Li Guizi shook his head when he saw the old man, worried that he would not let Liang Guocheng stay on the mountain. Hurriedly explained: "He is my comrade-in-arms in North Korea, born as a scout. He often infiltrated behind enemy lines to reconnoitre, participated in two major battles, and fought countless small battlefields. Don't look at the cripples now, hunting is a piece of cake for him. ”

Liang Guocheng also saw it, because his disabled old man hesitated. Interjected: "I can shoot and hunt, I will definitely be your helper, and I will never become a burden!" ”

The old man also felt that if Liang Guocheng was not allowed to stay, it would be difficult for anyone else to be willing to be on the mountain with him. He is now not only sick from the winter cold, but his legs and feet are not as old as before. If you chase the injured prey and break your arm and leg, you will soon freeze to death in the mountains.

He nodded reluctantly: "Then, stay!" ”

It was a good ending, and all three laughed, but for different purposes. Li Guizi was relieved, at least temporarily got rid of Liang Guocheng's burden, Liang Guocheng smiled and was temporarily safe, and the old man was skeptical.

Li Guizi in order to ease the atmosphere: "What smell, so fragrant?" ”

As soon as the fragrance entered the door, an iron pot was steaming from the stove, and the fragrance came out of the iron pot. Li Guizi went in and lifted the lid of the pot, and there was a pot of meat inside. Li Guizi was unrestrained in front of his uncle, just like his child. While holding the bowl, he asked, "Uncle, what kind of meat is this?" Is it cooked? ”

The uncle came in and poked a few times with chopsticks: "This year, because of the severe coughing and tightness, I sealed the gun before the beginning of spring." It's the season for roe deer cubs, and yesterday the panther somehow ran out and bit a roe deer cub and came back. It's a pity that it's only so much meat, and it can grow dozens of catties of meat in winter. ”

Professional hunters have an unwritten rule that around the beginning of spring, when the mating season comes, the guns are sealed. If there is a wife and children at the bottom of the mountain, they will go down the mountain, and people like my uncle who have not married a wife are used to being alone on the mountain. However, in spring, summer, and autumn, no shots are fired in order to ensure the reproduction of animal offspring, and also to allow hunters to still have animals to fight in the coming winter.

Hunters hardly eat food in winter, otherwise they will not be able to withstand the severe cold of more than 30 degrees below zero. Sometimes in order to hit an animal, it is necessary to lie motionless in the snow for several hours. Since the liberation, the People's Liberation Army has gone through several large-scale crackdowns on bandits, and the mountains are safe, but there are more hunters. The animals are also spermatographed, unlike in the past, when they went into the mountains every day, and there was always a harvest no matter how big or small. Now sometimes for a few days, you can't hit anything.

After eating the meat, Li Guizi wanted to catch the shuttle, so don't hurry down the mountain and leave. Liang Guocheng had the opportunity to look at the old man's house. Most of the houses built in the mountains are the kind of manholes in the northeast. In order to withstand the bitter cold and bitter north winds, a third of the house is underground. The small window opening, which is basically parallel to the ground outside.

The two-bedroom room is not large, and the inside and outside are separated. There are no guests in this mountain, and there is no living room. The outer room is a room where sundries are piled up and a fire is made for cooking. The water outside is connected to the fire kang inside, and the sun is hot at noon in the summer on the mountain, and the sun goes down at night, and the people on the mountain shiver in the dark night and the wind is still cold.

Liang Guocheng entered the house, and the wall of the outer house had long been burned by smoke and fire, and the color could not be distinguished. The ground was still the same earth, and the stove was full of ashes from the fire, and the hay that caused the fire was by the fire. It was too dangerous, and he found the old man's homemade broom behind the door, returned everything to Lou, and cleaned it.

A pit in the back room occupies most of the house, and the walls are full of animal skins, and the pit is covered with animal skins, which are soft and warm to the touch. He had finished tidying up the two rooms, inside and out, and came out the old man fiddling with the old-fashioned shotgun. This gun is too old, the wood * is lined up and wrapped in cloth, the gun is still the front barrel into the * iron sand, and the back bolt is an old earthen gun that kowtows to the artillery.

The old man handed him the earthen gun, and he picked up the gun and aimed at it, and found that the old gun did not even have a crosshair. In the eyes of soldiers who use modern weapons, this thing is a burning stick.

Liang Guocheng showed a disdainful expression: "Can this still be considered a gun?" ”

The old man glanced at him dissatisfiedly and said, "I have been using this gun for decades, and I am very handy!" Don't look at it old-fashioned, I've used it to kill black bears. ”

Liang Guocheng stuck out his tongue, he didn't believe that the earth gun could kill a bear at all, looking at the old man's serious appearance, he didn't want to upset him, after all, he was on his territory now.

