Chapter 27: Hunting in the Snow

  As the numbness and pain spread, Xiao Ziyang's body heat continued to emanate outward. He felt his body getting hotter and hotter, even after removing the only animal hide he had on, still feeling unbearably hot.

  In the midst of his feverish heat, he suddenly felt a thread of weakness, and in his intestines, a strange feeling arose, as if he had eaten too much at night and woke up with that feeling the next morning.

  Just like Fuling Xin's usual practice, he sat cross-legged on the beast skin he had just taken off his body, and began to massage himself with the acupressure technique that enhanced internal organ function in "Zi Yu Sheng Yan".

  As he massaged, the intestines and stomach in his abdomen began to move slowly. Soon after, the bloated feeling in his stomach also quickly disappeared.

  Half an hour later, the heat in his body gradually dissipated, and at the same time, a sense of emptiness appeared in his stomach, as if the two or three catties of bacon he had eaten half an hour ago had all disappeared.

  At the same time, he also felt that his whole body seemed to have inexhaustible energy, and his vigorous vitality was spreading all over him!

  Xiao Ziyang got up from the animal skin, just about to put on his clothes, when a pungent smell suddenly rushed into his nostrils. He rubbed himself and found that he had scrubbed off a lump of mud. His sweat had never stopped since he entered the mountain, not only making himself stink with sweat, but also soaking all the dirt on his body that had never been washed since he entered the mountain.

  He looked at the mud in his hand, furrowed his brow, threw his clothes onto the bed and walked out of the cave stark naked.

  The snowflakes in the sky were still fluttering about. In a mountain forest where all the leaves had fallen, a tall and dark-skinned young man was walking naked. As he moved, the muscles on his body kept rippling under his skin. Between his legs, his small penis, as robust as him, also swung back and forth mischievously with each step.

  If someone saw this scene, they would definitely think it was absurd and bizarre, but fortunately, this is a remote mountainous area with no one around.

  At the foot of the mountain, there was a small stream. He came to the stream and stretched out his hand to test the water temperature. Although it was cold, it seemed bearable. He used his hands to scoop up the cold water and poured it over himself, the bone-chilling cold making his hair stand on end.

  He thought for a moment, then simply scooped up the snow by the river and rubbed it all over his body. Before long, he felt himself heating up again.

  He poured river water over himself, but instead of feeling cold, he felt a little warm.

  In the small stream, Xiaoziyang quickly washed off the sweat and dirt on his body. He used the snow to scrub himself clean while walking back to the cave in the cold wind.

  As he put his clothes back on, the warmth made him feel extremely comfortable.

  After resting for half a time, he put the pot on the bonfire again to simmer, and took off his clothes again, starting another practice...

  Heavy snow had fallen for three days and nights, the accumulated snow outside the cave was already above his calf, but Xiao Ziyang had to go out hunting in such a situation, because the more than 10 kilograms of dried bacon he brought had been eaten clean.

  In the past, when winter came, he would often follow hunters up the mountain. He had long since squeezed out all the tricks of the old hunters. So this bad weather did not make him difficult, but rather made him a little happy, because in such snowy and sunny days, animals will come out to move and forage, leaving many traces.

  Xiao Ziyang carried a hunting bow and arrows on his back, with a hunting spear in hand, walking step by step in the thick snow under the morning sunlight, heading deep into the mountains.

  He discovered many animal tracks. Just after noon, he had already harvested a roe deer and three mountain chickens. What surprised him even more was that he found the tracks of a black bear that had not yet hibernated on the waist of another mountain not far from his residence in Shishan. Black bears are the plumpest at the end of autumn and the beginning of winter, but black bears are not easy to mess with, this needs to be carefully considered.

  Back in the mountain cave, Xiao Ziyang put down his bow and arrow, and by the mountain spring, he skinned the roe deer and removed its internal organs.

  He didn't dare to throw the entrails by the cave, fearing it would attract beasts of prey. He carried the entrails down to the creek and found that the creek had already frozen over with a thick layer of ice. Otherwise, he would have thrown the entrails into the creek and let them be washed away downstream, which would have been the safest option. Now, he could only throw the entrails by the creek.

  He returned to the cave and lit a fire again, cooking a full pot of inedible bear meat medicine.

  On the third day, Xiao Ziyang reluctantly picked up his hunting bow and arrow and went out again.

  A cloak, three pheasants, over twenty kilograms of meat, enough for an ordinary person to eat for seven or eight days. But after he cultivated the "Purple Jade Smoke", his appetite increased day by day. In just a little more than a day's time, the cloak and the three pheasants had been eaten clean by him.

  As he walked through the snowy terrain, he gazed far ahead at the steep slope across from him, pondering how to hunt down that black bear.

  As he passed by the small stream at the foot of the mountain, he found that the entrails of the cloak he had thrown away by the stream two days ago had been eaten clean, and many plum blossom-shaped footprints on the ground made him see at a glance that it was a leopard.

  He looked carefully for a moment and judged that it was an adult leopard with a body length of over five feet. Leopards are vigilant and agile, the most difficult to hunt.

  After observing for a moment, Xiao Ziyang put away his worries, crossed the small stream, followed his memory, and walked in one direction.

  Xiao Ziyang didn't return until sunset, this time he hunted a raccoon dog, a musk deer and three mountain chickens.

  Xiao Ziyang did not rush to skin the prey this time. After returning to the cave, he took out a branch of purple scale wood that had been cut from the road and cut it into a five-inch long section. He sharpened both ends and then bent the branch into an arc shape while roasting it over the fire. When the two ends were almost parallel, he quickly tied it up with a rope.

  After finishing, he looked at this purple scale branch resembling a small bow and showed a satisfied expression on his face.

  Zi Lin Mu is a very rare tree, with hard and elastic wood, it's the top material for making bows, extremely valuable. Unexpectedly, he found a Zi Lin tree that was at least hundreds of years old while hunting.

  This purple scale tree reminded him of a story an old hunter once told him.

  Xiao Ziyang made a few more small bows, then he cut off a piece of good meat from the musk deer's back and wrapped the small bow in it, placing it outside the cave. Before long, the meat was frozen hard as iron, and he cut off the rope tied to the small bow again.

  He looked at the frozen meat with satisfaction and nodded his head.

  Xiao Ziyang carried the raccoon dog and musk deer to the mountain spring, washed and cleaned them, then carried their internal organs and a few pieces of frozen meat, heading down the mountain.

  He stuffed the frozen meat into his entrails and threw it by the brook.