With the sorghum and corn from the fields stored away, Huo Feng rested at home for half a day before heading straight up the mountain.

Selling tree frogs before the New Year was a major source of income. After the New Year, his wife would give birth and go into confinement, and expenses would only increase, so he had to earn as much as he could while he still could.

“Only you two have such a keen sense of smell—did you sniff out that there’s food inside?”

No sooner had Huo Feng stepped inside and set down his basket than Dager and Huang Yae swarmed around him, sniffing here and there. Dager even stood up and lunged at Huo Feng, sticking out his big tongue to lick him.

Huo Feng dodged left and right, managing to avoid Dager’s drool, then bent down to pull things out of the basket.

A large block of firm tofu, a stack of dried tofu, a bundle of dried bean curd sticks, a big handful of sweet potato noodles, five pounds of pork shanks, two pounds of pork belly with skin, a pair of pig’s trotters, fifteen eggs, six salted duck eggs…

And finally, a dozen or so ears of this year’s fresh corn, still with their husks and leaves, picked from the field just a couple of days ago.

“We’re heading back down in a few days—why bring up so much stuff?”

Huo Ling helped carry the load from the side, but eventually his arms couldn’t hold it all, so he had to call Yan Qi over to help make two trips to the kitchen.

“It’s not like we’re heading down tomorrow. We’ll eat the fresh stuff over the next couple of days, and the rest will keep just fine.” He emptied the basket, flipped it over, and tapped it a couple of times to shake out the debris, then set it upside down in a corner of the courtyard.

Seeing Yan Qi putting corn into a basket, he walked over, picked up an ear, stripped off the husks, and showed it to the two of them. “This year’s corn is growing better than last year’s. Last year we didn’t apply enough fertilizer, but we made up for it this year—there aren’t any ears with bald tips or missing kernels.”

Huo Ling still remembered last year’s corn harvest—about twenty percent of it had been stunted. Either the tops were bare, or the kernels were scattered in a ring around the edges like an old woman’s teeth, missing here and there. Eating one was like not eating at all; even if you picked every kernel off the cob, they wouldn’t cover the bottom of a bowl.

Because of this, Huo Feng specifically sought advice from the village’s seasoned farmers. This year, he’s been on high alert since sowing the seeds, terrified of growing crops that look as if they’d been gnawed on by a bear.

Now that he’d succeeded, he felt quite pleased with himself and picked up a few to take to the kitchen to boil.

“I’ve been climbing the mountain all morning, and I’m hungry too. Let’s boil a few and share them.”

After the man left, Huo Ling squatted down to help Yan Qi tidy up and said, “Big Brother just finished harvesting the grain and went straight up the mountain. I bet Big Sister feels bad that he didn’t get a proper rest. I’d guess half of these things were packed for him by Big Sister.”

“Then we’ll have a few good meals these next few days.”

Cooking in the mountains meant they often lacked ingredients, but now that Huo Feng had brought so much, Yan Qi was itching to get cooking.

In recent days, the two of them had been working dawn to dusk, setting up fishing nets, subsisting on either cornbread or pancakes; it had been a long time since they’d had a proper meal.

That evening, he made braised tofu in soy sauce—so tender that it was served in a broth, requiring a spoon to mix with rice. He stewed all five pounds of pork ribs, adding corn cobs to the broth, which gave the soup a fresh, sweet flavor from the young corn.

He saved the bone broth for noodles tomorrow morning. Huo Ling picked out the meaty bones and gave one each to Dager and Huang Yae. The bones left over from everyone else’s meals were also placed in the dog food bowl.

The two dogs ate until their muzzles were glistening with grease, gnawing the bones clean. Afterward, they secretly carried them off and buried them. Dogs have a habit of hoarding bones; though these two at home never go hungry, they occasionally remember them while playing and dig them up to gnaw on.

With Huo Feng joining in, the pace of catching tree frogs picked up considerably.

Every day, new tree frogs would come down from the mountains. In the dead of night, the croaking never ceased, and there was always a fresh catch at the net’s entrance. As the weather grew colder, the number of tree frogs coming down increased, and the harvest grew better day by day.

“There are a lot of females today—we’re in luck!”

