the five of them couldn't even scrape together an old sledgehammer.

Just as the black bear landed, Boss Li suddenly raised the guillotine and slammed it against the tree. The black bear was startled as soon as its limbs touched the ground. It looked toward the source of the sound and roared!
The sound was so loud and carried so far that Xu Ning and others, who were four or five miles away, heard it.

The three Li brothers were used to this kind of scene, after all, it wasn't the first time they had killed someone. However, Tang Er and Tang Hao were dumbfounded. The roar was so shocking that Tang Er almost wet his pants.

"That was pretty scary... Hao, shall we move back a bit?"

"Don't move. I heard from the Zhao brothers that the black bear has poor eyesight. If we just stand here, it won't be able to see us."

"You're kidding me."

Not far away, after letting out a roar, the black bear took off running towards Li Laoda and Li Laosan. At first, his four legs were a little clumsy, but after a couple of steps, he ran much more smoothly.

Without hesitation, Li Laoda and Li Laosan turned and ran towards the fire. Their pace was neither too fast nor too slow. When they reached the fire, they glanced back and saw that the black bear had followed them. Only then did Li Laosan push Li Laoda and say, "Brother, you hide first. I'll run a couple of laps with it!"

Be careful!

Li Laoda picked up a burning piece of wood from the fire and threw it at the bear. The bear darted to the left and dodged the wood, then roared repeatedly. It didn't see who threw it, but only chased after Li Laosan, who was moving.

"Wow, that Li Laosan is pretty strong! He's running around carrying that big axe!" Tang Er exclaimed.

Li Er squatted at the spot where the tripwire was, eagerly waiting. He saw Li Laosan run two laps with Hei Xiazi, and then called out, "Laosan, come on!"

Li Laosan sped up and ran towards the tripwire. Since the route was a straight line, he was definitely not as fast as Hei Xiazi. Fortunately, he was not far away. Just as Hei Xiazi was about to catch up with him, he jumped over the tripwire.

Li Er reacted quickly, immediately lifting the rope and tying one end to a tree. He then saw the bear paws on the ground, sliding nearly two meters through the snow, but still managed to get caught on the tripwire.

Black Bear's face was whipped twice by the rope, and he shook his head in place. Boss Li rushed up with the guillotine and chopped at Black Bear's neck. However, as he swung the guillotine, Black Bear involuntarily stood up. The two-meter-tall Black Bear looked down at Boss Li who was rushing towards him and roared twice with his mouth wide open.

"Damn it!" Boss Li stopped abruptly, threw down the guillotine, and turned to run towards the campfire.

"Big brother! Run!"

Black Bear was less than three meters away from Boss Li, but by the time it swung away the flying guillotine and landed on its forelimbs, Boss Li had already run five or six meters away.

Its roars continued, clearly indicating its extreme anger. It kicked and chased after Boss Li, catching up with him in just two leaps.

"Big brother, turn! Turn! Don't run straight..."

Li Laosan was extremely anxious, holding his large axe. Upon hearing this, Li Laoda quickly turned around and continued running around the tree. Just as he turned, the black bear's claws had already hooked onto his back.

With a 'rip' sound, the cotton-padded coat was torn open, revealing the cotton fluff inside. The slightly yellowish cotton floated in the air and slowly fell to the ground with the wind.

"What do we do, Second Brother?"

Li Er rolled his eyes, ran ahead, picked up the guillotine from the ground, and said, "Go and meet up with Big Brother. Go to the net later, don't rush. This bear still has energy. It's good that it circled around a couple more times earlier."

The best way to kill a bear is to circle the fire more than 10 times. The more you circle, the worse the bear's sense of balance becomes. When it's dizzy, it's much easier to take it down in one go.

(End of this chapter)