That winter, there were three strange things on the rabbit hill, the first was a good water tank, which clicked in the middle of the night, and cracked into two petals; the second piece, the oil of the stir-fry is frozen, and it can't come out no matter how you pour it; These two things have not been encountered before, and in the final analysis, it is because of the cold weather. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info

It was surprisingly cold that winter. After the heavy snowfall, the sun hung high, but the snow on the roof did not melt, even if it did, not a drop of water could fall, the snow hung under the eaves into ice skates, inch by inch down, bright and dazzling under the sun. The hillside in front of Rabbit Hill was covered with snow, and the knife-like north wind was blowing, and even the toe marks of animals on the snow were much less than in previous years.

The third strange thing was that a rabbit ran into the small courtyard of Rabbit Hill in a daze, couldn't get out, and finally crashed to death on the east wall of the stove.

Carrying the rabbit that was killed, Zixuan's father remembered the wolf in the mountain, so he went to the well and sharpened his knife.

A boning knife was sharpened brightly, and the cold light was shining in the sun, and Zixuan's father hung the rabbit to the courtyard gate and cut its throat with a knife. The rabbit's blood came out steaming and was applied to the knife. In less than half a minute, a layer of rabbit blood froze, and then a second and a third layer were applied...... By the time the rabbit had bled out, a sharp knife had turned into a blood-red ice pick.

"Dad, what are you going to do here?"

"Fishing!"

"Can you catch a fish with a knife?"

"Of course, you can't catch fish in the water, but today I'm going to catch big fish in the mountains."

"The fish in the mountains, what kind of fish is that?"

"Look at this knife, stick it blade up into the cracks in the woods, what will it do if the hungry wolf comes smelling blood?"

"Wolves drink blood!"

"Yes, when it sees blood, the wolf can't help but stick out its tongue to lick it, and when it finishes licking the blood on the head of the knife, the blade will cut its tongue, and at that time, its tongue is already frozen to the point that it doesn't know that it hurts, and it will continue to lick its own blood, and the more it licks, the more it licks, and when it licks its own blood into its stomach, it will fall into the snow and freeze to death...... Look at this fish, is it big?"

"The wolf has killed the hound, and it must be killed!"

……

In the evening, Zixuan's father was full of interest, and inserted the sharp knife frozen in rabbit blood into the stone crack in the forest, just as he swept away the footprints on the snow and was about to withdraw from the scene, he looked up and found that the wolf that had been with him for a long time was blatantly sitting on a stone in the distance, and it was sitting there watching the hunter's every move!

A wolf suddenly appeared in the woods, and the hunter struck a spirit, when did it appear there? The beast is getting more and more mysterious!

This is the first time that Zixuan's father and the wolf have confronted each other, looking at the wolf sitting calmly on the hillside not far from him, the experienced hunter can't help but feel a chill, except for the bloody knife, he has nothing else in his hand, if the wolf pounces down like that, the consequences are unpredictable. Fortunately, the wolf on the opposite side did not seem to have any intention of attacking, and after staring at the hunter for a moment, it turned and left. The incident happened suddenly, Zixuan's father was stunned in the snow for a long time before he came back to his senses, and after being afraid, he realized that the wolf he was about to face was by no means an ordinary prey.

After this head-to-head confrontation with the wolves, winter had come to an end, and the hunter had no choice but to give up his plan to kill the wolves in winter.

In the end, Zixuan's father still used the oldest hunting method to kill this cunning wolf. It was the season of the following year, when the Niutou slope was full of wildflowers - the advantage of wolf hunting in such a season was that the scent of wildflowers in the air could disturb the wolf's keen sense of smell and make it easier for him to hide himself from being noticed.

In that alternating spring and summer, Zixuan's father went out every day before dawn with a shotgun and dry food, went to the forest to find a place where beasts often passed, hid himself in the nearby bushes, and began to squat motionless, so that he kept it all day, until it was dark, and the hunter quietly went home again.

The squatting remained for eight days, and the hunters did not see any sign of the wolf.

The opportunity came on the ninth day. On the ninth day, after the hunter had concealed himself as usual, he began another day of waiting. It was not until late evening that a pheasant suddenly rose up from a short distance in front of him, and from the manner in which the pheasant flew it must have been frightened, and the hunter immediately became alert.

Within a few seconds of the pheasant taking off, Zixuan's father saw a hare rushing from his right front, and looking at the rabbit's running speed, the hunter knew that something must have happened behind him that was related to its life. Realizing the situation, the hunter immediately pulled his finger into the trigger and aimed the muzzle of the gun at the rabbit's running route. In an instant, I saw a big wolf trailing behind the rabbit and appeared in the hunter's field of vision, the running speed was surprisingly fast, although Zixuan's father had been hunting for many years, he had never seen a running big wolf so closely.

