Chapter 95 - 90: Shooting the Halberd at the Camp Gate

As it turned out, the Lei Family Gou Hunting Team had discovered a gigantic wild boar. The beast weighed at least a thousand pounds, perhaps even over 1,200. In short, it was incredibly powerful and majestic, exuding an intense, oppressive aura.

This massive boar was leading its sounder on a migration in search of food. A typical sounder might have one boar, two or three sows, and seven or eight piglets. This massive boar, however, was different.

A single male, he had somehow managed to claim eight sows. That many wives was enough to make anyone jealous.

The adult boars alone numbered nine, and there were over twenty young pigs of various sizes. It was a veritable porcine army, a truly thriving family of boars.

The Lei Family Gou Hunting Team was, of course, overjoyed at the sight of such a prize. ’If we capture this sounder,’ they thought, ’holy shit... Forget just showing up Li Xiang’s team from Li Family Village, we could make the news! We might even get famous all over the province. Imagine it—TV stations, newspapers, the internet... Damn, that would be so awesome. And most importantly, the payout would be huge.’

That thousand-pound boar alone would be worth a fortune. Its massive stomach by itself would probably have people lining up to buy it at a high price.

A boar this big must have eaten all sorts of tough, spiny things. The stomach would be full of valuable nodules—the more it has, the more it’s worth.

And if we got really lucky and found a pig bezoar... Rumor on the internet is that those can be worth ten thousand yuan a gram. We’d be set for life.

Of course, finding a bezoar wasn’t a sure thing, and neither was finding a buyer. Still, with a boar this big, how could you not let your imagination run wild?

So, they meticulously laid several traps. To be on the safe side, they also set up a perimeter of Hunting Nets around the traps. Then, they worked together to drive the huge sounder into the encirclement.

By now, a dozen or so boars had fallen into the traps. The massive alpha boar hadn’t been caught in a pit, but it was inside the perimeter formed by the Hunting Nets. The entrance had been closed behind it, leaving it trapped like a fish in a barrel.

All they had to do was stay outside the Hunting Nets, shoot arrows, throw bamboo spears, and cautiously and slowly tighten the nets. They could wear the boars down until they were exhausted.

Once the big boar’s energy was spent, everyone could rush in at once to subdue it.

It was a sound strategy. The only downside was that it would take time.

But not long after they had the sounder surrounded, that group of city folk showed up. They insisted that *they* had discovered the boars and had been chasing them for miles. What did the Lei Family Gou Hunting Team think they were doing, trying to cut in and steal their prize?

Each side had their own story, and both were convinced they were in the right. So, they ended up in a standoff outside the enclosure.

Li Xiang looked around but couldn’t see any boars.

Lei Jiaming pointed to a nearby hill. "The enclosure is in the valley on the other side. You’ll see it once you cross this slope. We were afraid of startling the boars, so we kept our people back."

Jiang Jianguo said, "You can’t let everyone stand around arguing while the boars get away." ’That would be a joke,’ he thought. ’It would be just like that old story about the two brothers. They argued so much about how to cook the goose they hadn’t even shot yet that it flew away, leaving them with nothing.’

Lei Jiaming shook his head. "Our enclosure is solid, and we left two men behind to keep watch."

The leader of the city group added, "We sent people to watch it, too!"

They weren’t about to let someone sneak in and steal the prize while they were all arguing over here.

"What do you mean, ’watch’?! You have no right to watch anything! We’re the ones who drove those boars into the enclosure! We set up the Hunting Nets, and we dug the traps! You’re just here to steal the fruits of our labor!"

"Ha! That’s hilarious! If we hadn’t chased them for miles, wearing them out and making them run blindly in a panic, do you really think they would have run so easily into your little enclosure?"

"They’re in our enclosure now, so they’re ours!"

"We spotted them yesterday and have been tracking them ever since. We’re not about to let you just waltz in and steal them!"

The two sides started arguing again, many of them gripping their weapons, itching for a fight.

Lei Family Gou had always had a strong martial tradition, with a legacy of Martial Arts passed down through the generations. Lei Jiaming’s own ancestor had won the title of Martial Champion Scholar during the Man Qing Period and was appointed a Third-Grade Assistant General. The family’s ancestral home had once been opulent, with two great stone lions at the gate, hitching posts for horses, a plaque announcing the "Martial Champion Scholar," and a massive garden out back. Though the family had fallen on harder times, their attitude had always been: if you have a problem, let’s fight.

The problem was, the other side was better equipped and had more people. The villagers didn’t stand a chance.

But the team from the city had their own reservations. This was a society ruled by law. The only reason they could openly carry bows and arrows into the wilderness was thanks to the official "Nationwide Boar Hunt." If things escalated and someone was charged with assault, it wouldn’t be easy to handle, even if some of them came from influential families with powerful connections.

It might have been different in the past, but with the internet so pervasive now, one random video posted online and the whole thing would blow up. There’d be no covering it up.

"Captain, are we really going to do this?" the woman from the city team asked. She glanced at Li Xiang and Lei Jiaming. "Those two are tough. And since we can’t aim for vital spots, I’m not sure we can win."

Li Xiang had earned his "tough guy" reputation from his live streams, but in person, he was actually quite refined. He was tall enough, but his build was relatively slender. He had a scholarly air about him, and his skin was smooth and fair. If you hadn’t seen his videos and were just judging by his appearance, he wasn’t very intimidating.

Lei Jiaming, on the other hand, was tall and powerfully built, broad-shouldered with a frame that could rival Yao Ming’s. He stood like an iron tower and looked even more formidable than Li Xiang!

