Chapter 47: What era is this? Where would there be Japanese soldiers in the mountains?
In sharp contrast to Xu Feng’s joyous return with a fully loaded harvest, Wang Erhu and his companions on the other side of the mountain forest were having a miserable time.
Wang Erhu led Fatty and the Mute through the left-hand mountain ridge for a solid entire morning.
Forget wild boars or roe deer; they hadn’t even seen a single rabbit hair.
This stretch of forest seemed to hold a grudge against them. Wherever they walked, it fell as quiet as a ghost domain. Aside from the whistling wind and their own heavy breathing, not a single sound of living creatures could be heard.
Fatty’s wrist wound throbbed with every jolt along the rough path. With one arm in a sling, his other hand had to laboriously support the battered bow, and his face grew paler by the minute.
"Er... Erhu, I can’t go on. Let’s take a break."
Fatty collapsed onto the ground, panting heavily. "My hand... it hurts like hell. Besides, this mountain is freaky as hell. We’ve been wandering around forever and haven’t even heard a bird chirp."
Wang Erhu was burning with a bellyful of unvented anger. He turned around and kicked Fatty fiercely. "Break your mother's ghost! That cripple Xu Feng managed to bag something, and here the three of us grown men are going back empty-handed. Where the hell are we supposed to show our faces?"
Though he cursed fiercely, his own confidence was rapidly evaporating.
The mountain path was rugged and choked with thorns. The legs of his trousers were torn in several places, and tree branches had whipped his face repeatedly, stinging with a fiery burn.
The mute fellow, whose throat was injured, was in an even worse state.
Since he couldn’t speak and was burning with anxiety, he could only trail behind, staring with wide, helpless eyes.
After walking for so long, his throat felt as dry as a smoking kiln, and his face was flushed red from holding back.
"Damn it, this is truly running into ghosts!" Wang Erhu spat irritably and slammed his fist against a nearby tree trunk.
Just as he was sinking into despair and ready to give up, the Mute suddenly froze in his tracks. Pointing excitedly ahead, he let out a guttural, rattling noise from his throat and frantically signaled to Wang Erhu.
Wang Erhu looked in the direction the Mute was pointing, and his eyes instantly locked in place.
Not far ahead in a forest clearing, a young roe deer was lowering its head, leisurely grazing on the tender grass.
It seemed completely oblivious to the approaching danger.
A roe deer! A live one!
Wang Erhu’s heart contracted violently and then began to race wildly. His breathing turned ragged as a surge of overwhelming joy flooded his soul.
Damn it, his persistence had finally paid off!
He immediately crouched down, gestured for Fatty and the Mute to stay silent, and then cautiously took the old hunting bow from Fatty’s hands.
Fatty and the Mute were too tense to even draw a full breath.
Wang Erhu took a deep breath, forcing himself to calm down.
All the hunting techniques his father had taught him back in the day flooded back into his mind like a tidal wave.
Crouching low and using the cover of the bushes, he crept toward the roe deer step by step.
The distance steadily closed.
Fifty paces, forty paces, thirty paces...
When he was about twenty-five paces away from the roe deer, Wang Erhu stopped.
This distance was where he had the most confidence.
Slowly, he pulled an arrow from his quiver and nocked it onto the bowstring.
The arrowhead was the one Fatty had barely managed to grind against a stone the day before; although it was still mottled with rust, it at least looked a bit sharper.
He half-knelt on the ground, holding the bow with his left hand and drawing the string with his right, pulling the bow back bit by bit.
The old wooden bow let out a groaning creak, as if it might shatter at any moment.
Watching from behind, Fatty felt his heart leap straight into his throat.
He remembered the faint crack on the bowstring from the day before, and his palms were slick with cold sweat. He wanted to give a warning, but didn't dare make a sound, terrified that he would startle the prey and that Wang Erhu would flay him alive afterwards.
Fine beads of sweat oozed across Wang Erhu’s forehead.
His entire focus was concentrated on the bow and arrow.
His eyes were fixed dead on the roe deer’s neck—the most vulnerable spot on the prey.
Success or failure rested on this single action!
As long as he hit this roe deer, he would claw back his dignity in front of Xu Feng!
Building sleeping kangs, laying bricks—to hell with all of that!
Wang Erhu’s gaze turned ferocious beyond measure, and he pulled the bow all the way to a full moon!
Right now!
His right hand abruptly let go!
"Snap!"
A crisp, yet distinctly strange sound rang out!
The thoroughly aged ox-tendon bowstring could not withstand the tremendous tension of the full draw and snapped in two!
Robbed of the bowstring's pulling force, the arrow fluttered weakly, tracing a pathetic, crooked arc in the air before plunging with a dull thud into the muddy earth several paces short of the roe deer, without even brushing its fur.
Startled by the sudden commotion, the roe deer whipped its head up, cast a wary glance around, and then bolted on all four hooves, vanishing instantly into the depths of the thicket.
It was over!
Wang Erhu stared blankly at the bowstring broken into two halves in his hand, then looked toward the direction where the roe deer had vanished, completely dumbfounded.
A dull buzzing echoed in his brain, as if something had detonated inside.
Every hope and every fantasy vanished into thin air at that exact moment, shattering along with that broken bowstring.
"Ah!!!!!!"
Wang Erhu unleashed a roar like a wild beast. Violently hurling the shattered bow to the ground, he lunged forward and began stomping on it frantically, his face twisted in rage and despair, looking utterly hideous.
"Damn it! Damn it!" he cursed wildly, thrashing like a maddened bull.
Fatty and the Mute shrank back in terror, not daring to let out even a squeak.
Just as Wang Erhu was venting his fury:
"Bang!!!"
An abrupt gunshot cracked through the mountain forest like a bolt of thunder out of a clear sky!
The sound was sharp, short, and laden with a lethal metallic edge, completely different from the dull thud of a bow and arrow.
Wang Erhu’s movements abruptly halted. He raised his head in alarm, looking in the direction from which the gunshot had come.
From the very same grove where the roe deer had just disappeared came a flurry of rustling and a mournful cry, and then everything fell back into silence.
A gunshot?
How could there be gunshots in these mountains?
Wang Erhu and Fatty exchanged glances, each seeing terror and confusion in the other's eyes.
The Soviet military had long since issued orders to confiscate all civilian firearms; who on earth would dare fire a gun in the mountains?
"Who! Who the fuck is out there? Get your ass out here!" Wang Erhu, still riding the peak of his temper, threw caution to the wind and roared at the top of his lungs.
He assumed someone had stolen his kill.
The moment his voice fell, the bushes ahead churned.
A figure slowly stepped out from the shadows of the trees.
It was a man—a man who looked utterly wretched and disheveled.
He wore a tattered, mud-stained, and hole-ridden khaki military uniform whose original color was no longer discernible.
His hair was long and matted like a patch of dead grass, and his face was covered in scratches and grime. Only a pair of eyes flickered with a wolf-like, eerie light from beneath his unkempt locks.
His build wasn't tall, even appearing somewhat slender, but the Arisaka rifle held in his hands still curled with a faint wisp of blue smoke, exuding an unsettling aura of imminent danger that enveloped his entire person.
When he recognized the style of the man's military uniform and the iconic rifle in his hands, Wang Erhu’s pupils suddenly constricted to the size of needlepoints.
It... it was a Japanese soldier!