Chapter 108 Musk deer? A bold fellow I
took Xiongba with me and looked at the other two fishing hooks. Not only were the hooks rusty, but the corns had sprouted.
When he arrived at the last place where the fish hooks for catching pheasants were set, Lin Heng heard the flapping sound from afar.
“There’s something!!”
Lin Heng smiled excitedly, and hurriedly grabbed Xiongba's dog's tail, fearing that it would bite him to death if it went over.
When I came over to take a look, I saw a black-legged grouse struggling frantically with blood coming out of the corner of its mouth. The fishhook was stuck in its jaw.
But it was much stronger than the pheasant just now. The pheasant swallowed it directly. The violent struggle caused the fishhook to tear a hole in its throat, and there was no hope of survival at all.
He pounced over and pinned the grouse down, then tied its wings and legs with a rope, and then Lin Heng took out the fish hook.
He would not do something stupid like taking the hook and letting the fish fall into the water while displaying it.
The same goes for grouse.
After tying it up, we pried its mouth open and found that its lower jaw had been pierced, but fortunately it was not a fatal injury.
"It's good to be alive. Even though it's only one pound, I can take it home."
Lin Heng chuckled.
It’s not that they eat and drink to their heart’s content in the mountains without bringing any for their wives and children, but it’s not worth bringing back small prey in one go, so they have to eat them all.
The catfish could be taken back, but they didn’t eat it and kept it.
The same is true of this live grouse.
When Lin Heng returned to the camp, his eldest brother had already come back and was chatting with his son Lin Wei while processing mushrooms, with a very happy look on his face.
"Lin Heng, you got it... Damn, how did you get this, and there's a live one?"
Seeing Lin Heng, Lin Yue was about to ask him how many mushrooms he had picked, but after taking a closer look, he suddenly stood up.
"Damn, second dad, you are too awesome!" Lin Wei also widened his eyes.
"Of course I didn't catch it by hunting. I used the hook I set earlier to catch it. The pheasant swallowed the hook and died, but the grouse didn't swallow the hook and it got stuck on the edge of its mouth."
Lin Heng smiled and said, "A fisherman can catch anything except fish."
"Woof woof!" Xiongba held his head high and chest out, as if saying that it had half the credit.
"We have meat to eat today!" Lin Wei started dancing again like a primitive man.
Lin Yue was still greedy: "If we have any catches on the fish hooks, then there must be some catches on the other traps as well. Let's eat our meal and go check it out."
"I think so too." Lin Heng said with a smile, throwing the pheasant on the ground and tying the live grouse to the tree trunk.
"This pheasant is big enough. Let's eat half and save the other half. Let's make fried chicken with mushrooms today."
Lin Heng said with a smile.
"Okay, I'll make a fire."
Lin Yue went to make a fire, and Lin Wei rushed to find dry firewood.
The chicken soup is ready, still the same old routine, give the offal to Xiongba, divide the meat into two halves, keep one half and chop the other half into small pieces and stir-fry with mushrooms.
Soon, a pot of fragrant fried chicken with mushrooms was ready and served in a small wooden basin made by Lin Heng.
Then they made a rice and ate it together. Needless to say, it was delicious. The three of them didn't say a word until they finished eating.
The shiitake mushrooms are smooth, tender and fragrant, and the pheasant meat is very chewy, more chewy than domestic chickens, and tastes a little more fragrant. Some of the bones are brittle and can be chewed together.
However, compared to domestic chickens, there is less meat.
After finishing their meal, the three of them burped and stretched.
"The sun has only been out for half a day, and it's already so hot. It's killing me."
Lin Heng sighed. His clothes were soaked after eating.
But the stream water has receded and is not as turbid now. It will probably be clear tomorrow, and I can wash clothes and take a bath at the same time.
"Brother, let's go there first. I feel like there must be something else today."
Lin Yue couldn't wait to check the noose trap.
"I don't think we can go to Sanchagou Canyon today. We have to wait for a day to get some sun. We can only go somewhere else today. Let's go see if there's anything I can catch with the trap I set for catching musk deer."
Lin Heng thought for a moment and said.
"Second Dad, I want to go together." Lin Wei said.
"Then let's go."
Taking their knives, bows and arrows and carrying their backpacks, the three of them set off.
Walk in a straight line all the way, and don't pick up mushrooms unless you see Ganoderma lucidum. The main goal is to go and see the Yamawangdiao on the musk deer side first.
After walking for more than half an hour, we arrived at the forest.
