TSWPF -Chapter 83 Afraid

When Li Qingling spoke, Liu Zhimou replied once, then he and the three boys led by Liu Zhiyan went to clean up.

When they saw the bear, riddled with arrows like a beehive, they all gasped. It was brutal.

But the bear had deserved it.

If it hadn’t died, they would have.

“Big brother, what… what do we do?” someone stammered. The pit was so deep and the bear so huge — how could they get it out?

Liu Zhimou steadied himself before he said, “Bury it.” The bear was too big; there was no way to haul it out of the trap. Burying it on the spot was the only option.

There was so much blood and the smell was strong — if they didn’t bury it quickly, it would surely attract other wild beasts.

If other beasts came, they truly wouldn’t be able to deal with them.

Seeing Liu Zhimou’s grave expression, Liu Zhiyan and the others murmured agreement and started to move to bury the bear.

But when Li Qingfeng saw the arrows sticking out of the bear, he couldn’t help but speak up, “Brother Zhimou—shouldn’t we take the arrows? Those are sister’s only arrows.” If they didn’t retrieve the arrows, another encounter with wild animals could leave them helpless.

Liu Zhimou paused, looking at the arrows in the bear’s body. He frowned, then told the three youngsters to stop.

“I’ll go down and pull the arrows out.” Living in these deep mountains, having arrows on hand made them a lot safer.

If something sudden happened later, Li Qingling could at least fight back with a bow and arrow instead of having no defense at all.

Thinking that, Liu Zhimou became even more determined to go down and pull the arrows free.

“Big brother, are you really going down?” Liu Zhiyan’s eyes were full of worry. Though the bear was already dead, its enormous body still terrified them.

Liu Zhimou said yes and told Liu Zhiyan to fetch a rope from the cave.

He wanted to tie himself with a rope before going down — otherwise, if he climbed down empty-handed he wouldn’t be able to get back up.

Liu Zhiyan could only obediently run back to the cave for a rope. Li Qingling saw him and asked what the rope was for.

He explained with a worried face that Liu Zhimou planned to descend into the pit to retrieve the arrows from the bear’s body.

At that, Li Qingling frowned and sighed, asking Liu Zhirou to look after her little sister, then she stood up and walked out.

Liu Zhiyan followed behind her.

As soon as she came down, Liu Zhimou asked why she’d come — wasn’t she supposed to stay with her sister?

“I had Rourou look after her,” Li Qingling explained, then looked at the bear in the pit. Her arrows had done this — the bear’s blood had dyed the trap red.

With such a strong smell of blood, if they lollygagged any longer it really might draw other sharp-nosed beasts.

She decisively had the rope tied around her waist and told Liu Zhimou to anchor the other end to a nearby tree.

When Liu Zhimou saw her posture, he knew she intended to go down and tried to stop her. “I’ll go down. This is a small job — you don’t need to do it. Get some rest.”

She had already worked very hard killing that bear; he shouldn’t let her worry about this too.

He shot Liu Zhiyan a glare — who had told Li Qingling in the first place? Knowing she was so tired, he’d still gone and disturbed her. He deserved a scolding.

Liu Zhiyan bowed his head, feeling guilty — he’d told her hoping she’d persuade their big brother, but instead she came out and prepared to go down herself. He felt ashamed.

“I’ll do it — this is nothing. You go rest.” Liu Zhimou reached out to untie Li Qingling’s rope, but she dodged him.

She smiled and said she was light and nimble, easy to climb down.

With that she hugged herself and slowly descended along the edge of the pit.

If not for all the arrows on the bear’s body she could have just jumped down; but there were so many arrows, and she was afraid a quick jump would hurt herself. She had no choice but to go down slowly.

Liu Zhimou glanced at Liu Zhiyan and said, “Fifty strokes.” Then he paid him no more attention, eyes fixed on Li Qingling as she carefully pulled arrows from the bear.

Liu Zhiyan didn’t dare object — he nodded miserably. If he had known Li Qingling would go down herself to pull the arrows, he wouldn’t have been so foolish as to tell her.

Now he was paying the price.

Li Qingling worked carefully below, afraid that if she pulled too quickly the blood would splash onto her. To be safe, she moved deliberately slowly.

If she had more arrows of her own she wouldn’t have to go through this. Unfortunately she didn’t — she’d been stingy about having arrows made because they were a bit expensive, so she had only gotten twenty arrows made.

Each time they hunted and an arrow was shot, she had to pull it back out of the prey and reuse it.

