Hunting 81: Gathering Goods in the Mountains, I Spoil My Ex-Wife to the Extreme

"I'll boil some water for you."

As soon as Li Yunshan entered the kitchen, Lin Xiulan followed him in.

Li Yunshan nodded and took off his cotton-padded coat.

He left his military overcoat, which he had brought into the mountains for the night, in the mountains for Uncle Zhou to use.

Lin Xiulan added a few spoonfuls of water to the large pot, took the fire tongs and stuffed a handful of pine needles into the stove, lit a match, and then stuffed in a few pieces of firewood.

Flames ignited in the stove, and within minutes the water in the pot boiled.

Li Yunshan fetched a basin of hot water and went outside the kitchen, where he squatted down and deftly scalded and plucked the fur from the wild rabbit.

His skillful plucking technique quickly removed all the fur from the rabbit, leaving it clean and white.

"DouDou, look what your dad is doing!"

At that moment, a figure flashed at the entrance of the main room, and Gao Hongmei came out carrying Dou Dou, with Su Lihua following behind her.

Seeing that Li Yunshan was about to gut the rabbit, Gao Hongmei pointed at the rabbit in Li Yunshan's hand and asked Dou Dou.

"Dad's killing a rabbit. We'll have rabbit meat tonight!"

"That's what DouDou said in her childish voice."

"Hongmei, I'm going back now."

Su Lihua suddenly said.

Gao Hongmei glanced at her but didn't say anything. Lin Xiulan walked over and took Su Lihua's hand: "Second sister, it's rare for you to come all this way. Have a meal before you go back."

"No, I'll eat at home."

Su Lihua glanced at Li Yunshan out of the corner of her eye, her expression cold.

Gao Hongmei and Lin Xiulan exchanged a glance, both seeing the helplessness in each other's eyes.

It seems that Su Lihua still harbors deep prejudice against Li Yunshan, otherwise she wouldn't have wanted to go back as soon as she saw him.

Gao Hongmei whispered a few words in Dou Dou's ear. Dou Dou, being a clever and sensible little girl, immediately looked aggrieved and pouted, saying, "Second Aunt, please stay for dinner. Dou Dou hasn't eaten with you in so long."

"Yes, Second Sister, please stay for dinner. It's rare to have rabbit meat tonight. I'll make a dry pot rabbit dish later; I guarantee it will be so delicious you'll be mesmerized," Lin Xiulan quickly urged.

"Lihua, let's eat before we go back, otherwise we'll have to waste time cooking for ourselves when we get back."

Seeing this, Gao Hongmei also spoke up.

Faced with Lin Xiulan and Dou Dou's attempts to persuade her to stay, as well as Gao Hongmei's urging, Su Lihua had no choice but to say helplessly, "Alright, I'll eat before I go back."

Even if Su Lihua had many complaints about Li Yunshan, Lin Xiulan and Gao Hongmei had both said so, and there was also the adorable Dou Dou. She knew that it was impossible for her to avoid this meal.

"Second Aunt, hug me."

Seeing this, DouDou stretched out her hands towards Su Lihua from Gao Hongmei's arms.

"Okay, Second Auntie will carry me."

Su Lihua had no choice but to take Dou Dou from Gao Hongmei's arms, and Dou Dou also affectionately hugged her neck.

"Second Aunt, play with me."

"Alright, alright, your second aunt will play with you, okay?"

Looking at the adorable and endearing Dou Dou, Su Lihua rarely showed a doting smile, thinking that it wouldn't be long before her parents replied to her from the city, and then she would leave Guapigou Village.

Now that we're separated, who knows when I'll see Dou Dou again? Maybe five years, maybe ten, or maybe we'll never see each other again in this lifetime. So let's take advantage of this time before we leave to spend some quality time with Dou Dou and remember the people here.

Gao Hongmei, Lin Xiulan, Dou Dou...

Su Lihua took Dou Dou to play in the main room, and Gao Hongmei finally spoke up, "Oh right, I almost forgot to ask, how did your trip into the mountains go? Did you catch any prey?"

These past few days, Li Yunshan and the village hunters have been going into the mountains to hunt, and Gao Hongmei has been thinking about it constantly.

Now that Gao Hongmei has tasted the sweetness of hunting, she is looking forward to when Li Yunshan will come back so that she can pester him to take her into the mountains again and teach her how to hunt.

Li Yunshan and the village hunters would stay in the mountains for several days at a time, and Gao Hongmei was also very curious about what kind of prey they had hunted in the mountains.

"What do you mean by 'whether or not the prey was caught'? Look at the way you're talking."

While chopping rabbit meat on the cutting board, Li Yunshan rolled his eyes: "Of course we didn't encounter any prey on the first day in the mountains. On the second day, we did encounter a group of wild boars, but the hunters from Kuandian Village beat us to it."

"We didn't catch any prey yesterday, but we were lucky today. We ran into a herd of red deer and shot nine of them. Hehe, they were all as big as the red deer we shot before."

"A nine-headed deer? You're not kidding me, are you?"

Gao Hongmei became suspicious when she heard Li Yunshan proudly say that they had hunted a nine-headed deer in the mountains.

Although she hadn't hunted much, she knew from Li Yunshan's previous teachings that it wasn't easy to catch a deer. These animals had very sensitive ears and noses, and even if a hunter spotted them, they would catch the sound of the hunter's movements and run away before the hunter could even get close.

