Courtyard House: After disbanding the Elderly Care Gang, I went to the countryside to cultivate immo

The next morning, just as dawn was breaking and the air was still chilly, Li Kuiyong came to find Lin Shengli.

Lin Shengli got up early as well. The two of them had a quick breakfast in Lin Shengli's courtyard, prepared some food for lunch, and then set off towards the back mountain, stepping on the frozen, hard frost on the ground.

Li Kuiyong was extremely excited, puffs of white breath coming out of his mouth: "Hey, it's so much more comfortable up in the mountains! Staying cooped up inside cleaning, my bones are stiff."

He carried a thick-backed machete on his shoulder, had a rope at his waist, leg wraps, and thick wool felt socks and old cotton shoes with anti-slip studs on his feet, looking quite like an old hunter.

Seeing Li Kuiyong's expression, Lin Shengli laughed and said, "Did you learn this pose from Uncle Laopao?"

Li Kuiyong nodded: "Of course, I learned a lot of good things from Uncle Laopao during the two months you were in training."

Lin Shengli himself didn't bring much. Besides the essential large machete and rope, he also had a military water bottle hanging from his waist, filled with boiled and cooled spiritual spring water.

The further into the mountains you go, the fewer people you see.

The snow gradually thickened, reaching up to the calves in the deepest parts.

Stepping on it produces a "crunching" sound, which is particularly clear in the quiet mountain forest.

The air was crisp and fresh, carrying the unique scents of pine needles, fir trees, and permafrost; inhaling it invigorated the spirit.

The bare branches were adorned with glistening frost, which shimmered like tiny diamonds in the light of the rising sun, a sight so beautiful it took your breath away.

"Victory, look at these footprints in the snow!" Li Kuiyong said excitedly, pointing to a series of blurry small footprints not far away.

Lin Shengli crouched down and examined the footprints carefully. He then subtly scanned the area ahead with his divine sense and shook his head. "These footprints are quite old; they seem useless now."

Li Kuiyong was somewhat disappointed, but was quickly drawn to other marks on the snow: "What about this side? This area is all messy, like something dug it up?"

Lin Shengli walked over and saw that a patch of snow had been turned upside down, revealing black soil and scattered grass roots underneath. "It was dug up by a wild boar," he judged. "Judging from the extent and depth, it should be a small, yellowish-brown creature, and it's been there for quite some time." The information from his divine sense also confirmed this; there were no large living creatures nearby.

The two continued on their way. Lin Shengli's divine sense was like an invisible, intricate detection network, silently spreading outwards from him into the surrounding forest.

Caves under the snow, tree hollows, crevices in the rocks, the depths of dense withered grass... as long as there are small animals living there, none can escape his perception.

After driving around for about an hour, we arrived at a sunny, sheltered hillside.

The snow was relatively thinner here, revealing a patch of low shrubs and withered thorns.

Lin Shengli suddenly stopped and raised his hand to signal Li Kuiyong to stop.

"There's movement," he whispered, his gaze fixed on a clump of jujube trees, still bearing red berries, about thirty meters to his right.

In his mind's eye, two small animals were huddled together in a sheltered snowdrift, digging for grass roots to eat.

Li Kuiyong immediately tensed up, gripping his machete tightly and squinting as he strained to see, but all he could see was a patch of white snow and withered branches. "What's that? Where is it?"

"They're wild rabbits, two of them, in the snowdrift behind the jujube bushes over there," Lin Shengli said softly, taking two sharp-edged pebbles out of his pocket.

He picked it up on the way; it was the right size and had sharp edges.

He weighed it in his hand and said to Li Kuiyong, "Slowly circle around from the left, make some noise, and drive them this way. Don't be too aggressive, or you'll scare them away and we won't be able to catch them."

Li Kuiyong understood, crouched down, and tiptoed to the left, deliberately breaking a dry branch with a soft "crack" sound.

