wavenovel Chapter 52 Wax Hanging in the Ice Pit
Chapter 52 Wax Hanging in the Ice Pit
Of the four people present, Chen Tuo and Hong Ye were complete novices, Wu Laowai was a skilled hunter, and Sun Changkui was a skilled warrior.
When it comes to recognizing mountains and identifying traces, he's no match for Wu Laowai.
But when it comes to marksmanship, especially beyond seventy meters, Wu Laowai is no match for Sun Changkui; he's just like Chen Tuo, who doesn't know how to use a gun.
Moreover, Sun Changkui still holds the reins of the Songling Town Armed Forces Department.
He approved of Chen Tuo's idea; whether Wu Laowai objected or not was of little concern.
"Brother-in-law Sun, you'll have to get me some sharp knives. Just relying on the ice pit won't be enough to trap the wolves!"
"That's easy! The armed forces department may not have much else, but it has plenty of guns and bayonets! You go with Master Wu first, I'll go back and find some people to help..."
A wolf pack's nighttime attack on the horse stable of Lushui Forest Farm is no small matter for Songling Forestry Bureau.
Losing two horses is no big deal.
The key is to avoid losing lives due to the wolf attack.
The lessons learned from the Great Northern Wilderness more than 20 years ago, and the costs of hunting wolves in Hulunbuir for more than 10 years, are something Songling cannot afford.
Once Siberian wolves establish themselves in the Songling Forest Area, eradicating them will be extremely difficult.
Chen Tuo's proposed method might solve the problem once and for all.
Although he did not report it to the Forestry Bureau, Sun Changkui decided to let the town's militia try it out first.
"Sun the Cripple, don't bring in too many people. Don't take any of the filthy ones either, otherwise the human scent will attract wolves!"
Sun Changkui had made up his mind, but Wu Laowai changed his story again, adding some precautions.
The reason is nothing more than making a living.
The Forestry Bureau and the Armed Forces Department are fighting wolves to protect the territory and its people.
Most of the other people who hunt wolves are just there for the fun of it.
But unlike Chen Tuo, he made his living by fishing and hunting!
Although Wu Laowai had a grain ration, he still had to pay money to buy grain.
The money he used to buy grain came from his earnings from running around in the mountains.
The arrival of the wolf pack ruined his harvest this year.
Even with a family fortune, who can guarantee that this wolf hunt will be successful?
They didn't play well.
This mountain forest may not be quiet for the next few years, or even the next decade or so...
Sun Changkui and Wu Laowai wanted to finalize the matter.
Chen Tuo, however, did not want too many people to enter his hunting grounds.
The masses follow the crowd, and it's 1979 again.
If Sun Changkui brings in helpers, they might end up competing with him for the hard-won, stable food source.
"Brother-in-law Sun, the ice trap and the stabbing and blood-splattering are just my ideas; they might not work. Shall Uncle Wu and I try them out first?"
Upon hearing Chen Tuo's words, Wu Laowai raised an eyebrow; this was truly the unique perspective of a mountain runner.
I would rather leave a hunting ground that I have found idle than easily let others know about it.
In the continuous mountains, there are pheasants, rabbits, roe deer, and wild boars, which are the so-called dens.
Wu Laowai never told anyone about these dens where creatures could lay their eggs.
Even if someone asks, he'll just point to a random place, making people go there in vain.
Running off to hunt for loot is never a sure thing; if everyone comes, the loot will dwindle.
With fewer resources in the mountains, the livelihood of the forestry worker who occasionally ventures into the mountains won't be affected, but Wu Laowai will be left without a livelihood...
"Then you guys give it a try first, but be careful!"
Sun Changkui didn't care what Chen Tuo and Wu Laowai were thinking.
His main concern was how to eradicate the wolf problem and prevent the wolf plague from occurring as much as possible.
Songling is different from Xinlin, Tahe, and Huzhong, which are located deeper in the Xing'an Mountains.
It borders the Great Northern Wilderness to the north and Hulunbuir to the west; the land is still in Inner Mongolia.
This forest area is naturally suitable for wolves to settle in, back when we hunted wolves in the Great Northern Wilderness.
The wolf packs in Songling Mountain have also been wiped out.
More than ten years have passed, and I thought there would be no more wolves in the mountains.
Who would have thought that the wolf pack from the Russian side would come from the Hetao region of Huma to Songling?