Huo Feng caught three female frogs in a row and tossed them all into the basket on his back. Yan Qi did the math: they’d been out for half a day, had passed twenty net sites, and now had nearly a hundred frogs in the basket.

Thinking back to their first time checking the traps, they’d worked all day and only caught fifty. It was clear that mountain frog hunting was a trade closely tied to the seasons; when the season was right, everything went twice as well with half the effort.

However, as the number of tree frogs increased, so did the complications. During a meal break, Dager and Huang Yae chased and cornered a wild rabbit, accidentally knocking over the basket.

Amid the cries of alarm, Huo Ling quickly stretched out his leg to block it, preventing the basket from falling completely to the ground. But because the stone holding down the lid had fallen off, some of the forest frogs that had just hopped up took the opportunity to escape—about a dozen of them.

So the three of them abandoned their meal and began chasing frogs all over the ground. In the end, they caught five, but many more got away.

Dager and Huang Yae were scolded; they hung their heads in shame, no longer chasing the hare or coming forward to ask for food.

But you have to admit they were clever—they understood the principle of “redeeming themselves through good deeds.” As evening fell, they left the last net opening and headed back. On the way, Dager and Haung Yae ran off to a spot far from the others, and no amount of calling could bring them back.

Knowing Dager as he did, Huo Ling realized that after the lesson he’d learned that day, he’d never dare cause trouble again before nightfall—he’d most likely gone off to hunt. As for Huang Yae, he was Dager’s loyal sidekick; whatever Dager did, he followed suit.

So he pulled the slingshot from his waist, told Huo Feng and Yan Qi to stay put, and set off after them to investigate.

When he reached the spot where the dog had been, Huo Ling saw that it was a dirt slope; the area hidden by the shrubs likely concealed a burrow.

Small animals that burrow usually sleep during the day and come out to forage in the evening and at night. It would be dark in another hour; if they’d gone into the hole now, it was most likely because they were being chased by the dogs.

Huo Ling patted the two dogs on the head, then picked up a twig to part the weeds blocking the entrance. Judging by its size, it wasn’t a rabbit burrow—it was likely a badger’s den.

Once a badger retreats into its burrow, it’s difficult to catch it again, as the tunnels inside are a labyrinth. The only way to force it out is by smoking it out. Huo Ling took out the flint he carried with him, struck a spark, and lit the twig in his hand. Once the smoke began to rise, he fanned out the open flame.

White smoke drifted into the burrow. The small animal hiding inside, unable to tolerate the acrid smell, panicked and scrambled toward the exit—only to be pounced upon by the two dogs.

As the smoke cleared, Huo Ling looked down and was surprised to find that the creature lying on the ground, barely clinging to life, was not a badger, but a raccoon dog—and a rather large male at that.

“So it was just a raccoon dog that had taken over someone else’s den.”

Mountain folk say that raccoon dogs are cunning; though they live in burrows too, they don’t dig their own, but instead take over badger burrows of similar size.

There are also rumors that when spring arrives after hibernation, the raccoon dog sleeping at the entrance to the badger’s den will turn on its benefactor, suffocating the badger inside or biting its cubs to death.

But as far as Huo Ling was concerned, wild beasts were not human and had no regard for propriety; to survive, they would naturally do anything. If we’re talking about cunning, humans are the most cunning of all, capable of devising a thousand and one ways to capture wild beasts, skin them, and eat their flesh.

He poked the half-dead raccoon dog with a twig, then grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and hoisted it up. The wild animals in autumn were all plump and fat, having put on weight for hibernation; it felt heavy in his hands.

Carrying the raccoon dog all the way back, he couldn’t help but praise the two dogs a few times, which spurred them on again, and they spent the entire journey chasing rabbits and catching mice.

The three of them simply followed behind, picking up whatever they found along the way. By the time they got home, in addition to the raccoon they’d caught first, they already had one wild rabbit and six wood mice.

Huang Yae even tried to provoke a hedgehog, but after getting pricked on the nose, he gave up in frustration.

Huo Ling also spotted a passing weasel; Dager wanted to chase it, but Huo Ling shouted him down on the spot—this was the “Yellow Immortal,” and one shouldn’t provoke it lightly. Aside from feeding the field mice to the dogs, the raccoon dog’s meat wasn’t very tasty; only its fur was useful, which could be made into a warm winter collar for Yan Qi. Raccoon dog fur is longer and denser than rabbit fur, offering better wind protection and keeping one warmer.

