The Entire Mountain Is My Hunting Ground

Chapter 271: Chapter 233: Hard to Kill

Yesterday, Li Baoyu and Lin Xiangshun went to No. 96 Logging Camp to haul timber. After loading up all the logs, they discovered the engine wouldn’t start.

Lin Xiangshun worked on the truck until after seven in the evening. He ate dinner at the No. 96 Logging Camp and then spent the night in the Leader’s shack.

This morning, they started driving back to the Forest Farm.

Lin Xiangshun had a problem—he couldn’t sleep in strange beds. Whether it was a regular bed in the city or a heated brick bed in the country, he just couldn’t sleep in a new place.

Since breakfast, Lin Xiangshun had been groggy. By the time they got onto the logging road, he couldn’t take it anymore. He got out and handed the steering wheel to Li Baoyu, while he himself sat in the passenger seat to ride shotgun.

In those days, you didn’t need a driver’s license to drive in the mountains, and you didn’t have to read road signs. You just had to grab the steering wheel and go.

Li Baoyu had been at the Forest Farm for about ten days. As a young man who was eager to get his hands dirty, he’d had no trouble learning to drive.

Lin Xiangshun handed the truck over to him and dozed off in the passenger seat. He kept drifting in and out of sleep, and whenever he woke up, he would pick up a comic book that Li Baoyu had tossed aside.

But for someone who didn’t enjoy reading, books just made him drowsy. Lin Xiangshun didn’t get through two pages before he was fast asleep.

Li Baoyu paid him no mind and just kept a steady hand on the wheel, following the road. Though it was a mountain path, road crews maintained it regularly. It was wide, flat, and free of pedestrians, so Li Baoyu had no trouble driving.

As they reached an uphill section, Li Baoyu thought he’d give it some gas to make it up the slope. But just as he lifted his foot toward the accelerator, he looked up and saw three figures appear at the top of the rise.

And all three of them were holding long knives.

The sight scared Li Baoyu so much that his foot slipped. He missed the accelerator, and the truck instantly began to roll backward.

Li Baoyu frantically slammed on the brakes. The truck shuddered to a halt, jolting the soundly sleeping Lin Xiangshun awake.

"Whoa!" Lin Xiangshun yelped. He looked around and, seeing nothing wrong, snapped at Li Baoyu, "Baoyu, what the hell are you doing?"

"Brother Shunzi, look!" Li Baoyu slapped Lin Xiangshun on the arm with his right hand and pointed forward with his left.

Lin Xiangshun followed his gaze up the slope and saw three men standing at the crest, knives in hand.

In an instant, sweat broke out on Lin Xiangshun’s forehead.

Li Baoyu started babbling beside him, "We’re done for, Brother Shunzi! We’ve run into highwaymen!"

"What are you talking about?" Lin Xiangshun forced himself to calm down. Truthfully, he was scared too, but then he thought, ’What could these three possibly steal from us?’

’Never mind the truck—it’s doubtful they even know how to drive it. And even if they could, I guarantee they wouldn’t make it out of the Forest Farm.’

’Steal the logs?’

’Are they nuts? If they stole the logs, the only place to sell them would be the Forest Farm. Otherwise, they’d just be hauling them home for firewood.’

’Selling them to the Forest Farm would be suicide. And for firewood? The mountains are full of it. Who needs to steal it?’

’Could they be planning to kill us and take our stuff?’

Lin Xiangshun recalled a scene from the *Water Margin* comic he’d just been looking at, and his heart leaped into his throat. Just as he was about to tell Li Baoyu to turn the truck around, he felt another slap on his arm.

"Brother Shunzi, look! Isn’t that Big Pants?"

Lin Xiangshun looked up. The three men parted to let a shorter man step forward from the middle. He was also holding a long knife.

"That little bastard, scared me half to death," Lin Xiangshun muttered, telling Li Baoyu to drive on.

As the truck started up the slope, Zhang Yuanmin had his three underlings step aside. When it drew near, he even waved a greeting to Li Baoyu at the wheel and Lin Xiangshun in the passenger seat.

’I’ll just say hello,’ Zhang Yuanmin thought. ’It’s a good chance to show these three followers of mine that I have connections.’

But to his surprise, the truck actually stopped right in front of him.

With two KLUNKS, the doors opened, and both Lin Xiangshun and Li Baoyu climbed out.

"Big Pants, what do you think you’re doing?" Lin Xiangshun yelled at Zhang Yuanmin as soon as he got out.

Zhang Yuanmin was baffled. ’Why is he yelling at me?’ he wondered, then said, "What’s wrong, Shunzi?"

Lin Xiangshun blinked a few times. He couldn’t very well admit, ’You scared me so bad I almost turned tail and ran.’

So, Lin Xiangshun softened his tone and asked, "Oh, I was just wondering... what are you planning to do with those knives?"

Lin Xiangshun’s gentler tone immediately sent Ma Xiaoguang and the others’ imaginations running wild. They all worked at the Logging Camp and recognized Master Lin from the Yong’an Forest Farm. They knew he was the kind of person even their own Leader had to curry favor with.

’And here’s Master Lin, first yelling at their Brother Zhang and now being so friendly. Isn’t this exactly how good buddies joke around when they see each other?’

For a moment, Ma Xiaoguang, Li Yuan, and Li Wei felt that their Brother Zhang was a real big shot.

Zhang Yuanmin, however, knew better. ’If I say we’re going to take on the Black Bear’s Den,’ he thought, ’these two might let my past "achievements" slip.’

’If that happens, all the prestige I’ve just built up at the No. 77 Logging Camp will be shot.’

So, Zhang Yuanmin’s eyes darted. He pointed casually at Ma Xiaoguang and said, "Ah, Xiaoguang here set some traps up on the mountain and caught a wild boar. We’re just heading over to finish it off."

Hearing Zhang Yuanmin say this, Ma Xiaoguang and the others exchanged confused glances. But it wasn’t their place to speak up, so no one asked any questions.

"A wild boar, huh!" Lin Xiangshun said irritably. "You’re going to kill a wild boar, but you lot looked like you were about to hold up a stagecoach."

Hearing this, Zhang Yuanmin let out a hearty laugh. He held the knife in his hand horizontally, struck a pose, and said to Lin Xiangshun, "Look at me..."

He paused mid-sentence, then turned to Li Baoyu. "Baoyu, you’re well-read. Take a look. This pose... don’t I look just like Wei Yan?"

Lin Xiangshun was fuming. By saying that, wasn’t Zhang Yuanmin just pointing out that he himself wasn’t well-read? ’I may not have read a lot,’ he thought, ’but I’ve definitely read more than him!’