Outside Zhao Jun's family's courtyard.
Tao Sansheng, holding the leashes for four hunting dogs, saw Qin Qiang, Tao Dasheng, and Tao Ersheng walk out of Zhao Jun's family home. He was about to speak but noticed their hands were empty.
Tao Sansheng froze for a moment, then asked, "Brother-in-law, where's the dog?"
Qin Qiang didn't answer. He reached out, snatched a leash from Tao Sansheng's hand, and started walking north, pulling the Qing Gou on the other end.
This Qing Gou was a far cry from the Daqing that Zhao Jun had brought home yesterday. Daqing was large and powerfully built.
The Qing Gou Qin Qiang was leading, however, was scrawny and small, weighing only about fifty pounds.
Seeing Qin Qiang remain silent, Tao Sansheng turned to Tao Dasheng. "Eldest Brother, where's the dog?"
Tao Dasheng didn't answer either. He simply grabbed a leash from Tao Sansheng, took one of the black dogs, and followed closely behind Qin Qiang.
Tao Sansheng was a bit dumbfounded. He looked at his second brother, unsure whether he should ask again.
Tao Ersheng also took a leash from Tao Sansheng's hand and said to his younger brother, "Let's go. We couldn't borrow the dog."
"Why not?" Tao Sansheng was even more bewildered. 'My brother-in-law has been coming to the Zhao Family to borrow dogs for almost two years, and this has never happened before.'
"Stop asking. Let's go!" Tao Ersheng said, walking off with the other black dog.
Tao Sansheng stood frozen in place for two seconds before leading the only one left, the Yellow Dog, and following the group out of the village.
The four men took the dogs into the mountains, never letting them off their leashes.
Along the way, the Qing Gou barked several times, struggling to get away from Qin Qiang, but he refused to let go, continuing deeper into the mountains.
The Qing Gou's behavior was a clear sign there was prey nearby, or at least tracks left by prey, but Qin Qiang remained unmoved.
This was because Qin Qiang had a very clear objective today: he was after a Black Bear.
These days, wild boars weren't worth much. You hunted them just for the meat.
But a bear was valuable. You could say its entire body was a treasure trove.
Bear's Paw and meat went without saying, and bear fat, when used for cooking, was better than any other oil.
Even in winter, if you tossed a flatbread cooked with bear fat into the snow, it would stay soft and pliable, even at forty degrees below zero.
Of course, you still couldn't sell the meat or the fat for money.
However, a bear had other parts that were worth a lot.
The Bear Nose, when dried over a roof tile, ground into a powder, and taken with yellow wine, could treat epilepsy.
The bear's kneecaps, known as "mock tiger bones," could treat rheumatism and rheumatoid arthritis.
The most expensive part, by far, was the Bear Gall.
Around this time, in '86, a single Bear Gall could be sold at the state-run store down the mountain for five or six hundred yuan, no problem.
If it was a top-quality Copper Gall, it could even fetch over a thousand.
After Qin Qiang got married, his father moved into the mountains by himself. He built a small shack, cleared a few acres of land, and spent his days setting snares and traps.
Five days ago, while checking his snares, Elder Qin saw bear droppings.
Bears weren't like wild boars; snares that could catch a boar couldn't catch a bear.
As it happened, Elder Qin had snared a roe deer a couple of days prior, so he used its fat to rig up a small explosive and set a trap.
From then on, Elder Qin checked his trap once a day.
Just yesterday, he went to look and saw the trap had been sprung. There was no dead bear, only a trail of blood dripping on the ground.
Elder Qin was frustrated. 'I must have wrapped the explosive too lightly. It went off the moment the bear bit it.' It had mangled the bear's mouth but failed to damage its brain, so the bear hadn't died.
Unwilling to let it go, Elder Qin came down the mountain to Qin Qiang's house and told him to go hunt the bear today.
That was why Qin Qiang and his group had such a clear objective today: hunt the bear and sell its gall for cash.
And so, no matter how many times the Qing Gou, their lead dog, barked, Qin Qiang refused to release it.
He didn't know what the dog had found. It could be a wild boar, a roe deer, or even a badger.
Of course, it could also be the bear.
But the chances of that were too slim. The intelligence his father provided was more reliable.
'And you'd have to be a real bastard to pass up a payday like that.'
The four men led their four dogs to the spot Elder Qin had mentioned and saw that there were, indeed, still faint bloodstains on the ground.
Qin Qiang unfastened the chain on the Qing Gou's neck, and the dog immediately began sniffing around the area, sniffing here and there without stopping.
Slowly, the Qing Gou followed the blood trail northwest, with Qin Qiang and the others following behind, leading the remaining three dogs.
Then, the Qing Gou started to run, but Qin Qiang and his men weren't worried.
They knew their own dog. That Qing Gou had a short range; it wouldn't run more than a couple of *li*.
Sure enough, after running for a while, the Qing Gou returned. After meeting up with Qin Qiang, it turned back and ran off again.
They went back and forth like this until it was almost noon.
The four dogs rested scattered around them while Qin Qiang and the others sat under a large tree, eating the flatbreads they had brought from home.
Seeing that Qin Qiang's expression had softened, Tao Dasheng finally dared to ask, "Brother-in-law, do you think our Qing Gou can handle this?"
Qin Qiang frowned, thought for a moment, and said, "It's hard to say."
The Tao Brothers exchanged glances, but none of them dared to press the issue.
Just then, Qin Qiang sighed. "Even if we find it, I'm afraid we won't be able to corner it."
"It's all that brat Zhao Jun's fault!" Tao Ersheng blurted out. "Refusing to lend us his dog today."
Tao Dasheng quickly tugged on Tao Ersheng, signaling him to stop talking. 'We were the ones in the wrong. How can we blame someone else?'
Qin Qiang finished chewing and swallowed the flatbread in his mouth. He looked at his three brothers-in-law and said, "Everyone be careful today. If it looks bad, we pull out."
The moment Qin Qiang said this, the Tao Brothers were all stunned.
They had been hunting with Qin Qiang for over a year, and this was the first time they had ever heard their brother-in-law say something so pessimistic.
"So we're short one dog, what's the big deal?" Tao Sansheng said dismissively. "If our dogs can find the Black Bear, we can take it down."
Qin Qiang didn't speak. He got up from the base of the tree and whistled. The four resting dogs scrambled to their feet.
With a wave of Qin Qiang's hand, the Qing Gou shot off directly, while the other three dogs followed, alternating between running, stopping, and meandering.
"I'll go on ahead. You all get your blades mounted and then follow me!" Qin Qiang ordered, slinging his rifle over his back and starting off.
The Tao Brothers were obedient. They all took out the Invasion Blades they had brought, found suitable saplings nearby, and began whittling them into shafts to attach to their blades.
The four men and four dogs roamed the mountains until two in the afternoon, when they suddenly heard a series of barks up ahead.
"Let's move!" Qin Qiang roared, taking the shotgun off his shoulder.
Qin Qiang's gun wasn't a Type 56 semi-automatic rifle. Not just anyone could get their hands on one of those, nor could everyone afford it.
His gun was a 16-gauge with an attached barrel from a semi-automatic, and it fired 7.62mm rounds.
But the gun couldn't fire continuously. After each shot, he had to remove the empty shell casing and manually load another round.
Qin Qiang broke open the gun, pulled three bullets from his pocket, loaded one into the chamber, and clutched the remaining two in his hand.
He snapped the gun shut, chambering the round. Qin Qiang strode quickly toward the ridge, and the Tao Brothers hurried to keep up.