bookrebus Chapter 210 Li Guaizi Comes to Deliver Wild Boar Hide
Chapter 210 Li Guaizi Comes to Deliver Wild Boar Hide
Lu Zhiqiang felt a surge of anger as the two men laughed at him.
Hey, you all look down on me, and to make matters worse, I'm the least promising one.
After trying it a couple of times, he realized he wasn't cut out for making clamps, so he could only lie down on the kang (a heated brick bed) in frustration, shout a couple of times, and then go home with Lu Jinyang.
On the contrary, Lu Jinyang from the Lu family found Li Ju'an's clip-making quite interesting, so he sat quietly to the side and pulled Lu Wenqian and Li Xiao to watch together.
Li Xiao said, "Our brother is really something. He went into the mountains to hunt and caught big pheasants and pheasants. Our family has never lacked oil and fat."
It's said that children speak without thinking, but saying something like this can easily make others jealous.
Before Li Ju'an could stop Li Xiao, Lu Wenqian became envious and grabbed Lu Jinyang's arm, shaking it and pleading, "Brother, I didn't get to eat chicken for New Year's Eve dinner. I want to eat chicken too."
Before Old Master Lu retired from his life of crime, he would go into the mountains every week to hunt and bring back quite a few pheasants and wild chickens. Lu Wenqian had heard her two older brothers say since she was little that they never lacked chicken when they were young, but she never did. Every time her second aunt traded eggs with someone to get a young chicken for stew, Lu Wenqian would be incredibly envious.
But the Lu family had many mouths to feed, and one young chicken was hardly enough for so many children and adults. She could only manage two or three pieces of the chopped braised young chicken at most; the rest she had to eat with the braised sauce mixed with rice.
Lu Zhiqiang said, "We just slaughtered a pig at home, it's not enough for you to eat."
Lu Wenqian snorted and ignored Lu Zhiqiang, but grabbed Lu Jinyang's arm and shouted, "Second brother, I want to buy fruit candy too."
She noticed the fruit candies Li Xiao had placed on the table. It was a large bag that the Yangko dance team leader had just brought over.
Mother Song Lanhua came over, quickly grabbed a handful of candy with a smile, and stuffed it into Lu Wenqian's hand, saying warmly, "Child, take this and eat it. It's okay to eat a little candy during the New Year."
The Lu brothers declined a couple of times, but couldn't resist Song Lanhua's enthusiasm, so they thanked her and accepted the gifts. Lu Jinyang felt a little guilty. He noticed that Lu Zhiqiang had taken Li Ju'an's wire to learn how to make clothespins, and his own sister had asked for candy. It seemed like all the good things were being taken by his family.
Lu Jinyang stayed behind and said to Li Ju'an, "Teach me, I'll help you break the clips."
Li Ju'an was just looking at the pliers and his hand was hurting; his thumb and forefinger were also a little sore and numb. He looked up and saw Lu Jinyang's serious face. He really wanted to help him make the clamps. He laughed and said, "Can you even use the pliers? Even your brother can't bend them."
Upon hearing this, Lu Zhiqiang's fiery temper flared up: "Who says you can't break it? Our clips may not look great, but they're absolutely durable!"
It wasn't that Li Ju'an was deliberately provoking him; it was just that the two Lu brothers were so enthusiastic that he couldn't resist.
Li the Cripple came to visit Li Ju'an at the Li family home during the Spring Festival, bringing four or five wild boar skins and offal. Wild boar offal is very juicy, and hunters usually can't finish it all themselves, so they clean it up and give it away.
As soon as Li Guaizi entered the door, he saw four or five people by the Li family's kang (a heated brick bed) diligently making clamps with pliers. He watched with amusement, laughed loudly, and said, "How many of these do we have to make? A hundred or eighty? Even if we release them in the mountains, there won't be enough time for them to escape. They'll all be snatched up by someone else."
Since their parting at Wild Boar Forest, he has rarely hunted. His daily routine consists of going into the mountains alone to set traps, and then going back to hunt again a week later. He lives a carefree and leisurely life.
But what frustrated Li Guaizi the most was that even though the snares could catch many jerks, some snares and jerks would always disappear together. He could tell from the footprints in the snow that the snares had caught the jerks; they had clearly stepped into the snares, but then they disappeared along with them. At first, he thought they might have been dragged away by other predators, but upon closer inspection, he discovered that there were traces of snow that had been deliberately swept away.
A series of footprints were deliberately swept away; they were intentionally taken away by someone else.
Li Guaizi immediately felt a surge of anger. If this kind of thing happened occasionally, he wouldn't mind because he couldn't avoid it. But the more he kept quiet, the more his traps were taken away, all of them trapping the prey. This was infuriating; someone had broken the rules.
