Having dogs but no gun was indeed a huge problem.

It was called a dog-pack hunt, but the gun was still the deciding factor.

Wild boars, particularly males weighing over 330 pounds, were incredibly difficult for dogs to take on directly.

Conditions were tough back then. Some families couldn’t even feed themselves, let alone their dogs.

An average family could manage two dogs at most, and two dogs could never hope to corner a 330-pound boar.

In Zhao Jun’s previous life, his Dog Gang had four hounds at its peak.

One winter, Zhao Jun took his dogs into the mountains for a hunt. He’d been searching for the better part of a day without spotting any prey.

But on his way back down the mountain, he ran into a sounder of boars. His Big-headed Dog, Cyan Dragon, immediately zeroed in on a 350-pound "cannon eggs."

A boar of around 330 pounds was the most dangerous to dogs, with two straight, sharp tusks like daggers.

But Zhao Jun’s four hounds were as tough as they come. The four of them surrounded the boar, fighting on the move and crossing four ridges in the process.

Zhao Jun chased desperately after them, but his two legs were no match for their four. As dusk fell, he grew anxious and started firing his gun into the air to call them back.

By then, however, both the dogs and the boar were blood-crazed.

The four dogs hadn’t returned by nightfall, so Zhao Jun had no choice but to find a nearby trapper’s hut and ask to stay the night.

He lay on the earthen kang inside the hut, but with his four dogs out there, their fate unknown, how could he possibly sleep? As he was tossing and turning, he heard something scratching at the door.

Zhao Jun had a feeling. He scrambled off the kang to open the door and found Black Dragon, the only female in his pack.

Zhao Jun slung his rifle over his back and followed Black Dragon over mountains and across ridges until they reached the riverbank. There, on the ice, he saw that his four dogs had mauled the wild boar to death.

He looked around. In a hundred-meter radius, the knee-deep snow had been completely trampled flat, and blood was everywhere.

If it was that difficult for four tough dogs to take down a 330-pound boar, they stood no chance against a massive seven or eight-hundred-pounder, let alone one over a thousand pounds, without a gun.

And Black Bears? They had tough hides, thick flesh, and sharp teeth and claws. When hunting a bear with dogs, the best they could do was harry it with hit-and-run tactics. Mauling a Black Bear to death was simply impossible.

Some might think that’s an exaggeration, but the way a Black Bear injures a dog is completely different from a wild boar.

Again, in Zhao Jun’s previous life, those same four hounds—the ones that could chase a boar for miles and pin a 330-pound "cannon eggs" to a riverbank—couldn’t take down a Little Black Bear that was just over ninety pounds.

That’s right, you read that correctly. Just over ninety pounds, and definitely under a hundred.

Zhao Jun had seen it with his own eyes. The Little Black Bear was less than a meter long, yet his 130-pound Black Dragon was like a toy under its paws, getting batted back and forth.

That’s why, if you were hunting a bear, a gun was an absolute necessity.

But now, Zhao Youcai had laid down the law. He wasn’t stopping the two of them from hunting, but without a gun, how were they supposed to do it?

Whether they ran into a large boar or a bear, without a gun to back them up, the dogs would eventually be unable to hold the prey and would give up the chase.

You have to understand, dogs are intelligent and have their pride. This is especially true for hounds—the more skilled the hound, the more it values its dignity.

Fail to make a kill once, fail twice, and after a few more failures, a dog’s confidence would be shattered. It would be ruined.

This was especially true for a newly trained hound. If it consistently failed to secure prey, it would develop a bad habit and slowly lose its edge.

So, Zhao Jun knew one thing for sure: he absolutely had to get a gun.

The hard part was that most people wouldn’t lend you their gun if you asked.

Buying one was an option, but the problem was that Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu had no money.

Allowances weren’t a thing back then. Between the two of them, they had a grand total of three yuan and fifty cents. Forget a gun; that was barely enough to buy a few extra bullets.

So, Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu were left with only one option: setting snares for wild boars in the mountains. If they caught one, they’d first have to check its size.

If it was under 330 pounds, they’d bring their dogs and use their Invasion Blades to finish it off.

If it was over 330 pounds, they’d have to tell Zhao Youcai or Li Dayong and let them bring a gun to make the kill.

More than a month passed like this, and the pair had only managed to take down two wild boars with their blades.

During that time, Zhao Jun brought the Daqing dog along, letting it participate in the two hunts.

He had to admit, the Daqing dog was exceptionally gifted. If it could be properly trained, it would undoubtedly become a top-tier lead dog.

But with so few hunting opportunities, Daqing’s progress was painfully slow.

As the weather grew colder, a heavy snow fell on Summit Mountain, blanketing the entire range in white.

The first snowfall of the season always got the Hunters excited.

Once it snowed, prey would leave tracks as they moved and foraged, allowing tracking Hunters to follow their trail.

As for those who hunted with dogs, even if their lead dog wasn’t good enough to track by the rustle of leaves like Zhao Jun’s family’s Hua Xiao’Er, tracking in the snow was no problem at all.

On the second day after the snowfall, Zhao Jun was clearing snow in his yard, while Li Baoyu and Li Ruhai were clearing snow in the Li Family Courtyard.

Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu kept looking up, their gazes drawn to the distant mountain peaks, their hearts filled with longing.

All the while, people passed by their front gate, some of them talking about going up the mountain to hunt the next day.

That’s right—you couldn’t go into the mountains on the day after a snowfall.

The wild animals in the mountains, from birds to bears and tigers, hadn’t seen snow during the spring, summer, or autumn. The sudden arrival of snow in winter stunned them.

Once stunned, they would all hunker down and stay put. And if they didn’t move, they wouldn’t leave any tracks.

Without tracks, what was there for Hunters and their hounds to follow?

But by the afternoon, they were bound to move for one simple reason: hunger. They had to find food.

So, if you waited one more night and entered the mountains on the third day after the snow, you would be able to see their tracks.

SIGH! Zhao Jun shook his head, frustrated. He tossed his large broom onto a snowdrift and walked into the house, his hands clasped behind his back.

"All done sweeping?" Wang Meilan asked when she heard the door.

"Yeah." With something weighing on his mind, Zhao Jun’s reply was terse.

A short while later, Li Baoyu came into his room and sat on the edge of the kang. "Brother, are we going up the mountain tomorrow, too?"

"We’re going!" Zhao Jun rolled off the kang, slipped his feet into his shoes, and said to Li Baoyu, "Get your things ready. We’re going up the mountain tomorrow, too."

"You got it!" Li Baoyu was overjoyed. He turned and ran out the door to head home and pack.

Zhao Jun got up and went into the opposite room, where Wang Meilan was sitting on the kang, sewing a shoe sole. "What’s Baoyu in such a rush for?" she asked when he came in.

Zhao Jun said, "Mom, can you feed the dogs for me tomorrow morning? We’re going up the mountain."

"You’re still going?!" Hearing this, Wang Meilan put the sole aside, pulled Zhao Jun down to sit beside her, and said earnestly, "Son, can’t you just not go?"

"Mom, don’t worry. I know what I’m doing," Zhao Jun said. "And can you find my hat for me?"

SIGH! Wang Meilan let out a long sigh and began rummaging through chests and cupboards.