Chapter 488 405: A Beast Passes Through, the Black Tiger Roars

"Hey, Grandpa!" Suddenly, Zhu Jiang, leaning on his shovel with one hand, waved to Zhu Dashan with the other. "Come take a look!"

Zhu Dashan walked over to Zhu Jiang's side, where he saw Zhu Jiang pointing at Black Tiger. "Grandpa," Zhu Jiang asked, "look at that dog. Is one of its legs lame?"

"Well, I'll be! You're right!" Only then did Zhu Dashan notice that Black Tiger wasn't putting much weight on one leg and was walking with a limp.

Zhu Dashan walked quickly toward Black Tiger, but when the dog saw him approaching, it hurriedly trotted off in the opposite direction.

"Don't run! I'm not going to hit you," Zhu Dashan yelled at Black Tiger. But his shouting only made the dog run faster.

"This is bad!" Zhu Dashan turned back, shaking his head at Zhu Jiang. "He probably hurt it running around just now. Now we're in trouble. We borrowed this dog, and we got it injured. How are we going to explain this to his owner!"

The old man might have had a bad temper, and he might have been gruff, but he was a man of principle in both his conduct and his work. Moreover, he was trustworthy and a man of his word.

Seeing Black Tiger injured, he was at a loss and felt he had let Zhao Jun down.

"It doesn't look too serious." Zhu Jiang came to Zhu Dashan's side, reached out to take the shovel from Zhu Dajiang's hand, and said, "The dog's leg isn't bleeding, and it's not yelping. It should be fine."

Hearing Zhu Jiang say that, Zhu Dashan realized he was right. "That's right," he said with a laugh. "If it was in pain, wouldn't it be yelping? It's probably just a sprain. It'll get better after a while."

At this, the grandfather and grandson breathed a sigh of relief, their anger turning to smiles. They turned and saw that Wang Juan had already dried her tears and was squatting on the ground, picking up the dried potatoes.

The dried potatoes she had spent all morning laying out were now all covered in dirt, and many had been crushed.

As Wang Juan picked up the pieces of dried potato, it was as if she were picking up the shattered pieces of her own heart.

"Mom, stop picking them up," Zhu Jiang said, walking over to her. "We can't eat these anymore. Just feed them to the chickens."

Still fuming, Wang Juan lashed out, "Get away from me!"

"Juan," Zhu Dashan said, coming over to her. "Why don't you go inside and rest for a bit? Let Zhu Jiang clean this up."

If even her husband, Zhu Aiguo, had said that, Wang Juan would have snapped at him. But Zhu Dashan was her father-in-law, an elder, so she could only sigh, get up, and head into the house.

Seeing Wang Juan leave, Zhu Dashan shot Zhu Jiang a look, signaling for him to hurry up and clean.

But Zhu Jiang pointed at Black Tiger and asked, "Grandpa, what about the dog? Are we just going to let it run loose?"

"It's not like you could catch him even if we didn't," Zhu Dashan retorted before turning and heading back inside himself.

That evening, when Zhu Aiguo came home from his shift at the Forest Farm, the first thing he saw was Black Tiger lying in their yard.

"Oh, where'd this dog come from? Tsk tsk..." Zhu Aiguo clicked his tongue to get the dog's attention. Black Tiger lowered its body, wagging its head and tail as it ran toward him.

Zhu Aiguo affectionately rubbed Black Tiger's big head before walking into the house.

Inside, he saw dumplings boiling in a large, uncovered pot. "Making dumplings?" Zhu Aiguo asked Wang Juan with a smile.

"You have eyes, don't you?" Wang Juan snapped.

Zhu Aiguo flinched and hurried further into the house. Their family lived in a three-and-a-half-room house; Zhu Dashan and Zhu Jiang shared the east room, while he and his wife had the west room.

Zhu Aiguo went straight to the east room. Seeing Zhu Dashan and Zhu Jiang sitting quietly on the kang, he gestured toward the main room and whispered, "What's wrong with the boy's mother?"

"It's nothing." Zhu Dashan dodged the difficult question. "I borrowed the dog," he said to Zhu Aiguo. "Did you see it?"

"I did." A smile spread across Zhu Aiguo's face when his father mentioned Black Tiger. "I saw him. That dog looks really spirited."

"Yeah," Zhu Jiang chimed in from the side, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "Real spirited."

Zhu Dashan shot Zhu Jiang a glare. 'Borrowing Black Tiger was the worst decision of my life,' he thought. It had made the old man lose face at home.

But thinking about Black Tiger's vigor gave the old man new hope for the night's hunt. He said to Zhu Aiguo, "This is the dog we borrowed from Zhao Jun's family. That kid took down a whole bunch of Black Bears last winter, and it was all thanks to this dog."

Of course, Zhao Jun had never said any such thing. It was all just the old man's preconceived notions and wishful thinking.

"Is that right!" Zhu Aiguo replied casually, glancing out the window.

"Stop looking!" Zhu Dashan pulled on Zhu Aiguo's arm. "After dinner, go over to Chen Dalai's place and borrow his rifle."

For more than a decade, the local villages had held annual target practice, so all three generations—Zhu Dashan, Zhu Aiguo, and Zhu Jiang—knew how to shoot. However, they had only ever fired at stationary targets, never at live animals.

"Alright!" Zhu Aiguo agreed without a second thought. A few years back, during the militia's target practice, his aim had been quite good.

"One rifle won't be enough, will it?" Zhu Jiang chimed in. "Dad, see if anyone else has a rifle you can borrow."

"Good point," Zhu Dashan agreed. "My grandson's right. Two rifles would be safer."

Zhu Aiguo thought for a moment, then said to Zhu Dashan, "Hey, Dad, doesn't Zhao Jun's family have a rifle?"

"Let's not borrow from him," Zhu Dashan said. "I already borrowed his dog this morning. Going back to borrow his gun tonight... that wouldn't look good."

In truth, the old man didn't want to borrow from Zhao Jun's family because he believed Black Tiger had hurt its leg while he and his grandson were chasing it, and he was too embarrassed to face Zhao Jun.

Suddenly, Zhu Aiguo thought of someone. "I remember now!" he said with a grin. "Right at the start of spring, I went to Logging Camp 28 to fix their wiring, and I saw Zhang Yuanmin..."

Before Zhu Aiguo could finish, Zhu Jiang interrupted him. Looking at his father with curiosity, he asked, "Who's Zhang Yuanmin?"