Reborn in the 1980s: I made my fortune hunting wild game in Changbai Mountain

"Not bad, Brother Feng! Your marksmanship is definitely good enough. You must have practiced a lot, right?" Yue Feng glanced at the black bear with a bullet wound right between its eyebrows and couldn't help but give Feng Huanping a thumbs up in praise.

The angle at which the bear emerged from the tree hole wasn't directly facing the people below. Feng Huanping raised his gun, aimed, and executed a series of actions. Hitting the target wasn't difficult, but hitting the center of the forehead was definitely not a matter of luck. Yue Feng understood the basics of handling guns, and this wouldn't fool his eyes.

Feng Huanping grinned: "Hehe, I just go to the shooting range to fire a few shots when I have nothing else to do! I just got lucky and happened to be there!"

"Right in the middle of your forehead! Even if I were to fire, I wouldn't be able to guarantee such a steady shot! How about that roar from the bear just now? Did everyone's scalp tingle?" Yue Feng continued, smiling as he asked.

"You know what, this thing is really weird! Just now, I felt like I was electrocuted, from the back of my tail straight to the top of my head!" Zhang Chaochao couldn't help but say from the side.

“I felt it too. Is this a kind of shouting suppression effect? ​​That shouldn’t be the case,” Feng Huanping said, scratching his head.

Yue Feng explained, "I've heard some knowledgeable people say that there are infrasound waves in the roars of bears or tigers, and this stuff can create an instinctive conditioned reflex in people!"
Never mind all that, Xiao Tao, while the prey is still warm, hurry up and gut it and get the gallbladder out!

"Okay, you guys take a break, I'll take over!" Xiao Tao replied, drew his dagger from his waist, and walked over to Xiong to prepare.

Yue Feng reached out and took the gun from Feng Huanping, then locked the safety and slung it over his shoulder. Everyone else leaned against the trees to rest.

Following normal procedures, it would take Xiao Tao at most ten minutes to gut an adult bear and remove the entire lantern set.

If it's just removing the bear bile, it takes less than five minutes.

During this time, everyone can fully recover the physical strength expended from walking, and at the same time, witness the professional procedures for handling prey such as bears.

However, Xiao Tao stopped what he was doing less than thirty seconds later.

"Brother, come and take a look!" Xiao Tao shouted to Yue Feng.

"What's wrong?"

"Come here!" Xiao Tao didn't answer, but repeated himself. His mood, which was quite happy just a second ago, clearly dipped a bit.

Yue Feng's heart tightened, and he immediately took a few steps forward.

"Look here! The one we killed looks like a mother bear with cubs!" Xiao Tao pointed to the exposed area on the black bear's belly, where there were two very obvious little tufts of fur, and the surrounding soft fur showed signs of being wet with liquid.

Yue Feng looked down and examined it carefully, his heart sinking.

Xiao Tao wasn't mistaken, it really was a female bear!

In the Changbai Mountains, many bears give birth to cubs in winter, which is not uncommon. Even the bear cub named Coal Ball on Yuefeng Mountain was caught by a logging team in winter.

However, under normal circumstances, the birth should be delayed by one or two months, with most babies being born closer to January. Now that the first heavy snow has just fallen, this baby is indeed too early.

"Damn it!" Yue Feng gasped for breath, saying nothing, but forced out a curse.

"What should we do? The baby might still be in the tree hole!" Xiao Tao asked.

At this moment, Xiaowen and Xiaowu, who were not far away, also came over after hearing Yue Feng swearing.

"Brother, what's wrong?"

"Damn it, this is a mother bear with cubs! I should have known better than to fight her! Look at the marks from when she nursed, there are still those marks under her belly!" Yue Feng pointed to the little cubs below.

"We've already done it, it's too late to dwell on it now! Why don't we take the kid out and bring him home?" Xiaowen reassured Yuefeng, then asked proactively.

At this moment, Feng Huanping and Zhang Chaochao also came closer and heard what had happened.

"Is this a mother bear with cubs on her head? Shouldn't these bears give birth in the spring?" Feng Huanping's smile vanished, replaced by a somewhat embarrassed expression.

Hunting inevitably involves the loss of cubs or mothers, but anyone with a modicum of sense would feel uneasy in this situation. Human nature, sometimes, is just that simple and unadorned.

“Usually, cubs are born just before spring. Once the temperature rises, the mother bear can lead her cubs, whose eyes have opened, out of the enclosure! Logically speaking, even if she has cubs in her belly at this time, they shouldn’t be born yet!” Yue Feng sighed and explained.

