Chapter Twenty-Two: The Fat Man’s Plan

This year, fortune favored us. On the very first day, the well-trained hunting dogs cornered a group of wild boars in a mountain hollow some thirty li from the Wildman Hamlet—three large adults leading a drove of piglets. The dogs were clever, giving up the chase for the fleet-footed adults and instead targeting the young ones. The adult boars, desperate to protect their offspring, doubled back and fell straight into the hunters’ encirclement.

The hunters’ hierarchy was strictly enforced. Old Miao, who led them, had the authority to choose which boar to shoot. The mountain folk here adhered rigidly to the ancestral code: pregnant sows were never to be hunted, only the large ones were to be taken, never the young, and the herd must never be wiped out to extinction. So Old Miao picked out two, one male and one female, neither of which was the nursing sow with piglets hanging from her belly; she was spared for she had to feed her young.

Their forebears taught that the beasts of the mountains were nature’s gifts: it was enough to take what sufficed, never to be greedy, and only through restraint would the species continue to thrive.

The best marksmen were chosen. Two shots rang out, and both boars fell instantly, bullets striking true to the heart. There was an art to hunting wild boar—it was pointless to shoot the head or the torso. The skull was so tough that not even a rifle could guarantee penetration, let alone a homemade musket. Over the years, the boars had rubbed themselves on pine trunks, their hides coated with a thick resin, as if armored. If a wounded boar didn’t die, it would turn and charge, its tusks curved like daggers; even a glancing blow could break ribs if not kill outright. The only weak spot was just behind the left foreleg, where the flesh was soft and a bullet could reach the heart directly. Only the most skilled and experienced hunters could guarantee a clean kill.

I could see Stone Fatty itching to join the shooting, but before he could volunteer, the three of us were assigned our task: to haul the two boars back to the village for the butcher. Though we were reluctant, we didn’t come away empty-handed. One piglet, terrified by the gunshots, stood frozen, trembling and refusing to flee. Old Miao said it wouldn’t survive in the wild and told us to take it back and raise it; if we managed to keep it alive, it would be our extra reward.

The two boars together weighed nearly four hundred jin. The three of us, along with two other young men, were put in charge of