Chapter 239 Waiting for the Leopard
The meat of the half-grown venison is very good, tender and chewy. It tastes very good just by stewing it in water with a small amount of seasoning.

Compared with adult moose, wild boar meat, black bear meat, etc., the muscle fibers of fawn meat are fine enough, so even if your teeth are a little weak, it will not affect your ability to chew the meat after it is stewed into a mushy paste.

There was half a pot of meat, and the five gentlemen ate it with relish. Each of them ate at least two or three pounds. It was really delicious.

After filling their stomachs, Uncle Zhao and Yue Feng discussed how to deal with the leopard at night.

After a brief discussion, the two decided to tie the hanged half-grown leopard cub with a rope and hang it on a pole, then adjust the cellar window into a position for shooting. If the leopard dared to show up, they would fire at it with three guns at once to ensure that it would never return.

After discussing the plan, Yue Feng and his team got to work.

First go to the nearest forest and find a pine tree that is about one size thinner than the mouth of a bowl. Then cut off the top of the tree and carry the straight trunk back.

After the tree trunk was ready, they used a small pickaxe to dig the soil outside the fence, about twenty meters away from where the leopard broke its tail last time, and dug a hole about fifty to sixty centimeters deep.

It is worth mentioning that in this season, there is permafrost underneath the snow on the surface of the Changbai Mountains, so digging a hole is really difficult. Yue Feng brought three friends with him, and the four of them took turns swinging pickaxes. It took them nearly an hour to dig a hole that met the requirements.

After the pit was dug, a pine pole about three and a half meters long was buried in the pit, and then it was carefully tamped down. Finally, the dead leopard cub was hung up at a position less than two meters away. The preparations outside the cellar were basically completed.

After finishing the outside part, the window of the cellar also needs to be adjusted slightly.

A big reason why Uncle Zhao failed that night was that the window needed to be pushed open with the muzzle of the gun, and then the aiming and firing had to be omitted. If this operation was omitted, with Uncle Zhao’s marksmanship, it would not be as simple as breaking the leopard’s tail.

Having suffered a loss last time, they must prepare in advance this time and must not make the same mistake again. After a simple discussion, Yue Feng and Uncle Zhao decided to temporarily nail a miscellaneous wooden stick to the small window of the cellar near the upper side of the window frame with nails. In this way, the small window can be cracked to a certain angle without the need for human active pushing.

Judging from the height of the buried wooden pole and the height of the leopard cub’s body, the angle of the window opening is sufficient.

Of course, this simple little adjustment needs to be restored to its original state immediately after use. Otherwise, if you sleep with a window open on a night with the temperature 20 or 30 degrees below zero, you will not be able to retain heat even if you are burning firewood in the house.

From this perspective, it is not wrong for Uncle Zhao to say that it will be a tough battle at night.

In less than two hours in the afternoon, Uncle Zhao and Yue Feng repeatedly tested the details of the ambush in the cellar at night, and thought about almost everything that might happen before they finalized it.

Everything is ready, just waiting for night to fall.

From three o’clock in the afternoon until dark, the five people in the cellar all went to sleep and rest in advance. It was not until the full moon rose that Yue Feng and others got up to have dinner.

Dinner consisted of the stewed venison from noon, plus the buns that he brought for Grandpa Zhao when he went up the mountain. The old man also cooked corn porridge in an iron pot. After the five of them had eaten and drunk their fill, they turned off the lights early and took turns observing from the window.

Today was a day with a bright moon hanging high in the sky. In the first half of the night, apart from the whistling sound of the wind outside, there was almost no useful movement. There was a fire burning under the kang in the house, but because the windows were open, the temperature in the house was not very high, and everyone wrapped themselves tightly in thick clothes.

After freezing for half the night, there was no movement outside. Just when Yue Feng thought that his plan had gone wrong and his work was in vain, at about one o’clock in the middle of the night, there was movement outside the cellar.

The four dogs tied outside the main entrance of the cellar did not bark, but the red dogs locked in the semi-underground kennel started barking.

“Uncle, didn’t Red Dog feed the deer’s offal? Why is he barking at this time? Is he hungry?” Yue Feng asked in a low voice while leaning against the window.

“It’s not hunger. The injured red dogs are eating quickly. They won’t stop until they are full! I guess that leopard is here! It’s wandering outside the red dogs’ den!”

