Chapter 2

It had only been a few days since the first snowfall of early winter, yet the chill in the mountains was already bone-deep. Chen Xiangyang followed closely behind his grandfather, trudging through the loose snow that reached above his instep. His heart felt as though an enormous hand were squeezing it, making his chest ache with a suffocating tightness. Having been given a second chance at life, he had once again found himself standing on Nangou—the mountain trail that had nearly cost him his life. Far ahead stood a solitary shanty in the mountains. It was a place Chen Xiangyang had never dared to remember, from his previous life to this one—a place forever etched into his memory as a land of sorrow. It was here, in his previous life, that the wind blowing from downwind carried the stench of a bear. Without the slightest warning from Cangyun, a mother brown bear protecting her cub suddenly charged out. His grandfather had pushed him out of the way and had his chest and abdomen ripped open by the bear's claws. He died before they could even make it down the mountain. Fortunately, before his final breath, he had managed to fire a shot into the beast. Cangyun had charged forward as well, only to be swatted away by the mother bear. Later, the cub tore and bit it to death. As for Chen Xiangyang himself, his left leg had been crushed beneath the several-hundred-kilogram bear. He had been left crippled for half his life. Fortunately, he had managed to shoot the mother brown bear dead. Otherwise, he would never have survived. Unfortunately, that disaster had left him permanently infertile and robbed him of the courage to keep living. The biting wind carried tiny grains of snow that stung his face. Chen Xiangyang reached out and tugged at his grandfather, who was walking ahead with the dog. Chen De'an had a Shui Lianzhu rifle slung over his shoulder. The wooden stock had been polished to a gleaming shine from years of handling. Sensing his grandson's movement, he turned around and barked quietly, "What are you spacing out for? Losing focus in the mountains is the same as gambling with your life." "Grandpa, something's not right." Chen Xiangyang lowered his voice to almost a whisper, his eyes fixed intently on the dense woods down to their right. "The hair on my back is standing on end. Something's hiding downwind. We're upwind, so Cangyun can't pick up its scent." Chen De'an's expression immediately turned solemn. He handed the dog's leash to Chen Xiangyang and swiftly worked the bolt, chambering a round. "Cangyun, sniff." He gave Cangyun the command, but unfortunately, the dog detected nothing and gave no warning. That did not make Chen De'an lower his guard in the slightest. As the old saying went: When the first snow falls, all the beasts become busy. Bears fight for fat, tigers patrol the mountains, and wolves roam the hills in packs. After the first snowfall, many of the mountains' top predators would emerge to compete for the fat they had stored during autumn. Packs of wolves hunted together, while black bears and brown bears wandered the mountains in search of food. The two of them had also chosen this opportunity to hunt a bear, hoping to use the proceeds to treat his father's aching leg. In the mountains, it was always better to be overly cautious than to regret being careless. A hunter's instincts should never be underestimated. Although Chen Xiangyang had only been learning the craft from him for a little over a year, this was the first time the young man had ever given such a warning. Chen De'an therefore had no choice but to take it seriously. Out of the corner of his eye, Chen De'an kept scanning the woods on the right while continuing toward the shanty along the left side. Chen Xiangyang took the shorter leash in his left hand and walked beside him, holding his rifle level as he followed every step his grandfather took. In his previous life, it had been at this exact distance that the mother brown bear had first revealed herself. Sure enough, a foul, animal stench suddenly swept toward them, followed by an enormous black shadow that rushed forward like a moving hill, rapidly closing in on the grandfather and grandson. The two, already prepared for it, naturally noticed the approaching beast. However, neither panicked. In the forest, the first thing a hunter had to do was find the right shooting position. They could not simply raise their rifles and fire, because there was a good chance the bullets would hit a tree instead. The two men first adjusted their positions slightly, turning their bodies to find a clear firing lane. The old man stood with his rifle ready, while Chen Xiangyang crouched halfway with his own rifle. At the same time, they lowered their muzzles and aimed at the bear's chest and abdomen. When it came to hunting bears, there was an old saying: At a distance, shoot the chest; up close, shoot the throat; when life