Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu went up South Mountain, leading three dogs and walking along the ridge.

Along the way, they saw the footprints of a brown bear, as well as human footprints.

A bear’s paw print is actually quite similar to a barefoot human’s, except it has no heel.

Seeing the large paw prints, Li Baoyu sucked in a breath of the cold Northeast air and said to Zhao Jun, "Brother, didn’t my uncle tell you not to get involved in other people’s business?"

That’s right, Li Baoyu was scared.

He was reckless, but not stupid. If a brown bear this big went on a rampage, he and Zhao Jun would be goners without a gun.

Zhao Jun smiled. "What’s there to be afraid of with Zhou Chengguo around? We’re just here to watch the show and do Elder Zhang a favor while we’re at it."

But despite his words, Zhao Jun urged Li Baoyu to hurry along the way.

The two followed the tracks upward, crossing two large ridges!

When it comes to bears, whether they’re black bears or brown bears...

...if they leave their dens during winter hibernation, they will always head for high ground, crossing ridge after ridge toward the tallest mountains.

And just like people, they travel along the ridges.

What’s a ridge?

It’s the spine of a mountain.

It’s like a person’s nose. The bridge of the nose is the ridge, and the sides are the mountain slopes.

When you’re running through the mountains, walking on the ridges is less tiring.

Suddenly, Hua Gou barked twice and tugged on his leash, trying to run forward.

"Let’s go!" Zhao Jun called out, and he and Li Baoyu began to move slowly.

They had no choice. Snow falls heaviest on high mountains, just as frost settles in lowlands.

Though this mountain wasn’t particularly high, the snow on it was already past their knees.

The farther they walked, the more urgently the dogs barked.

By the time they reached Shan Erlie, all three dogs were in an uproar, dragging Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu forward.

Just ahead, a brown bear with a body like a small hill lay on the ground.

And not far from the brown bear, a person lay face down in the snow, their head covered in blood.

About a hundred meters to the person’s front left, a Type 56 semi-automatic rifle was stuck upright in the deep snow.

"Let the dogs loose!"

Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu unleashed the three dogs. They shot off like rockets, pouncing on the dead brown bear and tearing at it frantically.

Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu went over and saw that the person’s entire scalp had been peeled back, the blood frozen solid.

Zhao Jun reached out to check. "He’s still breathing!" he said urgently to Li Baoyu. "Baoyu, go cut some poles!"

Without a word, Li Baoyu drew his Invasion Blade and went to find suitable saplings nearby.

Zhao Jun looked around and pulled a dog-fur hat out of the nearby snow. He then untied the leggings from the man’s legs, pushed his scalp back into place, and carefully wrapped the leggings around his head like a bandage.

Just then, Li Baoyu returned with two wooden poles he had cut. He and Zhao Jun took off their own leggings and fashioned a simple stretcher, then rolled the man onto it.

When they turned him over, Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu finally saw his face. It was none other than Zhou Chengguo.

Li Baoyu glanced around, looking at the dead brown bear, and said in confusion, "Was this a mutual kill? It doesn’t look like it!"

The brown bear had been gutted, and the Bear Gall within its chest was long gone.

While Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu had been busy, the three dogs had been tearing at the meat inside the bear through the gash on its chest. They had eaten about half their fill by now.

Besides, Zhou Chengguo’s Type 56 semi-automatic was still standing off to the side.

This was clearly a case of Zhou Chengguo killing the brown bear, gutting it for the Bear Gall, and then getting injured!

So what injured him?

Brown bears are indeed tenacious, but one that had been gutted was clearly dead through and through.

If it wasn’t this brown bear, then what could it have been?

Just then, Zhao Jun picked up the rifle, slung it over his back, and said to Li Baoyu, "Never mind that for now. Let’s hurry and carry him down." After speaking, he whistled for the three dogs to follow.

These three dogs had been running for most of the day on just one sticky-rice bun each. They had been genuinely starving earlier, and even now, they were only half-full.

But a man’s life was at stake. Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu had no time to feed the dogs, let alone wait for them to eat their fill!

"Brother, the bear is dead, so who could have hurt Brother Zhou this badly?" Li Baoyu couldn’t help but ask as they carried Zhou Chengguo down the mountain.