So when Huo Ling returned home, he slit the raccoon dog’s throat to bleed it out, stripped off the pelt to tan later when he had time, and roasted the meat over the fire to share with Dager and Huang Yae.

Whenever the game was brought home, these two dogs would refuse to eat raw meat; they knew that cooked meat tasted better. There was an advantage to them not eating raw meat: the metallic taste of blood in their mouths wasn’t as strong, and the smell was less pungent.

There had been a time when the dogs’ breath was so foul that Yan Qi couldn’t stand it; he even mixed some saltwater, wrapped a cloth around his finger, and used it to wipe their teeth.

Only he and Huo Ling could do this; anyone else would have been in trouble. If the dogs got angry and snapped their jaws shut, the teeth capable of snapping a prey’s neck clean off would surely bite off a human finger as well.

The skinning site was a bloody mess. After finishing, Huo Ling shoveled dirt to cover the blood on the ground; otherwise, the smell would linger and attract flies and insects.

There were still a few flies buzzing about in the mountains now, but their days were numbered. In a fortnight at most, once the weather turned colder, they’d all freeze to death.

“Second Brother, how should we cook the rabbit meat?”

While Huo Ling was butchering the raccoon dog, Huo Feng was butchering the rabbit, and he’d also saved the rabbit skin. Huo Ling told him to take it down the mountain to gather a few more pieces to make a new coat for Huo Ying. Children grow fast; last year’s coat was already too small, so it would likely have to be taken apart to make boots.

After skinning the rabbits, there wasn’t much meat left once the bones were removed. Huo Ling thought for a moment and said, “Let’s make a clear soup. Add some radish, and we’ve got some lion’s mane mushrooms at home—throw in a couple of those too.”

Huo Feng looked puzzled. “Where did you hear of such a way to cook it? It’s so bland.” 

“We should eat something light once in a while. It’s been dry lately in the autumn, and eating rabbit helps clear internal heat.”

However, such a light dish really didn’t suit Huo Feng’s taste; the small pieces of rabbit meat required careful chewing, and Huo Ling only ate two or three pieces in a hurry.

Yan Qi, however, enjoyed it very much, especially the radishes in the soup, which had been stewed until soft and tender. Seeing that Huo Feng and Huo Ling were eating so little, he drank a lot of the soup himself to avoid waste—so much so that he had to get up in the middle of the night to use the outhouse.

When he returned, his hands and feet were cold. As Huo Ling slept fitfully, Yan Qi brushed against him, and Huo Ling instinctively pulled him into his embrace. Yan Qi, however, afraid of disturbing his sleep, quickly curled his legs up behind him.

Every day, dozens of female frogs were strung up to dry. After seven or eight days, the courtyard looked as if it had gained a curtain woven from tree frogs.

Even though Yan Qi insisted he wasn’t afraid, once there were enough of them, he began to understand why his sister-in-law had said they sent a chill down one’s spine.

There were simply too many male frogs in the nets in the stream by the gate; their constant croaking from morning till night was enough to drive anyone mad. The night before they headed down the mountain, Huo Ling brought back a basinful, added eight more female frogs he’d caught that day—which hadn’t been killed yet—and said he’d stew them with potatoes.

“Stewed tree frogs with potatoes—it’s a famous local specialty. At this time of year, whenever there’s a banquet, this dish is a must on the table. Without it, the feast just isn’t complete.”

Huo Feng stood eagerly by the stove, raising his hand to feel the rising steam. This water was to be used to blanch the tree frogs shortly; it couldn’t be boiling hot; it’s better to use water that’s slightly cooled.

He glanced at Huo Ling and smiled, “Let the second do it; he’s the one with the knack for this dish.”

“My sister-in-law hates this stuff and won’t let it in our home kitchen, so every year we cook it up in the mountains. I prepare it, he eats it, and once he’s had his fill, we head back down the mountain. That’s how I honed my skills.”

Once the water had cooled, Huo Ling calmly poured the tree frogs into the pot, then quickly slammed the lid on. When the sounds inside the pot had ceased, he scooped them out and rinsed them thoroughly with clean water. By then, the slimy coating on the outside had been washed away, and they were ready to be cooked.