Chapter 110: Chapter 110: Picking the Pack

"Mom, Baoyu and I are going to go take a look," Zhao Jun said to Wang Meilan.

"Go on," Wang Meilan said. "Good. Once you’re gone, I’ll skin that badger and render some badger oil to keep."

Badger meat has a peculiar taste; it has to be stewed with daikon radish to tone it down a bit. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

As for the hide, it wasn’t worth much these days.

But badger oil was excellent for treating burns.

Zhao Jun stepped out the door and waited for Li Baoyu, only to see him emerge not from his own home, but from Zhao Jun’s.

"Brother, you’re out here?" Li Baoyu said. "I went into your house to look for you."

"I was waiting for you out here," Zhao Jun said. "You’re going to buy dogs, so I have to go with you and take a look."

The two of them walked north, chatting as they went.

Zhao Jun asked Li Baoyu, "How much money did my aunt give you?"

Li Baoyu chuckled, patted the pocket of his pants, and said, "My mom gave me one hundred yuan."

Over the past few months, Li Baoyu had gone up the mountains with Zhao Jun. They’d hunted quite a lot, and the rewards were significant.

No matter what they caught, Zhao Jun always split it evenly with Li Baoyu.

After this happened a few times, the Li Family started to feel indebted. Since Li Baoyu was earning money from hunting, Jin Xiaomei steeled her resolve and decided to get him a few dogs.

Today, Li Ruhai had heard from someone that Elder Xu Pao, who lived in the north of the village, was selling his pack of hunting dogs. He immediately told Li Baoyu, who was instantly tempted.

You have to understand, that Elder Xu Pao was a famous Cannon Shooter, and the three hunting dogs at his home were all fully trained adults.

If he bought those dogs, he wouldn’t have to train them from scratch. After a few days of getting them acclimated at home, he could take them straight up the mountain to hunt.

But Zhao Jun asked, "Brother, how many are you planning to buy?"

"We’ll see when we get there," Li Baoyu said, not understanding why Zhao Jun was asking.

Zhao Jun said, "His dogs are a bit old, but each one has to be at least seventy or eighty yuan. You’ve only got one hundred yuan. How many can you buy?"

Hearing this, Li Baoyu glanced behind him. Seeing no one was following, he said to Zhao Jun, "I have over twenty myself, and I got thirty from Ruhai."

"You ’got’ it from him..." Zhao Jun said, exasperated. "That’s money the kid has saved since he was little and never dared to spend, and you just went and took it..."

"Yeah," Li Baoyu nodded. "He’s reluctant to spend it, but every time I buy pastries or fried dough twists, he eats more of them than I do."

Zhao Jun: ...

What a pair of brothers—one taking advantage of his older brother, the other of his younger. Zhao Jun was at a loss for words.

But that wasn’t the important thing right now. The pressing matter was Li Baoyu’s plan to buy the dogs.

Zhao Jun said, "I just heard from Ruhai that Elder Xu Pao is selling the pack whole—he’s not breaking it up. With your one hundred and fifty, you still can’t afford all three dogs."

"You’re right!" It finally dawned on Li Baoyu.

The man Zhao Jun and the others called Elder Xu Pao was named Xu Changlin.

The old man was fifty-eight this year. His stamina was failing, so he could no longer go into the mountains to hunt. That’s why he wanted to sell his pack of three hunting dogs together.

In the hunting business, "selling the pack whole" meant transferring the entire group of dogs to a single person.

"Breaking up the pack," on the other hand, meant splitting them up to sell individually.

Although these Northeast "stupid dogs" didn’t have any pedigree and weren’t worth much, a fully trained hunting dog would cost seventy or eighty yuan at the very least. The money Li Baoyu had on him was only enough to buy two dogs at most.

Seeing Li Baoyu look over at him, Zhao Jun nodded and said, "Don’t worry. Let’s go take a look first. If they’re good, you can buy two, and I’ll buy one."