“That’s a blind spot from the window. You can’t see anything! Is the small wooden cover at the door of the doghouse sturdy?”

“Don’t worry. No matter how brave the leopard is, it won’t dare to sneak into the den of the red dogs! Without its agility advantage, the five red dogs can tear the leopard to pieces! Wait a little longer and see what happens!”

About twenty minutes later, the red dog’s whining sound became louder and louder, and Uncle Zhao, who had not slept yet, frowned as he listened.

This noise seemed familiar to Uncle Zhao, as if…

It sounded like the dog smelled blood and was whimpering when it wanted to eat something.

“Smell carefully, is there a smell of blood outside?” Uncle Zhao held his breath, almost put his nose against the window and smelled for a while before saying.

Yue Feng tiptoed and put his nose close to it, holding his breath and smelling it.

It’s true, there is indeed a faint smell of blood, which Yue Feng feels a little familiar with. It’s not the smell of large livestock blood, but rather the smell of rabbit blood. When Yue Feng was raising a large eagle, he dealt with this thing every day, so he was a little sensitive to the smell of rabbit blood.

“It smells like wild rabbit blood! There’s a hint of earthy smell in the bloody smell! How about we go out with guns and take a look?” Yue Feng suggested.

“No, we can’t go out! Something must be wrong! We are already in an invincible position in the house! Even if we find the source of the fishy smell, what can we do if we go out?

Once our position and status were exposed and the leopard was scared away, there would never be such a good opportunity again!

The beasts that can survive in the deep mountains and old forests are all extremely smart. What if they are trying to lure the tiger away from the mountain?”

“Then I’ll listen to you!” Yue Feng clenched the somewhat cold 56-and-a-half in his hand, and reaffirmed his determination to stay in the house and not go out no matter what happened!

The next few hours were spent slowly amidst the whining sounds of the red dog, which seemed to have affected the four hounds tied at the door.

The four hounds also behaved abnormally. They probably smelled the blood and couldn’t sleep well. They whined every once in a while, which was a bit annoying.

The nights on the mountain were extremely cold and long. Yue Feng would stealthily glance out through the window every once in a while to make sure that the leopard dared to show up, and then wake everyone up to shoot and catch it.

He stared at it till about 4:30 in the middle of the night. The moon had gone down and the sky was dark. At this moment, the entire mountain cellar was completely shrouded in endless darkness. Even though Yue Feng had adapted to this kind of light, he still felt a hazy feeling when he glanced out the window.

Yue Feng almost didn’t sleep the whole night, but the silence made him a little sleepy, and he dozed off unconsciously. His eyelids slowly drooped, and he tried to open them again after a few seconds, repeating this extremely uncomfortable state endlessly.

Just as Yue Feng drooped his eyelids again and forced them open, he found that two small lanterns suddenly lit up on the fence outside the yard.

The next second, Yue Feng woke up with his nerves tense.

It’s the dead of night in the wilderness, how can there be a small lantern? Those are eyes. The cat’s night vision reflects light, giving people the feeling of a small lantern.

“Master! Xiaowu! The leopard is coming!” Yue Feng said in a low voice. Although he had lowered his voice to the lowest level, the extremely cautious leopard seemed to have heard it and immediately lay down on the spot without moving.

Uncle Zhao had been dozing off in his sheepskin coat. When he heard Yue Feng’s call, he immediately and carefully got up. He did not wake up Xiaowu who was lying next to him, but moved closer to Yue Feng. The two of them were almost face to face, with a straight-line distance of no more than ten centimeters.

“The leopard was lying on the ground outside the fence. I just saw two eyes as bright as small lanterns. As soon as I reminded you, it lay down immediately!” Yue Feng continued to speak in the lowest voice.

Uncle Zhao nodded in the dark: “Don’t move, this beast suffered a great loss last time, and this time it has taken its cautious nature to the extreme!
The first plan is invalid. Xiaowu and I will not shoot. You put your gun in place and wait for the leopard to show its head and then grab it when the opportunity is right!”

“Three guns are better than one for myself!”

“No, listen to me. The leopard is already startled. If we make any more noise, it will turn around and run away, and you won’t even have a chance to shoot!”

An old hunter is an old hunter, and he has a thorough grasp of the mentality of these prey animals.

“Okay, let me try!”