"Don't dwell on it. We didn't knowingly beat the cubs on purpose. What's the point of getting angry now that we've already beaten them? I really like the coal balls we raise on the mountain. Since there are cubs in the tree hole, why don't we just take them out and bring them back?" Feng Huanping said softly.

Yue Feng nodded: "Alright, the mother bear is dead. If we don't take care of the cubs in the barn, they're definitely going to die! Judging from the size of this mother bear, she's only a three or four-year-old young bear. I guess she won't have many cubs in her first litter!"

"Xiao Tao, you keep tidying up, I'm going to take the bear cub out!"

After saying this, Yue Feng reached behind his waist, pulled out a small hand axe, walked to a height of about one meter above the poplar tree, aimed the axe blade, and began to strike the trunk.

The entrance to Xiongcangzi Cave is about three meters down, and it's hard to say how deep it is. Yuefeng's method is to take a hand axe and knock from bottom to top, relying on the echoes from the tree trunks to judge the approximate depth.

After tapping several places to roughly pinpoint the area where the sound was hollow, Yue Feng stood up and began chopping at the tree trunk with his small hand axe.

A small hand axe is not a large battle axe. It is usually carried for rough work or self-defense. It is not very efficient to use it to chop down a tree trunk that is as thick as several people can hug.

However, since the axe is very sharp and the wood of the aspen tree is relatively soft, cutting out a new hole shouldn't take too much time.

Xiaowu and Xiaowen, the two brothers, also took out their hand axes to help, and the three of them busied themselves with the task.

It took about fifteen minutes to cut through the tree trunk. Yue Feng peered inside the trunk a few times.

It was pitch black, and you couldn't see anything at all.

"Enlarge it a bit more, we can't see clearly!" Yue Feng called out, continuing to widen the opening.

After a flurry of activity and another ten minutes of work, the opening was finally a bit bigger.

Yue Feng looked further inside, but in the dimly lit tree hollow, he didn't see the bear cubs.

Could it be that I guessed wrong? Yue Feng scratched his head, tucked the hand axe into his lower back, and reached out his right hand to feel his way into the tree hole.

This move was somewhat risky. Xiaowen wanted to help Yuefeng, but Yuefeng stopped him with a look.

The tree hollow was a bit damp, and when I touched it, it was full of the crumbs from the rotten heartwood. I didn't find any bear cubs.

Yue Feng withdrew his hand and glanced at the crumbs he had pulled out.

"No?" Feng Huanping asked.

Yue Feng shook his head: "No! The tree stump is too damp. The bear should still be on top! The bear has been in the barn for a long time, so it would have cleaned up the stump beforehand. Even if it wasn't clean, it should be dry. This tree stump is too damp!"

"Then what should we do?" Feng Huanping asked.

"Don't bother, I'll climb the tree and crawl into the hole to get it!" Xiaowen immediately started taking off his thick sheepskin coat and other clothes.

Among the group, Xiaowen was the most slender. A bear weighing several hundred pounds could crawl in and out, so Xiaowen should be able to too. However, since humans don't have the sharp claws of a bear, it would be a bit difficult for him to come out if he went in backwards.

"No, that's too dangerous! The tree hole is over three meters high!" Yue Feng grabbed Xiao Wen, who had already taken off his sheepskin coat, and continued to strike the top of the tree trunk with his axe. This strike actually revealed the problem to Yue Feng.

The hollow sound produced by striking at a height of about 1.9 meters is noticeably different from the echo below.

It's normal for a tree to become hollow and rot as it grows thicker, but the degree of rot varies. Even if the bottom is hollow, the hollow doesn't necessarily extend all the way to the top; there might be sections that aren't hollow or have very little hollow space.

The height we chose this time will definitely be fine.

"The bear's den is right here! We dug too low just now!" Yue Feng tapped the spot he had chosen the second time and said with great certainty.

"This height is a bit too high, we can't reach it from the ground!" Xiaowen said after looking it over.

"It's alright, just cut a couple of pins and step on them for leverage!" Yue Feng said.

"Row!"

The three brothers put their heads together and immediately got to work.

Yue Feng chose a new location and used a cleaver and axe to cut a notch. Then he hammered two pine poles, each about the thickness of a teacup, into the notch, stood on the poles, and continued to dig the hole.

Before they knew it, another ten minutes had passed. The second hole was opened, and Yue Feng reached in and carefully felt around before pulling out a dark, still-closed bear cub.

"Got it!!" Yue Feng picked up the bear cub and got off the ground, then showed it to everyone.

The little guy's eyes aren't even open yet; he looks like he's only ten or twenty days old, almost like a puppy.

"Only one? Damn, this thing was quite cute when it was little!" Feng Huanping asked, reaching out to take it.

