When a human reached out to grab its neck, the unusually tall white goose tilted its head and dodged to the side, avoiding the grasping hand.
Realizing what the man intended to do, it beat its wings furiously, stirring up a gale, and let out two angry, piercing honks.
The flock of geese, which had been honking wildly just moments before, suddenly fell silent without warning.
"What's wrong?"
Section Chief Lin, who had been about to reach out and catch a goose, sensed something was amiss.
"Section Chief Lin, get out of there! That's the Qin Family's lead goose!"
The Village Chief recognized the lead goose from every household.
Animals that gathered in flocks usually had a leader, like the head duck or head sheep. As long as you got control of the one in front, you could easily guide the whole group, even if it numbered in the thousands.
The larger flocks raised by several households had naturally developed lead geese. For the farmers, having a flock with a sense of leadership wasn't a bad thing; it actually made them easier to manage. The geese that went to the marsh in the western valley were mostly from those households with lead geese. After all, flocks without a leader were much harder to herd.
"What? Holy shit, it's Stalin!"
Only then did Lin Xinhua notice the two bells hanging from the goose's webbed foot, jingling away.
To humans, domestic white geese all looked nearly identical, as if they'd come from the same mold, with only their size setting them apart. Section Chief Lin had been focused on picking out the biggest geese and hadn't noticed the bells mixed in with the honking. He'd actually reached out with his wicked claws toward this tyrant.
At last, he remembered the goose's name: