Snow came pattering down.
He had stalked into position, the distance was just right, and the target was a rare find.
But the moment he pulled the trigger, his heart tightened, and his hand shook after all.
Theoretical knowledge and memories were no match for hands-on experience in the end.
When the crucial moment came, the slight tremor in his fingertip caused a fatal error.
The bullet had not struck the heart, or even hit a vital spot.
Judging by the way the deer had staggered, the bullet had struck its lower abdomen, close to a hind leg.
For a hunter, this was a disastrously fatal mistake.
He had no shortage of patience, but he had been defeated by nerves.
The six-dollar Hornady hunting round had produced a middling result.
Regret and anger surged through Su Wei, and he felt cold all over.
Just then, something fluffy pressed against his calf.
Su Wei looked down.
Cotton Candy was rubbing his little head against him again and again, letting out worried whimpers.
The little one's bright blue eyes were full of concern. He could clearly sense his master's anger and frustration.
His warm nose touched the back of Su Wei's cold hand.
That little bit of warmth brought some feeling back to his icy fingers.
The anger in his heart subsided.
Now was not the time for regret.
Su Wei let out a long breath, its white vapor clearly visible in the minus-twenty-degree air.
"It's okay."
He crouched down and rubbed Cotton Candy's fluffy head, as if comforting him and reminding himself at the same time.
In the wilderness, emotions were a luxury he could do without.
If he made a mistake, he had to make up for it.
He stood up, put the safety back on his Browning rifle, and slung it diagonally across his chest.
Then he strode to the spot where the black-tailed deer had been shot.
The snow was a mess.
Dark brown moss showed beneath a hollow scraped out by hooves.
Beside it, a large spray of blood stained the snow, a piercing red.
The blood was dark and had already begun to congeal in the cold. A wisp of steam was even rising from it.
His expression grew grave.
He had indeed hit the abdomen.
A wound like that would make the prey die slowly in tremendous pain.
Besides, he had not used some small bullet.
It had been a classic .30-06 Hornady hunting round!
Although his original bullets had been the same caliber, they had been light bullets weighing less than 150 grains.
The ones he was using now, however, were heavy bullets weighing more than 180 grains.
That was precisely why.
At such close range, one round was enough to pass through a black-tailed deer's body, leaving a permanent wound channel at least two to four centimeters in diameter.
So he could be certain the deer would not get far.
Once Su Wei had confirmed this, he finally relaxed completely.
In his moment of nervousness and confusion just now, he had focused only on missing a vital spot.
He had forgotten that the bullet he had used was not an ordinary small hunting round.
He carefully examined the pattern of the bloodstains and the tracks around them.
The depth and spacing of the tracks had become irregular, and the drag mark left by one hind leg was unmistakable.
It was badly wounded.
Su Wei calmed down, and his gaze grew determined.
He had to go after it.
It was not just for the soon-to-be-unlocked Hunting Module and the valuable deerskin and venison. He also needed to end the deer's suffering with his own hands.
He had caused the injury, so he should be the one to finish it.
A hunter's aim was to dispatch prey quickly while causing the least harm possible.
Not to toy with it and let it die in agony.
That was the competence and character a hunter ought to possess.
"Come on, Cotton Candy. Time to work."
Su Wei lowered his voice.
Cotton Candy immediately stopped sniffing around the bloodstains and stayed close at his feet.
This time, he showed no playfulness at all, his whole body entering an alert state, ready to assist with the hunt.
Su Wei set off, following the blood and the jumbled tracks deeper into the woods.
The tracking began.
The bloodstains in the snow were signposts.
At first, the bloodstains were dense, with a pool almost every meter or two. Tracking the deer was no trouble at all.
Su Wei could easily follow without even bending down.
But he did not let his guard down. His right hand remained on the rifle's fore-end, ready to deal with any unexpected situation.
A wounded beast was often more dangerous than a healthy one.
After he passed through a stand of birches, the ground began to slope gently upward.
The deer had fled blindly, forcing its way wherever the trees were thickest.
That made tracking it troublesome for Su Wei.
He had to keep pushing snow-laden branches aside, his heavy hiking boots crunching in the deep snow.
Time ticked by.
Fifteen minutes later, things began to change.
The bloodstains in the snow grew sparse. What had begun as pool after pool had become drop after drop.
The color was no longer so vivid, either.
Su Wei crouched down and picked up a small piece of bloodstained snow between his fingers.
The blood had coagulated, turning dark red.
This meant the deer's wound might have begun clotting in the cold, reducing the external bleeding.
That was not good news.
Without bloodstains, finding a deer deliberately hiding in such a vast snowy forest would be like looking for a needle in the sea.
Su Wei stood up, his brow slightly furrowed.
He did not panic. Instead, he studied the ground more closely.
He activated the Gathering Module. Its LV2 scanning ability gave him a clearer view of his surroundings within thirty meters, allowing him to avoid obstacles in advance.
Just then, Cotton Candy, who had been following at his feet, suddenly trotted a few steps ahead and stopped beneath a fir tree.
He sniffed hard at the ground, making a low, urging sound in his throat.
Su Wei immediately followed.
At the spot Cotton Candy indicated, he brushed aside a thin layer of snow and saw a clear series of hoofprints, complete with drag marks.
Beside the prints was a tiny, almost invisible spot of dark blood.
"Good job, Cotton Candy."
Su Wei patted Cotton Candy's back approvingly.
The little fox's nose was far more useful than the module at a time like this.
With Cotton Candy's help, the tracking went much faster.
The man and the fox worked quite well together: one observed the broad trail, while the other sniffed out the faint scents.