Once Li Qingling had taken all the arrows out of the bear, she looked at the mangled body and looked up at Liu Zhimou, signaling him to fetch a knife.

In the past this bear would have fetched a good price, but now they could only cut off the bear paws and bury the rest.

Liu Zhimou ran back to the cave for a knife and tossed it down into the pit. He knew Li Qingling wanted to take the bear paws: a valuable and nutritious item.

Li Qingling, with the knife, quickly chopped off all four bear paws, inevitably getting bear blood on herself.

She didn’t care — holding the paws, she had Liu Zhimou and the others pull her up.

Once out of the pit she urgently ordered everyone to fill the trap in right away. The smell of blood was growing heavier and she was extremely uneasy.

She ran back to the cave, stored the bear paws properly, then hurried back out and joined the team shoveling dirt.

Seeing Li Qingling’s anxiousness, Liu Zhimou and the others also felt the urgency. Under that pressure they shoveled with all their might and before long the pit was filled.

Li Qingling tamped the soil down thicker, worried that wild beasts might smell the blood and dig up the bear.

Only after doing all this did her tense body relax a little.

She wiped the cold sweat from her brow and told Liu Zhimou and the others to return to the cave. They couldn’t linger here any longer, just in case.

Her alert expression kept everyone on edge; they packed up and ran back to the cave.

As soon as Li Qingling got back she took off the blood-stained clothes and soaked them in a bucket to be cleaned.

After hanging them to dry she collapsed onto the bed.

She was truly exhausted and fell asleep quickly.

Seeing how tired she was, Liu Zhimou felt sorry for her. He told the children to be quiet so as not to wake her.

The children nodded obediently and moved carefully, trying not to make a sound.

But Li Qingling’s sleep didn’t last long before Ah Huang roared, the sound jolting her awake.

She leapt up alertly. “Don’t make a sound.” She whispered sternly, then crept to the cave entrance to peek out.

She looked carefully and saw a spotted leopard standing there, staring at Ah Huang.

Damn it — the bear’s blood had indeed attracted other beasts, Li Qingling cursed in her mind, eyes fixed on the scene below.

At that moment Liu Zhimou handed her her bow and arrows and watched the situation below without daring to breathe too loudly.

From the bear to now a leopard — his heart was beating out of his chest.

Ah Huang roared again at the leopard and the big cat seemed about to pounce when Ah Bai, who had come out of nowhere, arrived.

Standing beside Ah Huang, Ah Bai made the leopard realize it couldn’t take on two tiger-sized tigers. It turned and ran away, moving so fast it vanished in an instant and Ah Bai chased after it.

Ah Huang roared two more times, but the leopard didn’t pursue; instead it clambered up toward the cave entrance a bit and then, seeing Li Qingling, excitedly rubbed against her.

Li Qingling rubbed its head and thanked it gratefully. If not for Ah Huang, that leopard wouldn’t have left so easily. If the leopard had tried to come into the cave she wasn’t sure she could have shot it down.

Ah Huang made a pleased sound under her hand, clearly enjoying it.

“Do you think Ah Bai chasing after it will be okay?” Li Qingling asked anxiously, though she hadn’t known Ah Bai long, it was Ah Huang’s chosen companion and she worried for it.

Ah Huang snorted once and stayed cuddled against her, not much concerned. It had decided to stay and guard the place, in case some inconsiderate creature came to bother them.

Seeing Ah Huang so unconcerned, Li Qingling let it be and rubbed its head again with a smile. “You worked hard today. I’ll cook something nice for you later.” Without Ah Huang and Ah Bai, taking down that bear would have been much harder.

For these two big contributors she wanted to cook personally as a reward.

Hearing food mentioned, Ah Huang’s eyes gleamed with delight. It nosed Li Qingling, urging her to go cook now — it had run so much and was hungry, and missed her cooking.

“Greedy tiger — I’ll make it for you. Sit here and wait.” Li Qingling laughed; she suspected Ah Huang might have been born to love snacks — at the word “food” its eyes lit up.

Ah Bai came back too and, influenced by Ah Huang, also became picky: if it was cooked meat, they wouldn’t touch it raw.

These two gluttonous tigers often ran off to hunt wild chickens and rabbits and brought them back for her to cook.

With them around she didn’t worry about running out of meat.

She was glad she’d decided to come to Song Mountain — otherwise they couldn’t have eaten a decent meal. Still, she worried about the day Song Mountain might completely run out of water; when that happened, it would be a real disaster.