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

Li Yunshan wasn't too worried about whether Lin Xiulan could take good care of Dou Dou.

Because during the three years that he failed to turn over a new leaf and return to the right path, most of the time, Dou Dou was cared for by Lin Xiulan alone, with his mother lending a hand at most.

After dinner, Li Yunshan sat and rested for a while, chatted with Lin Xiulan for a bit, and then went to the kitchen to fetch water for a bath.

In winter, when the temperature is low and the weather is cold, he usually only takes a bath once every ten days or so.

It wasn't because he was lazy, but because most people around him were like that.

When winter arrives, heavy snow falls here, and there's not much farm work to do, so most people stay home and hibernate.

If you don't do farm work, you won't sweat. Plus, with the dry and cold climate, taking a bath once every ten days is considered diligent. Some people don't take a bath for more than ten days, or even a month.

Before going into the mountains to hunt, he hadn't taken a bath for two or three days, and then he stayed in the mountains for four days.

Including today, he hasn't taken a shower for seven or eight days.

Moreover, he had sweated a bit while carrying the deer down the mountain, and now he smelled strongly of sweat. He felt disgusted if he didn't wash himself.

He scooped two buckets of hot water from the kitchen and poured them into the large wooden tub for bathing. Then he added some cold water, tested the temperature with his hand to make sure it was right, and washed his messy hair with soap before taking off his clothes and soaking in the tub.

The hot water instantly soaked most of his body, leaving only his head above the surface. Li Yunshan leaned comfortably against the edge of the large wooden tub, feeling completely relaxed, and all the fatigue of the past few days vanished.

After soaking in the bath for more than ten minutes, and waiting for the hot water in the large wooden tub to slowly cool down, Li Yunshan got out of the tub, dried himself off, put on his clothes, and returned to his room.

At this time, Lin Xiulan had already fallen asleep.

In the darkness, Li Yunshan could even clearly hear her breathing.

He crawled into bed, covered himself with the blanket, and then wrapped his arms around Lin Xiulan's waist from behind. After closing his eyes, he quickly fell into a deep sleep.

The next day, Li Yunshan got up early.

After having breakfast and saying goodbye to Lin Xiulan, he rode his bicycle to Uncle Zhou's house.

When they arrived at Uncle Zhou's house, they waited a little while longer before Li Baotian drove the village office's tractor to Uncle Zhou's courtyard gate.

Zhang Sange, Cai Er, and others also arrived one after another.

After a night's rest, everyone was in good spirits, but the key thing was that everyone was going to the county town today.

After they brought the sika deer back yesterday, they dismembered and butchered it overnight, yielding a total of 1,300 to 1,400 pounds of venison.

They can make a lot of money by transporting so much venison to the county town to sell.

Baskets of venison were loaded onto the tractor's trailer, along with the deer bones that had been removed.

The deer bones alone weighed over 300 jin (approximately 150 kg), filling three wicker baskets.

They couldn't possibly keep all these deer bones, so they planned to give them away as a bonus to attract buyers when selling venison.

"Let's leave this basket of venison at home. After we sell the venison in the county town, we'll have a proper meal together."

Just as the last basket of venison was about to be loaded onto the tractor, Uncle Zhou spoke up.

"Uncle Zhou, can you save a basket? That's 130 or 140 pounds of meat."

Zhao Shuanzhu was somewhat confused.

A pound of venison can sell for two yuan in the county town, while 130 or 140 pounds of venison can sell for more than 200 yuan.

Even if we go to the county town, sell all the venison, and come back to have a good meal, we still can't eat that much meat.

"Oh dear, Shuanzhu, are you silly? Uncle Zhou's idea is to leave a basket of meat at home so we can have a good meal when we come back, and then we can share the rest so we can save it for the New Year."

"The Lunar New Year is just half a month away, you haven't forgotten about it, have you?"

Cai Er and Zhang Sange both said with a smile.

Because they had hunted a nine-headed deer and obtained so much pure meat, everyone's joy was palpable.

"Hehe, I almost forgot."

Zhao Shuanzhu chuckled and scratched the back of his head.

"Brother Zhang, let's carry this basket of meat back together first."

Cai Er said to Zhang Sange.

"Okay."

Zhang San Ge responded.

After carrying the basket of meat back, everyone rode bicycles or tractors and left Guapigou Village.

The tractor chugs and sputters, emitting a plume of gray smoke from its engine.

It snowed last night, not much, but it didn't stop until almost dawn.

It snowed all night, and a thin layer of snow covered the rugged village roads, so tractors and bicycles moved rather slowly.

Despite the biting cold wind, Li Yunshan and his companions all wore bright and joyful smiles.

"Kuandian Village is just ahead."

As they passed through a village, Li Baotian, who was driving a tractor, said this.

