Forest Farm 1985: Raise a bear cub to climb the mountain

Chapter 233: Each Doing His Own Business (Two in One)

Zheng Xiaojian limped on one foot, rubbing the pine oil knots back and forth on his cloak, and hurried back to the woods, following his footprints.

The first thing to do after entering the forest is to pick a branch from the nearest birch tree.

He immediately pulled out the rope from his waist, tied it to one end of the branch, stood in the middle of the snow path, and threw it to the side with force.

These days, people in the mountains mostly use loin cloth to tie their waists, and only the extremely sophisticated ones use leather belts.

Zheng Xiaojian has now been kicked out of the house, and the clothes he is wearing are the ones he wore before he married into the family.

He hadn't worn his clothes for years and his figure had changed, so he could hardly put his pants on. Zheng Xiaojian had no choice but to cut the waistband of his pants with a knife, and then tied it five or six times with a long hemp rope, and used it as a corset.

So when he exerted force, the branch tied with a rope was thrown far away.

Then Zheng Xiaojian pulled the rope back while shaking the rope up and down.

Under the regular traction of the rope, the branch was like a small animal, rising and falling in the snow, leaving behind a series of footprint-like marks.

After camouflaging the footprints on the side of the snow trail, Zheng Xiaojian raised his legs and walked towards the roots of the birch tree on the leeward side.

The snow was shallow at the roots of the trees, leaving footprints there so that a slight scrape of a branch could smooth them out.

The route chosen by Zheng Xiaojian was densely wooded, which allowed him to get away from the snow trail without taking big steps and leaving deep footprints in the snow, even though he had sprained his ankle.

After walking a distance, Zheng Xiaojian took out his waist rope and a small stick and made a footprint on the snow trail in the same way.

After three rounds of this, Zheng Xiaojian had just moved away from the snow trail and entered the depths of the birch forest when the flashlights slowly arrived at the edge of the forest.

For a moment, Zheng Xiaojian felt his heart in his throat.

He immediately hid behind a tree, holding a branch horizontally in his mouth as a gibberish, and stared at the group of people strolling along the snow path without blinking.

When Zheng Xiaojian saw the fat bear walking in the front, shaking his head and butt, and a small monster jumping around the fat bear, his eyes suddenly widened and his hand uncontrollably reached for the hunting rifle behind him - who else could this group of people be except Dai Song!

Just as his hand touched the butt of the shotgun, the pedestrian in the distance suddenly stopped.

I saw the half-grown bear in the front holding its head up and sniffing.
Next to it, the thin dog kept walking in circles in the snow with its head down, occasionally digging at the compacted snow on the snow path.

Zheng Xiaojian's eyes widened as he watched these scenes, and he could feel his heart beating wildly in his chest.

The pine oil knots he made were very effective. Even if it was a bear, it shouldn't be able to smell it...

In the distance, the bear raised its head and sniffed hard, while the people behind it raised flashlights and swept around. Soon, two long streams of "white smoke" came out of the fat bear's nose, and then it jumped forward a few steps with its short legs and slid straight to the fake footprints left by Zheng Xiaojian.

Seeing this, Zheng Xiaojian's throat tightened instantly. If he hadn't had the branch in his mouth blocking the movement of his tongue and the flow of air, the gasping sound would definitely have attracted the attention of the two animals!
The Greater Khingan Range was very quiet at night. Even though the two sides were quite far apart, Zheng Xiaojian could vaguely hear some voices when the mountain breeze blew.

"What is this?" One of them shone a flashlight at the "footprints" in the snow. "Did a yellow fox walk by? Look at the footprints, they are dragging and tumbling, they definitely can't be left by a snow rabbit."

"That's impossible. How could there be yellow-skinned foxes in this old forest?" another person retorted.

The man's voice sounded old, but somewhat familiar to Zheng Xiaojian.

He narrowed his eyes slightly and tried hard to recall, and soon recalled Li Qinghai's appearance in his mind.

What? This old Deng is here too!

Zheng Xiaojian was shocked.

Even if his plot was exposed so quickly, it was just a conflict between him and the Dai family. Why did Li Qinghai come and get involved? !

At the same time, another conversation was heard in the distance.
"If it's not a yellow fox, what else could it be? In this deep forest, in the middle of winter with heavy snow, what else could leave such footprints?"

"Don't talk too much yet, let Erhan find it."

Zheng Xiaojian's pupils shrank when he heard that, and his eyes were fixed on the chubby bear-man that was strolling towards him along the series of "footprints".