Yue Feng responded, and then even his breathing slowed down consciously, trying his best to suppress any behavior that might cause any noise.

This wait lasted for fifteen minutes. The female leopard lay motionless in the snow for a full fifteen minutes. If Yue Feng had not seen it clearly before, he would have even suspected that he was seeing things.

After a long time, the blurry outline slowly crawled out of the snow and moved towards the pine pole little by little as if in slow motion.

The half-grown leopard cub was hung at a height of about one and a half meters, with its two front paws tied with ropes, swaying gently with the howling of the northwest wind.

From Yue Feng’s perspective through the small window of the cellar, he could only vaguely see the mother leopard’s ghostly figure. At least two-thirds of the area was blocked by the fence poles.

In this situation, Yue Feng was not sure that he could hit the target with his shot. The bullet could indeed penetrate the wooden pole, but with unclear vision and extremely small angle, the hit rate was less than 50%.

So Yue Feng chose to continue waiting and waiting for the best opportunity.

When burying the pine poles during the day, Uncle Zhao had actually predicted the possible situation at night, so he tied the leopard cub’s body at a height of one and a half meters.

At this height, the mother leopard is still a little far away from the cub even if she wants to look him in the eye.

If you want to get close, the best option is to stick your head and front body up. At this time, from the perspective of the window observation port, you can see the whole head of the leopard, plus half of its upper body. As long as you shoot it, the fight will end.

This is also the best shooting opportunity designed by Uncle Zhao.

Yue Feng wanted to pull the trigger several times, but he held back. He watched with his own eyes as the mother leopard approached the tree stump little by little, then tilted her head to sniff the scent of her cub.

The leopard cub is definitely dead, but the mother leopard loves her cub so much that she will not give up until she confirms the condition of her child. This ambush site also takes advantage of the animal’s maternal instinct.

But at this moment, Yue Feng did not have any psychological burden about shooting the leopard. He was not a saint. Once any wild beast threatened his close ones, there would be no room for negotiation.

Not to mention a mother leopard with cubs, even the mountain king Big Claw is the same.

After a few minutes, the mother leopard had already gotten under the pine pole. She raised her head with great effort, but there was still a gap of about thirty to forty centimeters between her and the cub in height.

There was no movement in the cellar, which made the female leopard, which had been lurking for the entire night, relax its vigilance a little. It slowly raised its front legs, holding onto a wooden pole.

Yue Feng’s heart was beating faster at this moment. He saw the female leopard slowly put its head into the aiming star.

Breathe steadily, aim intentionally and fire unintentionally.

Leave you!

Boom!

In the silent night before dawn, two gunshots rang out in a very short interval.

The female leopard that had just raised its head and leaned out was hit on the head as if by a hammer. Blood spurted out of its head in an instant and it fell backwards.

“Hit it!” Yue Feng shouted excitedly, all the emotions that had been suppressed all night were released at this moment.

“Ah? Did you hit it?”

“Let’s go out and take a look!”

The gunshots completely woke up several companions who had not slept well all night. Xiao Tao immediately stood up and shouted to go out and take a look!

Soon, everyone came out of the cellar with dim flashlights and guns in hand, and walked straight to the place where the pine poles were buried.

From about seven or eight meters away, you can see a large leopard with colorful fur lying on its side on the ground. The place where the leopard’s head was originally was almost completely shattered by the 7.62mm medium-power bullet. A large pool of blood on the ground soaked the surrounding snow.

“Brother, your shooting skills are really amazing. You can even accurately shoot heads at night! Another complete skin! The fur of this big leopard is more beautiful than that of the half-grown leopard cub!” Xiao Tao bent down and pinched the leopard’s neck skin and tried to lift it up.

However, this thing was much heavier than expected, and I couldn’t lift it with one hand.

Yue Feng knew he had hit the leopard the moment he fired the shot, but what he was concerned about was not this, but the flashlight he was holding, scanning the leopard’s tail.

The leopard’s tail, which was originally of considerable length, was now shorter.

Now that the identity of the leopard has been confirmed, the leopard that was moving around Uncle Zhao’s cellar and threatening the old man’s daily life has been completely eliminated.

Ten thousand words have been completed. During the National Day period, I will update as much as possible as long as I have the conditions. Only after the 7th can I guarantee to completely resume the previous updating rhythm.

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(End of this chapter)