"Hehe, I bet the hunters in Kuandian Village were quite proud of themselves for having shot those wild boars, but they never expected that we would be so lucky as to have shot a red deer."

"I remember the hunters in Kuandian Village hunted seven wild boars, but we hunted nine red deer. Haha, in the end, we still earned more than the hunters in Kuandian Village."

"Hey, we have nine red deer, while the hunters in Kuandian Village only managed to kill seven wild boars. The red deer we hunted are much more valuable than the wild boars they hunted."

Looking at the village where wisps of smoke were rising from the chimneys not far away, Cai Er, Peng Youlian, and the others couldn't help but recall the incident on the second day of their hunting trip in the mountains when they discovered traces of a group of wild boars.

At that time, they followed the wild boar's hoofprints for a long and rugged mountain road, only to find that the wild boar they had been chasing for so long had been shot down first by the hunters from Kuandian Village.

That really hit them hard at the time.

Although there are many wild animals in the deep mountains and forests, even experienced hunters like Uncle Zhou and Li Baotian would find it like finding a needle in a haystack to find a herd of wild boars in the vast forests.

They thought they were incredibly lucky, that they would encounter a herd of wild boars on their second day in the mountains, and were dreaming of hunting wild boars. But the hunters of Kuandian Village gave them a rude awakening.

I still remember the scene when they were looking at the hunters from Kuandian Village from a distance. The hunters from Kuandian Village were probably afraid that they would come and steal their prey, so they all stared at them warily.

Fortunately, their luck didn't run out after missing the wild boars; on the fourth day of their journey into the mountains, they encountered a herd of red deer.

"I wonder if those hunters in Kuandian Village would be so envious if they saw how many deer we've hunted that their eyes would pop out."

Wu Shenghong couldn't help but laugh.

"Ha ha."

Cai Er and the others burst into laughter.

Uncle Zhou and Li Baotian, the two old hunters, didn't say anything when they saw this.

The hunters of Guapigou Village have the confidence to laugh heartily, and that confidence comes from the baskets of venison that are loaded to the brim on the back of their tractors.

Besides, everyone is in a good mood right now, and as veteran hunters and elders, they wouldn't say anything that would dampen the enthusiasm and confidence of the younger hunters in the village.

"Hey, Friday, look ahead."

Just then, Li Baotian, who was driving the tractor, suddenly nudged Uncle Zhou with his elbow.

"What's going on?"

Uncle Zhou turned around in confusion and saw several hunters standing on the hillside by the roadside, carrying hunting rifles and bows and arrows, looking at them.

Uncle Zhou counted from a distance that there were eight hunters on the other side, and the leader of them happened to be someone he and Li Baotian both knew—Xiao Yuan, the hunter from Kuandian Village whom they had met in the deep mountains and forests that day.

"Are they preparing to go into the mountains again?"

Li Baotian carefully drove the tractor while squinting and asking in confusion.

"It should be. Look, they've even brought their hunting dogs."

Uncle Zhou pointed to one of the hunters, who was holding a lively hunting dog on a leash.

However, with the Lunar New Year just over two weeks away, it's quite normal for hunters from nearby villages to be busy hunting in the mountains to prepare more meat for their families during the holiday.

If you catch a lot of prey and can't consume all the meat, you can sell some of it to earn some extra money.

Like them, this was the first time they had hunted so many animals, a full nine red deer. The cleaned meat weighed 1,300 to 1,400 jin. They certainly couldn't consume all that deer meat, so most of it had to be taken to the county town to sell. Only 130 to 140 jin were left, to be shared equally when they returned to the village from the county town and had a good meal together.

"Uncle Zhou, aren't those people standing on the hillside by the roadside the hunters from Kuandian Village? Should we go over and say hello?"

At this moment, Cai Er and the others also visited the hunters of Kuandian Village. Cai Er said with a grin.

"Why bother greeting me? Are you just inviting trouble?"

Uncle Zhou's smiling face immediately turned cold, and he scolded Cai Er in an annoyed tone.

Although Cai Er said he was going to greet the hunters in Kuandian Village, his desire to show off in front of them was already written all over his face.

Uncle Zhou is a shrewd old man; how could he not see through it?

Although they did have something to brag about in front of the hunters in Kuandian Village for hunting nine-headed deer, it would be bad if they went too far in their boasting and provoked the hunters in Kuandian Village, causing unnecessary conflict.

Therefore, adhering to the principle of "better to avoid trouble than to cause trouble," Uncle Zhou immediately stopped Cai Er from showing off.

But who knew that although Uncle Zhou stopped Cai Er from showing off in front of the hunters in Kuandian Village, the hunters in Kuandian Village, who were standing on the hillside in the distance, also ran down the hillside after seeing that the hunters in Guapigou Village were driving tractors with baskets full of meat in the truck bed.

Upon seeing this, Li Yunshan and the others immediately became alert.