As the bear man walked, he stuck his mouthpiece into the snow and plowed a deep furrow. His two small eyes flashed with fierce light and rolled around.

Zheng Xiaojian's "footprints" were not very long. In order to save time, he only made a dozen meters. The footprints finally came to an abrupt end under a birch tree.

And the birch tree was not far in front of Zheng Xiaojian.

The bear man staggered to the birch tree, raised his head and sniffed under the tree, then stood up by holding on to the trunk, raised his head, and kept grunting at the bare branches.

The mountain breeze blew, and the bloody taste from the bear man's mouth suddenly stimulated Zheng Xiaojian, who was hiding behind a tree, to tighten his anus and shrink his testicles.

He put his hands and feet together, and stood behind the tree as if he was standing guard, not daring to move.

At the same time, those people in the distance all shone their flashlights over.

The beams of light first stopped at the top of the branch that the man was hugging, then swept across the tree in front of Zheng Xiaojian. Then, the beams of light "wandered" around the forest in circles without any regular pattern.

Zheng Xiaojian couldn't help but become nervous, and his injured foot began to ache dully from the force.

The pain grew stronger and stronger as time went by, as if there was a throbbing tumor in his ankle, constantly pressing on and corroding his bones and tendons, and would eventually burst through the skin and explode.

Not only that, the bear man sniffed under the tree, and after seeming to make sure that there was nothing on the tree, he walked directly towards Zheng Xiaojian.

Finally, it stopped three meters away, swaying its body from left to right, with its front paws crossed in the air, trying hard to check the smell of the surrounding forest.

Feeling the crunching sound of the bear's paws stepping on the snow, Zheng Xiaojian couldn't help but tremble all over. He dared not breathe. He gripped the butt of the gun tightly with his right hand and prayed in his heart that the mountain wind would not stop.

Once the wind stops, he will definitely be discovered by the bear because he is in the downwind position!
Zheng Xiaojian encouraged himself that if danger came, he would give it his all.

If he really can't hide, he must shoot that man in the face!
Thinking of this, Zheng Xiaojian closed his eyes, forced himself to relax his throat, and slowly began to exhale.

He had to keep quiet and breathe as slowly as possible to ensure that he could hit the target when he fired.

But just as he exhaled a breath of foul air, the sound of the bear man stepping on the snow suddenly became more frequent. Zheng Xiaojian's heart skipped a beat, his expression twisted, and he immediately grabbed the gun and walked towards the tree.

But as soon as he lifted his foot, he found that the movement was getting farther and farther away, and in contrast, there was no longer any circle of light from the flashlight around him.

He poked his head stealthily out from behind a tree and just saw the man's round bear butt trembling as he ran away, while Dai Song and his group on the snowy trail were looking to the other side.

"call……"

Zheng Xiaojian took a deep breath.

The long period of lack of oxygen made him feel dizzy and his vision was full of double images.

However, the sense of relief after surviving the disaster gave him great stimulation, and dense beads of cold sweat as big as beans soon covered his forehead.

It is no exaggeration to say that under the high-pressure environment just now, his body truly experienced the taste of death.

Whether he was torn to pieces by the bear or shot to death by those men, there was no doubt that his only outcome would be death.

Now that he was able to catch his breath, he suddenly felt unwell and almost fainted. Fortunately, he hugged the tree trunk in front of him and managed to steady his body. Finally, he slowly squatted down.

After taking two breaths to recover, Zheng Xiaojian's first reaction was to shoot the man with his gun.

But then reason stopped him.

If we shoot now, even if we kill Dai Song, he won't be able to escape in the end.
These guys probably won't hand him over to the hat, and will probably just kill him.

Even if he is handed over,
In the end, he was destined to eat peanuts.
In this case, he and his son exchanged their lives for Dai Song's life. It was really a loss. If Dai Song was really killed, what would be the point?
Being alive, even if living like a wild animal, is better than being dead!
Zheng Xiaojian determined the underlying idea, and happened to see Dai Song and others checking the other end, and began to return along the same route.

"Forget it, let's go back.

It's so dark, it's really hard to find it, and judging by the footprints, it can't be a big thing. It's just a small thing, it's probably not worth much money." said a young man.

"That's not necessarily true." Another middle-aged man added, "Maybe it's a big one. Look at the size, is it about right?"

"That's impossible." Li Qinghai immediately retorted, "How high is this place? People like Da Pi live in the mountains. The terrain here is too low. Da Pi wouldn't come here for no reason."

