Arriving at the rice shop, the two found that the price of rice had also doubled. Originally priced at seventeen cents per catty, it had now risen to thirty cents. After haggling with the shop owner, Liu Tiezhu managed to buy a thousand catties of rice at twenty-seven cents per catty. With the remaining one hundred and forty-four yuan, Liu Tiezhu handed seventy to Er Gouzi, telling him to save it. Er Gouzi was three years younger than him and would soon reach the age of marriage in a few years. Without money in his pocket, things would be difficult then.
By the time they got home, an hour and a half had passed. The modified wooden cart not only lightened the mule's burden but also greatly increased speed. Uncle and the others helped unload the rice, then loaded up the dried meat and drove the mule cart toward the Wild River. Behind the mule, led by Taro, eighteen hunting dogs formed a single-file line, closely following.
Forty minutes later, they arrived at the Wild River. Er Gouzi, Uncle, and the other two followed the same method as last time, heading to the sluice gate to break the ice and set the net. Liu Tiezhu, meanwhile, took the hunting dogs into the banana grove beside the Wild River.
As soon as they entered the grove, Taro began lowering its head to sniff for prey. War Flag 1 through 5, five dogs, didn’t need Liu Tiezhu’s command and quickly fanned out to both sides to expand the search. The Battle Axe dogs also charged toward the outer edge of the banana grove at that moment, preventing any prey from breaking through the encirclement. Only the five Banner Spear heavy dogs stayed put, waiting for a signal.
A few minutes later, the banana trees began to sway, and barking sounds quickly followed. This was Taro’s signal that it had found prey. The five War Flag dogs swiftly closed in, compressing the prey’s space to a minimum. At the same time, the five heavy dogs charged toward the direction of Taro’s signal. Liu Tiezhu, holding a steel fork, followed closely behind the five Banner Spear dogs.
Minutes later, Liu Tiezhu reached Taro’s location. There was a pool of blood on the ground, and the five heavy dogs were fiercely biting an animal that looked like a small yellow cow. This was a local "yellow muntjac," which weighed about a hundred catties when fully grown and looked almost identical to a small yellow cow. This animal was extremely fast, timid and cautious by nature, usually foraging at night or early morning, and hiding in thickets to rest during the day. When startled, it let out a loud bark-like cry. He hadn’t expected to find such a rare animal in the banana grove.
Liu Tiezhu quickly stepped forward to bleed it, then dispersed the hunting dogs to continue searching. Yellow muntjacs were usually social animals; since one had appeared, there were bound to be more nearby. Another habit of this animal was that its range of activity was very fixed. Even if it fled far away during a chase, it would eventually return to its original territory.
Just as Liu Tiezhu finished bleeding the muntjac, the signal from Taro and the other two lead dogs came again from not far away. As the barking grew more urgent, banana trees fell one after another, surging rapidly toward Liu Tiezhu’s direction. "Holy shit!" Liu Tiezhu couldn’t help cursing, his face turning pale. He quickly dropped the muntjac in his hands and sprinted wildly toward the riverbank. Being able to knock down entire rows of banana trees meant a herd of animals. If he didn’t run fast, he’d be trampled into pulp by these frightened creatures.
Uncle and the others, who were setting the net by the river, were also startled by the commotion in the banana grove. They looked up and saw Liu Tiezhu frantically running toward them. At that moment, Liu Tiezhu didn’t care about any thorny bushes ahead. His adrenaline surged, and he charged straight through the thicket, moving at an unparalleled speed. Bursting through the thorny bushes, his body slammed onto the ice on the river, rolling several meters before stopping.
Er Gouzi’s mouth hung open: "Damn, I’ve never seen Brother Tiezhu run that fast." Uncle kicked Er Gouzi in the backside and scolded, "Get moving, you idiot! Go help him up!" "Oh, oh, oh..." Snapping out of it, Er Gouzi quickly dropped the long bamboo pole in his hands and hurried over to help Liu Tiezhu up. "What happened? What’s going on in the banana grove?" Uncle asked as he walked over. "Probably ran into a herd of yellow muntjacs," Liu Tiezhu said. "A herd of yellow muntjacs?" Uncle looked bewildered. "These animals usually hide in mountain thickets. Why would they come out?" "I don’t know. Something must be happening in the mountains." "The fire hawk we caught last time was also extremely rare," Liu Tiezhu added.
