Rebirth in 1972: Redemption in Changbai Mountain

Zhou Rui looked up at his watch; the dial was still slightly fogged. "A day's journey is fine."

He shifted the 98K rifle up the shoulder strap, his eyes shining brightly beneath the brim of his cotton hat.

"The black bears are currently hibernating in their enclosures and are quite plump. If we can catch a couple, we can easily hunt the rest of the wild boars and roe deer; that should be enough."

He Wu, who was listening nearby, was itching to hunt. He had a strong urge to hunt and wanted to get his hands on something big.

The group immediately changed their route, no longer following the gentle snowfield, but instead winding their way up the gentle slopes deep in the forest.

Big Yellow led the way, with Sniffing Wind following closely behind. The other dogs scattered, forming a small goose-shaped formation.

The big white bird in the sky circled back at some point, and this time it didn't argue with the big yellow bird. It flew low, its wings skimming the treetops.

He would occasionally lean to the side and glance down into the gully below, looking just like a lookout sentry on patrol.

After walking for four or five hours, the five of them stopped halfway and ate a couple of bites of dry rations, which solved their lunch problem.

The sun slowly sank in the west, turning the shadows on the snow into a warm gold.

Liu Qingguo had a lot of odds and ends hanging on him, including a pheasant that Gouzi had dug out of the snowdrift, as well as a rabbit and a squirrel that Dabai had thrown down from the sky.

In winter, the forest is bare of leaves, and without cover, the great white, the overlord of the sky, hunts with exceptional ease.

Once it sets its sights on a prey, there's no way it can slip into the dense forest and shake off its eagle eyes; it catches them one by one.

"Stop, don't go any further. Build a snow hut and camp here in this sheltered spot." Zhou Rui spotted a suitable open space and immediately gave the order.

"Oh no, I almost forgot to mention that." Gu Jiacheng immediately waved his hand.

"There's a dugout about an hour's walk ahead."

"It's a shelter built by my dad and the old hunters. It's lined with thick layers of dry grass, so we don't have to go through the trouble of building a temporary snow house anymore."

Zhou Rui rubbed his thumb on his chin a couple of times, then changed his mind after a moment's thought.

"Okay, I'll do as you say, let's go to the dugout. In this freezing weather, digging a snow house will take at least an hour and a half, which means we'll have to walk quite a distance."

The group immediately adjusted their backpacks, checked the safety on their hunting rifles, and followed Gu Jiacheng deeper into the dense forest.

The snow in the forest was getting thicker and thicker, reaching above the ankles when stepped on, making a series of crunching sounds.

After walking for another hour, a mound of earth half-buried in the snow slope suddenly appeared in the woods ahead, revealing only a low facade built of rough wood. It was the old dugout that Gu Jiacheng had mentioned.

Gu Jiacheng stepped forward and opened the door, and a warm smell mixed with pine smoke and hay wafted out.

The space inside was more spacious than the group had imagined. There was a half-foot-thick layer of dry thatch against the wall, a half-stack of dry pine branches in the corner, and even a small fire pit made of stones.

Several chipped, rough porcelain bowls were placed nearby, clearly repaired and maintained by the old hunters over the years.

"My father told me that this dugout was built by a few old hunters in the snow more than ten years ago."

"Back when there was a wolf infestation in the mountains, they stayed here for half a month and cleared out all the wolves that were hurting people."

As Gu Jiacheng spoke, he took out matches from his pocket, squatted down, and lit the dry pine branches in the fire pit.

The flames suddenly leaped up, instantly warming the faces of the several people who were frozen stiff.

He Wu slowly took off his cotton overcoat, which was covered in thick snow, and gently shook it off. The fine snowflakes fell by the fire pit and melted away with two sizzling sounds.

He moved closer to the warm fire, rubbing his hands, which were red from the cold, and saw the neatly stacked firewood in the corner. He couldn't help but smile and his eyes crinkled.

"It's so comfortable here. Thinking back to the days of hiking in the mountains, it was such a hardship."

Hearing him say that, Zhou Rui couldn't help but turn his head and glance at him sideways: "When you used to wander around in the mountains with your childhood friends, you didn't call that 'mountain chasing,' you were just going up the mountain to freeze and suffer."

He Wu wasn't angry at all; instead, he chuckled and said, "Zhou Rui, don't you think this is one of those little cabins hidden in the mountains like in the movie 'Tracks in the Snowy Forest'?"

"This is called a dugout." Zhou Rui nodded.

"In the past, Manchu and Oroqen mountain people relied on these kinds of houses to spend the winter in the mountains."

"Half of it is built underground and half is exposed above ground, which is particularly good at keeping warm. No matter how strong the wind and snow are outside, they can't get in."

Gu Jiacheng chimed in from the side, saying that he had followed Gu Dayong up the mountain for many years and his father had long ago taught him all the old knowledge of the mountains.

Liu Qingguo took the pheasants and rabbits off his body and went outside to deal with them.

Zhou Rui specifically instructed him to remember to leave a few raw dogs, chop them up, and bring them back to feed the dogs. Now that they had officially entered the mountains, they needed to get the hunting dogs' wild instincts going so that hunting would be easier later.

Meat skewers were strung on branches and placed by the fire pit. The grease dripped onto the flames, sizzling and releasing white smoke carrying the aroma of meat. In no time, the entire dugout was filled with the fragrance of roasted wild game.

Zhou Rui squatted by the fire pit adding firewood, his gaze suddenly sweeping over several crooked carvings on the earthen wall.

Those were marks left by the old hunters, but Zhou Rui didn't know what they meant.

After all, besides some common symbols, some people have created their own set of symbols that are completely incomprehensible to outsiders except for those that are inherited from the same source.

The pine fire crackled and popped inside the dugout, and the aroma of roasted pheasant, along with the warmth, spread throughout the cramped space.

Five people sat in a circle around the small fire pit, while the dogs all lay in the corner of the room.

He Wu was using his bayonet to pick up a rabbit leg and roast it. Oil droplets dripped into the fire and sizzled, sending up white smoke that dissipated most of the chill in the air.

Big White didn't follow into the dugout. As a fierce gyrfalcon, the low doorway, about half a person's height, was too cramped for it, and it couldn't even fully spread its wings.

As a way to relieve fatigue, the group shared a bottle of strong liquor.

The liquor burned his throat as soon as it entered his mouth. He Wu took a big gulp, and his breath shimmered in the firelight.

"We'll set off as soon as it's light tomorrow. I want to see just how fat those hibernating bears really are."

"I never said we'd definitely catch a bear tomorrow," Gu Jiacheng said slowly, taking a bite out of a pheasant wing.

He Wu almost dropped the rabbit leg in his hand into the fire pit. He stared at Gu Jiacheng, his drunkenness mostly gone.

"So you're just making empty promises? I'm already thinking about carrying that big black bear back to the forest tomorrow, and now you're telling me the bear enclosure might be empty?"

Gu Shaofeng, standing to the side, slapped his thigh with delight and handed the wine bowl in his hand to He Wu.

"What's the rush? Haven't you figured out the rules in the mountains yet?"

"When an old hunter talks about a bear-prone area, it doesn't mean there's a 100% chance of a bear; it means there's a high probability of running into one."

"If someone confidently tells you there's definitely a 400-pound black bear inside, they're definitely an inexperienced greenhorn."

The group ate dinner chatting and laughing. Before long, the fire in the dugout went out, and the group huddled together, lying down.

The north wind howled outside. In the quiet cellar, Big Yellow, who was lying in the corner, suddenly raised its head and its ears perked up.