The moment of waiting for nine days finally came, and if he missed the opportunity, his wolf hunting plan would become far away, at this time, Zixuan's father immediately became nervous and focused all his attention on those eagle-like eyes. Due to the occlusion of the cover, the hunter's field of vision is bound to be relatively reduced, so that the running prey only stays in his field of vision for a second or two, and if this short time of one or two seconds is missed, the hunter will be defeated.

In an instant, the rabbit had run out of the hunter's sight, and at the moment when the wolf was about to run out of sight with the rabbit, the hunter shouted coldly: "Where to go!" If a fox passes by the muzzle, he will shoot and kill him, and if he hears any strange noise, the cunning fox will spread his legs and flee without stopping, and if the target of the ambush is a wolf, the prophet will get a better chance of shooting. The running big wolf heard the human voice, slowed down his running speed when he was curious, and wanted to stop to see what was going on, but before it could stop to gain a foothold, Zixuan's father pulled the trigger in his hand, followed by a crisp gunshot, only to see the big wolf's front legs loosened, and then fell to the ground. When the hunter saw that the wolf had been shot, he quickly jumped out of the bunker, only to see the wolf, half covered in blood, struggling to stand up again, and as soon as he stood firmly, he burrowed into the deep grass on the side in an attempt to save his life. The hunter followed closely, and walked in a brisk arc with the wolf's body in the center, around the wolf's side, followed by another shot, and the bullet hit the wolf's chest......

I saw with my own eyes that the big wolf who had been shot twice fell to the ground with difficulty, and the stone hanging in Zixuan's father's heart finally fell, in order to kill the wolf, he was already haggard, and the moment he watched the big wolf fall to the ground, the breath that had been blocked in his chest for months finally came out with a long sigh of relief. This is the culprit of the ambush hound, and the hunter uses it to ambush the hound, retaliating with a tooth for a tooth, and finally putting it to death. However, when he walked to the wolf's side, he saw a shocking scene - this wolf had full mammary glands!

Zixuan's father understood at a glance that this was a she-wolf who had just given birth! Needless to say, it must have left a litter of wolf cubs somewhere in the mountains. Unexpectedly, the hunter's head "Weng" was loud, and the scenes that had happened in the previous few months were all revealed in an instant, and the old hunter, who was very experienced and experienced, only then did he wake up and realize that he had made an unforgivable mistake. The hunter finally realized that the wolf's move to kill the hound was not to vent his anger, let alone provoke humans, but because it was close to the calf period, there was no male wolf around to protect it and the cubs about to be born, and the hunting dogs that often haunt the mountains and forests with the hunters are bound to pose a threat to the female wolf during the pregnancy. Zixuan's father finally understood that it was instinctive maternal love that made it so cruel.

Thinking of this, Zixuan's father, who had always been well versed in wolf nature, suddenly felt pity in his heart, and he sat down beside the dying she-wolf, stroking its fur and stroking its wounds with trembling hands, just as he had caressed his beloved hound at that time. He hated himself for not anticipating this layer in advance, he should have found the clue from the male wolf who had been ambushed by stealing sheep, and then guessed that there was a pregnant she-wolf in the mountain who needed her to watch and feed, otherwise the male wolf should not easily take risks to offend the villagers, but in a hurry, he fell into the trap of the hunter......

The she-wolf, who had been shot twice, died with great difficulty in front of the hunter's eyes, and her final expression was still as cold and heroic as the last time the hunter saw her. Although it was just a dying she-wolf who had been shot and fell to the ground, it still looked resolute and tenacious, still majestic, which made the hunter beside him, who had long been accustomed to seeing the life and death of animals, also awe.

Annoyed, Zixuan's father sat beside the wolf's corpse for a long time before burying it in the depths of the forest with hatred......

This was more than a decade ago, and since the she-wolf died, there has been no howl from the bull's head. The story of the hunter hunting the wolf was passed on by word of mouth among the villagers, and it was once rumored to be a strange story, however, what no one knew was that Zixuan's father had been blaming himself for killing the wolf afterwards, and his determination to kill it in the first place could not completely rule out the shallow motive of revenge for a dog hunt.

When he first listened to his father tell him about his entire wolf hunt, Liu Zixuan not only experienced the suspiciousness, ruthlessness, cunning and ferocity of wolves, but also appreciated their wisdom, unity, perseverance and bravery, and each of these is the survival skills that must be possessed in all kinds of difficult and harsh environments. Every quality that could be seen from that she-wolf made Liu Zixuan look at this species with admiration and sincere admiration.

In the following years, Liu Zixuan asked more than once about the wolf cubs, and the old hunters said that they had been looking in the forest for a few days, but in the end they could not find the wolf den, let alone the wolf cubs. In retrospect, the old hunter had clearly lied, a lie that had not been revealed until his mother's death - he had found the wolf cubs, brought them home, and raised them with his own hands.

At this point, this past is sad enough, but what is even more sad is that it does not seem to end there. Now, it was the cub that had grown into the only wolf on the bull's head slope - the lame wolf with a hind leg! And it is precisely such a wolf, a few years later, who has become the biggest suspect in Liu Zixuan's heart related to his father's death.

(To be continued)