Wang Meilan had been very supportive of him lately, which gave Zhao Jun a boost of confidence.

"Okay!" Li Baoyu agreed at once.

The two arrived at a house in the northern part of the village. Peeking through the wicker fence, they saw quite a few people standing inside the yard.

"Brother!"

"Xiaojun! Baoyu!"

As Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu walked into the yard, two men came over to greet them. One was Zhang Yuanmin, and the other was Wang Dalong.

Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu greeted them back. Zhao Jun then scanned the surroundings, his brow furrowing slightly.

Qin Qiang. Zhao Jun hadn’t seen him since the time he’d caused a scene at the entrance to Zhao Jun’s family home.

Of course, in a village this big, you’re bound to run into everyone sooner or later.

The fact that they hadn’t run into each other for several months meant that Qin Qiang had been actively avoiding Zhao Jun.

When he saw Zhao Jun’s gaze fall on him, Qin Qiang nodded in acknowledgment.

Zhao Jun nodded back, then his eyes landed on another person. Looking at the young man with a handlebar mustache, he thought to himself, ’Dammit, it really is a small world for enemies.’

Just then, an old man in a yellowish-green cotton jacket walked out from the backyard, leading three dogs.

Three dogs: a Qing Gou, a Yellow Dog, and a Hua Gou. The Qing Gou and the Yellow Dog were males; only the Hua Gou was a female.

"You’re here, fellas!" The old man was Xu Changlin. He called out a greeting when he saw Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu.

This old man was a generation older than Zhao Youcai. Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu replied, "Master Xu," and Xu Changlin nodded slightly. He then pointed to the three hunting dogs lying at his feet and said to the crowd in the yard, "Of my three dogs, the Qing Gou is the lead dog. He’s a head-up tracker, good for both snow and dry-ground tracking.

He latches on when biting boars, and he recognizes Black Bears, deer, and roe deer."

Zhao Jun glanced at the Qing Gou and nodded at Li Baoyu. This particular dog was named Cyan Wolf. While he wasn’t as famous around the Forest Farm as Hua Xiao’Er from Zhao Jun’s family, he came pretty close.

Xu Changlin then pointed to the Yellow Dog and announced, "This is Ah Li. He’s a tough flanker. He also latches on, and he can take down a sow under two hundred jin all by himself."

This Yellow Dog, Ah Li, had a blocky, tiger-like head and a burly build. By the looks of it, he had to weigh around 125 jin.

The old man then jutted his chin toward the Hua Gou and said, "This last one is also a flanker dog. She’s a female. She goes for the boar’s testicles. No special skills to speak of, just a vicious bite."

Zhao Jun scanned the dogs. Each one of them was covered in old scars.

Zhao Jun recognized these scars. The ones that formed a groove were from Black Bears, while the ones with flesh peeled outward were from wild boars.

"Brother," Li Baoyu called out softly to Zhao Jun.

Zhao Jun nodded. The old man wasn’t lying, but it wasn’t because he was an honest person. It was just how you sell a whole pack of dogs.

When buying a pack whole, the owner will tell you the truth, clearly laying out all the dogs’ strengths and weaknesses.

But if you were to buy them by breaking up the pack, no matter which one you picked, the owner would praise it to the high heavens, listing only its strengths and no weaknesses, as if every dog he owned were the Heaven-Barking Dog itself.

Honestly, these three hunting dogs were all excellent. The lead dog and the tough flanker were a given. And while the female Hua Gou was a bit weaker overall, her willingness to attack a boar from the rear made her invaluable. Dogs like that are extremely effective when hunting wild boar, and also the rarest.

At that moment, Qin Qiang spoke up, asking Xu Changlin the dogs’ ages.

They heard Xu Changlin say that the Qing Gou and Yellow Dog were already five years old, while the Hua Gou was four.

"Master Xu," Zhao Jun asked, "what’s your price for the whole pack?"

The old man held up three fingers to Zhao Jun and said, "Three hundred!"