The four seasons in the northeast are not as distinct as those in the mainland, especially in the mountains, spring and autumn are shorter. Generally, spring blooms in the mainland in February, and there are signs of spring; It was still freezing in the mountains, and it was hot at noon until May, and the snow still did not melt in the shady places on the mountains. Summer passed in an instant, and it snowed again in mid-October.

The hunter was originally idle in the summer, and the old man knew that his cough was becoming more and more ordinary in winter, and when he was sick, he inhaled the cool air of winter, and he could hardly walk. If you want to survive in the mountains, you have to hunt your prey. He took advantage of the warm weather to familiarize himself with the environment on the mountain. Let him master the rules of various animal infestation, and when he is sick, he can hunt instead of him, and don't miss the best time to hunt.

Liang Guocheng followed the old man every day, carefully remembering the habits of each hunting branch and famous prey that the old man talked about, and was familiar with every mountain road. At the same time, he also mastered the skill of walking in the mountains with crutches, because the crutches made by Li Guizi for him were just right, so he used crutches to take a step forward, which is two steps for a normal person. Since Liang Guocheng came to the mountain, he can often see a person on crutches, shuttling on the mountain path.

This year, the snow came early, only in mid-October, and it snowed in my sleep one night. When I woke up in the morning, the mountains were dressed in silver. Liang Guocheng got up early in the morning, he was a little excited, he had been studying with the old man for a few months, and it was time for him to stretch out his hand. After breakfast, he couldn't help but be excited, put a shotgun on his back, and carried the * bag that had been prepared a long time ago, and the old man stopped him.

The first snow was empty on the ground, and the animals used their mouths to open the snow to find food. When the snow melts out of the sun, the temperature drops at night, and the snow freezes, and the animals that eat grass have a hard time, so they look for grass everywhere, and the animals that eat meat follow.

A few days later, another heavy snowfall fell for three days in a row, and the snow on the ground was knee-high. The temperature seems to change every day, and at night the north wind roars like arriving at the Ten Thousand Beasts. The old man's old illness to avoid the winter cold has been committed again, this time the illness is worse than before, and he can hardly go out.

Every day, sitting by the fire, holding a small medicine jar, still panting. Hunting for a few months in winter is the livelihood of the hunter for a year. Now that there is one more person to eat out of thin air, the old man is sick again and cannot go out, and if he misses the winter hunting season, the two of them will not eat or drink the next year. Although the old man was not worried about Liang Guocheng, he still let him go out alone, and he slowly experienced it without fighting.

Liang Guocheng was allowed to go out with all the equipment. Walking on the trail in the mountains, I realized how difficult it was to crutches on the snow. Because the crutches are a little more than three centimeters to the ground, people are slightly leaning forward without touching the ground, and the area on the ground is smaller, and they will slip if they are not careful. On the first day, I went out and turned half the mountain, and found that the animal was so engrossed in approaching the animal that he ignored the crutch in his hand, and scared away when he fell on his head. Although it is common to slip and fall in the snow and not fall to the bones, it is also painful to knock all over the body, and a small animal does not hit.

The next day, the old man told him to rest for two days to recuperate from his injuries before going out hunting. Liang Guocheng came up vigorously and must go, but the old man couldn't resist him, so he took his equipment and the panther into the mountain. On this day, he seemed to have mastered the trick of walking the mountain road, wrestling less often, and even hitting a pheasant.

According to the rules of the hunter, the hunter shoots the first shot to the prey to sacrifice to the mountain god, and the hunter himself is stunned! In the evening, the two of them ate pheasant and drank soju, and they were also happy.

A few days later, Liang Guocheng figured out the rules of crutches in the snow, not only did he not wrestle, because crutches were larger than the leg span, he walked normally, and everyone else trotted to keep up. The Black Panther is also very sensible and can understand people's words, and is his best helper. He took the panther out and took a puppy to crawl,; When the animal was hit, the panther ran to pick it up and put it on the plow and pulled it back. On this day he found the footprints of the wild boar, and after he let the panther smell it, the panther took him over two ridges to find the boar's nest.

The boar nested under a mound of earth, surrounded by weeds and shrubs, and the dry weeds under the heavy snow swayed in the wind. In this snow at minus 30 degrees, there is heat coming out of the wild boar's nest, indicating that there is more than one wild game inside. It's a pity that this kind of earthen gun is too slow to put one shot and reload it again. If not, I can always shoot one more today, since I have been hunting alone for a few days, I always can't touch a big animal, and some small prey is actually just enough for two people and a dog to eat.