Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 197 This "Gathering" of Young People

Li Long raised his gun and aimed in the direction of Luming, where a young male deer was walking towards the female deer at the bottom of the ditch with a relaxed pace.

The male deer was quite big, similar to an adult cow - but not as fat as a cow. He moved very lightly and raised his head and called out from time to time. It was unclear whether he was trying to attract the attention of the female deer or calling his companions.

The female deer also stopped when they heard the male deer's call, and one of them responded.

The velvet on the male deer's head is not very big, much smaller than the antlers picked up the day before. There is still hair on the top, and it is very blunt. It will take some time before it turns into horns.

Li Long looked at the male deer and whispered:
"Da Qiang, aim at those doe. Once I fire, you shoot and see if you can hit them... Don't shoot until I do. Do you understand?"

"I understand." Tao Daqiang didn't even turn on the safety of his gun, for he was afraid that he might accidentally fire his gun again and ruin Li Long's plan.

Li Long slowly adjusted his breathing and aimed at the front chest of the male deer. The deer skin is important, and a good hunter should aim at the deer head. However, Li Long felt it was still safer. He had been walking in the mountains for so many days and only encountered a male deer. If he missed it again, he didn't know how long he would have to wander around - there were still many things to do at home!
Li Long pre-pulled the trigger and didn't let Tao Daqiang wait too long. With a "bang", the gun went off.

Tao Daqiang was in a state of extreme nervousness. As soon as he heard Li Long's gunshot, he immediately pulled the safety button with his finger, turned it on, and then aimed at the frightened doe and fired.

Unfortunately, it missed.

After Li Long fired his first shot, he quickly used the aiming circle to circle the buck and see if he needed another shot - no.

After being shot, the buck fell to the ground and is still twitching in the grass.

Li Long stood up and said to Tao Daqiang:

"I'm going to see the male deer, and you go and see what's going on with the female deer..."

"Brother Long, I didn't hit him..." Tao Daqiang felt a little ashamed.

"If you didn't hit it, then you didn't hit it. This is normal. I fired first, and the doe was frightened when you shot it again, so she ran away quickly. Okay, let's go and check out the buck. Our mission is accomplished. By the way, put the safety on the gun."

Li Long put the gun on his back, then rushed down to the bottom of the ditch, then went up the hill and came to the deer.

"Oh, what a huge loss!"

With just one look, Li Long knew that this time the loss was huge!
The male deer fell forward, and the antler on its head hit the ground directly, breaking into four pieces - there were two pieces of antler in the grass on the ground, with uneven cuts and still bleeding.

The cross section of the antler on the deer's head is also bleeding, so the price of this antler may be discounted.

But fortunately, this time the main purpose of hunting is not deer antlers, Li Long comforted himself.

"Brother Long, this buck must be at least 100 kilograms, right?"

"More than that, at least 120 to 130 kilograms." Li Long said, "I definitely can't carry it on my back, and it's troublesome for the two of us to lift it, so we might as well deal with it here, otherwise it will be difficult to bring it back."

"Well, what should I do now?" Tao Daqiang scratched his head and asked.

"You..." Li Long thought for a moment and said, "Go to the cabin and push the bicycle over here. It's too late to go back and find a carriage or car. I'll skin the deer and process it right away. You can take the bicycle and take the venison back."

"Okay." Tao Daqiang immediately left with his gun on his back.

Li Long put the five or six pieces aside, took out his knife, bled the deer first, and then prepared to skin it.

When dealing with this kind of thing, the skin cannot be peeled off completely, otherwise it will be troublesome when opening the belly. After all, it is in the wild, and the meat must remain on the skin, otherwise it will be troublesome if it gets stuck with grass and dirt.

Li Long peeled the skin off the male deer's belly and took off the deer penis first. Dealing with this thing was a little bit nauseating, but to put it bluntly, this was a mandatory task and he had to do it.

He cut the nearly two-foot-long thing into pieces, along with the two eggs. After cutting them, he had to peel the skin. Li Long put the final product aside with a look of disgust.

Although this is the most important task in the mountains these days, Li Long doesn't want to look at it now.

The next step was skinning - the smell of blood had already attracted green-headed flies. Li Long grabbed a handful of mugwort nearby and waved it from time to time to prevent the green-headed flies from feeding on the venison.

After peeling off most of the deer's skin, Tao Daqiang came over panting, pushing his bicycle. There were no narrow paths in the valley, and it was difficult to push the bicycle.

"Brother Long, I brought a rope. Do you think we should tie it up first and take it back before dealing with it?"

"Okay." Li Long straightened up and looked around. There were more and more flies, so he said, "Wrap it up and go back. Let's deal with the meat directly. Let's go back. We can take the meat back for everyone to eat, and we can also deal with the matter of the horse shed."

