It was noon on an autumn day.
The sunlight fell upon Zhao Jun, warming not just his body, but his heart as well. His anxious heart gradually began to calm.
'I really am back.' Zhao Jun watched Li Baoyu cutting up the boar's heart to feed the dogs in the distance, a thrill of excitement growing within him.
From the hunting ban in '97 and the confiscation of firearms in '98 until the time of his rebirth, he hadn't been able to go hunting in the mountains for over twenty years.
On countless nights, he had dreamt of his days roaring through the mountain forests. The familiar scenes from those dreams had so often left him with a deep sense of sorrow upon waking.
"Brother!"
Suddenly, Li Baoyu's voice reached his ears, pulling Zhao Jun from his deep thoughts in the afternoon sun.
"Hm?"
Zhao Jun looked toward the sound, his gaze falling on Li Baoyu and then on the two dogs gathered by his side, their tongues out and tails wagging.
Zhao Jun said, "Hey! Give them the liver... no, forget it. Cut off some of the belly fat and feed them. Let them eat their fill."
"You got it!" Li Baoyu replied, quickly slicing strips of fat from the wild boar's belly. He gave one strip to Hua Gou, one to Yellow Dog, feeding the two dogs over and over.
When hunting in the mountains, offering a tribute to the Mountain God after a kill was entirely voluntary. If you believed, you did it; if you didn't, you didn't.
However, feeding the dogs a portion of the kill was the most fundamental rule of the hunt.
After all, a big hunt relied on the hounds. These dogs would fight wild boars and Black Bears for their masters, risking life and limb. That was a life-or-death commitment.
Such a commitment had to be rewarded.
And the reward for the hunting dogs was getting to enjoy a hearty meal after a successful hunt.
The distinction, however, was that dogs generally wouldn't eat the internal organs of a Black Bear, but they would eat a wild boar's.
Thus, in an era of scarcity where people coveted fatty meat but disliked offal, the wild boar's entrails became the exclusive treat for the hunting dogs.
If a Hunter killed a Black Bear or a brown bear, they would cut off some of the meat to feed the dogs, since the dogs wouldn't eat the organs. But if they killed a wild boar, almost no Hunter would cut off meat for the dogs, especially not the fatty parts.
So, if any other Hunter had seen Li Baoyu cutting up the boar's belly fat to feed the dogs, they would have certainly jumped up and cursed the two youths for being wasteful.
You have to understand, even in '86, the standard of living was still low, and the state monopoly on the purchase and sale of grain and oil was still in effect.
The situation was better in the cities.
But in the villages, Forest Areas, and Forest Farms, the difference was like night and day. The people here did hard manual labor all year round and rarely saw any oil or fat in their diet.
So, even though they lived off the land, if a family managed to hunt a wild boar, a Black Bear, or a brown bear back then, it was a more joyous occasion than the New Year.
This was especially true in autumn, the harvest season for all sorts of mountain goods and the time when wild animals fattened up for the winter.
Whether it was bears or boars, they spent all day in the mountains eating walnuts, chewing on acorns and hazelnuts, and stripping kiwiberries and mountain grapes, eating until they were stuffed to the gills and had accumulated a thick layer of fat.
Take the sow that Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu had killed today. In the summer, it wouldn't have even weighed 275 pounds.
But now, it had eaten its way up to around 310 pounds. Not to mention other parts, just the thick slabs of fat on its belly—the part called *nangnangchuai* in the Northeast—would render enough lard to fill two large jars.
In this era of grain and oil rationing, a family of four or five wouldn't get that much oil in an entire year.
Besides, after the fat was rendered, the lipids were extracted, and the originally soft, white blubber would shrink and turn into golden, crispy pork cracklings. You'd just dip them in a bit of salt, and they'd be fragrant and crunchy in your mouth—absolutely delicious.
That's why, in some people's eyes, what Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu were doing was pure wastefulness.
But in the eyes of the hunting dogs, their young master's actions were undoubtedly the highest praise for their life-risking efforts.