"Huh? The Yama crane triggered nothing, what's going on?"
Lin Yue looked at the situation in front of him and asked in confusion.
Lin Heng took a closer look and analyzed: "It should be that the trap was automatically triggered by the rain. There is no sign of prey."
"Are we going to have an empty-handed army again, second father?" Lin Yue's face was filled with worry. The greater the expectations, the greater the disappointment.
"Don't worry, there are still a few left."
Lin Heng smiled, put the Yama's crane back in place, and then went to the next place.
He walked in front, while Lin Yue walked behind with his son. His eyes had turned to the mushrooms on the ground, and he was obviously disappointed.
Two places in a row were empty, and everyone felt lost. Could it be that the pheasants and grouse in the morning were not the beginning, but the end?
The last place, this place Lin Heng placed three Yama Cranes. Just as he arrived there, Lin Heng was stunned, then suddenly accelerated and sprinted over.
"Woof woof!" Xiongba also ran wildly with excitement.
"Don't bite. Do you hear me, Xiongba?" Lin Heng shouted while running.
He was so excited that his voice was trembling.
“Ahhh!!”
In the distance, screams of fear and violent struggles were heard, and a gray figure retreated and was hung in the air, pulling the branches and shaking them wildly.
"Damn, there's prey!!"
“It’s sent, it’s sent!!”
Lin Yue and his son, who were picking mushrooms in the back, were startled for a moment, and when they saw Yan Wang Diao in the distance, they threw away the mushrooms in their hands and ran over.
"Dad, is this a muntjac?" Lin Wei asked while running. It was the first time he saw a living thing.
"No, this is a Musk Deer. Your father has made a fortune." Lin Yue was so excited that he couldn't control himself. This Musk Deer might be more valuable than a ginseng that is more than ten years old.
On the other side, Xiong Ba and Lin Heng had arrived one after another.
Xiongba circled around, and the musk deer struggled even more violently, with feces and urine flowing everywhere.
“Ah!!”
The miserable sound echoed throughout the canyon.
"Don't be afraid, don't be afraid!!"
Lin Heng grabbed its head, hugged its body, patted it gently and comforted it.
Musk deer are not big, the largest weighs only 20 kilograms, not even as big as the country's big yellow dog.
Lin Heng was as steady as ever. He first put the rope around its neck and then passed it through its legs, making sure that it could not break free.
Then he untied the Yama's chain, placed it on the ground and stroked it to comfort it.
"Xiongba, stay away and don't scare it." Lin Heng patted Xiongba.
A living thing is much more valuable than a dead one, so you must not scare it to death.
“Ouch!”
Xiongba gave him an unhappy look, then walked away wagging his tail. His resentful eyes seemed to say that you have forgotten your old love and found a new one.
"Brother, you made it!"
Lin Yue rushed up, panting, and congratulated with a smile.
Lin Heng smiled bitterly: "This is a female musk deer, not a male, and it has no musk."
Lin Heng didn’t know if God was playing a joke on him, this musk deer was actually the one he had seen before.
When he ran over just now, he was instantly disappointed.
How great it would be if it was a male. With the musk, I could get more than a thousand dollars.
"Ah, here. Let me see."
Lin Yue walked over and took a look at the butt, and it was really female.
"Haha, it's okay, just keep it first, then catch a male and you can breed it."
Lin Yue smiled and patted his brother's shoulder.
"I think so too." Lin Heng said with a smile. He really had this plan. Raising musk deer is also very profitable.
Not only is musk expensive, but its meat and fur can also be sold.
There's nothing I can do. Since I didn't catch the male, I can only comfort myself like this.
"Second Dad, let me touch it."
Lin Wei ran over panting and spoke impatiently.
Just looking was not enough, he reached out and touched it.
"Brother, help me tie my legs. I'll carry you back. I'm still worried about you carrying me."
The hunter was too cautious and didn't give the animal any chance to escape.
There's no way. This is a sequelae of catching a big fish in the previous life. Even though the rope around my neck is very strong, I still feel uneasy.
"Okay." Lin Yue nodded and helped tie the legs.
Lin Heng touched the musk deer again, and tied its mouth to prevent it from wailing.
It can be said that he was tied up tightly.
Poor female musk deer, she didn't expect that this man would have his eyes on her just from a distance in the forest a month ago.
Carrying this guy back to the camp, Lin Heng was so excited that he didn't know what to say.
He really didn't expect to catch it, and in fact he didn't hold out any hope.
Because he had failed for so many days in a row, he was numb and just took a look with the last bit of hope.
