After more than half an hour of struggle, both men and dogs were exhausted.

Zhao Jun crouched in front of Daqing, one arm around its waist, the other hand stroking its neck back and forth to soothe it.

Meanwhile, Li Baoyu pulled a cloth pouch from his pocket, grabbed a handful of tobacco dust from inside, crushed it in his hand, and applied it to the wound on the Yellow Dog’s back.

The wound on the Yellow Dog’s back wasn’t large or deep and wouldn’t affect its ability to keep going at all.

But it seemed a little dejected now, lying at Li Baoyu’s feet with its chin resting on its front paws, its mouth open and tongue out, panting puffs of white breath.

Not far away, Hua Xiao’Er stood on a large, flat rock, craning its neck to gaze into the distance.

"Sigh!" Zhao Jun let out a soft sigh and shook his head. He whistled, signaling for Li Baoyu to head back with the three dogs.

"Brother, are we just going back like this?" Li Baoyu came up beside Zhao Jun, asking with a look of reluctance on his face.

Zhao Jun shook his head. Without another word, he just said, "Let’s go!"

With that, he gripped his knife and started taking a shortcut home.

Li Baoyu sighed helplessly and followed Zhao Jun.

Though the two men and three dogs weren’t exactly hanging their heads in defeat on the way back, their spirits were low.

"WOOF WOOF..."

Suddenly, all three dogs started barking and charged forward.

Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu both flinched. They immediately started shouting, calling out their dogs’ names at the top of their lungs.

From not far ahead, someone was yelling urgently, "Watch your dogs! Watch your dogs!"

It sounded like two people, and they had Shandong accents.

As Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu yelled, the three dogs trotted back, shaking their heads.

Zhao Jun strode forward and saw two big men, both dressed in sheepskin jackets and dog-fur hats, each carrying a Large Axe on his back.

"Brother Chen, Brother Erchen," Zhao Jun said quickly once he recognized them.

"Ah, Zhao Jun." The two brothers spoke with thick Shandong accents. "Been out hunting?"

Zhao Jun replied, "It started snowing, so I thought I’d try to catch a boar. No luck."

"Aiya, Zhao Jun, you should be careful," Minister Li spoke up, offering some friendly advice.

"Right," Zhao Jun replied. "We’re heading back now."

As he spoke, Zhao Jun’s gaze fell on the Large Axes on the brothers’ backs.

They were Mirror-Like Large Axes made in Dandong, half a centimeter thick. The axe faces were as large as cutting boards. The Forest Farm usually used these Large Axes for trimming branches, and they were extremely sharp.

Seeing the brothers’ attire and the Large Axes on their backs, Zhao Jun paused in thought for a moment, then asked, "What are you two brothers heading out to do?"

"Ah!" Li Erchen wasn’t one to keep secrets. He answered, "My brother and I are going to kill a Black Bear. You two wanna come?"

"No!" Li Baoyu, acting unusually, tugged on Zhao Jun’s clothes from behind and quickly cut in, "My Da Huang is hurt. I have to get home and take care of him."

Hearing Li Baoyu say this, Minister Li and Li Erchen exchanged a look. Minister Li said, "Alright then, you two head on back. We’ll get going."

"Brother Chen."

Zhao Jun suddenly called out to Minister Li. He said, "You two be careful!"

Minister Li was taken aback when he heard this. Those were the exact words he had just said to Zhao Jun, and now Zhao Jun was saying them back to him.

But he knew Zhao Jun meant well. After thanking him, the two brothers walked side-by-side up the mountain.

Watching the two brothers’ retreating figures, Li Baoyu shook his head slightly and said, "Those two drifters, still thinking about hunting a Black Bear’s Den..."

Hearing this, Zhao Jun also shook his head slightly.

Drifters, not hooligans.

Having no house makes one a *mang*. Having no land makes one a *liu*.

In the Northeast dialect, "drifters" referred to the Shandong People who came over during the Three Years of Hardship by "crashing the pass to the east."

Back then, no one in the country had enough to eat, but the Northeast was much better off than other places.

