If I don't have money to go to college, I can only go to slay the dragon

Chapter 879 Old Hunter

On December 1991, 12, the deserted suburbs of Verkhoyansk.

"Do."

The pitch-black Yakut dagger cuts vertically, and cuts a thin piece of fish meat from the oblique belly of a whole frozen crucian carp. When the ice-crushed fish meat falls on the light brown birch chopping board, it rolls up naturally.Not far from the chopping board, the stove in the wooden house continuously provides temperature to try to soften the frozen fish rolls, but this is just a drop in the bucket for today's minus 53°C temperature.

At the table, the 55-year-old old hunter Alrian put down his black iron dagger, picked up the fish cut off the chopping board with two fingers, and threw it into his mouth to chew, closing his eyes to confirm that the fish meat was sweet and delicious Finally, he decided to eat this 2-jin crucian carp for dinner tonight.

When old Aryan picked up the dagger again, there was a slight flapping sound from the window of the wooden house. He turned his head and looked, and outside the window was the dark and dense coniferous forest around the wooden house and the winter wind with a little snow, and no one was flapping him. The window of the house, that is the message brought by the cold winter wind, announcing that a blizzard is coming.

Old Alian turned his head back and continued to cut the frozen crucian carp with a dagger. He has to hurry up to prepare dinner, because he has not finished the necessary work for today, and he still needs to go out after he has enough food and clothing. He went outside the house and moved the firewood chopped earlier in the morning into the wooden house, and retrieved the rope traps and hunting traps for catching rabbits in the coniferous forest, so as to prevent him from losing many tools for his livelihood after the snowstorm arrived.

"The snow is on the ground, but the meat is in the warehouse." This is a common saying among the Yakut people who have grown up in the northern permafrost of Siberia since ancient times. In their eyes, fierce snowstorms have never been a disaster, but a good omen for a good harvest.Every time after a snowstorm, the Yana River is frozen and the coniferous forest is buried in snow, so the harvest of fishing and rabbit hunting will greatly increase. These are the harvests brought by the snowstorm to the Yakut.

But only today, the old hunter, old Aryan, raised his head and looked out of the window from time to time, at the corner of the sky where the coniferous forest was missing, behind the snow-covered white dragon-like Vikoyansk Mountains, the overwhelming gray long line roared, It is like a wall of infinite length and width that swallows everything that passes by—he once heard a traveler from the Soviet Union, the motherland, say that at the other end of the world, there is a yellow snowstorm that is equally ferocious and majestic. The same rumble and horror, but the yellow snowstorm is far less benevolent than Siberia. They are destined to bring only death and destruction, endless roaring and gliding across the earth, like an angry dragon devouring the world.

This reminded him of the strange scene on Christmas Eve a week ago, the terrifying voice from the other side of the mountain range, so old and desolate, as if it had spanned the years beyond the Siberian permafrost, like thunder, and then Like the roar of the wind, causing landslides and snow to roll.Old Arian can't help but think that if nature has life, then it must be the long sound from the heart of nature, which makes people who hear it feel shocked and awed by it.

"Do."

The Yakut dagger cut off the fresh meat of the frozen crucian carp neatly, scarlet blood splashed onto the chopping board, and the irregular pool of blood reflected the light from the stove, but soon solidified and covered with a layer of frost.The old Alian, who was distracted and suffering from pain, cursed in a low voice, and immediately put down the dagger. Under the light of the fire, a deep gash was cut in the tiger's mouth of his left hand, and blood was oozing out.

"It's really useless to be old." The wrinkles on the forehead illuminated by the fire tightened. With a sigh, the old Aryan turned around and found the gauze, took a sip of Moscow-produced red brand vodka, and sprayed some wine vapor on the wound—— This is also the benefit of the permafrost in northern Siberia. In the ultra-clean cold area, there is no room for tetanus to survive. People here rarely die from viral and bacterial infections.

But while bandaging his left hand, the old hunter frowned deeply. Seeing red is never a good sign, especially when it is time to say goodbye to the old and welcome the new. He was a little worried about what to do with the other tasks left today done.

Now it seems that my hand can't exert strength or suffer from the cold for the time being. Apart from barely being able to go out of the hut, other things can only be put on hold until after the snowstorm is over. I hope that the trappers I put in the coniferous forest Don't bury the clips and nooses too deep, every loss of one is a heartbreak to him.

Feeling sad and depressed, the old Alian who was sitting by the stove subconsciously groped into his chest pocket. He took out a black and white photo and glanced at it until the firewood crackled and the fire gradually weakened. I took back the photos and started adding wood.

The sound of the windows being hit by the wind became louder and louder, and the sky darkened before nightfall, and the entire coniferous forest undulated with the wind like a black grassland, everything foreshadowed that the coming snowstorm would be heavy , Unprecedented in history, the lights in the distant town of Verkhoyansk were also extinguished early, and they crawled on the ground and curled up waiting for the snowstorm to come.

