The next morning, before dawn, Zhu Pingan woke up from his sleep. Last night, he dreamt that his mother made him a steaming bowl of chicken soup, and woke up to realise that he was in this wilderness where people were nowhere to be found, the difference was so great that it was lonely as hell.
Last night’s firewood had been extinguished, the north wind was howling, and the wind was echoing inside the shanty, causing Zhu Pingan to involuntarily shiver and hurriedly put on his clothes and get out of bed, packing up the bedding and other things.
The only companion of the killer black horse made a pile of manure in one night, and also looked at Zhu Pingan with an innocent killer horse face, Nima, looks like the Vietnamese superhuman heavenly group also cute!
The first thing early in the morning was changed from practicing calligraphy to shovelling sh*t daily, before boiling water to wash up and then practicing calligraphy for a while.
The sky was cloudy and grey, there was no sunrise, and it was not until after breakfast that the visibility became gradually higher.
Zhu Pingan was wearing a thick leather coat, with a leather hat, stepping on leather boots, sitting on the back of a killer black horse, holding a volume of books, reading while riding. Because there was only this one mountain road, and there was no fear of going the wrong way, so he let the killer black horse roam around, and Zhu Pingan occasionally raised his head to look at the direction, confirming that the direction was correct before continuing to read the book.
This place should be the southern violent remnants of the Dabie Mountains, with rolling hills, and after walking for a long time, I have not seen any homes.
After walking for about a mile or so, Zhu Ping An’s fingers suddenly felt cold while he was reading, and when he looked up, he saw small snow particles falling down.
Hurriedly, the small snowflakes became bigger, thicker and densely packed. Clusters and clusters of snow flew down, as if countless ripped cotton balls tumbled down from the sky.
In an instant, the mountain path was white with snow, and Zhu Pingan heard the creaking sound of the killer black horse as it walked on the mountain path.
So, Zhu Pingan put the book in his hand into the crossbody bag, holding the horse’s reins with both hands, letting the killer black horse slow down, rather slow down a little bit, a little bit more stable, but not to rush into an accident.
The snow fell more and more heavily. All around was pure white.
Zhu Pingan rode Killmonger Black Horse on the mountain path, watching the north wind blowing the snowflakes to make various trajectories, when following the mountain path turned a corner, Zhu Pingan saw a grey. The long-haired dog with dirty dog hair stood in the middle of the mountain path.
There was actually a dog here? It seemed to be an old dog as well.
A dog means there’s a family.
Zhu Pingan glanced at it and was suddenly a little happy that after walking in the wilderness for more than half a day, he was finally going to see someone.
But a good dog is not in the way, why is this old dog standing in the middle of the road. Still looking straight at the killer black horse and himself, this dog’s eyes are still quite bright haha, amber coloured.
Killer black horse saw the old dog in front of the road, stopped in his tracks, nailed horseshoes hooves can not stop hitting the snow, nostrils issued a humming sound.
What the hell ah, why not go this thing? Zhu Pingan pulled the reins of the horse, but the killer black horse also came to temper, how also refused to go forward, that pair of killer horse face also grunted staring at the front of the old dog.
Zhu Pingan is ready to get off the horse to see why the black horse won’t go. When he was about to dismount, Zhu Pingan glanced at the old dog in front of him.
Well, this old dog is old, but the dog’s eyes are quite bright, grey, green back, yellow belly, also dragged a tail, fluffy.
Wait a minute.
Dragging a tail?
Zhu Pingan stopped his movement and carefully looked at the old dog in front of him again, then. While it was a cold winter season with snow drifting, Zhu Pingan’s forehead was sweating.
That old dog was standing calmly in front of him, his tail still moving, his amber eyes staring straight at himself and Killmonger Dark Horse.
“Howl.”
The old dog’s heart idly tuned its breath. Pulling his throat and pulling a long, inflected bark, as unpleasant as it could be, oozing with panic.
This Nima that is an old dog ah, is clearly an old wolf.
What should I do if I meet a wolf?
In the past, Zhu Pingan once asked a classmate in Inner Mongolia this question, and the classmate said this:
When you encounter a wolf alone, don’t turn your head to run away. Humans can never match the speed of wolves. The right thing to do is to stay put, meet the wolf’s gaze head on, stare at it, don’t move away, and hold on for as long as you can.
Is that enough?
That student sniffed and grinned: well, this would be a more dignified death.
Although that classmate was joking mostly, but there was still a little desirable point, that is, don’t turn around and run, you can’t ride a horse by yourself, and you can’t outrun the speed of a wolf.
There is another reason not to spread your legs and run when meeting a wolf, and that is because there is a chance that the wolf may think that it is the prey that is trying to escape, or that it is going to launch an attack, and it is going to fight back. When confronting a wolf, it is best to retreat slowly, especially to places where there are more people retreating, generally wolves are afraid of crowds, without full certainty, it will not rashly launch an attack on people.
Of course at this time is not possible, this is the wild mountains, only one person, there is nowhere to retreat.
However, although Zhu Pingan was in a cold sweat, he did not panic. While calmly encountering the wolf and staring at it, he pondered on a way to deal with it.
Wolves were afraid of fire, so they could be repelled with fire.
Zhu Pingan thought of this method, he had a fire refractor with him, and a set of fire scythes and flints in his baggage, so he should be able to drive the wolf away by lighting an old piece of clothing with a fire refractor, if nothing goes wrong.
Because of Zhu Pingan’s calm stare, as well as the sound of the killer black horse underneath him striking the ground with its hooves, the old wolf on the opposite side was slightly apprehensive and did not attack at first.
This old wolf was originally the head wolf of a wolf pack in the deep mountains, because of old age and physical decline, he was defeated by a young wolf half a year ago, and turned from the head wolf into an old wolf that was expelled from the pack, and has been wandering for half a year now, because of his old age his hunting ability is not as good as it was before, and starving for a meal, he somehow wandered to the outskirts of the mountain, and has already been starving for a few days now. Now it was snowing heavily, and experience told it that hunting would be even harder for a long time to come.
So despite its concerns, hunger forced the old wolf to remain undeterred, its amber-coloured eyes searching for the right time to attack.
Zhu Pingan, while locking eyes with the old wolf, slowly reached out to where the concealed buckle on the saddle, fumbled open the rope cover with one hand, and slowly fastened the dagger that his elder brother Zhu Pingchuan had given to him for self-defence into his sleeve, and with the dagger in his hand, Zhu Pingan was even more calm.
With a dagger for defence, he can also start the matter of lighting a fire to drive away the old wolves.
In order to buy time, Zhu Pingan firstly put his mother Chen’s jerky, which was originally placed on his waist as a snack, and threw a few slices towards the old wolf.
When Zhu Pingan threw it, the old wolf’s whole body crouched down, raised its back hair, pulled its lips and ears to the sides, exposed its incisors, and arched its back and growled a few times.
When the jerky was thrown over, the old wolf arched its back and took a few steps back to avoid the jerky, its tail retracted.
When he saw the jerky thrown by Zhu Pingan, the old wolf sniffed his nose vigilantly, his amber coloured wolf eyes staring at Zhu Pingan while creeping and taking a piece of jerky into his mouth, chewing it for a while before swallowing it in one gulp.
Then, the old wolf ate the piece of jerky while staring at Zhu Pingan.
Sure enough, he was a white-eyed wolf, eating and still staring at himself closely, with no intention of giving up hunting at all, Zhu Pingan buckled his dagger and held the fire folders, looking at the old wolf and bellyaching