Hearing Li Baoyu’s question, Zhao Jun chuckled. "Do you even have to ask? There were two bears in the den, of course."

"Ah!" Realization dawned on Li Baoyu, but he was even more confused. "Zhou Chengguo is a seasoned veteran. How could he make a mistake like that!"

Zhou Chengguo was a former army weapons calibrator, and his marksmanship was godlike. With such skill, combined with a semi-automatic rifle, he could kill any bear or boar that crossed his path.

His great skill made him bold, and he always hunted alone. He didn’t even bring dogs, let alone companions, just a rifle on his back as he stalked his prey.

Yesterday, he had gone into the mountains to hunt roe deer and killed two from a herd of four. It wasn’t that he couldn’t kill more, but he felt he could only drag two back. He’d leave the rest for a future encounter, if fate allowed.

This shows just how cocky the man was.

As he was dragging the two roe deer back through the snow, he happened to run into Elder Zhang, who was mulling something over.

While checking his roe deer snares that day, he had discovered that a bear had eaten half of a snared deer.

Judging from the bear tracks around it, this was no small bear.

Elder Zhang hunted too, but his gun was a foreign-made muzzleloader. The thing was a hassle to use; after one shot, you had to reload powder from the front.

If he failed to kill a bear in one shot, he would be the one to die.

While he was agonizing over it, he ran into Zhou Chengguo. When Elder Zhang told him about the bear, Zhou Chengguo said directly, "That’s easy, Uncle. I’ll go kill it tomorrow. You’ll get a cut of the money from the Bear Gall!"

At his words, Elder Zhang was overjoyed and pulled Zhou Chengguo to his shack to stay the night.

Early the next morning, Zhou Chengguo ate the breakfast Elder Zhang had prepared for him. After finishing, he rested for a while on the heated brick bed before slinging his rifle over his back and leaving by himself.

Elder Zhang offered to go with him, but Zhou Chengguo refused flatly. Knowing his personality, Elder Zhang didn’t press the matter. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

Following the direction Elder Zhang had pointed out, Zhou Chengguo soon found the brown bear’s tracks and followed them all the way to a stone cave.

As mentioned before, there are two kinds of Xiong Cangzi: one is called the Celestial Granary, and the other is the Earth Granary.

The Celestial Granary is a hollow tree, while the Earth Granary is a stone pit or cave.

Only black bears live in a Celestial Granary. Brown bears are too large, and there are few tree hollows they can fit into.

Therefore, brown bears generally live in an Earth Granary.

Arriving at the stone cave, Zhou Chengguo stopped three hundred meters away, raised his rifle, and fired three shots into the snow in front of the den!

This move, much like Minister Li hitting a tree with a wooden stick, was a way of "calling out the den"—waking the hibernating bear and drawing it out of its cave.

Of course, an Earth Granary is different from a Celestial Granary. Zhou Chengguo couldn’t just poke a stick into the cave; what if the bear dragged him in?

He could only use his rifle to call it out from a distance.

But there were rules to calling out an Earth Granary with a gun. You couldn’t shoot at the rocks. Otherwise, a ricochet could injure you, and that would be disastrous.

You also couldn’t shoot into the cave. If a stray bullet hit the bear’s head and killed it instantly, how would you drag a seven or eight-hundred-pound carcass out?

Hunting a bear wasn’t just about killing it.

You had to get the meat, get the money.

After the first three shots, Zhou Chengguo fired three more.

That was six shots!

After those six shots, Zhou Chengguo stopped firing. He only had four rounds left in his rifle. What if he fired two more and the bear came out?

A large brown bear’s vitality was terrifyingly tenacious. What if the remaining two bullets weren’t enough to kill it?

So, Zhou Chengguo pulled the bolt, ejecting the four remaining rounds. As he put them in his pocket, he took out a full ten-round stripper clip.

The full clip went into the rifle’s magazine. Zhou Chengguo closed the bolt and fired.

BANG!

BANG!

BANG!

Three more shots. Then, he heard grunting sounds—"HRMPH! HRMPH!"—from inside the cave!

The bear was coming out!

But Zhou Chengguo stood his ground, not moving an inch, ready for battle!