The city team’s captain was also a little intimidated. ’If we didn’t have so many constraints,’ he thought, ’we could just unleash a volley of arrows and turn them into pincushions. But now things are tricky. We can’t scare them off, but we don’t dare to actually fight them.’

"Captain, are we doing this or not?" someone beside him urged.

The captain just shook his head.

The man next to him grew anxious. "Are we just going to hand it over to these hicks? We’ll be a total laughingstock! We’ll never live it down back home!"

The captain’s eyes scanned the area and spotted a tall persimmon tree on a distant hillside. An idea suddenly struck him. "You’ve all heard the story about shooting the halberd at the camp gate, right?"

"Of course. Who hasn’t?"

"Captain, you’re going to..."

Everyone around him got excited. ’Damn,’ they thought, ’with the captain’s archery skills, he’ll scare these hicks stiff.’ They all watched in anticipation. Even "Li Xiang’s female fan" had sparkling eyes, her gaze shimmering with a captivating light. Her crush was about to steal the show again.

So, the captain pointed to the distant persimmon tree and shouted to Lei Jiaming and Li Xiang’s group, "How about this! See that persimmon tree over there? And the red persimmon at the very top? If I can shoot the stem and make it fall with a single arrow, you all back off and leave quietly!"

Whoa! His words stunned everyone.

The persimmon tree was at least seventy or eighty meters away. And he wasn’t aiming for the fruit itself, but for the tiny stem connecting it to the branch. How could anyone possibly hit a target that small?

Lei Jiaming seethed quietly. ’Damn it, he’s just showing off because he knows I don’t have a good bow.’ His homemade bow couldn’t shoot that far. Even if the arrow reached, it wouldn’t be nearly accurate enough.

Besides, his specialty was hand-to-hand combat; archery wasn’t his strong suit at all. ’Even if the guy lent me his bow,’ he thought, ’I mean, I could maybe try to hit the persimmon... but the stem? Are you fucking crazy?!’

Someone from Lei Family Gou wasn’t having it. "Stop boasting. Let’s see you do it first."

The city captain just snorted and haughtily drew his bow. SWOOSH! He was clearly a practiced archer. The arrow flew like a meteor. The red persimmon, a good seventy or eighty meters away at the very top of the tree, instantly fell.

After slicing through the stem, the arrow’s momentum carried it another ten-plus meters before it finally dropped into the woods on the mountainside.

Damn! The men from Lei Family Gou gasped. Jiang Jianguo and Li Yucheng stared at each other in stunned silence. Archery like that was a rare sight indeed. But what could you say? The guy was rich. That kind of skill was bought with time and money. How could a regular person afford to practice all day long with something that didn’t earn them a living?

The city folk burst into cheers. Even their imported Hunting Dogs got excited and started barking wildly, their presence overwhelming. In contrast, the spirit of the Chinese Rural Dogs from Lei Family Village and Li Family Village seemed to deflate. Their barks quieted, and they couldn’t help but shrink back.

"So? What do you say?" the city captain yelled.

Seeing the men from Lei Family Gou fall silent, the captain sneered. He drew his bow again. SWOOSH, SWOOSH, SWOOSH! He fired five arrows in quick succession. Each one was powerful and precise, slamming into a tree trunk ten meters away. The arrowheads buried themselves completely in the wood, the tails left quivering with intense Vibration.

The THWACK THWACK THWACK of the arrows sinking into the wood was unnerving.

"Jiaming, are we really going to let them have it?" a villager from Lei Family Gou asked.

"I can’t accept this," another villager said, his voice full of anguish. "We worked so hard setting the traps and herding them in."

Lei Jiaming sighed. ’Forget it,’ he thought. ’If a real fight breaks out, we’ll be the ones getting hurt. You can’t bet on them not daring to shoot. Haven’t there been plenty of news stories about people getting killed over less?’

’Once a fight starts and people see red, the situation can get out of control fast.’

Seeing that Lei Jiaming had conceded, the captain turned his gaze to Li Xiang. "Pretty boy, what do you say?" he sneered. The main reason for his attitude was the woman on his team. She was constantly talking about Li Xiang, going on and on all day about how tough and handsome he was. The captain was sick of hearing the name.

’Now that I finally see him in person... Jeez, what is this?’ the captain thought. ’He’s got such delicate, fair skin, almost rosy. He looks like a girl. And *this* is supposed to be stealing my girl?’

In reality, Li Xiang didn’t even know the guy, so how could he be stealing his girl? It was simply that the woman was a fan who paid special attention to Li Xiang, and the captain was getting jealous over nothing.

Li Xiang hadn’t planned on getting involved. Since no major fight had broken out and both sides had settled things in a relatively civilized way with their little archery contest, he was fine with letting them have the boars. But this guy was strutting around like he owned the place, so arrogant his nose was in the air, and on top of that, he’d called him a "pretty boy"? There was no way he could let that slide.

He gave a cold laugh. "Shooting a stationary persimmon? What kind of skill is that? Tell you what. You stand thirty meters away and shoot at me. I guarantee I’ll have you on the ground in under three seconds."

The entire crowd erupted in shock.

Forget the city folk—even Lei Jiaming stared at Li Xiang in utter disbelief. ’Isn’t he exaggerating just a little?’ he thought. ’Thirty meters? Three seconds? How could he possibly take him down? He’d be a living target!’

The female fan from the city, however, had eyes that sparkled brightly. She glanced at Li Xiang several times, growing more and more excited.

Holy hell, the captain couldn’t take it anymore. The guy was practically spitting in his face, and the woman on his team looked like she was about to fly over and plant a kiss on him. How could he possibly stand for that?

He wasn’t exactly known for his patience.