Splendid Farm: Niangzi loves farming

Chapter 6

The two went outside the village and pulled out the dagger, hemp rope, and bowstring buried yesterday in the snow, and walked towards the mountain in the east of the village with them.

They were only interested in being excited, but they didn't notice that in a broken yard in the west of the village, a wretched man covering his face with one hand and holding some firewood in the other was looking at the two of them with his head stretched out.

It wasn't until it was clear that only the two children had entered the mountain that the man returned to his stable with firewood under his arms.

In the early winter, the snow on the ground is thinner than outside because of the shelter of the tree canopy in the mountains, so walking is not very strenuous.

As he walked Shuanzi, he asked, "Sister, we only carry two knives, how are we going to hunt? Do we stab wild animals with knives?"

Mo Qianqian said: "Silly boy, what kind of wild animal can make you catch up with it? Don't you want to dig a hedgehog and go home?"

"Then what should we do? Do you have any other options?"

"Of course there is..." Mo Qianqian smiled mysteriously, raised his hand to shake the hemp rope and bowstring, and said, "Use this!"

"How do I use this?"

"Get out of the bag!"

"Lose? Can it catch the prey?"

"It should work, but it's just a slow job. I'm afraid I won't be able to get anything today. It will take a day or two."

"It doesn't matter, my father doesn't harvest every day when he hunts...how do you get this set?"

"Just tie it to the path of the prey..."

As they spoke, the two walked forward again.

Mo Qianqian learned this trick from his grandfather, who used to hunt when he was young, but he used a shotgun and a holster. When Mo Qianqian was young, his grandfather taught them to entangle birds with horsetail silk. Grandpa died. Later, she also taught her younger brother, and she didn't want to use the child's tricks she learned then.

The hillside here is not steep, and it is an old forest mixed with many kinds of trees. The lower part is mostly birch and aspen. As the slope increases, it gradually becomes the territory of oak (Quercus mongolica).

Mo Qianqian knew that it was difficult to grow small shrubs on the ground under the cover of the huge canopy of the oak forest, and there was no way to hide, so he didn't bother to take the peg up, but kept wandering around the mountainside and valleys.

In this era, there is no deforestation, wild animals reproduce in the most natural way, and all populations are quite prosperous.Not long after Mo Qianqian and Shuanzi walked, they saw a "mountain path" trampled by some kind of animal.

That's right, humans are not the only ones who walk. Animals in the mountains also have fixed walking routes within the range of their regular activities. It was discovered that they have this habit, and people came up with the method of hunting with traps.

Although the snow on the ground was not thick, it was enough for Mo Qianqian and Shuanzi to see the animal's footprints clearly.

Shuanzi and Mo Qianqian huddled together and squatted on the ground to watch, and asked, "Sister, what are these things? They look similar to dog footprints."

Although Mo Qianqian came to hunt with great interest, she had never practiced with larger animals. She was a little dazed when she was really asked, and she frowned uncertainly: "Maybe it's a fox."

Shuanzi agreed: "Well, it should be. I see that the fox's feet that Dad beat back look like dogs."

As he said that, he was about to go to the opposite side to have a look. Mo Qianqian quickly grabbed him and said, "Don't step on it everywhere, the vixen is alive. If it moves a lot, it will walk around if it finds that the smell is not right."

Shuanzi quickly squatted down again and said, "Then what should we do?"

Mo Qianqian first looked at the two things in his hand, thinking that if it was a fox, it seemed that the bowstring would be enough.

She shook off the bowstring and saw that it was three or four meters long, so she pulled out her dagger and split the bowstring into two pieces, then asked Shuanzi, "Shuanzi, how tall is the fox your father hunted?"

Shuanzi measured with his hand about two feet from the ground, and said, "It's about this high."

"Then how big is its head?"

Shuanzi put his two hands together to draw a circle uncertainly.

Mo Qianqian took a look and got a general idea in his mind. He looked up this "fox road" and saw a clump of chicken trees growing on the side of the road two steps away. The crooked branches squeezed the space above the road. It's small, and a good place to slip in.

Mo Qianqian walked over, made a bowstring into a case bigger than the fox's head, hung it in the middle of the road at the height of the fox as Shuan Zi said, and tied both ends to the small trees on both sides of the road.

Seeing her busy around, Shuanzi couldn't help but walked over and asked, "Sister, can this work? Can foxes really get in?"

Mo Qianqian worriedly adjusted the size of the cover again, and said: "As long as it doesn't find us coming, it will get in. It doesn't know the cover, and it thinks it will pass through like a tree branch!"

Shuanzi cheered up and said, "Okay, sister, I'll get a branch to sweep away our footprints, so it won't find us!"

"Well, you go." Mo Qianqian said in his heart: So the talent for hunting is also inherited. Look at this child, he thought of it without saying it...

While thinking, she picked up the hemp rope and bowstring that were on the ground, then grabbed a dry Artemisia annua, and while walking backwards, she smoothed out her own footprints as much as possible, making this place look like two people. Basically the same as before.

In this way, the two kept walking back for more than ten meters before giving up their disguise and walking elsewhere.

Turning back excitedly while walking on Shuanzi, he said, "Sister, I really want to wait here and watch that fox get tricked!"

Mo Qianqian was worried that he would be ashamed if he didn't get the prey, so he laid the groundwork for himself in advance, saying: "Don't expect so much, maybe you can't get anything!"

Shuanzi said firmly: "Seeing that my sister speaks clearly and logically, I know that I can do it. Sis, I have learned it, and I will go to the next one."

As he spoke, he pulled out the hemp rope in Mo Qianqian's hand and cut off half of it, then ran to find a tree not far away and tied it up.

Mo Qianqian frowned at the back. Just now he thought this kid was smart, so why did he become an idiot in a blink of an eye? There was no trace of animals passing by in that place, so what can he do there?

But in order not to discourage Shuanzi's enthusiasm, she didn't stop him, leaving a piece of hemp rope left and right, let him play with it.

After Shuanzi finished tying the cover, the two walked forward again, and saw a string of footprints that looked like rabbits, so Mo Qianqian tied another section of bowstring here.

The hemp rope left in his hand was tied to a path trampled by two hooves. Mo Qianqian couldn't figure out whether it was trampled by a wild boar or a wild deer. Looking at the distance and size of the hoof prints, Let's treat it as a wild boar for now.

The bodies of the two people who had been smoked hadn't recovered yet, and they were already exhausted from tossing around here. They sat and rested in the snow for a while and got up to go home.

Shuanzi still remembered the lie Mo Qianqian told when he left the house, and asked, "Sister, should we peel some birch bark back?"

Mo Qianqian waved his hand and said, "What are you peeling off? I'm talking nonsense. It's winter and I can't peel it off..."

(End of this chapter)