Liu Tieshan asked, "With so many muntjacs, will the hunting dogs be in danger?" "No, these muntjacs only flee; they have no attack power. The dogs can round them all up." "Gouzi, grab the steel fork. We’re going back in." No sooner had Liu Tiezhu finished speaking than two muntjacs leaped out of the thorny bushes and crashed onto the river ice. Because the ice was so slippery, the two muntjacs struggled for a long time without being able to stand up. How could Uncle and the others miss this opportunity? They immediately grabbed their steel forks and charged over.
After dealing with the two muntjacs, they decided to forget the net and headed straight into the banana grove. In the center of the grove, the barking of the hunting dogs was nonstop. Besides the lead dogs like Taro, the auxiliary and perimeter dogs were also barking wildly. This was the signal that the prey was completely surrounded. "Everyone, hurry up! The dogs have surrounded all the prey." Liu Tiezhu warned and quickened his pace. Uncle and the others, excited by this, picked up their pace too.
After charging about twenty meters, they saw over a dozen hunting dogs circling four muntjacs, barking incessantly. The five heavy dogs took turns biting, but individually, they weren’t strong enough to take down a muntjac. Though muntjacs weren’t aggressive, they were quite strong. The twenty-catty heavy dogs hanging on them had little effect. The other dogs just kept barking and circling, lacking the decisiveness of the five heavy dogs.
"Big brother, Uncle, you two handle the one on the left." "Gouzi, you and I handle the one on the right." "Remember, be very careful. Getting kicked by these things is no joke." Liu Tiezhu warned, then gave the command for all the hunting dogs to attack. This time, all the dogs surged forward, targeting the two muntjacs in the middle. Uncle reacted quickly, and as the heavy dog bit the muntjac in front of him, he thrust his steel fork into its belly. Big brother also charged in at that moment, grabbing the muntjac’s neck, working with the heavy dog to wrestle it down, then straddling it and holding it tight. Uncle immediately pulled out a machete and slit the muntjac’s throat to bleed it.
On Liu Tiezhu’s side, Er Gouzi was very brave. He rushed forward and slammed into the muntjac with full force. The massive inertia knocked the muntjac over, and he quickly climbed on top, pressing it down firmly. Liu Tiezhu dashed to the muntjac in front of him and stabbed its neck repeatedly with a short knife. The four of them worked together to take down two muntjacs, while the other two on the other side were also brought down by the four heavy dogs. Liu Tiezhu went over to bleed them, and only then did all the hunting dogs release their grip, standing obediently to the side wagging their tails.
Exhausted from all the effort, they lay down on the ground to rest. A few minutes later, Uncle sat up and laughed, "Tiezhu, these hunting dogs are incredible." "In all my years, I’ve never seen anything like it." Though he’d heard Er Gouzi talk about the dogs fighting wild boars and black goats before, seeing it firsthand was a different story. "These dogs aren’t fully grown yet. Once they are, a single one could easily take down these muntjacs," Liu Tiezhu said.
After chatting for a while, they began processing the muntjacs. Seven muntjacs, after dressing, yielded over six hundred catties of meat. This amount of meat would last them more than a month. With plenty of rice now and the hunting dogs to assist, they wouldn’t have to worry about food anymore. They loaded the muntjac meat onto the mule cart, took a couple of swigs of strong liquor, and prepared to go pull the net. Just then, the bamboo pole securing the net suddenly collapsed. They watched as the pole was quickly dragged into the broken ice hole and vanished in an instant. Liu Tiezhu and the others’ eyes widened in unison as they rushed toward where the pole had disappeared. Something that could pull a four-meter-long bamboo pole to the bottom of the river had to be a big catch.