"Is this meat delicious?" Tao Daqiang was a little confused. "Is the meat of a male deer without castration tasty?"

"I don't know. I'll know when I go back and cook some."

Li Long didn't expect Tao Daqiang to think of this, but he felt that Tao Daqiang was picky because he ate too much meat.

Normally we can’t eat meat. The most we can eat on a daily basis is fish. It’s very good to have meat to eat. Why are you picky?
When he was skinning the deer just now, he found that the deer was quite fat. He would cook it in a big pot, roast it a little, and then add more seasonings. Doesn't he believe that those guys won't eat it?
It's impossible not to eat.

The living conditions in the team, although the land was distributed this year, the harvest from the land has not come out yet. Although it has been watered, how can the venison be compared with those fish?

They wrapped the deer in skin, tied it up, and placed it on the back seat of the bicycle, then tied it tightly with a rope. Li Long put the deer whip and broken antlers into a bag. He held the bag and supported the deer, while Tao Daqiang pushed the bicycle in front. The two men carefully went down the slope and walked out to the bottom of the ditch.

By the time they got back to the cabin, the sun was almost at the top of the mountain.

Two people carried the deer down, and Li Long directly cut open the deer. Tao Daqiang skillfully took a large basin and put the internal organs and offal into the basin, and then went to the spring to wash the intestines and stomach.

Li Long took out the two kidneys, put them together with the deer penis, and took them to the cabin to dry. It would take some time for this thing to dry in the shade, and he couldn't wait that long, so he planned to give the fresh ones directly to Li Xiangqian.

The first thing he did was to use the saw in the cabin to saw off the two pieces of antler on the deer's head. He then packed them together with the two previous pieces of antler with salt and mud, and put them on the shelf in the cabin.

The next step is to deal with the meat.

He swatted the flies, rubbed salt on the meat, and then broke it into pieces. There was salt on the meat, and the flies no longer swatted the meat, but began to pick up the blood that was flowing out.

Li Long began to cut up the meat, legs, ribs, tenderloins, necks, etc., even the hooves and heads were not spared. He peeled off the skin completely, removed the fat and meat, smeared salt on it, and carried it to the cabin.

There are already several skins nailed here, and with this deerskin, it is almost full.

Tao Daqiang turned over and washed his intestines and stomach, then came back with a large basin and asked Li Long:

"Brother Long, are we cooking now?"

"Go ahead, I'll fry some stomach and intestines or something," Li Long said, "After we finish eating, let's go down the mountain. It's just that the distance is a bit far, and it's a bit troublesome to walk back."

"That's not to be afraid of!" Tao Daqiang said with a smile, "It's not like we haven't been there before..."

"Well, one of these legs is yours. You can carry it home when we get back." Li Long said, "The remaining meat is enough for everyone to eat. We have some left in this wooden house. I will ride on it and hand over the deer penis and other things to the supply and marketing cooperative. You walk slowly behind."

"Okay!" Tao Daqiang nodded vigorously, "Brother Long, don't worry about me. I can definitely walk back."

Li Long thought this was fine. While Li Long was cooking, Tao Daqiang steamed some more rice. This time he didn't steam much. He was quite curious about the rice steaming method that Li Long taught him. Although he couldn't drink the rice soup, at least it wouldn't be undercooked and the rice wouldn't get burnt, which was pretty good.

Just at this moment, a man walked slowly towards them carrying a bag.

Tao Daqiang was concentrating on the pot of steaming rice, but Li Long noticed him first.

"What do you do?" Li Long put the fried deer tripe with dried chili peppers on a plate and placed it on the chopping board, and asked the man loudly.

"Are you...collecting Fritillaria?" The man smelled the fragrance of the food, swallowed his saliva, and asked from a distance of thirty or forty meters away.

"Collect, how many do you have?"

"I have... about 7 or 8 kilograms of meat here." The man said, "Do you have any meat? Can you exchange it for some money and some more meat?"

"Then bring the Fritillaria over here and have a look," Li Long picked up the pot and put it aside to avoid it burning empty. He still had one dish to cook.

The man saw Li Long and Tao Daqiang staring at him with a fierce look and felt a little panicked, but since he was already here, it was not convenient for him to just leave, so he slowly walked over with the bag.

This man must have not been out of the mountains for a long time. His hair is very long, his beard is untidy, and his clothes also smell bad. Li Long suddenly asked:

"If you hadn't run out of vegetables, meat, or oil, you wouldn't have come to sell Fritillaria?"

"...Yes." The man was stunned for a moment, but still said truthfully, "We all do this. We take advantage of this season to dig more, and then stop digging when it blooms and sell it. We have to wait until autumn to go into the mountains to dig Codonopsis pilosula."

When Tao Daqiang heard that they were digging Codonopsis pilosula, he immediately became nervous.

