Although it has some cracks, it can still be used to store things after being cleaned, such as the wild boar blood clots I found yesterday.
He carried these "spoils" back to his mud house one by one.
Zhang Cheng checked the old shotgun and the remaining seven bullets again.
He slung the hunting rifle over his shoulder and tucked the dull wood-cutter's knife into his waistband.
He walked to the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed) and looked at Shi Yangyang, who was wrapped in a quilt.
"Stay home and don't go out."
He said something in a low voice, not caring whether she understood or not.
Then, he used a wooden stick to barely prop up the broken door from the outside, turned around, and walked back into the vast snow-covered mountains.
The mountain road was even more difficult to travel than yesterday.
The snow was even deeper, reaching above knee-deep in some places.
Zhang Cheng trudged along, his steps uneven, carefully observing the traces around him.
His wilderness survival skills, honed in his previous life as a special forces soldier, were put to full use at this moment.
No tiny footprint, broken branch, or gnaw mark on the snow escapes his eyes.
After walking for about an hour, he found digging marks under an old pine tree.
He walked over and used a machete to clear away the snow.
Below, a squirrel's nest was revealed, carefully hidden away.
It was filled with pine nuts, hazelnuts, and some other nuts I couldn't identify.
For hungry people, these high-calorie nuts are undoubtedly a valuable source of energy.
Zhang Cheng unceremoniously gathered the nuts, wrapped them in a tattered cloth, and stuffed them into his pocket.
Even a tiny mosquito is still meat.
He continued walking deeper into the mountains and forests.
Suddenly, a faint shout came on the wind.
Immediately following was a muffled gunshot!
Zhang Cheng immediately stopped in his tracks, his eyes sharpening.
He quickly found a tall, thick pine tree nearby.
With superhuman agility and strength, it quickly climbed up and hid among the dense foliage.
He looked in the direction from which the gunshots came.
In a ravine a few hundred meters away, two groups of people were facing off.
Each group consisted of about seven or eight young men, most of whom were carrying sticks and hoes, while two or three of them seemed to be carrying old-fashioned muskets or hunting rifles.
Judging from their clothes and appearance, they are all villagers from the same village.
Zhang Cheng squinted and recognized several of the faces.
Among the group were several young men with the surname Zhang from his own clan, and the leader was Zhang Dazhu, a lazy bum from the village.
The other group of people were also from the Li family in the village.
The two groups, several dozen meters apart, were shouting insults at each other, their emotions running high, and they were gripping their weapons tightly, as if they might start fighting at any moment.
I don't know who fired that shot just now; it seemed to be just for intimidation and didn't hit anyone.
Judging from the situation, the conflict is most likely over resources in the mountains, such as prey or territory.
Such armed conflicts between people of different surnames from the same village were not uncommon in remote mountain villages during that era.
Zhang Cheng watched coldly from the sidelines.
He had no intention of interfering.
These people have nothing to do with him. All he wants now is to fill his stomach and take good care of his wife.
It's better to avoid trouble.
He silently slid down from the tree, chose another direction, bypassed that troubled area, and continued deeper into the mountains and forests.
After walking a little further, the tracks on the snow began to become more complex.
Zhang Cheng squatted down and examined it carefully.
Fresh footprints.
It's not a rabbit, it's not a pheasant.
It's a wolf.
And it wasn't just one; judging from the size and depth of the footprints, there were at least a dozen.
His heart sank.
Immediately afterwards, he found several dark-colored, not-yet-completely-frozen droppings under a tree, with a strong, pungent odor still lingering in the air—marks of wolf urine.
These traces are very fresh, indicating that the wolf pack was active in this area!
Zhang Cheng immediately tensed up, his knuckles turning white as he gripped the shotgun.
Hunting a wounded wild boar and facing a pack of hungry wolves are two completely different things.
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