Startled by the sudden sound, the two greyish-brown hares in the snowdrift prickled up, their long ears snapping open and darting around warily. Instead of darting out immediately, they lay prone, their little heads nervously observing the direction from which the sound was coming.

Lin Shengli's consciousness clearly "saw" this scene. He held his breath, his right hand fingers gripping the edge of the pebble, his muscles slightly tense.

Li Kuiyong took two more steps forward and deliberately kicked up a small clump of snow.

Now, the two hares could no longer stay still. With a sudden push of their hind legs, they sprang out of the snowdrift like two gray lightning bolts. However, instead of fleeing straight away, they followed their instinctive escape route, leaping towards the side and front of Lin Shengli's location, which was a relatively open, gentle slope.

It's now!

A glint flashed in Lin Shengli's eyes, and with a flick of his wrist, two pebbles flew out of his hand, making an extremely faint whooshing sound.

The pebble traced two almost invisible arcs in the air, accurately predicting the landing point of the hare's leap.

"Pfft! Pfft!"

Two muffled thuds were heard almost simultaneously.

The two rabbits that were leaping with all their might suddenly froze in mid-air, then tumbled onto the snow, kicked their legs a few times, and then lay still.

The pebbles struck them on the back of the head and the side of the neck, the force of which was just right—instantly fatal, yet not enough to leave them covered in blood and gore.

"You hit them?!" Li Kuiyong was both surprised and delighted. He didn't bother to hide anymore and rushed over in a few steps, picking up the two plump wild rabbits that were still warm from their bodies.

The rabbits have grayish-brown fur that blends almost perfectly with the colors of the winter forest. They are quite heavy, each weighing about three or four pounds.

"My God! Shengli, your stone-throwing technique is amazing! So far, so accurate! It's like you have eyes!"

Lin Shengli smiled, walked over, took the rabbit from Li Kuiyong, neatly tied its hind legs with a rope, and hung it around his waist.

"Luckily, they jumped exactly as expected. Let's go and see if we can find anything else."

With his first victory, Li Kuiyong's confidence soared, and his enthusiasm grew even higher.

The two continued exploring up the hillside.

Beyond the hillside lies a relatively open birch forest, its trunks straight and white, standing out vividly against the snow.

Lin Shengli's divine sense once again detected something unusual—he saw pheasants among the intertwined branches of several birch trees, and there was more than one.

He gestured for Li Kuiyong to look up.

Li Kuiyong squinted and looked in the direction Lin Shengli pointed. After a while, he could vaguely see several huddled shadows, their colors very similar to the bark and snow, amidst the interlacing light and shadow and branches.

"It's a pheasant! It's perched on a tree!" Li Kuiyong suppressed his excitement, his voice extremely low. In winter, when food is scarce, pheasants sometimes fly to low tree branches to roost, using their camouflage to hide themselves.

This time the distance was greater, about fifty meters, and the target was in a tree, in a state of dynamic equilibrium, making it much more difficult than shooting a rabbit on the ground.

Lin Shengli took out two more pebbles, but did not immediately use them.

He carefully observed the pheasants. They seemed unaware of the danger, occasionally turning their heads slightly, their feathers fluttering gently in the cold wind.

"Kuiyong, let's get closer, and then you make a little noise, not too loud, just enough to startle them into flying," Lin Shengli whispered.

Li Kuiyong nodded, and the two of them crept closer. When they were less than ten meters away from the pheasants, the pheasants had not yet noticed anyone coming.

Li Kuiyong picked up a large stone from the ground and smashed it hard against a tree trunk not far away.

A muffled thud echoed sharply in the quiet forest.

Startled, the pheasants in the tree made a "clucking" sound, and almost simultaneously spread their wings and took off from their perched branches, frantically trying to fly to the higher canopy or the distant mountains and forests.

Just as they took off and their forms were fully exposed in the air, Lin Shengli made his move.