"Damn blizzard."

For the first time, old Alian looked at the wind and snow outside the window, and cursed the winter rage that was once regarded as an auspicious harvest.He turned around and walked towards the wooden table to finish dinner tonight. Even if his hand was injured, he couldn't delay filling his stomach. Just when he was about to wipe the dagger that was stained with his own blood, he suddenly heard someone knocking. Door.

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Knock, knock, the door of the wooden house was knocked.

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It is not easy to distinguish the knock on the door in a blizzard. You can easily confuse the sound of the wind with the knock on the door. But the old Arian will not mistake the sound he heard at this moment Whether it is people knocking on the door or the wind knocking on the door, because he can guarantee that no evil wind can knock the tune of "Katyusha" on the wooden door of his house.

Old Arrian got up from the table and walked towards the wooden door. When he passed the stove, he took down the double-barreled shotgun hanging high, checked the chamber, and loaded the ammunition.

Even if it is far away from the noisy and chaotic big cities of the motherland, Verkhoyansk is not a pure land that does not close its doors at night. On the contrary, because of the harsh environment, there are many people here. The law and order problem is also obvious.

There are always some youngsters or people who get something for nothing like to do things like robbing houses. The days of snowstorms are also their favorite time, because when they break into a house at this special time, the snowstorm will become a cover for those screams and resistance. Sound's best friend—and that, too, is the kindness of Blizzard, the kindness of villains.

When old Aryan stood at the door, the knocking of "Katyusha" outside the door stopped, and when old Aryan gradually became suspicious, the knocking sounded again, but this time it changed. The tune is "Kalinka", which means "Snowball Flower" in Russian. It is probably a song about love, but after playing a few verses of the chorus, it seems that the other party feels that this song is not very suitable for the occasion. It simply changed into "Night in the Suburbs of Moscow".

"."

Old Arian didn't know if he would freeze to death first if he waited like this, or he would come up with more new tricks, but he admitted that the person outside the door who kept changing his way of knocking songs aroused his interest, besides He, too, was always kind—old and lonely old people are usually kind—so he chose to open the door.

The right hand of the double-barreled shotgun was raised high, and the left hand wrapped in gauze opened the wooden door. Before seeing who was outside, the old Arian took the initiative to take half a step back and resumed holding the gun with both hands. A lot of wind and snow outside the door immediately roared. It poured into the room through the crack of the door, and the flame in the stove was dimmed a lot.

Old Aryan raised his hands and squinted his eyes to block the wind and snow, and saw the person standing at the door clearly. This person was wearing a thick white coat made of reindeer fur to keep out the cold, a dark blue hat on his head, and a black plush neck covering. Half of the face is covered, and from the exposed part, it can be seen that this is actually a good-looking young woman with a brown longbow and quiver on her back. She should be a hunter?

"Don't shoot!" the woman yelled, in Russian, as soon as she saw the black barrel of the gun.

It's the people of the town.

Old Arian took a look at the hunter's attire and the color of her skin and determined her origin. Unlike the white people in Moscow, this huntress has a typical Yakut yellow skin, blown by the biting wind and snow. She was flushed red, and thin scars crawled out from under the cover of the neckband, but they still couldn't hide her youthful and beautiful appearance.

"Don't shoot, I'm really sorry to bother you, are you the owner of this room? My name is Liubov (Yakut's name), and I encountered a snowstorm on the way back from hunting rabbits. Now I think it's too late to rush back. It’s possible, I originally wanted to go into the coniferous forest to avoid the wind, but I didn’t expect to find a place to hide when I saw the flames of your house.” The hunter with her head lowered to avoid the wind yelled from inside her neckband, and she There was no way not to roar, but the howling of the wind and snow outside almost turned the sky and the earth around, and this was just the warm-up before the real snowstorm came.

Old Arian raised his eyebrows, and his wrinkles were squeezed into a ball. He looked at the other party with his cloudy eyes, and without hesitating for too long, he lowered his muzzle and nodded, ".Come in!" He If she chooses to share her shelter, if she really refuses the other party outside the door, she will be buried in the white dragon-like snow as soon as the blizzard comes.

The huntress felt as if she was about to be amnesty, and thanked while drilling in. Old Arian heard more and more bangs when he was about to close the door. Holding a shotgun, he looked out at the world before the snowstorm.

Everyone thinks that the blizzard is white, but in fact, when it really comes, you will find that it is actually blue, which is a dark blue that is close to ink, and it has not yet reached the whole world. Blue, the endless coniferous forest is bleak and deep, too lazy to be gloomy and dull.

There was a loud noise from the wind and snow in the distance. It was the long gray dragon that had finally completely crossed the long mountain range and engulfed the entire mountain. Under it, it devoured the large coniferous trees at the foot of the mountain.

The big snowstorm has come.

(End of this chapter)