Chapter 47 - 43: Wild Boar

Zheng Yuan smiled. "I’ve been thinking, these Cards have to be good stuff. There were so many people during the crocodile hunt, the chances of getting a Card were slim. Why don’t we go find some on our own? How about it? Wanna team up? If we find any Cards, we’ll take turns."

Qin Ziwen glanced at Zou Sheng behind Zheng Yuan. Besides Zou Sheng, the others were all unfamiliar faces.

Someone with Zheng Yuan’s outgoing and boisterous personality could easily hit it off with everyone in an environment like this.

Qin Ziwen tactfully refused. "Thanks, but no thanks. You guys go on ahead, Brother Zheng. I’m planning to head downstream to find a new fishing spot."

Zheng Yuan saw that Qin Ziwen seemed reluctant and thought it was a shame.

"Are you sure you don’t want to go? Don’t worry, I guarantee we’ll split everything absolutely fairly!"

Seeing Qin Ziwen’s firm attitude, Zheng Yuan didn’t press the issue. He said regretfully, "Alright, then. Let me know if you change your mind."

After Qin Ziwen left, someone in Zheng Yuan’s group whispered, "He probably looks down on us. Thinks he’d be getting the short end of the stick."

Zheng Yuan looked displeased. "I don’t believe he’s that kind of person! Don’t talk nonsense. He must have his own reasons for not wanting to come."

"Alright, Old Zheng. The six of us are enough. If there were any more people, there wouldn’t be enough to go around."

"Yeah. If we can’t win a fight, we can at least outrun them."

...

After leaving through the east gate, Qin Ziwen continued down the same path as yesterday.

Even though they’d walked it once before, he was still cautious, sweeping the grass ahead with a stick.

"WHOOSH—"

A black-and-white snake in the grass to the side was startled and quickly slithered away into the deeper brush.

The three of them stopped in their tracks. That color combination was a little too intense.

Qin Ziwen: "Was that a banded krait?"

Deng Guang gave a bitter smile. "I don’t know, but I saw it was black and white."

As he spoke, he couldn’t help but gently stomp his foot. Before they left, his wife had made him wear high-top boots and even wrapped several layers of newspaper around his ankles, worried he’d get bitten by a snake or have some bug crawl in.

But he wasn’t sure if any of it could actually stop a snake’s fangs.

After that little episode, the three of them were even more careful as they walked, constantly probing the grass with their sticks.

After walking for over an hour, they reached the spot where they had set the Earth Cage and snare traps the day before.

"Let’s check the snare traps first."

The traps had yielded delightful results.

All three traps had been triggered. One was empty, another had caught a hedgehog, and the last one held a field mouse.

The hedgehog and the field mouse were both still alive. They struggled frantically when they saw people approaching.

The field mouse thrashed wildly in the snare, its tiny claws RUSTLING against the rope. It let out a high-pitched SQUEAK, its round body trying to squeeze through the gap in the rope, only to be cinched tighter.

The hedgehog had curled into a spiky ball. Startled, it rolled halfway around, causing its quills to get tangled in the snare, making it impossible to break free.

Qin Ziwen took down the whole trap, rope and all, and put the hedgehog in his pack.

Then he grabbed the field mouse, picked it up by the scruff of its neck, and put it in his brother’s backpack.

Seeing the snare traps work with his own eyes, Old Deng was even more impressed with Qin Ziwen. ’This guy has some real skills!’

He wanted to ask him how it was done, but then he felt it would be too shameless to ask someone to teach him their bread-and-butter skill.

Old Deng’s face was an open book; Qin Ziwen could tell at a glance that something was weighing on his mind.

Qin Ziwen chuckled. "I can teach you, you know."

Old Deng’s head snapped up, his face filled with pleasant surprise.

"Is... is that okay?"

"Of course. This forest is huge, how many could I possibly catch on my own? Just don’t go spreading it around to everyone."

Old Deng slapped his chest and promised, "Don’t worry. I’ll take what you teach me to the grave."

"What’s with all this talk of dying? We all need to focus on living."

Old Deng smiled, pressing his lips together as crow’s feet appeared at the corners of his eyes. "Right. We’ll all live."

Qin Ziwen first cleared the surrounding area, then crouched down and began to teach Old Deng step-by-step. Qin Ziwu leaned in to watch and follow along.

Qin Ziwen had taught him before, so Qin Ziwu already knew how to set a snare trap, he just wasn’t very practiced at it.

After about ten minutes, following Qin Ziwen’s instructions, Old Deng finally got the hang of it.

Qin Ziwen said, "The rest is just practice. It’s actually pretty simple, as long as you’re willing to learn."

Next, Qin Ziwen went to the riverbank and started pulling up the Earth Cage with the rope.

His expression darkened. As soon as he started pulling, he saw a large gash in the top of the cage.

Yesterday’s fears had become reality. The Earth Cage had been attacked.

The Earth Cage, with a huge hole bitten into it, was completely empty.

Qin Ziwen was silent for a long moment. He then pretended to reach into his backpack, but was actually retrieving a new Earth Cage.

He decided to try one more time. If this Earth Cage was also destroyed by tomorrow, he would stop placing them in this part of the river for the time being.

He moved the new Earth Cage to a different spot and threw in the loach guts he had prepared earlier.

"Let’s go. We’ll head deeper in and see. It’d be best if we could find a fruit tree."

A single undiscovered fruit tree could yield several, or even dozens, of pounds of fruit.

’This forest is so big, there must be some that no one has found yet.’

After setting seven more snare traps in the vicinity, Qin Ziwen led the group deeper into the forest, moving horizontally.

The deeper they went, the dimmer the light became.

The Beaked Eagle glided slowly overhead the entire time, its sharp eyes helping to survey their surroundings.

A nimble figure flashed through the bushes ahead and was gone in an instant.

Qin Ziwen fixed his gaze on the spot. It looked like a long-haired animal, not very big—about the size of a medium dog—but it was incredibly fast, disappearing into the undergrowth in a heartbeat.

Compared to these medium-sized animals, humans—these bipedal, upright apes—were still quite intimidating.

Especially since these upright apes liked to move in groups.

They had been walking for no more than half an hour when they saw several decent-sized animals.

Unfortunately, most of them detected the group from a great distance and quickly fled.

This reminded Qin Ziwen of a certain single-player hunting game he used to play. A pot of tea, a pack of smokes, a whole day spent chasing a single deer—the hunting game had been forcibly turned into a running simulator.

Suddenly, the bushes ahead began to shake violently.

The three of them stopped, their expressions grim.

A black wild boar emerged.

It was almost waist-high.

The three remained on high alert. The boar, upon seeing them, showed no fear. It stood its ground, staring at the group with pitch-black eyes, its ears pricked straight up. A moment later, the boar flicked its tail, turned, and continued deeper into the woods.

Staring at its retreating back, Qin Ziwen narrowed his eyes and tightened his grip on his weapon. "That’s one huge pig." ’It must weigh at least two hundred pounds.’

If they could hunt that boar, the score would definitely be high.

And if they butchered it, the meat would be more than enough to last them a month.

’But could the three of them actually hunt it?’

...

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