Free Web NovelChapter 279: Chapter 237: Courting Death (Part 2)
But were Zhang Yuanmin’s methods really effective?
In Zhao Jun’s opinion, if it weren’t for Zhang Yuanmin’s good luck, he’d have died several times over by now.
"Du Leader, I understand the situation," Zhao Jun said. "Let him stay here and work for another couple of days. I’ll go have a talk with him. If he keeps this up, you can let him go."
Zhao Jun also thought about it. ’If Zhang Yuanmin is going to keep causing such a ruckus, it’s better to just send him home. At least back home, Yang Yufeng can keep an eye on him.’
After parting with Du Chunjiang, Zhao Jun went to the trappers’ cabin. Before he even went inside, he heard Zhang Yuanmin’s voice drifting out.
"What’s that? You want to hear more? So, do you want to hear about me stabbing the Black Bear, or me fighting Xiong Ba to a standstill?"
"I want to hear how you stabbed the Black Bear."
"How I stabbed it..." Zhang Yuanmin clutched his chopsticks, about to speak, when he suddenly sensed something was off. He quickly looked toward the door and saw Zhao Jun standing there with a dark expression.
"Oh, Brother, you’re here!"
Zhang Yuanmin put down his bowl and chopsticks and stood up, walking toward Zhao Jun with a grin. Jiang Jinyou did the same. Although the other trappers recognized Zhao Jun as the new technician, they didn’t have the same connection as Zhang Yuanmin and Jiang Jinyou, so they just stood up and watched from the side.
"Everyone, please, eat. Don’t mind me." Zhao Jun waved at the crowd, then said to Zhang Yuanmin and Jiang Jinyou, "I need to talk to you two. Come outside with me."
"Alright."
"Okay."
The two agreed and followed Zhao Jun outside. Once they found a private spot, Zhao Jun said to Zhang Yuanmin, "Brother, why do you think I sent you to the Logging Camp? It was so you could have a job and stop messing with Black Bears all day. But now that you’re here, how have you managed to cause even more of a ruckus?"
"Heh heh." Being told off by Zhao Jun, Zhang Yuanmin didn’t get angry; he just chuckled.
Seeing him like this gave Zhao Jun a headache. He added, "I heard from Du Leader that you’ve got the camp’s trappers so distracted they’re not even doing their jobs properly."
"Brother," Jiang Jinyou chimed in from the side. "You’ve misunderstood. Everyone is willingly helping Elder Zhang look for Black Bear’s Dens."
Hearing this, Zhao Jun curled his lip and stared at Jiang Jinyou until he became embarrassed and said, "Brother, you didn’t see it. That day, Elder Zhang really stabbed that Black Bear to death with a knife. He’s incredible."
"Brother, brother," Zhang Yuanmin, seeing this, quickly tugged on Zhao Jun’s sleeve, signaling him not to spill the beans about his past failures.
Zhao Jun shot him a glare, then turned back to Jiang Jinyou, who had just spoken. "Brother Jiang, how did you get mixed up in this too?"
Jiang Jinyou sounded quite reasonable. "Well, look at it this way, Brother. Elder Zhang seems to know what he’s doing, and we can even get Bear Gall out of it. What’s not to like?"
Zhao Jun was speechless. ’He only got lucky that one time,’ he thought, ’and you just had to be there to see it.’
But no matter what, he and Zhang Yuanmin were like brothers. He couldn’t just pull the rug out from under him like this. He could only try to persuade Jiang Jinyou. "Brother Jiang, we came out here to work for a bit of stability, right? If you keep messing with those things, what if something happens one day? What are you going to do if you get mauled or bitten by a Black Bear?"
"Mm, Brother, you’re right." Jiang Jinyou knew Zhao Jun meant well. "I’ll listen to you. I’ll focus on my work from now on."
"There, that’s more like it," Zhao Jun said to Jiang Jinyou, then turned to Zhang Yuanmin. "Brother, Du Leader himself said that you’ve got his trappers searching high and low for Black Bear’s Dens every day instead of working. If you keep this up, he’s going to fire you."
"Fire me? No way!" Hearing this, Zhang Yuanmin immediately shook his head like a pellet drum. He felt that ever since arriving at the No. 77 Logging Camp, he was truly like a fish in water. He had so many people fawning over him. Whenever he wanted to hunt a Black Bear, there were men at his command. Being surrounded by followers felt great.
If he went home now, the whole village would know he’d failed to take down a Bear Den three times. Even Chen Dalai had said he would never go hunting with Zhang Yuanmin again in this lifetime.
"Then you need to do your job properly and stop messing around," Zhao Jun said. "If something happens to you, how am I supposed to explain it to my sister-in-law and Lingdang?"
Zhang Yuanmin fell silent, nodding repeatedly. ’I really do need to lie low for a while,’ he thought.
Seeing that Zhang Yuanmin had more or less agreed, Zhao Jun gave them a few more words of caution, then went to find Du Chunjiang. He put in a few more good words for Zhang Yuanmin before taking his leave.