Many people from Inside the Pass who couldn’t find enough food heard that the Northeast was a place where "you could club a roe deer with a stick, scoop up fish with a ladle, and pheasants would fly right into your cooking pot." So they brought their old and young and came over from Inside the Pass.

When they arrived in the Northeast, they found it was indeed rich in resources. There were fish in the rivers and beasts in the mountains, so they certainly wouldn’t starve. But they weren’t locals and had no household registration, so they couldn’t receive grain rations.

The local people called them drifters.

Because they had no rations, most of these drifters had to rely on side hustles to survive.

In the mountain and Forest Areas, side hustles were limited to foraging for mountain goods and hunting.

As for foraging, the Northeast had plenty of mountain goods: schisandra berries, walnuts, hazelnuts, wood ear fungus, mushrooms...

But in those days, these things weren’t in high demand. Even if you brought them down from the mountain, you couldn’t trade them for much money.

Of course, there was one valuable mountain good: Ginseng. But harvesting Ginseng in the Northeast was full of complex traditions and rules. How could these people from Inside the Pass possibly understand the intricacies?

If foraging didn’t work out, there was hunting. Trying to make money from hunting was actually easier than from foraging.

Setting jaw traps and deadfall traps for Sables, Weasels, and squirrels were all profitable ventures. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Hunting Sables, also called trapping large pelts, was one way. A single Purple Sable Fur wasn’t large, but back then, it was worth over a hundred yuan.

As for the Weasel, also called the yellow fox or Yellow Leaves, the fur of the males was shinier and more valuable than the females’.

In those days, a male yellow fox pelt could sell for over forty yuan, and a female’s would fetch nearly thirty yuan.

And squirrels, also known as "gray dogs," had pelts called "gray furs" that were even more valuable than Weasel pelts, worth around sixty yuan each.

But these were all delicate tasks, and it was extremely difficult for outsiders to learn and master them.

Besides the pelts of these three animals, the only other way to make big money from hunting was to kill a bear for its gall.

As for killing a Lynx, that was profitable, but it was something most people couldn’t even consider.

Within a hundred-li radius, how many people’s marksmanship could surpass Zhao Youcai’s?

Even Zhao Youcai, after lying in wait all morning, had only managed to shoot off the Lynx’s tail.

Although Zhao Jun had hit it with a single shot, more than half the credit belonged to Zhao Youcai. It was thanks to him for forcing the Lynx into that position.

So, if the drifters wanted to get rich from hunting, they could only set their sights on bears.

However, they had no money and couldn’t afford guns. If they wanted to hunt a bear, there was only one special method: hunting a Black Bear’s Den.

This was a very extreme method that could only be done in the winter.

Because only in winter do Black Bears hibernate. In the Northeast, a hibernating bear is called a "bear squatting in its den."

A bear’s den, or a *cangzi*, is divided into a Celestial Granary and an Earth Store. A Celestial Granary is a tree hollow, while an Earth Store is a hole in the ground.

To hunt a hibernating bear, you can only go after a Celestial Granary. You take two thick wooden poles and wedge them crosswise at an angle outside the tree hollow where the Black Bear is living.

Then, you wake the Black Bear by striking the tree.

One can only imagine the rage of a Black Bear startled from a deep hibernation. It will charge out of its den to tear apart whoever woke it.

But when the Black Bear pokes its head out of the tree hollow, its Bear Head gets stuck between the two thick wooden poles, trapping it so it can’t move forward or backward.

At this point, one person climbs up with a Large Axe and strikes the Black Bear’s head with it, killing it.

It must be said, this was practically gambling with your life. If it went well, fine. If it went wrong, you could easily lose your life.

But, as the saying goes, "Humans die for wealth, and birds die for food." Unless they had absolutely no other choice, who would be willing to do something that involved putting their life on the line?

After parting with the Li Brothers, Zhao Jun was restless and uneasy for the rest of the journey home.

Suddenly, he called out to Li Baoyu, tossed him the hemp rope slung over his shoulder, and said, "Brother, leash the dogs and take them back."

"Brother, what are you going to do?"

Zhao Jun said, "I’m going to help them hunt the Black Bear’s Den."