Chapter 619: Does Your Zhao Jun Know How to Hunt? (Part 2)

“Even better.” Zhao Jun smiled and clapped Zhang Yuanmin on the shoulder. “In that case, Yuanmin, I’ll leave this to you.”

“Don’t worry, brother.”

Just then, Li Baoyu remembered something and quickly said to Zhao Jun, “Brother, have Jie Chen stay back with Yuanmin. The two of them can handle the roe deer.”

Jie Chen wasn’t a local; he’d never be able to find Forest Class 24 on his own. He was relying entirely on Zhang Yuanmin to lead the way into the mountains. If Zhang Yuanmin had to stay home to handle the roe deer, Jie Chen would be completely lost driving into the mountains by himself.

Hearing what Li Baoyu said, Zhao Jun thought it made perfect sense. He turned to Zhang Yuanmin. “Yuanmin, let Jie Chen stay back then. He can work with you and give you a hand.”

“Alright,” Zhang Yuanmin agreed. Then, a thought occurred to him. “Brother,” he said to Zhao Jun, “maybe you and Baoyu shouldn’t go either. A Big Cannon Egg over four hundred jin has got to be fierce. We heard that over at your New Logging Camp, one that size has already gored two men to death.”

Zhang Yuanmin meant well. After all, Zhao Jun’s family wasn’t short on money or meat right now. If this hunt was going to be risky, it just wasn’t worth it.

Zhao Jun knew Zhang Yuanmin meant well, but he said, “Don’t worry, Yuanmin. The terrain is different in those two places. The slopes near the New Logging Camp are steep, making it slow for people to get through, and the woods are thick. Behind Forest Class 24, it’s a long stretch of gentle ridges, and it’s all Qingtang Forest. As long as the dogs can pin it down, that boar won’t be able to escape.”

With Zhao Jun’s explanation, Zhang Yuanmin didn’t say any more. The men split into two groups: Zhang Yuanmin headed up the slope to carry the roe deer with Jie Chen, while Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu led the eleven dogs forward along the Wood Transport Route.

Once they were a good distance away from where the roe deer were, Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu unleashed Little Bear, Big Fatty, White Dragon, and Black Tiger. They led the Dog Gang up the mountainside, sticking to the ridges as they headed toward Forest Class 24.

Along the way, however, Zhao Jun didn’t keep the Dog Gang on a tight leash. They didn’t necessarily have to hunt that specific group of boars; they could just go after whatever they happened to encounter.

While Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu were making their way through the mountains, Zhao Youcai had already left Xing San’s shack and was heading straight for the spot where he had found Er Hei the day before.

Zhao Youcai was a man who did things properly. ‘I should go bury those four dogs,’ he thought, ‘can’t just leave their bodies exposed in the wilderness.’

As he neared the spot, he suddenly heard a couple of barks. Zhao Youcai immediately perked up.

He glanced ahead and saw two dogs—one black, one piebald—running toward him.

For a moment, Zhao Youcai was thrilled. ‘I found two more!’ he thought excitedly.

But in the next second, he heard someone calling out from up ahead. Zhao Youcai frowned, realizing he had gotten his hopes up for nothing.

Immediately after, he saw four more dogs running over.

Knowing now that they were hunting dogs that belonged to someone, Zhao Youcai’s enthusiasm faded considerably.

By now, six dogs—including a black one, two yellow ones, and Three Blossoms—were circling Zhao Youcai and Wang Qiang.

But these were trained hunting dogs, and they weren’t aggressive. They didn’t jump on the two men or bark wildly. They simply milled about, walking along with them and occasionally turning their heads to look back.

As Zhao Youcai walked a little further, he saw a man standing not far ahead. He looked to be in his forties and had a Type 56 semi-automatic rifle slung over his back.

When he got a clear look at the man’s face, Zhao Youcai froze for a second before striding toward him.

The other man was also taken aback when he saw Zhao Youcai, but after a moment of recognition, he hurried to meet him.

When they met, smiles broke out on both their faces. The man clapped Zhao Youcai on the shoulder and said, “Youcai, you’re still alive?”

Without batting an eye, Zhao Youcai thumped the man on the chest. “If you’re still kicking, how could I be dead? You’ve gotta go before me.”

The man let out a laugh, then glanced at Wang Qiang. He narrowed his eyes, raising an index finger as he thought. “This fella looks familiar. He’s your brother-in-law, isn’t he?”

“You’ve got a good memory for faces. That’s right, my brother-in-law,” Zhao Youcai replied, then turned to Wang Qiang. “You probably don’t recognize him, do you? This is Xue Baojun, from our old Forest Farm.”

