The cold winter, the wax moon, the weather is dry and cold, the north wind has been raging for two months, and the skin of the people who are blowing is painful, but there is no rain and snow in the sky, such strange weather, I have not seen it for many years.

The old people said: "I'm afraid that there will be a snow disaster, such white snow, it should not have fallen for more than ten years, hurry up and prepare food for the winter." ”

Adults and children in the village are always ready for the arrival of heavy snow.

Just when so many people were preparing and storing winter rations, there was one person who was worried about too much food, and this person was Liu Lao Wu.

Liu Lao Wu is already more than sixty years old, is a hunting for 40 years of old hunters, no children and no daughters, and his wife together lonely life in the Yaoziling halfway mountainside, during the period in addition to buying the necessities of life, almost never go down the mountain, a few years ago I felt that life was too boring, anyway, and poor, I relied on the mountain to eat the mountain, simply moved to the mountain, one is to rely on hunting to pass the boring time, the other is to change the life, I didn't expect to live in this house for nearly eight years.

Every winter, Liu Lao Wu will go into the mountains to hunt a lot of game, peel the skin and dry the air-dried, the refrigerated refrigeration, in winter, the river has a thick layer of ice, dig a big pit on the side of the glacier, that is a natural big refrigerator, put the game in the ice pit by the river, at least you can eat until the spring of the next year, and the game stored in the ice cave will never be bad, but I don't know that this year's heavy snow is nothing but delayed, Liu Lao Wu's meat is smelly a lot, if you don't freeze again, wait for the snow disaster to come, Liu's family could only starve.

"Old man, if you go to the mountain tomorrow and see if there are any wild jumpers on the mountain, these unspoiled meat are not enough for us to survive the winter!" Liu Lao Wu's wife said to Liu Lao Wu.

"Well, if I don't, I'll go down the mountain and buy some grain, and sell the skins while I'm going to get cold, and I'll be able to sell them for a good price." Liu Lao Wu replied while wiping the shotgun.

"If only I could hit the skin, my leg is starting to hurt again now, if it snows, how am I going to survive?" Liu Lao Wu's wife thumped her numb legs.

Liu Lao Wu comforted: "Don't worry about it first, I'll go to the mountain tomorrow to have a look, and I'll give you a skin to keep out the cold, I can't let you suffer anymore." ”

Liu Lao Wu's wife smiled when she heard this.

The people of the village call the animals that come out to forage in winter "wild jumpers", these wild jumpers when the heavy snow is coming, their habits become very different from usual, people are elusive, but one thing everyone knows, that is, they desperately seek food during the day, and hide their bodies at night, so if you want to catch them, you have to set off in advance.

The next day, as soon as it was dawn, Liu Lao Wu got up early in the morning with his shotgun, don't look at Liu Lao Wu dressed very sloppily, but the shotgun was shiny, Liu Lao Wu didn't want to go to the mountains to play some wild jumpers, those wild jumpers couldn't get into Liu Lao Wu's eyes at all, and their skin couldn't cure his wife's leg pain at all.

Besides, the wild jumpers on the mountainside and the top of the mountain have already been beaten away by the young people in the village, and those ignorant stunned young people are very happy to see a rabbit, not to mention hunting, in the deep mountains and old forests behind the village, in order to be able to play some real good jumpers, good skins, only real good hunters will starve for several days.

A few years have passed, and the wild jumps on the edge of the mountain have become more and more scarce, and if you want to get the game and skins that can really survive the winter, there is only one place, and that is to cross the kiln ridge and go to the red stream in the middle of the valley.

The two sides of the valley are Yaoziling and Julong Mountain, the two peaks are opposite to each other from north to south, the middle of the mountain peak is a valley, the valley is about five or six kilometers long from east to west, plus the excess part around it, the whole valley is only more than ten kilometers in radius, this valley is called the periphery of the red stream by the hunters who come and go.

Passing through the perimeter, there is a stream running from east to west, which runs through the valley and reaches the bottom of the mountain.

It is rumored that during the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Japanese devils invaded the Central Plains, and all the men, women and children of a village were annihilated here, and the blood flowed down this stream, and the fishy wind was blowing, and it happened that this stream was in the middle of two mountains, so it had the name of Red Creek Stream.

However, the periphery of the red stream is filled with the fog mixed with poisonous barriers all day long, the legend is that all kinds of poisonous weeds and herbs grow together, all kinds of animals hunt each other, the whole day, there is not even a little insect song and bird cry in the valley, the silence is terrible, especially when it gets dark, the ghost cries wolf howls in the red stream, it is very scary.

It is precisely because of the unique geographical environment that the valley is sparsely populated, and no one will come here unless it is absolutely necessary. The most frequent haunts here are the herb pickers, who can almost always find the herbs and poisonous herbs they need here. In addition to the herb pickers, there is another kind of people who also come here, that is, hunters, the animals here, the fur is fine, the meat is tender, whether it is sold or eaten, the prey here is definitely the best choice.

As the saying goes, "If there is no three, two, three, how dare you go to Liangshan," so the hunters who dare to come here to hunt are naturally top-notch and have a lot of experience.

Liu Lao Wu is one of them, the prey that died in his hands is not 10,000 but also 8,000, don't look at him usually lives in the mountains and rarely goes home, but when the villagers mention hunting, they will still give him a thumbs up, if any family needs good skin, they will work tirelessly to invite him up the mountain, of course, the price is also very high, and this is the reason why Liu Lao Wu dares to come to Hongxi Stream alone.

It was noon when Liu Lao Wu turned over the Yaoziling, he found the cave where he usually rested, and prepared to enter the mountain when the sun went down, because at that time, the poisonous barrier in the valley would be weakened to the minimum after a day of wind and exposure, and only at that time would it be beneficial for him to enter the mountain, if he missed this time, when the sun went down the mountain, it would be dark, and the fog would be silently diffused, and if it was dark, the danger factor would increase, so it was necessary to find a safe place to live before it got dark to spend this dangerous night.

Liu Lao Wu knew that after entering the valley, if he walked two or three miles forward, he would enter the periphery, and through the fog on the periphery, he would come to a cliff, which was the place where he had rested.