But he couldn't squat there every day and watch over the trap, so he thought of going to Li Ju'an's house to ask if a similar situation had occurred.
Upon hearing this, Li Ju'an was also surprised and said, "Isn't this a common occurrence? Just be more diligent in your practice."
“Xiao Li, you’re just being sarcastic. I use those wooden clips to catch big pelts. Those footprints look exactly like sable to me. If I actually caught a sable and someone took it away with the clip, we’d suffer a huge loss in silence, and we’d be so frustrated.”
Li Guaizi put down the four or five wild boar skins and offal he was holding, sat down on the kang (a heated brick bed), and sighed.
There were already many people in the room, and with him squeezing in, it became even more cramped.
Lu Zhiqiang shouted, "Then what should we do? We can't just keep looking at your traps to steal them. How about we set some traps ourselves these next few days, and have people take turns watching and staking out the place. If anyone tries to steal a trap, we'll rush up, catch them, and give them a good beating."
"to make!"
Li Guai Zi actually agreed. Lu Zhiqiang rolled his eyes and said, "I was being sarcastic, and you actually took it to heart? It's freezing cold and it's the New Year, who has the patience to sit there and wait?"
Nothing worked, and Li Guaizi was getting increasingly frustrated. He stared blankly at the trap in Li Ju'an's hand, thinking that if Li Ju'an's trip down the mountain to set the trap wasn't a disaster, but someone else had tricked him, then this would be a feud. He went through all the people he had offended over the years, but he couldn't figure out who would do something so disgusting.
When Li Guaizi brought gifts for the New Year, Li Ju'an naturally reciprocated.
He climbed the wooden ladder to the attic, retrieved three packs of Bingcheng cigarettes, and handed them to Li Guaizi. Li Guaizi, a seasoned smoker, naturally couldn't resist the cigarettes.
He lit a cigarette, inhaled it comfortably, and exhaled a pleasant smoke ring, while crossing his legs and watching a few young people break wires to make clamps.
At this moment, Lu Wenqian found the wild boar skin interesting. Three mixed-breed animals were lying at her feet. Little Cannon was playing with ash wood sticks, Chicken Butt, which had recovered from serious injuries, and Fa Cai were excitedly rubbing against Lu Wenqian. Li Xiao, on the other hand, loved to chase after little girls.
Lu Wenqian found it amusing, so she handed the wild boar skin to the chicken's rear end, teased the hunting dog, and said, "Eat it."
The Lu family used to have a hunting dog named Dahuang. After the old master of the Lu family slaughtered a pig, he would give Dahuang the pig's heart, liver, and lungs, but he couldn't bear to part with the pig's stomach. This was because pig stomach could be used as a medicinal ingredient; it could be dried in the shade and sold at a pharmacy for a dollar, and it could cure stomach ailments.
The Lu family's old hunting dog, Big Yellow, used to love waiting for pigs to come in, drooling with envy.
So Lu Wenqian also used wild boar skin to tease Li Ju'an's three mixed-breed dogs.
After Li Ju'an noticed, he gave Li Xiao a wink. Li Xiao, being clever and quick-witted, hurriedly pulled Lu Wenqian to the next room to play with pens.
Lu Jinyang, being a meticulous person, asked Li Ju'an if there was any explanation for this.
Li Ju'an put away the wild boar hide and said, "Only the wolf eye in Lao Qin's hand can gnaw on wild boar hide. Our own hunting dogs, even Xiao Gangpao, can't touch wild boar hide. This stuff will easily cause them to have intestinal blockage and die if they eat it."
Dogs are domesticated, unlike wolves. Old Qin's wolf ate wild boar skin and was fine because wolves in the wild are so hungry they'll gnaw on anything, even pig bones, let alone wild boar skin; their stomachs are far more capable than a dog's. If a dog ate wild boar skin, the boar hair would clump together in its intestines and become difficult to pass, eventually causing intestinal blockage and death.
Lu Jinyang asked curiously, "But when I was a child, I saw my grandfather tease a puppy with a wild boar skin."
Li Ju'an said, "You said it yourself, it's a puppy. And it's definitely a wild boar skin that's been shaved. It's not something a puppy can use to practice its bite force; it's really not good to eat it."
Lu Jinyang nodded, expressing his complete agreement with Li Ju'an's words. He also felt a pang of regret. If the old man hadn't retired from the trade, he and Lu Zhiqiang would have inherited these skills and learned them as well. It was a pity the old man refused to teach them; otherwise, he wouldn't have had to come to Li Ju'an to learn.
Li Ju'an suddenly looked up and asked, "Lu Jinyang, you wouldn't happen to be thinking of going mountain running too, would you?"