With the enemy outnumbering them, they had to strike first and catch them off guard. Otherwise, once the others made a move, he and Er Gouzi would be the ones to suffer.
Er Gouzi reacted just as quickly. Almost the moment Liu Tiezhu shouted, he kicked one of the nearby thugs square in the groin. Though this move was a bit underhanded, it was the fastest way to neutralize an opponent's combat effectiveness. The thug took the hit, his face turning a sickly green as he clamped his legs together, letting out a sound like a crowing rooster.
Before the remaining two thugs could snap out of it, Er Gouzi lunged at another one, swinging a fist straight at his nose. The nose was another vulnerable spot on the human body—once struck hard, it could incapacitate someone in no time. Er Gouzi's reflexes and fighting style even stunned Liu Tiezhu, a seasoned former mercenary.
"Son of a bitch! If I don't teach you two little bastards a lesson today, I'll take your damn last name!" the last thug roared, swinging a fist toward Er Gouzi's back.
Liu Tiezhu wasn't about to let Er Gouzi take a beating. He delivered another blow to the dazed Liu Yusheng's head with his club, then rushed over and slammed the wooden stick hard into the thug's knee. Liu Tiezhu held nothing back this time—the impact left several cracks in the wood. The thug cried out in pain, crumpling to the ground and clutching his knee as he howled.
Meanwhile, Er Gouzi was locked in a back-and-forth brawl. The thug had the advantage in strength and quickly took Er Gouzi down, aiming every punch at his temple as if trying to kill him. "Go to hell!" Liu Tiezhu charged over and smacked the guy on the back of the head with his club. By now, he was too riled up to care about the consequences. The thug staggered, wobbled a few times, and then collapsed flat on the ground.
Still fuming, Er Gouzi kicked the downed man a few more times before hopping onto the tricycle with Liu Tiezhu and speeding off.
"Brother Tiezhu, that guy back there—he's not dead, is he?" Er Gouzi asked, still shaken, once they'd pedaled a good distance away.
"He won't die, but he'll be laid up for a few days at least." Liu Tiezhu had held back on that last swing. Years of mercenary experience told him the man would survive, though a concussion was unavoidable. In the 1980s, as long as no one died, things usually weren't too serious. Liu Yusheng and his crew had started the fight, so if they called the cops, they'd be the ones in trouble.
"Damn it! That bastard Liu Yusheng—next time I see him, I'm beating him again," Liu Er Gouzi gritted his teeth, still not over it.
They chatted idly as they quickly reached the town. Liu Tiezhu sold all the meat, bought a few hundred catties of rice, and picked up some parts for assembling a compound crossbow. The arrow rain he'd made from umbrella ribs lacked penetration and needed replacing. The town had ready-made bamboo arrows for sale, which he could modify to fit. After getting what they needed, they saw it was getting late and headed back. To avoid another ambush by Liu Yusheng, they took a different route, bypassing Liu Family Village entirely.
They returned to Liu Family Village around five in the afternoon, with the sky already pitch black. Liu Tiezhu called for Er Gouzi to fetch his uncle, then cut off three catties of meat and rode the tricycle back to return it to Liu Guang. Huang Xiuhua had lunch ready by the time Liu Tiezhu came back, carrying two puppies—one yellow, one black. He'd traded three catties of meat for them from Liu Guang's place.
He'd spotted these two pups that morning when borrowing the tricycle. Both had the build of proper hunting dogs, with good noses and limbs. But Liu Guang, that miser, wouldn't spare them any food, leaving the puppies skin and bones from hunger. In an era when people could barely feed themselves, dogs were worthless. Liu Tiezhu offering three catties of meat for two pups made Liu Guang overjoyed.
"Tiezhu, where'd you get those puppies?" Liu Tieshan asked.
"Traded three catties of meat from Liu Guang," Liu Tiezhu replied.
"Three catties of meat?" Liu Er Gouzi's eyes went wide. "Brother Tiezhu, Liu Guang ripped you off! Nobody would take those little things for free, and you gave up three catties of meat?"
His uncle chimed in, "Yeah, people can barely afford to eat these days. No one's wasting food on dogs. If you want to keep dogs, your uncle can get you a few."
Dogs ate a lot—no one would waste grain on them. Liu Tiezhu set the puppies down and said, "Uncle, don't underestimate these little ones. Train them right, and they'll be a huge help with hunting. You said you could get a few—really?"
"These things can help with hunting?" The uncle perked up. "Liu Dong at the end of the village has seven or eight. He asked me yesterday if I wanted to keep any, even offered to give me a few."
"Uncle, go ask tomorrow. If they're still there, buy them all," Liu Tiezhu said. He'd already come up with a plan to use dogs to hunt wild boars. If he could raise and train twenty or thirty dogs, going into the mountains for game would be easy, netting hundreds of catties of wild meat.
"Buy them all? That..." The uncle hesitated. Seven or eight dogs would eat a lot of food every day.
Liu Tieshan warned, "Tiezhu, you can't just raise dogs like that. With that many, you'd need several catties of rice a day just to feed them."
Neither of them had thought about using hunting dogs for catching game; they worried Liu Tiezhu was acting on a whim. Liu Tiezhu said confidently, "Uncle, big brother, I know what you're worried about. Don't fret over the food. These dogs have a big purpose. Whether we can hunt game in the mountains depends on them."
Seeing Liu Tiezhu so sure of himself, the uncle and Liu Tieshan exchanged glances and dropped their objections.
After dinner, Liu Tiezhu had Er Gouzi carry a hundred catties of rice home and told him to come back tomorrow morning with a net bag. The mountain was sealed off and wouldn't be accessible for a few days. Tomorrow, he planned to try his luck at the bamboo grove again.
After seeing off his uncle, Liu Tieshan asked, "Tiezhu, you said these dogs have a big purpose. What exactly?"
"Big brother, they can help hunt wild boars." Liu Tiezhu didn't hold back, laying out his plan for training the dogs to hunt boars.
After hearing it, Liu Tieshan's eyes widened. He pointed at the puppy gnawing on a bone on the floor and said, "This thing, when it's grown, won't weigh more than thirty-some catties. How's it supposed to fight a wild boar?"
Liu Tiezhu replied, "Big brother, one might not cut it, but what about ten? With proper training, fifteen dogs can take down a wild boar." In his past life, he'd trained military dogs. Training a pack of hunting dogs to kill boars was a piece of cake for him.
Hunting boars with dogs required four types: the lead dog to track the boar, the support dog to help the lead hold it back, the attack dog to go for the kill, and the flanking dog to distract and corner it. Once he trained all four types to work as a team, they could hunt boars in the deep mountains without any risk. But it was a long process, and he'd need enough stamina to keep up with the dogs' pace.