Chapter 441 - 422: Shocking the Villagers

"But you all helped, too. Besides, we can’t possibly eat this much meat."

In the end, the others accepted the horse bear.

However, they insisted on giving them the bear gallbladder, which had medicinal value.

Yun Jiao accepted it, because she truly needed it.

They carried the two large horse bears with them, unable to contain their excitement on the way back.

Yun Jiao’s performance earlier had simply been too cool.

The wives couldn’t have been more enthusiastic toward her.

"Jiaojiao, you should come visit us at the family compound when you have time."

"That’s right, I’m a pretty good cook. I’ll make you something delicious then."

"Oh, right. If this horse bear meat and the paws aren’t prepared properly, they won’t taste good at all. If you want to eat well, you should find Chef Zhao at the military base. He’s the expert at handling this kind of thing."

Yun Chenxi quickly thanked them, "Thanks, ladies."

"Nothing to thank us for! If anything, we should be thanking you."

When they parted ways, the wives were quite reluctant to see them go.

On Yun Jiao’s side, they heard waves of barking dogs before they even reached the village.

The dogs were mostly barking at the horse bears.

The dogs’ wary barks drew the villagers’ attention, and they grabbed their weapons to see what was going on.

When they saw the horse bears Yun Jiao and the others were bringing back, everyone’s eyes went wide.

"Horse bears! They’re horse bears!"

"They’re dead, no need to be afraid."

"Which family’s young men are those? To hunt such a big horse bear and bring it back, that’s incredible."

"I recognize that little girl. She’s staying in our village temporarily. They have relatives serving as soldiers at the military base here. Those two must be the soldiers."

Everyone was chattering at once, but Yun Jiao and Yun Linhai couldn’t understand most of what was being said.

Shen Yunlian and Lu Yu squeezed through the crowd and were also stunned when they saw what Yun Jiao’s group had brought back.

Lu Yu exclaimed, "Oh my god, it’s a horse bear."

Horse bears were very dangerous to the people around here.

Sometimes, they would even run into the village.

It wasn’t just horse bears; there were also wolves and snow leopards.

Because the villagers here mostly raised livestock like cattle, horses, and sheep, wild animals that couldn’t find prey in the wilderness would set their sights on the villagers’ livestock, especially in the spring.

When they came, the villagers were naturally in great danger as well.

That’s why almost every household here raised dogs and kept weapons at home.

"You don’t have a gun?"

Someone stared for a long time, an incredulous look on their face when they realized the group wasn’t carrying guns.

"Then how did you kill this horse bear?"

Having spent a long time here, Yun Chenxi and Yun Chendong could understand some of the local dialect.

Hearing the question, Yun Chenxi held up the broken bow in his hand.

"With this."

"That’s impossible!!!"

How could you kill a bear with a bow and arrow? Most importantly, the bear only had a single wound on its body.

’Don’t tell me it was a one-shot kill.’

Yun Chenxi thought, ’Fine, don’t believe it.’

’My sister is just that amazing.’

"Are you selling the meat from the bear and the antelopes?"

Someone was craving the meat.

Although they all raised cattle and sheep at home, it wasn’t like they could just eat meat whenever they wanted.

It took a long time to raise them, and they were kept for selling, not for their own consumption.

They would only slaughter a sheep or a pig to eat around the New Year.

Yun Chendong shook his head. "Not for sale."

Yun Chenxi said to the villagers with a grin, "Sorry, we plan to make jerky out of this meat for my mom and dad to take back home. This is their first time here, and they’ve never eaten this kind of meat before. Our family back home hasn’t really eaten it either."

Hearing this, the others couldn’t really say anything more.

They brought their quarry back to the place they were renting, which was next door to Lu Yu’s house and belonged to an elderly couple.

Right now, only the old woman was home.

She was also completely stunned to see what they had brought back.

"You all are just incredible."

Yun Chenxi said modestly, "Not at all. This was all my sister’s doing."

In the old woman’s eyes, this was being far too modest. ’How old is that little girl? How could she help hunt such a large and ferocious horse bear?’

The antelope was easy to process, but the horse bear was not.

The gallbladder and the hide had to be removed intact, which required someone with a lot of experience.

Luckily, there was such a person in the village.

Through Lu Yu’s introduction, they found an old hunter in the village.

As expected, he processed the bear quickly and efficiently.

After removing the gallbladder whole, he tied it with a rope and hung it up.

He took off the hide in one piece and set it aside, then began to butcher the bear meat.

Lu Yu’s family and the landlady all came over enthusiastically to help.

In the end, Shen Yunlian and the others took out a good amount of antelope meat and cooked up a huge feast for everyone to eat together.

Everyone worked late into the night to finish processing the meat from the two antelopes and one bear.

When the old hunter left, they gave him some of the organs and a strip of meat weighing around two pounds.

Of course, they also gave some to Lu Yu’s family and the landlady.

"Please, take it. This is to thank you for helping us process the meat. Otherwise, with just our family, who knows how long it would have taken."

In the end, they accepted the meat.

This was all wild game, so special attention had to be paid to removing the gamy smell and taste.

Following the locals’ methods, Shen Yunlian and the others marinated all the meat overnight.

「The next day」

They borrowed the landlady’s courtyard and prepared to smoke the meat.

Yun Chendong took a bear paw and a chunk of meat and headed back to the military base to find Chef Zhao and ask for his help cooking the paw.

Yun Jiao had nothing else to do, so she skipped along with her brother to the military base.

Unexpectedly, as soon as they arrived, they found quite a few people staring at them.

Yun Jiao scratched her head, but she was quite used to this kind of situation.

"Yun Chendong, my good brother! Did you guys really hunt a horse bear yesterday?"

Yun Chendong nodded, already having a good idea of what this was about.

Sure enough, he heard them say excitedly,

"Yesterday, a horse bear was brought back to the family compound, and everyone was shocked! The wives said they ran into two of them, and that our little sister here killed it with an arrow. The whole thing sounds like something out of a novel."

Their gazes fell upon Yun Jiao.

"With her small frame and sweet-looking face, how could she possibly look like someone who could kill a horse bear?"

As they spoke, one of them even pinched Yun Jiao’s small arm.

Yun Jiao just stood there obediently.

"But you guys ran into two horse bears yesterday and came back completely unscathed, and you even killed one! How’d you do it, brother? Everyone wants to know, and I want to know too!"

Yun Chendong pointed at Yun Jiao.

"My sister killed it."

He was a man of few words, but because of this, those who had known him for a long time knew that he never lied.

When faced with a situation that required a lie, he would rather say nothing at all.

Because they knew this, the expressions on the faces of Yun Chendong’s close friends gradually shifted from initial stiffness to incredulous shock.

"No way... Yun Chendong, you... since when did you learn how to joke around?"

Yun Chendong just looked at them without saying a word.

The men were stunned into silence.

"Little sis, was it... was it really you?"

Yun Jiao tilted her little head. "I’m just really strong."