PDLP Chapter 44 Ice Nest
Chapter 44 Ice Nest
"I can't afford to use you! You go and try to drag Xiong over. With those two mountain dogs around, I'm afraid they'll tear me apart..."
Having realized that Chen Tuo's arrogance stemmed from ignorance, Wu Laowai no longer wanted to teach him anything.
This kid knows nothing and is afraid of nothing.
The more you know, the bigger the trouble you can cause.
Even if they were on a mountain, Wu Laowai wouldn't let him pull the bear, but this was on the snow crust in the Hetao region.
As long as you can lift it, even a 1,000-pound brown bear is not a big problem for one person to lift.
With trembling hands, Wu Laowai pulled out a wine flask from his pocket and took a swig, while cautiously looking around.
The brown bears are here tonight, so the wolf pack probably won't come either, right?
Winters in the Xingan Mountains are too cold. Once heavy snow closes the mountains, the hungry mountain animals may do some unexpected things.
After downing a mouthful of wine and pressing down his still trembling hands, Wu Laowai finally managed to catch his breath.
"Give me the gun, and I'll keep watch around for you."
With a gun, he fired the first shot all by himself and even managed to hit a brown bear.
At this moment, Chen Tuo was not only excited, but the frenzy brought on by the ginseng also surged into his heart again.
"Uncle Wu, it's a bit of a waste to get bear blood all over the place. Do you think we could put some blood on our knife, stick it on a snow crust, and lure the wolves over to lick it?"
Upon hearing Chen Tuo's wicked idea, Wu Laowai shuddered several times but dared not utter a word.
He knew exactly what was going on as soon as he heard the trick.
A starving wolf, drawn by the smell of blood, will surely come to lick it.
Bear blood clung to the blade, which was embedded in the snow crust.
If things go wrong, the wolf will bleed itself dry.
If things go wrong, your tongue might freeze to the blade, and your intestines might be pulled out.
Thinking of the terrifying scene on the Hetao ice field, how could Wu Laowai dare to speak?
Wolves are the most vengeful wild animals.
If Chen Tuo really plays like this, the wolf packs within a hundred miles might come to the Songling area to seek revenge.
Although this kind of thing has never happened in Songling, it has happened quite often when hunting wolves in Hulunbuir.
The herders killed the wolves, but the remaining wolves attracted even more wolves, which wreaked havoc on the sheep in the sheepfold.
Although wolves are no match for humans, the loss of sheep can only be borne by the herders themselves.
All things considered, this is a lose-lose situation.
Seeing that Chen Tuo had managed to move the brown bear with a couple of tugs, Wu Laowai quickly picked up his hunting knife, preparing to skin the bear and extract its heart.
Next, timing is crucial. The bear blood has congealed, making it difficult to dispel the chill emanating from his body.
This was a desperate measure, as he wasn't a young man like Chen Tuo who could easily die from a cold and fever...
They cut open the abdomen to remove the heart, and incidentally extracted the still-warm bear bile.
Regardless of whether it was disgusting or not, Wu Laowai poured the wine into the heart tube, then poured the bear blood mixed with wine into the wine pot, and began to drink the bear heart in large gulps.
"Aren't you sweating too? Drink less, don't drink too much..."
While drinking bear heart blood himself, Wu Laowai did not forget Chen Tuo.
After taking a sip of the strong liquor mixed with bear blood, Chen Tuo didn't taste much of the blood, so he took a big gulp.
After finishing the bear blood wine mixed by Wu Laowai, Chen Tuo didn't sit idle. He immediately stuck the Yakut knife into the snow.
"What are you going to do now?"
"It's like being stabbed and bleeding!"
"Wolves hold grudges, you know that? Your trap was too cruel; several wolves have died tragically in the river bend. It might just bring revenge from the wolf pack!"
"Uncle Wu, you actually believe that? We have guns and cannons, what are we afraid of a few wolves?"
Wu Laowai vaguely remembered Chen Tuo's words; just before Qian Xiong, that little bastard had said something similar.
"In 1950, a survey team developing the Great Northern Wilderness hunted wolves for meat in Wutong River, Jiamusi City, which attracted a pack of wolves, and several of them were seriously injured."