“Ah!” Wang Qiang didn’t recall meeting Xue Baojun before, but he certainly knew the name. Besides, wasn’t Xue Liwei, the man they’d seen just a couple of days ago, this Xue Baojun’s nephew?

Seeing Wang Qiang’s expression, Zhao Youcai clicked his tongue. “How could you forget? Twenty years ago, when we hunted down Big Claw, he was the one who stole the Tiger’s bones…”

“Hey! Hey!” Xue Baojun, who had been smiling beside them, quickly tried to stop Zhao Youcai. “That was ages ago! Why are you bringing that up now?”

Hearing this, Zhao Youcai burst out laughing. He then heard Xue Baojun add, “My son’s here. You can’t just be saying anything you want in front of him, you hear?”

As soon as Xue Baojun said this, Zhao Youcai played along, widening his eyes and staring right at him. “You have a son?”

“Of course I do!” Xue Baojun gave Zhao Youcai a light shove, then led him and Wang Qiang into the woods. As they walked, he said, “My son is over there under the tree burying a dog. I heard the dogs barking over this way and thought they’d cornered a wild boar, heh…”

Xue Baojun chuckled a couple of times, then realized how that might sound and quickly said to Wang Qiang, “Brother, I wasn’t talking about you, alright? Don’t take it the wrong way.”

Wang Qiang smiled and nodded. He wasn’t the petty type, and besides, he could clearly see this was an old friend of his brother-in-law’s. They were just bantering and pulling each other’s leg.

“If you weren’t talking about him, you must have been talking about me,” Zhao Youcai said, shooting Xue Baojun a look. “This is just like you. You can hunt for decades and still not know a thing. Does a dog barking at a person sound the same as one barking at a boar?”

Xue Baojun had meant to tease Zhao Youcai, but he ended up getting a lecture instead. Still, reuniting with an old friend and falling back into their usual bickering helped to wash away some of the sorrow in his heart.

Just then, all the dogs with them ran ahead. Under a large red pine, Liu Jinyong and Hong Yuntao were helping a young man shovel dirt near the base of the tree.

“Son!” Xue Baojun called out. The young man turned around, and seeing his father with two other men, he walked over to them.

Seeing that it was Zhao Youcai, Liu Jinyong and Hong Yuntao also put down their shovels and came over.

Xue Baojun called his son over and pointed to Zhao Youcai. “This is Zhao Youcai. Your Uncle Zhao.”

“Uncle Zhao!” Hearing the name, the young man quickly nodded to Zhao Youcai. “I’m Xue Limin.”

“Ah, a good kid.” Zhao Youcai looked Xue Limin up and down. The young man was about twenty-four or twenty-five, around five-foot-eight, with dark, tanned skin. He too had a rifle slung over his shoulder.

Zhao Youcai asked casually, “How old are you, kid? Do you have a job?”

“Twenty-five.” It was Xue Baojun, not his son, who answered. “My son doesn’t have a regular job; he works for himself. As a matter of fact, he just finalized a deal at our Forest Farm yesterday. My son took the contract for Logging Camp 35.”

“Well now, a Leader.” Zhao Youcai sized up Xue Limin again and smiled. “That’s really something.”

Hearing Zhao Youcai praise his son, Xue Baojun smiled. “Youcai,” he asked, “the year I moved away, you only had a daughter, right? But I seem to recall… your wife was pregnant back then. Did you end up having a son?”

“I do,” Zhao Youcai said with a smile. “My son’s name is Zhao Jun. He’s at our old Forest Farm, working as an inspector.”

The moment Zhao Youcai said this, the smile on Xue Baojun’s face froze. ‘What a show-off,’ he thought. ‘And I walked right into it. Don’t inspectors oversee the Logging Camps?’

Zhao Youcai glanced at the dogs by their feet, then at Xue Limin. To be precise, his gaze was fixed on the rifle slung over the young man’s back.

Then, Zhao Youcai asked Xue Baojun, “So, your kid runs the mountains, does he?”

“What do you think?” Hearing Zhao Youcai ask about this, Xue Baojun rallied his spirits. He clapped Xue Limin on the shoulder and declared, “My son? Back in our village, among all the hunters, he’s *this*!”

As he spoke, Xue Baojun flashed a big thumbs-up in front of his son.

Then, he stared at Zhao Youcai and asked, “I’ve been gone for twenty-one years. That means your Zhao Jun is only twenty-one today, right? He can’t be much of a hunter, can he?”