Moreover, red deer are not like green onions or leeks growing in the ground. To find a red deer in the vast, deep forests is like finding a needle in a haystack.

When she and Li Yunshan hunted those two deer in the mountains, her father told her that she was very lucky.

The hunters in the entire Guapigou Village haven't caught a red deer for many years.

But now, Li Yunshan says that the village hunters went into the mountains and hunted a nine-headed deer today alone. How can Gao Hongmei believe that?

Even Lin Xiulan, standing to the side, looked on incredulously: "Nine-headed...deer? Yunshan, you're not kidding us, are you?"

"Why would I lie to you? If Hongmei hadn't asked about this, I wouldn't have told you. To tell you the truth, after hunting the deer, I rushed back to the village to find people to go into the mountains and help transport the deer out. I've already found the people, and I have to take them into the mountains first thing tomorrow morning."

Nine red deer, each weighing at least 200 jin (100 kg), with the largest possibly weighing over 350 jin (125 kg). Although Uncle Zhou and his men usually work in the fields and can carry over 100 jin (50 kg) without any problem, the place where they hunted the deer was deep in the mountains and forests, more than ten li (5 kilometers) away from Guapigou Village.

Moreover, the terrain in the deep mountains and forests is undulating and crisscrossed with ravines. Even if you remove all the internal organs of the deer, it would still weigh at least two hundred pounds.

Uncle Zhou and his men could probably carry a hundred or two hundred pounds and walk a few hundred meters without any problem, but now that they've reached the place where they hunted the deer, it's more than ten miles from the village...

Unless Uncle Zhou and his men are made of iron and have inexhaustible energy, they alone cannot transport all the deer back to the village.

Therefore, Li Yunshan thought it was a bit of a lie when Gao Hongmei said he was just trying to fool people.

He used to be a lazy and irresponsible person, but now he would never joke about something like this.

However, when Gao Hongmei heard Li Yunshan say they were going into the mountains, she immediately perked up: "We're going into the mountains first thing tomorrow morning, can you take me with you?"

"You? What are you doing in the mountains?"

Li Yunshan glanced at Gao Hongmei. At this critical juncture, he didn't really want to take Gao Hongmei into the mountains, because this tiger-woman was very bold and now even had her own hunting rifle.

If he takes Gao Hongmei into the mountains now, she might cause him some trouble.

"Didn't you say you had a few people coming into the mountains with you to help? I'm thinking, they're unarmed, they don't even have hunting bows and arrows. If they encounter a tiger or a bear or something on the way, can you protect them all by yourself?"

"So, I'd like to go into the mountains with you, and you can teach me some hunting skills and experience while you're at it."

Gao Hongmei said.

"this……"

After hearing Gao Hongmei's words, Li Yunshan was stunned for a moment.

He glanced at Gao Hongmei and thought to himself that this tigress was quite thoughtful; he hadn't expected her to think of this.

Previously, when I went to the village to ask young and strong men for help, they would immediately shake their heads or wave their hands in refusal as soon as they heard that I was going into the deep mountains and forests to help transport game.

After finally finding a few people willing to help, they only reluctantly agreed to help tomorrow because of the high reward he offered and their own poverty.

Although Gao Hongmei has only been hunting for a few days, she is quite bold and careful, and her marksmanship and mentality are also good, so it would be appropriate to let her go into the mountains with us.

If they don't encounter any danger, he can take her for a walk in the mountains and teach her some hunting experience and skills. If they encounter wild animals in the deep forest, she has a gun and the courage to shoot, which can also protect the villagers who followed him into the mountains.

However, just to be on the safe side, Li Yunshan decided to leave his Tiger Head brand hunting rifle at home and bring his Mosin-Nagant rifle with him.

The Tiger Head brand hunting rifle has an effective range of only 60 to 70 meters, while the Mosin-Nagant rifle has an effective range of several hundred meters.

The bullets fired from the Tiger Head brand hunting rifle were also inferior to those fired from the Mosin-Nagant in terms of penetration and lethality.

"So, are you going to take me into the mountains?"

Seeing Li Yunshan's hesitant expression, Gao Hongmei grew impatient.

"Yes, yes, yes, I'll come to see you first thing tomorrow morning. Get ready tonight, bring your hunting rifle and enough bullets, and meet me at the village entrance first thing tomorrow morning." Li Yunshan quickly agreed.

"That's more like it."

Gao Hongmei then revealed a satisfied smile.

At this moment, Li Yunshan had finished chopping the rabbit meat. He gestured to Gao Hongmei to help stuff pine needles into the stove, and then patted a piece of ginger and threw it into the rabbit meat: "Add more ginger to remove the fishy smell. Stir-fry it slowly over high heat later. The aroma of that dry-pot rabbit meat is so fragrant that it will make your mouth water."

As Gao Hongmei used fire tongs to pick up a tuft of pine needles and put it into the stove, she said with a smile, "I knew you could eat like that. There's meat in the house every day. No wonder Xiulan seems to have gained weight."

In this day and age, there are still many people who can't even get enough to eat, let alone meat.

Having meat during holidays and festivals is a great treat.

But after Li Yunshan and Yu Ergou's group severed ties, they started hunting in the mountains, and their home was always full of meat.

Therefore, after a period of nourishment, Lin Xiulan's figure became visibly fuller, and her originally thin cheeks became rounder and more rosy.