This time he moved even faster, raising both hands in quick succession, and the four pebbles, as if precisely guided, struck the four pheasants.

"Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!"

The sound of something cutting through the air became slightly sharper.

However, this time, with the aid of his divine sense, Lin Shengli deliberately allowed only two stones to hit the two magnificent male pheasants in the air.

The pheasant that was hit seemed to be pulled by an invisible thread, and suddenly stopped in mid-air before falling sideways and crashing onto the snow with a "plop" sound, splashing up a cloud of snow.

Li Kuiyong stared in disbelief, his mouth agape enough to fit an egg.

He knew Lin Shengli was skilled and strong, but he didn't expect him to be this good! This is practically the legendary "shooting an arrow through a willow leaf from a hundred paces"!

The two ran over and picked up their prey.

The two male pheasants had colorful feathers and long tail feathers, making them quite beautiful.

Although hit by the stones, Lin Shengli controlled his strength, only hitting the chickens on the head, stunning them, and leaving them all alive. He could take them back and raise them for a couple of days before eating them, making them fresher.

"That's amazing... Shengli, tell me honestly, how did you train? This skill must have taken at least ten or eight years to master, right? I've never seen you use this skill before." Li Kuiyong asked as he tied up the still-flapping pheasant's wings.

"You don't know, back when we were eliminating the four pests, I was really good at shooting with a slingshot. Later, I got stronger, and I could shoot just as accurately with pebbles." Lin Shengli casually made up an excuse to change the subject. "We were lucky today, we caught a rabbit and a pheasant, so it wasn't a wasted trip. It's getting late, let's grab something to eat and wander around a bit before heading back. It gets dark early in winter."

Li Kuiyong nodded, and the two of them took out the dry food they had prepared that morning, squatted on the sunny hillside, and ate their fill with water from their water bottles.

After finishing their meal, Lin Shengli, with two wild rabbits hanging from his waist, and Li Kuiyong, with two pheasants hanging from his waist, prepared to go around to the other side to go home.

After wandering through the woods for a while, sometimes sinking deep into the mud, we arrived near a small valley.

A stream flows through this small valley, but it's frozen over in winter. However, wild animals still come here as usual.

Sure enough, in a sunny spot near the stream, his divine sense detected a slightly larger creature.

"There's something up ahead, by the stream." Lin Shengli stopped and gestured for Li Kuiyong to hide behind a large tree.

He then silently crept forward more than ten meters, hiding behind a huge weathered rock and peering out.

About seventy meters away by the stream, a brownish-yellow animal with a conspicuous white spot on its rump was seen with its head down, intently working on the dry grass by the stream.

It is not particularly large, but compared to wild rabbits and pheasants, it is a behemoth, and it is the famous "silly roe deer" in the mountains and forests of Northeast China.

This guy seemed to have good hearing, occasionally looking up alertly and turning his big ears to listen to his surroundings, but he obviously didn't notice the two humans in the distance.

"It's a roe deer! It really is a roe deer!" Li Kuiyong's heart pounded as he watched from behind, his hands trembling with excitement. This was a huge creature!

Lin Shengli observed the terrain and distance.

More than seventy meters, which is beyond his precise range where the stones are effective and he can ensure that they do not disturb the prey.

Moreover, roe deer have thick skin, so a stone is not powerful enough to kill them instantly; instead, it might alert them.

He hesitated for a moment, then turned to Li Kuiyong and whispered, "A direct confrontation won't work. You go around to the downwind side and make some noise there to drive it this way. Once it's startled, it'll run in a straighter direction. I'll find an opportunity to deal with it then."

Li Kuiyong nodded vigorously, his palms sweating with nervousness and excitement.

He untied the pheasant from his waist, put all his odds and ends on the ground, and then crouched down to reach the roe deer's downwind side.

Lin Shengli, like a ghost, moved silently towards the roe deer under the cover of the trees and rocks, closing the distance to within twenty or thirty meters. He used the rope he had brought to make a noose, waiting for the creature to fall into it.