In Heihe and Huma, it was confirmed that last year was a bumper year for the Russians, resulting in a surge in wolf populations.
What we can confirm about Songling is that the number of grouse and wild rabbits in the mountains has increased significantly in recent years.
These grouse and hares are the wolf pack's daily food.
Once the wolf pack sets up camp in Songling.
Winter is a difficult time to carry out operations, while summer and autumn are short periods of time.
If not handled carefully, it could become a major threat to forestry production.
Besides affecting production, news from Huma indicates that these foreign wolves have also injured people.
"Brother-in-law Sun, where's the knife?"
Seeing Sun Changkui turn to leave, Chen Tuo reminded him.
"Master Wu, please come with me again..."
Sun Changkui glanced at Chen Tuo, then at Hong Ye, and knowing what the young man was doing, he directly dragged Wu Laowai away.
"Chen Tuo, you must be careful when you hunt wolves."
Wu Laowai ruined the good thing, so Hong Ye reminded Chen Tuo and then hurriedly went to work.
Thinking about the trap that might have immediate effects, Chen Tuo's mind had already flown to the Hetao region.
They pulled out another sled from the warehouse at the educated youth settlement, loaded it with a shovel, bucket, axe, ice pick, and firewood, and carried a hunting rifle on their backs.
Chen Tuo hummed a little tune and headed straight for the Hetao region.
When they arrived at the destination, Chen Tuo didn't dig holes in the ice; instead, he stomped and patted the snow crust on the riverbank.
In no time, they created three snow pits, each about three meters in diameter.
When we were talking about ice nests last night, he had already come up with a clever trick.
Pouring water into snow pits to create ice is no simpler than manually digging pits in the ice.
After Wu Laowai dragged two grenade boxes from the town's armed forces department to Hetao.
Chen Tuo had already reached the surface of the Dobukuer River, with about thirty snow pits, each three to four meters in diameter, behind him.
"Hey kid, I brought the stuff back. Want to take a look?"
Seeing the endless snow pits in the river bend, Wu Laowai on the bank had to admit that Chen Tuo had a lot of unorthodox tricks.
On the way, he was still thinking about how to carve out smooth ice pockets in the ice shell.
As it turns out, he simply couldn't compete with the intelligence of young people.
Stepping out of a snow pit, pouring water on it and applying wax, that icy hollow is no less slippery than one scraped out with a razor blade!
Chen Tuo had an idea, so Wu Laowai changed how he addressed him; otherwise, he would still have been called a "little bastard."
Unlike the populous Huma, there are very few people who make a living by fishing along the rivers in Songling.
The forestry workers would come to the river to catch fish and fish when they had a craving for food.
Therefore, the fishery resources of both the Dobukuer River and the Xiaoyangqi River are still undeveloped.
If this kid has a lot of dirty tricks and good luck, Wu Laowai wouldn't mind following him and taking advantage of the situation.
"Uncle Wu, do you think my method will work?"
"Waxing ice into an ice pit? That's a terrible idea! But kid, you've already been stabbed and are bleeding, isn't creating this ice pit redundant?"
In Wu Laowai's view, trapping a wolf in an ice pit was not very feasible, simply because the wolf's claws were sharp.
If it were a deer, roe deer, or wild boar—mountain animals with hooves—it would definitely not be able to get out once it entered the ice hole.
Stabbing someone and causing them to bleed is dangerous enough; adding an ice pit on top of that might backfire.
"Uncle Wu, this is what I'm thinking: after we pour water into the snow pit, we'll sprinkle some coarse sand and large grains of salt on it, and then we can just take whatever comes our way!"
Upon hearing Chen Tuo's mention of the ice pit, which was indeed intended to trap deer, Wu Laowai was momentarily dazed.
If you say this kid doesn't know anything, he really doesn't know anything.
But how could someone who knows nothing about such underhanded tactics as freezing ice and stabbing someone in the back with blood come up with them?
"Why not hunt both deer and wolves? Maybe the deer, roe deer, and wild boar trapped in the ice will attract a pack of wolves?"
Having tried to probe Chen Tuo's intentions, if this brat really intended to take down both the deer and the wolf, Wu Laowai wouldn't mind helping a sensible person.
If this little brat is just a pretty face like Little Blind Chu, then he'll only be able to dawdle and do nothing!
"Yeah, Uncle Wu, you're a smart guy..."