The result is love at first sight.
It's like when you go fishing and you've been waiting for three days without catching any fish, so you get so angry that you throw your fishing rod to the shore and give up, but when you turn around, the rod is dragged away.
Hunting, like fishing, is full of uncertainty. You have no way of knowing when the prey will appear. Sometimes you just can't catch any fish even if you throw dozens of kilograms of bait.
I looked at this cute musk deer for more than ten minutes and touched it several times.
After confirming the tightness of the rope around its neck again, Lin Heng untied the body from its legs and mouth. The weather was too hot and he was afraid it would die.
After taking a look, he still felt uneasy, so he tied a rope around his leg and connected a wooden stick to the back.
In this way, even if the rope around its neck breaks, it won't be able to run fast because of the wooden stick on its feet, so there is still hope of recovery.
"Now that you're done, bro, go check out some noose and traps that Dad and I have set up."
The eldest brother Lin Yue urged, saying that he now felt that today's hope was extremely great.
"OK."
Lin Heng nodded and looked at his nephew: "Lin Wei, I've tied the deer to the river, make sure it doesn't run away."
Lin Wei wanted to go hiking together, but since Lin Heng had spoken, he nodded and agreed: "Okay, don't worry, I'll take good care of you."
After tying the musk deer to the edge of the stream, it began to struggle and roar again. After looking at it for a few times, Lin Heng ignored it and let it rest because it was tired.
"Let's go check out the other traps."
Lin Heng's confidence also increased, and the two brothers set out upstream together.
Along both sides of the stream, there were not only traps set by Lin Heng, but also many set by Lin's father and Lin Yue.
The two men walked up the hillside along the shore, picking mushrooms and checking the noose traps on the way.
"It's over. The Yama's Crane has also been automatically triggered. The chances of catching prey are slim."
Lin Yue said helplessly that they had checked more than ten of them, and six out of the eight Yama Hangings had triggered themselves.
The ground became soft due to rain, and this elastic trap was too easy to trigger itself.
"Don't worry, there are noose traps and the details are hard to tell." Lin Heng said with a smile.
While repairing the automatically triggered Yama Crane, the two walked forward and picked up some mushrooms.
In the blink of an eye, they had arrived at the place where he had hunted ducks that day, but still hadn't found any prey. Both of them were a little bored and picked up mushrooms, no longer holding out hope for the next step.
“Woof woof!!”
While I was picking mushrooms, Xiongba, who was having fun in front, called out. His voice was very urgent, not the gentle and happy call that comes from seeing mushrooms.
"Could it be that some prey has been trapped?"
"Let's go and take a look!"
Lin Heng and his elder brother spoke at the same time and trotted over, crossing the distance of several hundred meters in no time.
From a distance, Xiongba was seen standing in the grass by the river. The grass was trampled to the ground, but there was no sign of the prey.
"Is this an ordinary retractable noose?" Lin Heng asked. This was not made by him.
"I used an ordinary noose." Lin Yue nodded.
The two men ran over excitedly and saw a badger lying dead on the ground by the grass, its body stiff.
"It didn't die today, maybe a day or two ago." Lin Heng pinched the badger's body and looked at its eyes.
"But fortunately, it's not smelly and can be eaten. Brother, you are considered rich. This is a big hog badger, more than 20 kilograms."
Lin Heng smiled and said that badger fur is also valuable.
He just took a look and his eyes were not cloudy yet, so it should be the trap set yesterday. If it was four days ago, it would have smelled bad even on a rainy day.
This guy probably wanted to take advantage of the rising water to catch some fish while they were running to the side, but he ended up falling into a trap and strangled himself to death.
"Haha, I didn't expect my luck to be so good." Lin Yue picked up the badger and took a look at it.
"This is not just luck, it's inevitable. We set at least one or two hundred traps, so we should be able to catch two of them."
Lin Heng smiled and said that it was all about probability at the beginning.
"Brother, put the badger in my backpack and let's continue to move forward." Lin Yue said with a smile.
"good."
After putting the badger on the rack, the two men continued to move forward.
Not only do they have to rearrange the traps on the way, but they also have to set two more snares if they find new traces of prey.
"Brother, it seems I have to go back tomorrow morning, otherwise the hog badger will be bad."
Lin Yue said as he walked.
"Of course, you take it back first, and then call dad to help. Play for two more days and then I will go back." Lin Heng nodded.
Before they knew it, they came to the place where they picked mushrooms last time. There wasn't much growing on the tree this time, probably because it hadn't accumulated enough nutrients yet.
"There is none this time." Lin Yue was a little surprised. He knew about this huge mushroom tree the last time he came here.
Lin Heng was about to speak when he suddenly saw the treetops on the slope on the other side of the stream shaking. Upon closer inspection, he saw that they were actually a few monkeys climbing on the trees and watching them.
"Golden monkey, this is really rare." Lin Yue said with a smile.
"Oh oh!" Lin Heng shouted at them twice. He had no interest in these guys unless he was almost starving to death.
Not to mention whether he could beat the monkey or not, he just couldn't accept eating a monkey that looked too much like a human.
"Whoa whoa!!"
The golden monkeys on the opposite mountain also responded and were not afraid of people even when standing on the trees.
"damn it."
Lin Heng shook his head speechlessly, and continued walking forward for a while with his elder brother, then crossed to the other side of the stream.
The two walked back along the opposite bank.
"This bastard is so bold." Lin Heng looked at the two monkeys on the tree. They came over and didn't leave.
"That's nothing. I heard that in some villages there are monkeys coming down the mountain to steal sweet potatoes drying in the courtyard." Lin Yue said with a smile.
After taking a look, the two men left, not wanting to bother with the two silly monkeys.
“Woof woof!!”
Xiongba barked at them a few times provocatively, which drew shouts of curses from them.
On the way back, they found no prey on this side of the stream, so they set the trap again.
It has just rained in the past two days, and many animals will come to the river to catch fish. Lin Heng feels there is still hope.
"Brother, there is something here. A golden rooster has been eaten until only the feathers are left."
Almost returning to the camp, Lin Yue made another discovery.
Lin Heng looked closer and saw chicken feathers all over the floor. The golden rooster was suspended in the air by a little devil, and it had also been eaten.
"I don't know if it's a clouded leopard, a wild cat, or a civet cat, but the footprints are all similar."
Lin Heng saw footprints on the ground, but had no way to track them and soon lost them.
There's no point in sitting back and waiting, as wild cats and clouded leopards have very sensitive vision and noses.
"Then we can only wait until tomorrow to check the traps in Sanchagou. Maybe we can get something."
Lin Yue said with some regret that the golden chicken was delicious, what a pity.
"Let's go back and deal with the badger." Lin Heng said with a smile. Now is not the time to compete for the Golden Rooster.
When the leaves fall in winter, you can always hit the golden roosters accurately. They are all resting on the branches, and you can see them clearly without a flashlight.
It’s not like now, even if the golden rooster crows, it is difficult to tell which direction it is coming from unless you are very close.
After returning to the camp, Lin Heng first went to see his beloved musk deer. It lay in the grass, as if it had found that it could not run away, and was too lazy to even call out.
On the other side, Lin Wei was shouting happily, his father got a wild hog badger which was amazing.
After seeing the musk deer, Lin Heng went to help the wild hog badger. He was already familiar with skinning and removing the internal organs.
"He definitely died yesterday. The color of his large intestine hasn't even changed."
After looking at the badger intestine, Lin Yue said with a smile.
"Yes." Lin Heng also nodded. It would be the best news if it was not broken. If it was broken, it would be a big loss.
I will regret it so much that I won't be able to sleep for days and nights, and I will slap my thighs when I die.
Boil the lungs and spleen of the badger and feed them to Xiongba. Fry the heart, liver, kidneys, stomach, small intestine and large intestine and eat them in the evening.
These things could not be taken back, so they could only be dealt with on the mountain.
All the badger meat is marinated with heavy salt and taken home early tomorrow morning.
The only thing you don't have to worry about going bad is pork lard.
"It would be great if it were alive. We wouldn't have to worry about it dying." Lin Yue shook his head. At this time, he was a little envious of Lin Heng's musk deer.
"Haha, brother, you are too greedy." Lin Heng said with a smile.
"What are you guys talking about? Did you catch the prey?"
At this time, a voice came from the distant woods.
"dad!"
The two said in unison.
"Grandpa, we had a great harvest this time. My second uncle caught a live musk deer and a live grouse, and my dad caught a wild boar."
Lin Wei shouted in response.
"Musk deer, wild boar!!"
Hearing this, Father Lin immediately quickened his pace and ran over to check.
He looked at his dismembered wild hog, then at the living musk deer, grinned and clapped his hands: "Good, good, this trip up the mountain was not in vain."
Father Lin was even more excited than the other two. He looked and touched a lot.
(End of this chapter)
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