sjar Chapter 201 The Death of Qin Yao's Husband
Chapter 201 The Death of Qin Yao's Husband
Ahead was the old work area's duty room, a wooden hut. Qin Yao, holding her child, heard the noise, opened the door, and called Li Ju'an and the others inside to avoid the wind.
Qin Yao's husband's father was also in the wooden house, entertaining the bear hunters. This was also the first time Li Ju'an had seen Qin Yao's father-in-law.
Qin Yao's father-in-law was named Chen Guoan. He looked like an honest man, over fifty years old, with calloused hands, wearing leg wraps and a pistol at his waist, dressed like a hunter.
Li Ju'an sized up Chen Guo'an, then cut off a piece of bear meat from the hind leg and handed it to him. Chen Guo'an quickly waved his hand to decline, and instead smiled and took out the roe deer meat he had hunted himself to offer to the hunters in the bear-hunting team.
Chen Guoan said, "It's fortunate that Li Pao led the bear-hunting team into the mountains, otherwise our old work area would still be suffering bad days."
Li Ju'an learned that the shutdown of the old mining area was due not only to instructions from higher authorities, but also to the large number of bears in the nearby mountains. If a female bear was angered, the male bear would retaliate and cause trouble in the old mining area. As a result, fewer and fewer people were on duty at the nearby guardhouse, and even the forest rangers refused to patrol. Only Chen Guo'an, a hunter by trade, and his daughter-in-law were on duty there.
Qin Yao met Li Ju'an's gaze, then lowered her head to avoid eye contact.
Chen Guoan boiled snow water, brewed a pot of pine needle tea, and warmly invited the hunters to warm themselves up.
"Back in the day, I was also part of a bear-hunting team. We were young then, working as a foreman in the work area, and we were allocated one of the four bear paws. But the bear meat that the work area cooked was so bad that Old Yang, who was cooking at the time, threw it away, hahaha, saying it was too fishy to eat."
Chen Guoan was very talkative, talking about everything from the signal light south of Jingling in the old work area to the ravine outside the 14-kilometer overpass in Chaowu. He also mentioned that there was a small guardhouse there, a bear enclosure that he and his coworkers had built when they were young.
He said that seven years ago, the old work area still cooperated with the production team. The production team placed a large number of beehives deep in the work area. The hills of the old work area were full of linden trees, which produced linden honey. In those days, beekeeping was a pillar sideline of the production team.
That day, he spotted the beekeeper and, terrified, scrambled into the cemetery, unafraid even of weasels. He ran into the guardhouse and frantically pounded on the door. He said the apiary had been attacked by a bear, and several boxes of honey had been ruined.
Bears love to eat honey. Before winter arrives, they store up enough nutrients to survive the winter, then find a burrow to crawl into and hibernate. These mountain animals especially love sweet things like honey.
At the time, Chen Guoan ignored it and only reported it. Later, the entire bee farm was wiped out by bears. It was said that there was more than one bear that came, which scared the production team so much that they never dared to raise bees there again.
Lu Zhiqiang asked him, "Didn't you report it to the forest farm to find a bear-hunting team?"
Chen Guoan said, "We looked for them, of course we looked for them. But those bears were very cunning. In winter, they didn't stay in the barn, they just wandered around nearby. Several bear hunting teams came, but they all suffered, and many dogs died. Later, apart from a few hunters going into the mountains to hunt bears, the forest farm never organized any more bear hunting teams, and the number of people in this old work area decreased."
The old work area had suffered from bear attacks for many years. Bears were originally the target of hunters. Their fur was thick, their meat was rich in fat, and their paws and bile were rare and valuable delicacies and medicinal materials. Seven years ago, a large brown bear could sell for several hundred yuan.
Chen Guoan exhaled a smoke ring, sighed, and said, "Seven years ago, a box of matches cost two cents, and a pound of salt cost only thirteen cents. If someone could hunt a bear, that was a big deal."
Several people nodded in agreement. Let alone 70 years ago, even now, being able to hunt a bear and exchange it for more than a thousand yuan is an astronomical figure.
"Uncle Chen, what happened next? Was that wandering bear that wouldn't stay in the barn killed?"
Chen Guoan took a deep drag on his cigarette, frowned, and recalled the painful past: "I had an abortion, but I also lost my son."
When the production team leader Wang saw that the bee farm was not working and the forest farm was not taking any action, he got angry and sent several brave members with guns to the bee farm, hoping to scare the bear away from the mountain.
At that time, Chen Guoan's son, as a local, led the way for the production team.
Chen Guoan's son was single at the time. With the help of Secretary Xiong, he pursued Qin Yao and finally married her after some hesitation. But their happy days didn't last long. He then took a fully loaded semi-automatic rifle and 7.62mm bullets and followed the production team members to the old site of the bee farm.
Qin Yao cried and begged him not to go, but Chen Guoan's son was a righteous man. With other members of the commune helping to hunt bears, how could he not help? After comforting Qin Yao, he turned around, picked up his gun, and followed the bear-hunting team into the mountains.
The commune member who led the charge this time was a typical Shandong man, incredibly bold and fearless. He stepped forward without even bringing a hunting dog, and upon entering the old site of the apiary, he saw a large brown bear swaggering around, skillfully lifting the lid of a beehive, then pushing open the honeycomb frame with its front paws, and licking the honey with relish using its large, barbed tongue. It even managed to eat quite a few of the baby bees.
The commune members were originally all high-spirited and proud, but when they faced the big brown bear at such close range, they were so frightened that they trembled and couldn't even pull back the bolt of their guns.
They could only watch helplessly as the brown bear, instead of staying in the hive, wreaked havoc on a large area of the beehives.
The big man with the cannon was also seeing a brown bear for the first time. After returning to the production team, they described the brown bear as much bigger, several times larger, to make excuses for not daring to shoot it, and even threatened to arrest and bring it to justice.
But there was really nothing they could do. The wild brown bear wouldn't stay in the apiary, and the members of the cooperative were powerless against it. They could only watch helplessly as the apiary was razed to the ground.
Production team leader Wang was at his wit's end. For the sake of the collective, he had no choice but to ask Zhao Pao from Yingtun to go into the mountains and kill the bear, even if it meant paying a high price. This time, Chen Guoan's son was once again the guide. A generous reward always brings forth brave men.
Before setting off, Chen Guoan's son comforted Qin Yao and his father, saying that he had attached a triangular bayonet to his rifle. Even if he couldn't kill the bear, he could still stab it with the bayonet. He was very strong and could definitely fight the brown bear for a few rounds.
Upon hearing this, Li Ju'an and the others fell silent.
Qin Yao also hugged the baby, bit her lip, and lowered her head in silence.
Only Song Desheng, being quick-witted, asked curiously, "Later, Uncle Chen, didn't your son disappear in the mine?"
Chen Guoan raised his face, his wrinkled old face already covered in tears. The pain of losing his only child made him bury his face in his hands and weep bitterly.
Later, his son never came out again, and not even a piece of his mangled body was found.
Zhao Pao's team in Yingtun lost two eagles before they were able to shoot down the big brown bear, but the kind-hearted local lad was never seen again.
Everyone looked at Chen Guoan and Qin Yao with pity and sympathy in their eyes.
Li Ju'an felt the oppressive and stagnant atmosphere and looked at the heartbroken Chen Guo'an. At this moment, he was just an old father who had lost his only son.