Li Long rode his bicycle to Mountain Pass, then turned onto the narrow, winding trail toward the area where he had set his snares.
When he was still several hundred meters away, Li Long heard shrill squeals—a Little Wild Boar!
It looked like he had caught one!
Excited, Li Long pedaled faster. Near the top of the hill, he tossed the bicycle aside and rushed downhill with his gun and a burlap sack.
Then he saw more than a dozen adult wild boars and twenty or thirty Little Wild Boars gathered in that area. Some of the boars paid little attention to the Little Wild Boars' piercing cries and continued rooting up grass roots to eat. Right now, eating mattered most to them.
The Little Wild Boars' mothers stood around them, grunting constantly. Some even tried to root through the wire.
Leading them was a large boar weighing around two hundred kilograms, with a short stretch of tusk showing. It seemed to sense something wrong. First it grunted, then it began calling loudly. It stopped sitting there, rose to its feet, turned, and charged uphill!
Li Long was puzzled. He was still some distance away, and he was crosswind from them. They shouldn't have been able to spot him, should they?
Then he saw someone cry out:
"Wild boars!"
Li Long was so angry he wanted to curse-but he had no time for that now. He dropped into a half crouch, raised his gun, and fired at a half-grown boar charging uphill.
Li Long had some experience now. If a boar ran sideways along a Mountain Ridge, he needed to aim half a body length ahead. If it charged uphill like this, he needed to aim higher. That split-second judgment was crucial.
Crack, crack, crack, crack! The Small-Bore rang out