Vodka is different from the grain-based spirits made in China. This distilled spirit has a high alcohol content, gets you drunk quickly, and drinking too much can make you feel very uncomfortable.
Especially in remote areas like farms, farmers drink cheap liquor. I originally wanted to drink some to warm myself up, but after a few sips, my head felt like it was going to explode.
Song Laosan had a good capacity for alcohol. Although he and Sasha couldn't communicate in the same language, they drank happily by gesturing and guessing. When they encountered something they didn't understand, Zhou Peng would translate for them.
After a few rounds of drinks, seeing that the time was right, I asked Sasha, "Have any other Chinese people come here recently besides us?"
"I don't know. It's spring now, which is when hibernating animals come back to life. This is the season when the beasts are at their weakest, and it's the best time to hunt. I've been hunting every day lately and haven't been paying much attention to what's happening in the village."
Sasha paused for a moment: "Last year, I got into a fight while drunk and shot and injured other villagers. Although the village elders mediated and didn't call the police, no one likes to associate with me anymore."
I continued casually, "Your village is so remote and the transportation is inconvenient, haven't you ever thought about moving away?"
Sasha cut off a piece of pickled cucumber and put it in his mouth: "Housing prices are too expensive. We can't afford to buy a house in the city by farming. At most, we can only move to the town. We don't know anyone there, so it's better to stay here. At least we can earn some extra income by hunting. My wife ran off with someone twenty years ago. I'm a bachelor. It's the same wherever I go."
Old Song knew my purpose and chimed in, "You're already so old, aren't you afraid of the dangers of hunting in the mountains?"
Sasha was quite proud, pointing to the hunting rifle hanging on the wall: "Three generations of my family have been hunters. During the era of the collective farming, my grandfather and father were the most famous hunters here. Back then, when they were quarrying rocks, they were even called by the government to clear out wild animals and killed three tigers!"
"Mining rocks?"
I grasped the key point, but asked vaguely, "There are mountains everywhere in the Far East, why come here to quarry stones?"
"They said they were going to build a statue of some high-ranking official, and the stone here is of better quality. At that time, I was still studying in town and didn't pay much attention to these things."
Sasha waved his hand casually, still boasting about his family's ancestral craftsmanship: "I have a very keen sense of smell. I can smell any wild animal within 500 meters. I also have many treehouses in the forest that I built to hide from wild beasts."
I pressed further, "So, in all these years of going up the mountain, haven't you encountered anything strange?"
Seeing Sasha's puzzled expression, Song Laosan quickly explained, "We Chinese have many myths and legends, and we believe that mountain gods and monsters live in the mountains. He means, do you have any similar myths here?"
Sasha's doubts deepened: "Strange, why are so many people interested in the myths and legends of the mountains lately?"
Upon hearing Zhou Peng's translation, I sat up straight: "Why would he say that? Ask him if anyone else has asked him about these things recently."
Sasha nodded: "A few days ago, some villagers did come to me and asked if I had encountered anything strange in the mountains or seen anything unusual. But I'm just a hunter, not an explorer. I only hunt in areas I'm familiar with. This place is surrounded by mountains for hundreds of kilometers. How would I know anything strange?"
Song Laosan took a sip of his baijiu: "Do you say the same thing to others?"
"Of course, but I told them about something that happened to me, which was also a strange thing."
Seeing our interest in these matters, Sasha began to speak: "When I was eighteen or nineteen, there were other hunters in the village, but they weren't as skilled as me, so they could only go hunting in the mountains in teams. I remember there were four of them in total, led by Alev."
When I go hunting, I always have a fixed area and location, while they just run around with their guns and rarely find any prey. But that year, Aleev suddenly bought a motorcycle, and the other three hunters also built new houses.
At first, I thought they had found an area with new prey. Seeing them build new houses and buy new cars, I was incredibly envious and asked to join them, but Aleev refused. Desperate to earn as much money as them, I inexplicably started following them, only to discover that these people carried not only hunting rifles and ropes when they went into the mountains, but also tools like shovels and pickaxes.
When Song Laosan and I heard this, we exchanged a glance and both thought that Aleev and his men had discovered the ancient tomb while hunting, which was how they made their fortune.
Sasha, oblivious to our expressions, continued, “I don’t know if they noticed I was following them or if they were just very wary, but I managed to shake them off every time I went into the mountains with them! I also asked some fur traders and learned that they never sell bear skins, deer skins, or tiger skins.”
At that time, I fell in love with a girl from the tractor factory, but her father was a sent-down youth who looked down on poor country boys like me. To prove my abilities, I dreamed of making a lot of money. But just as I was about to confront Aleev and demand to know how he made money, he went insane.
I was still finding it fascinating that there were also educated youth in the Soviet Union when I suddenly learned that Aleev had gone mad. I instinctively asked, "How did he go mad?"
"I was terrified. I had just returned to the village that day when I saw a group of people tying Alyosha up hand and foot, while the others were covered in blood. It looked horrifying."
Sasha recalled Alyosha's appearance at the time, and took a sip of wine to calm his nerves: "At that time, Alyosha shouted that they had encountered ghosts in the mountains, and a group of Mongol cavalry rushed out and attacked them. All three of his companions died."
Song Laosan and I exclaimed in unison: "Mongol cavalry?"
Sasha chuckled, "Yes, Alyosha said those Mongol cavalrymen were all dressed in ancient clothes, with mummies under their armor. They charged up and killed everyone. He jumped off a cliff to save his life. But that was in a new era, and we're so far from Mongolia. Who would believe such a clumsy lie?"
I squinted: "What happened next?"
Sasha shrugged: "This caused a huge sensation at the time. When the police arrived, they arrested Alyosha and shot him."
I was taken aback: "Executed? For what crime?"
"Spies! That era was during the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. Anti-American sentiment was high in China at that time, and spies and agents were being arrested all over the country. A lot of people were arrested back then, regardless of whether they were real spies or not. Once you were labeled as a spy, you would be severely punished, if not killed."
Sasha scratched his head: "After the police arrested Sasha, they sent people to search the mountains. Our farm was also asked to cooperate. Because I was a hunter and a member of the militia, I was chosen as a guide. Alyosha was also brought in, but he was crazy and didn't cooperate at all. I led people around the mountains for a week, but we didn't find the bodies of his three companions."
Later, the police investigation revealed that before Alyosha went insane, he had sold a large amount of gold, claiming it was payment from the Americans. They were always heading into the mountains to draw maps for the Americans. Alyosha fabricated the lies because he killed his companion over a dispute about the spoils and feigned madness to evade punishment. Unfortunately, he was completely unaware of the international situation. Mongolia at that time had long since lost its cavalry. He was ultimately executed for espionage, leaving me, the only hunter left on the farm.
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