"Digging Codonopsis is not as convenient as digging Fritillaria." Li Long said with a smile, "Digging Fritillaria, you can dig several kilograms a day, if you have good tools, you can dig more. Digging Codonopsis depends on luck, whether there are many roots under the Codonopsis... Come, let me see your Fritillaria."

The man opened the bag, and Li Long reached out and grabbed a handful of mother-of-pearl and put it in his palm to look at it.

The Fritillaria should have been air-dried, half-dried, not much washed, not very clean, with some miscellaneous leaves and dirt, of all sizes, not very evenly spaced, but without twigs. According to Chen Hongjun's standards, it is considered second-grade goods. This bag weighs seven or eight kilograms.

"For this bag, I'll charge you 50 yuan." Li Long weighed it and said, "You have impurities, it's semi-dry, less than 8 kilograms, I'll charge you 6 yuan per kilogram, how about that?"

The man pointed to the large basin beside the wooden house and said:

"Then... can you give us another piece of meat? We haven't had meat for several days..."

"Okay." Li Long said cheerfully, "I'll give you a piece of meat. Do you want fat or lean?"

"A fatter one." the man said immediately.

Li Long took out a stack of banknotes, counted out five Great Unity notes and handed them over. The man looked at the notes in Li Long's hand with shining eyes.

"Don't look at me. I have killed two people who came to this wooden house at night and tried to steal money." Li Long pointed at him and said, "Those two were also digging for Fritillaria. One is now in labor reform in Shihezi Prison, and the other one killed someone and has been killed now."

Tao Daqiang went into the cabin silently, took out the small-caliber rifle, and fiddled with it while looking at the man.

The man immediately waved his hand:
"We dare not... We are all honest people, we dare not do such a thing..."

Li Long entered the cabin, took out a piece of wild boar meat and handed it to him:
"Here, this is wild boar meat. It has some fat, but not too fatty. It's better than the meat you have now. Take it."

The piece of meat weighed three or four kilograms, and the man left happily holding it.

When the man disappeared, Tao Daqiang asked worriedly:
"Brother Long, we still have so many things in this room. If these people come and knock on the door but no one responds, do you think it will happen..."

Li Long was also a little worried.

But there is no way around this.

He thought for a while and said:
"There's nothing we can do about it. Let's just leave it alone for now."

"How about this." Tao Daqiang said, "Brother Long, I'll stay here for a day. You can send some of the things back first, and wait for the carriage to come tomorrow, and then take the rest back. This way, we won't have to worry. Otherwise, these people will take away all the skins and meats, which is a pity..."

Li Long is worried:

"Can you be here alone?"

"Why not? I won't go out this afternoon," Tao Daqiang said. "I'll pick some mushrooms nearby with my gun on my back. I don't believe those people will dare to come and touch me when they see I have a gun. I'll go into the house when the sun sets and lock the door. I'll shoot anyone who knocks on the door..."

"Row."

Li Long nodded, "Then I will send the things back now. If I can come back today, I will come back today. If I can't come back, I will come back tomorrow morning."

"Don't worry, Brother Long, you have stayed in the mountains for many days. I can't compare with you. I can't hunt, but I can still stay in the mountains. As you said, how can I encounter murder every day?"

Li Long got on his bicycle, put the salted venison into a sack, and placed the deer penis, antlers, Fritillaria and other things in the bag and hung it on the front handlebars of the bike. He pushed the bag across the ditch and rode all the way back.

In less than two hours, Li Long had returned to the county. He first went to the compound, put down the venison, velvet antlers and Fritillaria, and took the deer penis and a deer leg in a sack to the supply and marketing cooperative.

It was still Uncle Li at the gate. He saw Li Long and smiled:
"Xiao Li is here? Are you looking for Li Xiangqian? He's here, come in!"

Li Long thanked Uncle Li, pushed the cart inside, and then went to Li Xiangqian's office carrying the sack.

Li Xiangqian was smoking and chatting with a middle-aged man. When he saw Li Long coming with a sack, he was stunned for a moment, then surprised:

"Xiao Li is here, come in and have a seat!"

Then he said to the middle-aged man:

"Old Wu, I have something to do today. Let's talk about this another day..."

The man left tactfully.

"Did you get it?" Li Xiangqian asked impatiently after everyone left.

"Well," Li Long took out the deer penis, deer legs and two kidneys, "They are fresh today, and I don't know how to prepare them, so I just brought them to you. Look, there are still hair and hooves on the legs, which makes sure they are real."

"I believe you... sit down, sit down, are you exhausted?"

"No, I have to go back quickly. There are still some leather and other things in the mountains. I have to go back to the village and drive a horse-drawn carriage to take them back..."

"What carriage do you want? I'll send you one!" Li Xiangqian said proudly:
"We can't let you work for nothing. Just wait, I'll approve the note for you right now and get the director to sign it. It's quick!"

(End of this chapter)