"Old Li Pao, didn't you say it was all for no reason?" the young man continued, "Those Sumao people all carried grenades. They passed here and then back again. Who knows what tricks they used to kill wild animals along the way. Recently, there are more wild animals in our forestry team than before, and it's in chaos. I think Da Pi might also go down the mountain to escape..."

The group's voices became fainter and fainter, and Zheng Xiaojian leaned out from behind a tree.

Looking at the intermittent flashlights in the distance, he couldn't help but begin to doubt his previous thoughts - it seemed like they were not here to find him?
If I really look for him, I would never think of hitting Da Pi!

In this case, you might as well just follow them!

Firstly, he could find an opportunity to strike. If he happened to meet Dai Song on his way out, he could stab him in the back, kill him and then run away.

Secondly, if the other party is really looking for him, then wouldn't it be like being in the dark about the lamp? Not only will they never be able to find him, but he can always get the first-hand information about their movements!
Zheng Xiaojian narrowed his eyes, the more he thought about it, the more he felt that his idea was feasible. Finally, he lifted his sprained foot with a hiss and limped towards the snow path, heading in the direction where Dai Song and others were moving.

Far away at the edge of the Heijiang River, several Sumao people dressed in furs and wearing sable hats stood on the river bank with guns in their hands.

The leading man was short and fat, with a mustache, and his light green eyes flashed with a hint of murderous intent in the light of the lantern.

What was different from the others was that the buttons on his fur coat were all made of animal teeth in various shapes. Even the smallest ones looked like they came from various animals. They had turned slightly yellow due to years of use, and had a lustrous luster on their surface.

He took a deep puff of his pipe, then used his tongue to pick the pipe tip in his mouth. The tobacco leaves at the front of the pipe soon turned the same red as Beshka's eyes.

"Hu——" The man let the smoke return to the dragon and exhaled from his nostrils.

The pungent smell of secondhand smoke made Beshka's scalp numb.

"Keep going forward?" The man pointed the shotgun in his hand towards the snow-capped mountains and dense forests in the south.

“Yes.” Beshka recalled his memory, “Three kilometers ahead, you will see the mark left by our team on a cypress tree.

This is enough to prove that what I said is true.”

"Proving what you say is true isn't the point." Another tall, thin man interrupted, holding a gun.

His limbs and neck were slender, especially the neck that was wrapped in a spiral scarf and looked like a screw. Combined with his thin face and sharp features, if he were placed in the forest farm, he would definitely make people think that he was a dirty creature from the mountains that had come out for a stroll.

The tall and thin man said this, holding the gun in his hand and pretending to adjust the cursor on the rear sight to the lowest position, as if he had found some prey nearby. After noticing Beshka's unfriendly look, he raised the corners of his mouth and spread his hands.

"Don't be nervous. I'm just on guard against the beasts in the darkness around me. I'm definitely not planning to kill anyone."

Beshka's beard twitched, and then he looked into the distance without saying a word.

The tall and thin man continued, "How can you ensure that the fur supplies you mentioned will be delivered to us in the end?"

"Haha, didn't I tell you that our team completed this year's mission ahead of schedule? The rest of us have already gone home. I took advantage of my position to hide these supplies.

It’s just that I underestimated the threats in these mountains. I encountered a Siberian tiger in the mountains and consumed too much ammunition before I escaped.

Rather than going back to replenish supplies and then crossing the river to get furs in the colder season, it is better for us to give up some of our interests and cooperate.

After all, I miss strong liquor and passionate girls, as well as the feeling of having a good sleep in a warm and comfortable bed after eating bacon bread with kvass. "

"How much will you give us?" The big guy who had been silent spoke, and the voice was obviously a female voice.

Beshka's eyes lit up slightly. He wanted to take a look at the owner of the voice without making any noise, but then the tall and thin man pointed his gun at his head. He had to turn his head back to the other side.
"The furs in there are enough for you to exchange for a ten-acre farm where you live, and you can also trade them for many enviable restricted resources on the black market in the capital."

In Soviet Mao, the hardest "currency" is actually fur, followed by knives and swords. This is ironic, but this is the reality.

The big woman seemed to be a little moved. She shook the two axes on her back, making a ding-ding sound, and then squinted her eyes and looked at Beshka.
"I'm not asking you these. I'm asking how much you will give us."

Beshka closed his eyes slightly. He knew that he could see through the tricks in these people's minds, but he had already made his own plans, so he made a disappointed expression.
"Fifty percent!"

(End of this chapter)