and death hang in the balance, aim between the eyes. In other words, when facing a bear head-on, the target depended on the distance. For a black bear, the crescent-shaped marking on its chest was the target. With a brown bear, however, it came down to instinct, since most brown bears had no distinctive marking on their chests. At close range, the throat or forehead had to be targeted. Bears possessed extraordinary vitality. Even if a bullet passed straight through the chest, a bear could still run another ten or twenty meters. At close range, the danger was immense. By the time Chen Xiangyang and his grandfather had finished adjusting their shooting positions, the brown bear was only thirty or forty meters away—an ideal distance to fire. "Bang! Bang!" Two crisp gunshots rang out in succession. The mother bear halted for a brief moment as bursts of blood erupted from the upper part of her head and her chest and abdomen. "Roar!" The mother bear let out a furious roar, but her charge did not slow in the slightest. A massive beast capable of covering a hundred meters in only seven or eight seconds was terrifying. The grandfather and grandson did not dare let their guard down. The moment they fired, they worked the bolts without stopping, ejecting the spent casings and chambering fresh rounds. Chen Xiangyang also quickly calmed Cangyun, which had already assumed an attacking stance. Whenever a hunter's rifle went off in the forest, a hunting dog would instinctively charge forward and tear into the prey. But they absolutely could not let Cangyun attack this enraged mother bear protecting her cub. If anything went wrong, they would regret it for the rest of their lives. "Bang! Bang!" In the blink of an eye, the mother bear had closed the distance to less than twenty meters. Two more gunshots rang out. The instant the bullets tore into flesh, the mother bear let out a muffled, distorted roar. Blood and foam bubbled from her throat with a wet, gurgling sound. The facts had proven that, on land, no creature could withstand the power of a 7.62-millimeter rifle round. No matter how fierce a predator was, it could not withstand the firearms invented by mankind. One shot might not be enough to kill it outright, but several consecutive shots could bring even a terrifying beast down with relative ease. Both shots struck the mother bear in the head. Her enormous body crashed heavily to the ground. Chen Xiangyang immediately looked behind the bear. The half-grown cub had been frightened by the gunfire. In its panic, it fled blindly into the dense forest and disappeared in an instant. That black shadow must have been the cub accompanying this mother brown bear. In his previous life, the cub had followed directly behind its mother and attacked the grandfather and grandson alongside her. But this time, everything had changed. The gunshots had come earlier, and the young bear had no hunting experience. Faced with the terrifying sound of gunfire, it had instinctively become frightened. With its mother dead, fear had taken over, leaving it with no choice but to flee. The tension that had kept Chen Xiangyang's body taut throughout the entire journey suddenly vanished. His back was already drenched in cold sweat. His throat tightened with emotion. The regret he had carried for an entire lifetime had finally dissipated by more than half at this moment. After realizing he could not catch the fleeing cub, Chen Xiangyang lowered his rifle and drew his hunting knife. He had just taken a step forward when his grandfather stopped him. "Don't get any closer. Wild bears are notorious for pretending to be dead." Chen De'an raised his rifle and fired another shot into the bear's head. Only then did he draw the hunting knife from his waist. "This mother bear was protecting her cub and became enraged enough to overexert herself. Her gallbladder should be full of bile. If we're lucky, we might get a golden gall." With that, Chen De'an worked the bolt again, chambered another round, and fired once more at the mother bear's head. After the gunshot, the grandfather and grandson took their hunting knives and began butchering the roughly four-hundred-kilogram mother brown bear. The first step was to open the abdomen, locate the gallbladder, and remove the bear bile. After killing a bear, the gallbladder had to be removed as quickly as possible. Otherwise, the gallbladder would contract and collapse, causing the bile inside to become extremely diluted. Chen Xiangyang crouched down while his grandfather assisted him from the side. The two of them first cut through the flesh along the midline from the chest down toward the abdomen. They opened the abdominal cavity and moved aside the internal organs. Keeping the hunting knife close to the outside of the gallbladder, they carefully removed the surrounding fat. Then they carefully cut the gallbladder free in one piece. The first step was complete.