The two dogs didn't hold back. Whatever Li Baoyu gave them, they ate, stuffing themselves until their bellies were round and the meat was practically up to their throats. Only then did they run off to the side to lie down and rest.
Seeing that Li Baoyu had finished feeding the dogs, Zhao Jun got up, walked over to him, and asked, "Where's the bag?"
"Ah!" Li Baoyu, who was squatting on the ground wiping his hands and knife with leaves, froze for a second. He suddenly remembered. "I left it up on the ridge."
Zhao Jun asked again, "What about the provisions?"
"Ah," Li Baoyu exclaimed again. "They're all together."
Zhao Jun laughed, not unkindly. "Well, go get them. What are you staring at?"
Hearing this, Li Baoyu got up and ran off into the distance.
The two of them had spent days at home planning this hunt. They had brought a full set of supplies, packing a whole snakeskin bag with food and other necessities.
Li Baoyu had originally been carrying the bag, but he'd tossed it aside when they were cutting the pole for the Invasion Blade.
While Li Baoyu went to get their things, Zhao Jun picked up the hand axe Li Baoyu had left behind and walked back to the fallen tree. He chopped a large branch off the wind-snapped locust tree. The main stem of the branch was as thick as his arm, with a chaotic mess of smaller branches growing from it every which way.
Zhao Jun dragged it back to the wild boar and started chopping it up with the hand axe. He gathered the thin twigs into a pile and then sharpened their ends with the Invasion Blade.
As for the thicker branches, he didn't need to be as meticulous, simply chopping them into short segments.
By the time Zhao Jun had broken down the entire branch, Li Baoyu still hadn't returned. So Zhao Jun took the Invasion Blade again and sliced off a strip of pork belly from the boar's underside.
It was a beautiful piece of meat, marbled with fat.
Zhao Jun cut it into large, flat pieces. He then skewered the large pieces onto the sharpened twigs, one piece of meat per twig. As he finished each skewer, he set it aside.
Before long, a stack of more than forty wild boar skewers was piled up.
When Li Baoyu returned with the snakeskin bag slung over his shoulder, his eyes nearly lit up at the sight.
"Start a fire!" Zhao Jun said, pointing to the thick branches he had already prepared.
"Aye, aye, sir!" Li Baoyu yelped playfully, dropping the snakeskin bag at his feet and immediately starting to pull things out.
Two neatly folded burlap sacks and a newspaper-wrapped bundle.
When Li Baoyu tossed the bundle onto the ground, the folded newspaper fell open, revealing two white-flour steamed buns, four large corn flatbreads, and several large strips of pickled green radish.
This was the lunch the two of them had brought. The steamed buns were from Zhao Jun's family; his father, Zhao Youcai, was the head chef at the Forest Farm's canteen.
There's a saying: if the cook doesn't pilfer, the harvest will fail.
In those days, being the head chef of a canteen meant that whatever the work unit had, your family had too.
As a result, the quality of life in Zhao Jun's family was quite good. Even during the most difficult years, Zhao Jun's family had never gone hungry.
Li Baoyu, on the other hand, came from an average family. The four flatbreads were the lunch his mother had left for him before she went to work in the fields.
Of course, Zhao Jun had always looked after his younger brother. Before they left, the two had planned to split the food, each taking one steamed bun and two flatbreads.
Just then, Li Baoyu pulled a military-style canteen from the bag, unscrewed the cap, and handed it to Zhao Jun first.
Zhao Jun didn't stand on ceremony. He took the canteen without a word and took a couple of big gulps.
After Li Baoyu took the canteen back and had a couple of drinks himself, he screwed the cap back on, set it aside, and pulled out another, smaller newspaper-wrapped bundle. Unwrapping it revealed a box of matches.
Then, Li Baoyu gathered a pile of dry leaves in a spot sheltered from the wind nearby. The leaves caught fire instantly and burned brighter and brighter.
Li Baoyu then tossed the thick branches Zhao Jun had chopped into the fire, and soon, a CRACKLING sound could be heard.