"In 1951, in the Lesser Khingan Mountains, a reclamation team of about forty people was surrounded by wolves when it snowed, and only six or seven people survived."
"After the settlers arrived, the wolf packs migrated westward, and the grasslands suffered from wolf plagues again. This fighting lasted for seven or six years!"
"How many wolves did you even kill? I have almost half a bag of wolf fangs at home. These things not only hold grudges but are also united."
"Our area is mostly mountains and gullies; if a wolf attack occurs, it will be extremely difficult to fight them in this freezing weather!"
Wu Laowai had seen wolf attacks and had fought against them.
Back then, packs of over a hundred or two hundred wolves were not uncommon in the Great Northern Wilderness, specifically in Tatoudianzi.
The attack on the Lesser Khingan Mountains involved a reclamation team from the land reclamation division, who were armed with both guns and grenades.
With this equipment, they almost got wiped out by a pack of wolves in a snowstorm.
Unlike the Great Northern Wilderness at the foot of the mountain and Hulunbuir to the west, Songling is a place with many ridges and ravines, which would make it difficult to hunt down wolves.
"Is it really that strange?"
Seeing that Chen Tuo still didn't believe it, Wu Laowai brought out examples from the grasslands.
"Is this strange? Have you ever heard of the Black-cheeked Wolf King?"
"That beast led its wolf pack across hundreds of miles, devouring and causing havoc, making the people of Hulunbuir tremble with fear at the mere mention of wolves!"
"The settlers in the Great Northern Wilderness at the foot of the mountain fought for ten years before the wolves wiped them out."
"They've been fighting wolves on the western grasslands for almost twenty years, and they still hunt them every year!"
"If you cause a wolf infestation for the Forestry Bureau, wouldn't Blind Chu kill you?"
Seeing that Wu Laowai's expression was extremely serious under the campfire, Chen Tuo stopped insisting on stabbing him and letting his blood drip.
"Uncle Wu, do you think if we dug a few two- or three-meter-deep pits in the ice to use as traps, we could hit something?"
When Chen Tuo's first plan failed, he came up with a second, leaving Wu Laowai scratching his head in frustration.
This little bastard, does he know nothing at all?
He has a lot of dirty tricks up his sleeve.
"This is a technique used in Changbai Mountain. How did you know? If someone gets inside this ice trap, how will they get out?"
The practice of digging ice pits to trap pigs and roe deer is an old method passed down by hunters in the mountains.
Although Wu Laowai had never used it, he had heard of it.
However, the Xingan Mountains are different from the Changbai Mountains; it is much colder here.
If someone goes in and can't get out, they can freeze solid in a few hours.
"I'll keep an eye on things! Shall we give it a try?"
Fearing that Chen Tuo might ruin his tactics, and that he might have some underhanded tricks up his sleeve, Wu Laowai didn't stop him this time.
Instead, he pointed to the bear blood on the snow crust and said:
"Aren't you with that puppies? Don't waste this good stuff, let those two female mountain dogs have some too..."
They distracted Chen Tuo with bear blood, puppies, and wild dogs.
They saw that he was actually holding an axe handle, chasing two female mountain dogs to lick bear blood.
Having regained some of his strength, Wu Laowai sighed and began processing the bear skin.
If you don't peel this while it's hot, it'll still be his livelihood even after it freezes.
Wu Laowai doesn't want to get too close to Chen Tuo now.
That little bastard is too weird. He's not only fierce and arrogant, but he's also full of bad ideas.
They stick knives into snow shells and dig holes in ice shells—they use all sorts of underhanded tricks.
"Uncle Wu, Red Hair doesn't look very energetic. Is it cold? Can this thing eat ginseng?"
Wu Laowai didn't want to talk to Chen Tuo, but Chen Tuo obliviously came up to him.
"Redhead, you mean those two mountain dogs?"
Wu Laowai knew what "water hairy" and "old hairy" were, but "red hairy" was something he was unfamiliar with.
"It's not a mountain dog, it's a puppy."
Upon hearing that it was a puppy licking bear blood, Wu Laowai replied irritably:
"Feeding ginseng to a puppy? You're probably the only one like that. Try a little bit, and if it kills you, we'll get you another one from Crippled Sun..."