Chapter 504 - 410: A Pack of Dogs Crossing the River

The other dogs only barked a few times before falling silent.

Wang Dalong walked into Zhao Jun’s yard, his eyes fixed on Cyan Dragon as he went. That little dog had a very dominant personality; every time he visited, Cyan Dragon would lunge at him. Previously, when Zhao Jun wasn’t home, Wang Meilan’s words were useless, and she could only stand between him and Cyan Dragon. But today, with Zhao Jun home, a single shout was enough to make Cyan Dragon quietly eat its food.

"Brother Long!"

"Brother Dalong."

After Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu greeted Wang Dalong, Zhao Jun asked, "You haven’t eaten breakfast yet, have you? Perfect, the food’s almost ready. Have a bite here."

"No need!" Wang Dalong declined. "Your sister-in-law is making it at home. It’s almost done too."

Hearing this, Zhao Jun asked, "Then, Brother Long, did you come for... something specific?"

"Yup." Wang Dalong rested a hand on the wall and asked Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu casually, "I heard, Xiaojun, that you’re going to hunt that Black Bear that killed those people."

"Ah!" Zhao Jun responded, then feigned ignorance. "Brother Long, how’d you hear about that?"

"Heard it from Ruhai." Wang Dalong answered with a smile, then turned his head to scan the hunting dogs in Zhao Jun’s yard. Looking back at Zhao Jun, he asked, "Xiaojun, are you confident?"

"Of course!" Zhao Jun pointed to his own yard, then gestured to the yard next door. "Baoyu and I are taking nine dogs. The Village Chief even said he’d give us semi-automatic rifles. With all that, what couldn’t we take down?"

When Wang Dalong heard this, his eyes lit up. "In that case, Xiaojun, let me go with you."

"Huh? Brother Long, you want to go too?"

"Yeah!" Wang Dalong said quickly. "Haven’t I been telling you all these days while we were building the house? That when autumn came, you’d help me train my dogs."

Last winter, Wang Dalong’s four dogs were brutally killed by a Lynx. After that, Wang Dalong laid low for a while.

But when Zhao Guofeng made a killing selling wild boar meat, many hunters in the village grew envious, and Wang Dalong was one of them.

So, he went to Lingnan and bought four more hunting dogs.

These four dogs were a bit better than Big Fatty and the others from before. They weren’t shirkers, but they lacked experience and needed a good lead dog to show them the ropes in a few hunts.

And the best lead dog in Yong’an Village right now was undoubtedly Little Bear from Zhao Jun’s family. The brown bear, black bear, and wild boar he helped take down in the spring made the villagers extremely envious.

That was why, when Zhao Jun’s family was building their house, Wang Dalong came to help every day without asking for a single cent. And whenever he saw Zhao Jun, he would chat about hunting, and the conversation would inevitably turn to training his dogs.

They were relatives, and the man was helping out every single day. Zhao Jun couldn’t exactly say no, so he could only agree.

But today, when Wang Dalong brought up training the dogs again, Zhao Jun looked troubled. "Training the dogs is one thing, Brother Long, but that Black Bear is vicious. I’m afraid your dogs might get hurt again."

"That’s no problem!" Wang Dalong said with a nonchalant air. "When you go hunting, dogs get hurt. That’s just how it is. Forget getting hurt—even if the dogs die, I won’t blame you."

"Alright then!" Hearing Wang Dalong’s words, Zhao Jun agreed. "In that case, I’ll head to the Village Office in a bit and get a semi-automatic for you too."

"Great!" Wang Dalong agreed with a smile. "I’ll go home and eat first. After I’m done, I’ll bring my dogs over."

"Whoa, that won’t work." Hearing this, Zhao Jun quickly stopped him. "We can’t do it like that. If we do, won’t the two packs of dogs start fighting?"

"Huh?" Wang Dalong was taken aback and quickly asked, "Then what should we do?"

Zhao Jun told him, "We’ll split up. We’ll each take a pack of dogs up the mountain. You take your dogs and head into the mountains first, go slowly. Baoyu and I will follow behind with these nine dogs. Once we catch up, the two packs will naturally merge."

What Zhao Jun described was the method for merging dog packs. It was how he and Lin Xiangshun had combined their two packs that day.

Wang Dalong thought it sounded reliable and went home to eat.

By then, Li Baoyu had finished feeding the four dogs in his yard, and he headed out with Zhao Jun to the Village Office to get the guns.

On the way, Li Baoyu said to Zhao Jun, "Brother, you’re really something else, you know?"

"What’s that?"

Li Baoyu chuckled. "Brother Dalong is so crafty, but you can still handle him however you want."

"Him..." Zhao Jun started to say something about Wang Dalong, but then he saw Zhang Yuanmin walking toward them up ahead.

"Brother!" Zhang Yuanmin called out to Zhao Jun from a distance, then came jogging over.

Seeing that he was struggling to run, Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu hurried to meet him.

"Big Brother, what are you doing out so early in the morning?"

Hearing Zhao Jun’s question, Zhang Yuanmin smiled. "I was just looking for you two."

"Looking for us?" Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu exchanged a glance, then asked Zhang Yuanmin, "Big Brother, is something wrong?"

"Yeah." Zhang Yuanmin nodded. "I heard you’re going to hunt that Black Bear... the one that killed Elder Jiang and Tao Dasheng."

Facing Zhang Yuanmin, Zhao Jun didn’t bother asking how he knew. He just replied, "Yup, Baoyu and I are on our way to the Village Office to get the semi-automatics now."

Hearing this, Zhang Yuanmin asked, "The Village Chief is giving out semi-automatics?"

"Yup."

After getting Zhao Jun’s affirmative reply, Zhang Yuanmin said to him, "Then get one for me, too."

"Huh?" Zhao Jun was stunned and quickly asked, "Big Brother, what do you need a semi-automatic for?"

"Brother, what kind of question is that? What else would I need a gun for?" Zhang Yuanmin chuckled. "I’m going with you!"

"You want to go with me?" Hearing this, Zhao Jun couldn’t help but laugh. Then he asked, "Big Brother, don’t your legs start shaking whenever you even hear the words ’Black Bear’?"

Zhang Yuanmin blinked, pursed his lips, and said with a frown, "I’m worried you’ll be in danger. I’ll go with you. If something happens, I can still help you figure things out."