Free Web NovelChapter 278: Chapter 237: Courting Death
While Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu were discussing their plan to hunt the Pig God, Zhang Yuanmin and Jiang Jinyou had already returned to No. 77 Logging Camp.
After their trip out and back, and spending a little while at Zhang Yuanmin’s home, they arrived at the logging camp while it was still early—only four in the afternoon.
It was too late to go back up the mountain to haul logs, so Zhang Yuanmin and Jiang Jinyou lay down on the kang to catch up on some sleep.
By the time the two of them woke up, the sky had already grown dark.
On the kang table sat a basin of stewed cabbage with vermicelli noodles and a stack of fried pancakes.
"Brother Zhang, I brought your dinner back for you," Li Yuan said, stepping forward. He then turned to Jiang Jinyou. "Elder Jiang, looks like you get to enjoy this thanks to Brother Zhang. Go on, have a bite."
"Alright." Jiang Jinyou smiled, picked up some chopsticks from the kang table, and handed a pair to Zhang Yuanmin.
Zhang Yuanmin took the chopsticks, glanced at the loggers gathered around the kang table, and chuckled. "So, what’s all this about?"
Just then, Ma Xiaoguang grabbed a bottle of liquor from a shelf against the wall, set it down on the kang before the cross-legged Zhang Yuanmin, and said, "Brother Zhang, you worked hard today. None of us lifted a finger to help, but you still shared the Bear Gall with us."
As soon as Ma Xiaoguang finished speaking, Li Yuan and Li Wei also praised Brother Zhang for his generosity, and the other loggers quickly chimed in with their agreement.
Zhao Jun had probably underestimated this big brother of his. In the three days since Zhang Yuanmin had arrived at No. 77 Logging Camp, he had gone from making a name for himself to establishing his dominance to killing a bear.
Zhang Yuanmin ignored the loggers’ flattery. He just pressed his lips together, nodded at the bottle, and asked, "And what’s this for?"
"You’ve been more than good to us, so we have to show you our respect, right?" Ma Xiaoguang said as he twisted open the bottle and poured a drink for Zhang Yuanmin. "Brother Zhang, have a drink. It’ll help you unwind."
Zhang Yuanmin didn’t stand on ceremony. He raised the cup and downed it in one go. It was a good thing it was only a tiny cup.
Ma Xiaoguang quickly refilled Zhang Yuanmin’s cup. "Brother Zhang, how about you tell us some stories about hunting Black Bears in the past?"
The other loggers all voiced their eager agreement.
Zhang Yuanmin was not one to be shy. In between eating and drinking, he launched into a story, casually telling the men about a time he killed a bear, sawed down a tree, and retrieved its Bear Gall.
The story left the loggers completely captivated, and in the process, they managed to get Zhang Yuanmin drunk.
Then, people started asking Zhang Yuanmin about his methods for hunting Black Bears.
Zhang Yuanmin explained the old method: first, you do the prep work. You build a fire and stamp down a safe path in the snow. Then you use a large log to bar the den’s entrance. Finally, you ’call the den’ to draw the bear out."
But that was no good!
The loggers didn’t have any guns. What were they supposed to do after luring out a Black Bear?
So, Li Yuan pressed him again. "Brother Zhang, what about that special method you came up with? How about you teach us a trick or two?"
"Hey!" Jiang Jinyou, sensing something was wrong, quickly tried to intervene. "Elder Zhang’s had too much to drink. Maybe it’s time to cover up and get some sleep."
"No, no, we’re not done talking yet."
"We’re talking to Brother Zhang. You stay out of it."
"That’s right," Li Wei added. "Brother Zhang already took care of a bear in an Earth Granary today. Now you can teach us how to hunt one in a Celestial Granary!"
In truth, they hadn’t hunted a bear in its den at all that day.
They had spotted the Black Bear before they even found the entrance to its den.
But Li Wei felt that he had already mastered the method for hunting a bear in an Earth Granary. ’If I can just learn the trick for a Celestial Granary from Zhang Yuanmin,’ he thought, ’I’ll be completely unbeatable when it comes to bears.’
Just as Jiang Jinyou was about to stop him, Zhang Yuanmin—who seemed to be truly drunk by now—started talking, the words spilling from his mouth. And what he described was, indeed, a method for hunting a bear in a Celestial Granary.
However, perhaps because Zhang Yuanmin was drunk, the method he described this time didn’t sound as credible as his previous ones. Many who listened were left feeling skeptical.
Thankfully, it had been grain alcohol. When Zhang Yuanmin woke up the next day, he only felt thirsty and had an empty stomach, with no other ill effects.
He forced himself to follow Jiang Jinyou up the mountain and work all morning. It wasn’t until he returned to their hut for lunch that he started to feel a little better.
In the afternoon, he went about his usual work of felling trees and trimming branches, and in this way, Zhang Yuanmin muddled through another day.
He might have been content to just get by, but the other loggers were not. Before, when hauling logs, they would always take the shortest routes, trying to get to their destination as quickly as possible.
But now? While they couldn’t do it on the return trip, burdened with timber, they took a different approach on the way out with their empty sleds. They all deliberately chose remote paths, stopping frequently to scan the trees, searching for hollows.
「The next day, March 25th.」
Around noon, after finishing lunch at No. 78 Logging Camp, Zhao Jun rushed over.
He had to come. He wouldn’t have any peace of mind otherwise.
The moment Zhao Jun entered the logging camp, before he could even reach the loggers’ hut, Du Chunjiang came out to meet him.
"Technician Zhao!"
"Du Leader."
It was hard to say if their previous conflict had made them friends, but in any case, things were peaceful between them for now.
"Ah, Technician Zhao," Du Chunjiang said, looking troubled. "It’s about that big brother of yours... the one called Big Pants. I don’t want him here anymore."
"What happened?" Zhao Jun asked. "Is there a problem with his work?"
"No, it’s not that." Zhao Jun’s question seemed to make things even more difficult for Du Chunjiang.
Zhao Jun sensed that his question had sounded defensive, so he said, "Du Leader, whatever it is, just tell me straight."
"Alright, then I’ll be frank."
"Go on."
Du Chunjiang sighed. "It hasn’t even been five full days since you brought him here. But he’s already got our loggers so worked up that they’re not even doing their jobs properly. The moment they leave the logging camp, they’re running all over the place, claiming they’re looking for a Black Bear’s Den."
Hearing this, Zhao Jun couldn’t help but close his eyes and lower his head.
Du Chunjiang added, somewhat embarrassed, "Now even my own younger brother is caught up in their nonsense."
Zhao Jun knew what was driving them: money.
These loggers had to be up by two every morning to tend to their draft animals. They did the hardest work for the most meager wages. Now that they’d found out someone could kill a Black Bear with ease, how could they not try to learn from him?