“Just one! There’s a solid part under its butt that isn’t completely rotten! I’ve felt all the way to the bottom! This cub must be the mother bear’s only offspring!” Yue Feng said.

"As long as I didn't miss out, it's settled then, this little bear cub is mine!"

Feng Huanping opened the front of his cotton-padded coat and tucked the bear cub directly into his right armpit.

"Alright, he hasn't even opened his eyes yet. Can a brat like this be raised properly? I'll tell you how to discipline him later!" Yue Feng replied.

What was supposed to be a perfect bear hunt was clearly ruined by this bear cub that shouldn't have been born.

Although Yue Feng forced himself to suppress his emotions, he was still somewhat depressed, feeling a bit guilty, much like he had accidentally killed someone else's mother and broken the rules.

Xiao Tao had already dealt with the mother bear quickly and efficiently, obtaining a common grass gallbladder!

The bear's internal organs were simply processed; the intestines and other parts were discarded and hung on a tree as an offering to the mountain god. The bear's heart, liver, lungs, and other offal were loaded onto the sled along with the bear's body.

"Shall we go home? We've already wasted some time, and it might be dark by the time we get back!" Yue Feng said to the group.

“It’s alright, there are so many people here, and the car has lights, so you can see clearly even in the dark!” Feng Huanping replied.

"Let's get going! Watch your step, everyone. This area isn't very popular, so be careful not to slip!"

"Don't worry, no problem!"

……

The group dragged the captured mother bear back to where they had parked, then restarted the vehicle and drove down the mountain along the Chaiji Road.

By the time we descended the mountain and entered the village, it was indeed getting dark.

When Yue Feng set off in the morning, he told his wife what to prepare for dinner. When the convoy stopped in front of their house, dinner was almost ready in the kitchen.

"Xiao Na, we're back!" Yue Feng called out, then opened the courtyard gate.

The roe deer, deer, and bears—the game we hunted today—were all unloaded from the vehicle and temporarily placed in the open space in the middle of the yard.

After a long day of work, Evan and his group greeted each other and went back to their guest rooms to change clothes, while Yue Feng and his friends finished preparing the prey and went into the north room.

The room was as warm as ever, and you could smell the aroma of stew from the kitchen even through the curtains.

"How was the harvest today? Did you catch anything?" Wang Xiaona peeked out from the kitchen and glanced at Yue Feng, asking with concern.

"We caught them! Four roe deer, four deer, a bear, and two wolf pelts!" Yue Feng said truthfully.

"So many? You're lucky!" Wang Xiaona smiled slightly as she heard the battle report, her eyes narrowing slightly.

However, after seeing Yue Feng's face, Wang Xiaona's smile vanished instantly.

"What's wrong? You look unhappy!"

As a couple who slept in the same bed, Wang Xiaona knew Yue Feng better than anyone else, and she could tell at a glance that Yue Feng had an emotional problem.

"It's nothing serious. We were killing a bear, and we found a bear cub that hadn't even opened its eyes yet! I even timed it before we went into the mountains. It's just bad luck for it, not our fault!"

Yue Feng waved his hand and took off his sheepskin coat, tilting his arm back.

"I was worried something had happened! Was everyone safe on the way? Are those VIPs alright?"

Yue Feng forced a smile: "It's okay! Everything went smoothly! They went back to their lodgings to change clothes, and then they ate their meal!"

"Alright, I'll start preparing the pot. You guys pour some hot water and rest for a bit!"

……

Meanwhile, Evan's trio returned to their lodgings, took off their heavy winter coats, and quickly gathered together.

Robert lit a cigarette and asked as he smoked, "Evan, what do you think of Yue Feng?"

Evan, crouching on the chair and bending over to untie his leg bindings, said, "He's a very experienced hunter! We misjudged him!"

Allen chimed in, "I agree! Although he looks young, he's already a mature leader! Both Mr. Zhang and Feng Huanping admire him greatly! The members of the hunting team are also very professional!"

Robert nodded: "Based on this assessment, we shouldn't harbor any illusions about our next negotiations! He's very methodical in his work; he must have planned this deal in advance! We should shift our focus from acquiring the Black Falcon to trading for the White Falcon and discussing the amount of subsidies! Evan, what do you say?"

Evan nodded. Yue Feng's overall performance on the hunting trip today had completely impressed Evan. He shouldn't have any unrealistic expectations of dealing with such a methodical and capable person and closing a deal with him.

Evan took a deep breath and said, "Yue Feng seems cool, but he's actually quite soft-hearted! He's also very loyal to his friends!"
Personally, I think we should maintain a long-term friendly relationship with him! What do you think? (End of Chapter)