Li Kuiyong quickly circled around and arrived at a bush about forty or fifty meters away from the roe deer, downwind of the stream.

He picked up a fist-sized rock, weighed it in his hand, and then hurled it at the ice surface diagonally in front of the roe deer!

"Bang!" The stone hit the ice with a loud thud, sending ice shards flying everywhere.

The roe deer, which was drinking water, was startled by the sudden loud noise. It jerked its head up and froze for a moment – ​​this is one of the roe deer's famously "foolish" traits: when faced with danger, instead of running away immediately, it will stop to see what's going on.

In that brief moment of stunned silence, Li Kuiyong quickly ran towards it again.

Upon seeing someone approaching, even the dumbest roe deer would try to avoid them. With a swift movement, it ran in the opposite direction from Li Kuiyong.

But this was exactly the direction Lin Shengli was waiting for.

The roe deer wasn't running particularly fast in the snow, but its strides were long, kicking up snowflakes. It charged straight towards the large tree where Lin Shengli was hiding, along the relatively flat area beside the stream!

Lin Shengli was highly skilled and had a big belly. He stared intently at the approaching brownish-yellow figure, calculating the distance: thirty meters, twenty meters, fifteen meters... Now!

Just as the roe deer was about to rush past the tree five or six meters away, Lin Shengli suddenly leaped out from behind the tree and, with all his might, threw the rope he had prepared in front of the roe deer!

As he threw the noose, he also used control magic to control the rope. In this way, which was no different from cheating, the noose he threw landed precisely on its neck, which had been stretched out due to its forward momentum!

"We've got it!" Li Kuiyong shouted with ecstasy when he saw it from afar.

Lin Shengli pulled hard on the rope with both hands, and the slipknot around the roe deer's neck tightened instantly. Under Lin Shengli's dragging, the roe deer was pulled directly in front of him, and two deep furrows were dug in the snow behind it.

The roe deer, now with a noose around its neck, panicked even more and struggled desperately to break free.

But Lin Shengli's strength was far beyond its ability to break free. Seeing that the silly roe deer was still not convinced, Lin Shengli slapped it on the head and laughed, "You little brat, just wait to be bled dry. You think you can run away from me now that you're in my hands?"

The slap contained hidden force, and the roe deer shuddered. Its struggling strength instantly weakened, its eyes became unfocused, and its limbs went weak. It soon collapsed on the snow, only heavy breathing remaining.

"We...we did it!" Li Kuiyong, panting heavily, plopped down on the snow, staring at his sizable trophy. He was so excited he could barely speak. "We...we shot a roe deer! We really shot one!"

Lin Shengli also breathed a sigh of relief and a smile appeared on his face.

He checked on the roe deer and, controlling his strength, found that the creature was just a little dizzy and otherwise unharmed.

He adjusted the noose around the roe deer's neck, reached out and lifted it off the ground.

Looking at the two fat rabbits, two live chickens, and the heavy, still-alive roe deer laid out on the snow, Li Kuiyong felt like he was dreaming.

In just half a day, such a bountiful harvest has been achieved! This is far more efficient than going into the mountains with Hu Laopao's large group for a hunt!

"Victory today is all thanks to you!" Li Kuiyong said sincerely, his eyes full of admiration. "That pebble, and that last shot...it was absolutely brilliant!"

"It's because we cooperated well," Lin Shengli said with a smile. He glanced at the sky and said, "It's getting late. Let's pack up and hurry down the mountain. We have so much stuff; we need to get back before dark."

The two gathered their prey together.

Pheasants and rabbits were tied up and hung on either side of the roe deer. Li Kuiyong led the deer in front, while Lin Shengli walked behind, heading towards the educated youth settlement, returning with a full load.

On the way back, with the silly roe deer helping to carry their things, both of them were in a particularly good mood.