As for taking Zhang Yuanmin hunting with the Yongxing Brigade, Zhao Jun had only heard Wang Meilan mention it once and had never actually considered it.
That Elder Tao was already a handful. If he added Zhang Yuanmin to the mix, forget his own dogs—even if the Heaven-Barking Dog itself showed up, it might not be able to protect the two of them.
After Zhao Jun left, Zhang Yuanmin actually did quiet down. But while he laid low, the other trappers didn’t. They continued to search all over the mountains for Black Bear’s Dens.
Li Yuan, who could be called Zhang Yuanmin’s number one follower at the moment, had been wandering the forests of Chaoyang Slope for several days. Today, he had actually found a tree den.
It was in a large linden tree that grew right up against a large boulder. The den’s entrance was over four meters off the ground, facing south, and was located right above the boulder.
Li Yuan went closer to inspect it. Seeing that there was indeed frost on the "door" of the den, he returned to the Logging Camp to wait for his cousin, Li Wei.
When Li Wei returned, Li Yuan told him about finding the tree den.
After listening, Li Wei had only one thing to say: "So, should we go get Brother Zhang?"
"Why get him? We’ll hunt it ourselves," Li Yuan said. "Why not? Didn’t he tell us that night how to take a Celestial Granary? The two of us can handle it."
"Well..."
"Well, what?" Li Yuan said. "If we take it down, we can split it fifty-fifty. If you go get Zhang Yuanmin, he gets the meat and we just get the broth. What kind of deal is that?"
"That’s true," Li Wei said. "Then let’s pack our things and go."
Following Zhang Yuanmin’s instructions, Li Wei grabbed a Curved-Handle Saw. But Li Yuan, after a moment’s thought, also took a hammer and a few large nails.
Then, without telling anyone what they were up to, the two of them went to the base of the Black Bear’s den.
They followed Zhang Yuanmin’s teachings, first building a fire and stomping out a safe path. But when it came time to cut sticks to jam the den’s entrance, they ran into a problem.
Zhang Yuanmin had taught them to cut many long sticks and jam them into the tree hollow. These sticks would take up space inside, so when the Black Bear tried to climb out, it would get stuck on the crisscrossing poles.
But in practice, the sticks Li Yuan and Li Wei cut were too short. When Li Wei tried to jam a stick into the hole, it fell straight inside.
Luckily, the Black Bear was in a deep sleep by this point in the season and wasn’t woken up by the two of them.
"Stop that," Li Yuan told Li Wei. "Go get the hammer and nails from my pocket. I’ll cut some wooden bars to nail the den entrance shut."
"Hey, that’s a good idea!" Li Wei’s eyes lit up when he heard this.
"See?" Li Yuan grinned. "This brain of mine isn’t any worse than Big Pants’s."
Well now, they’d stopped calling him Brother Zhang and switched to Big Pants.
When Li Wei brought back the hammer and long nails, Li Yuan really did nail the den entrance shut. Then, just as Zhang Yuanmin had instructed, they started sawing the tree.
The two of them sawed a notch in the tree and looked inside, but they couldn’t see any Black Bear fur.
Seeing this, Li Wei quickly asked Li Yuan, "Brother, is this an empty den? There’s no Black Bear in here, is there?"
"Well... who knows." Li Yuan took a few steps back and looked at the den’s entrance. There was definitely frost on it, but he still wasn’t sure.
To put it bluntly, these two were amateurs; they couldn’t even tell if a den was occupied by a Black Bear or not.
At the mouth of the tree den, a thick layer of frost had formed. In fact, after months of the Black Bear breathing inside the hollow, much of that frost had turned to ice.
This was a clear sign that a Black Bear was living inside!
But Li Yuan couldn’t tell. He stared for a long time but couldn’t figure anything out, so he waved his hand at Li Wei and ordered, "Burn it!"
At Li Yuan’s command, Li Wei walked over to the fire, picked up a blazing torch, and shoved it through the notch they had cut in the tree den.
The inside of the tree den was full of rotted wood, which the Black Bear had arranged before hibernating, making it extremely flammable.
Smoke began to pour from the linden tree’s hollow, but there was still no sound of a Black Bear. Li Yuan sighed. "Alright, looks like we’re not destined for this fortune. Let’s head back."
Just as the words left his mouth, a loud "GRUNT" came from inside the tree den.
Hearing the Black Bear’s cry, Li Wei trembled all over, a chill running through his body.
"Quick, keep feeding the fire!" Li Yuan commanded. And he didn’t just direct Li Wei; he was about to step forward and help.
Just then, the Black Bear reached the den’s entrance. It pushed once, but couldn’t get out. It pushed twice, still couldn’t get out. Then the Black Bear gave a mighty shove forward, snapping the wooden bars Li Yuan had nailed to the outside. With the momentum, half its body burst out of the opening.
