Li Long's hopes of keeping a lynx cub as a pet were dashed.
As he dropped his sack and took down his gun, the adult lynx seemed to know what he was thinking. In a flash, it vanished into the trees, with the cubs close behind. By the time Li Long chased after them with his gun, they were nowhere to be seen.
Still reluctant to give up, Li Long searched the woods for a while with his gun at the ready. Unfortunately, the grass was too deep to make out any paw prints, leaving him with no trail to follow.
Weren't these things a little too fast?
Li Long walked out of the woods in disappointment and returned to his sack. He put the safety on, slung the gun over his back, and continued picking mushrooms.
Hardly anyone came into this ravine. As Li Long gathered mushrooms, he could see layers of old ones that had dried out or rotted away. The moss was flourishing; presumably, the mushrooms deserved some of the credit.
Before he had even reached the end of the ravine, Li Long had filled a sack. In his previous life, he remembered hearing from fellow motorists while visiting the Ili River Valley that there was a ravine near the border that ordinary people could not enter. Those who could get in would drive there in July and August to gather these Black Tiger's Paw Mushrooms, which the locals called Velvet Antler Mushrooms, collecting several sacks at a time.
Li Long had not believed it then. Now he truly did.
In places that people rarely visited but that offered suitable growing conditions, these things really did grow fast and in abundance.
Of course, there were dangers too. If Li Long had been anywhere near those lynx cubs