Chapter 7: Buying Piglets
After dinner, when Wen Zhongshan went home, Ying Kongtu packed a sealed jar of pickled deer-ear chives for him to take back.
The pickled deer-ear chives only had a little sourness now. If he brought them home and kept them in the refrigerator, they would grow more sour the longer they sat, and every day would offer a different flavor.
Wen Zhongshan did not refuse. After thanking Ying Kongtu, he held the cat, carried the pickles, and went home.
Ying Kongtu saw the man and cat to the courtyard gate. Watching their backs as they left, he stretched lazily.
It was a late spring night, the weather warm and gentle, with stars filling the sky.
The solar-powered streetlamps on both sides of the road before him had lit up, like enormous fireflies.
There was not a single vehicle on the road, only the figures of one man and one cat slowly walking into the distance.
The scene before him had parts that felt familiar to Ying Kongtu, and parts that felt unfamiliar.
He liked such a scene.
He slept dreamlessly through the night.
The next day, after getting up, Ying Kongtu went into the courtyard to check the snow sprout greens.
The snow sprout greens had already wilted and could proceed to the next step.
Ying Kongtu brought the salted greens back in, steamed them briefly, then placed them under the sun to dry again.
He was used to drying and steaming salted greens three times before putting them into jars to pickle.
This method was locally called cooked salted greens. Compared with salted greens that were pickled as soon as they had wilted in the sun, salted greens made this way had a gentler, fresher, more fragrant flavor. They were not as salty, and after being pickled, they turned golden and carried a clean fragrance. The taste was very good.
Ying Kongtu had gotten up far too early. After drying the salted greens, it was not even seven yet.
He simply took out the masson pine seeds he had collected yesterday as well, first soaking them in a basin and selecting them once more.
After that, he changed to warm water and soaked the seeds in it.
Masson pine seeds had a dormant period. Soaking them in warm water for a day would help them sprout better.
It had not rained for several days. After finishing the household tasks, Ying Kongtu carried his back basket up the mountain to water the vegetables in the little garden.
The newly risen sun was tinged orange. When Ying Kongtu arrived at the little vegetable garden on the mountain, he could see clearly that several winter melon seedlings had been gnawed, half the eggplant seedlings had been trampled flat, and the other vegetable seedlings had also been ruined until they were half-dead.
These were vegetables he had carefully planted for days!
Ying Kongtu frowned and slowly inspected them.
The culprit that had damaged the seedlings was obviously wild boar.
Especially in the middle of the eggplant plot, where everything had been trampled down, it was clear that a wild boar had lain and rolled there.
The eggplant seedlings had been snapped from the roots and could not be saved at all.
Ying Kongtu inspected the vegetable garden once, counting the hoofprints to determine the situation of this wild boar herd.
There should be thirteen boars in this herd, two adults and eleven young ones.
No wonder the vegetable garden had been ravaged so badly.
The piglets had probably been born recently. All eleven of them, judging from the hoofprints, were still suckling piglets.
Although wild boars had always been highly fertile, having so many wild boars suddenly appear in the mountains still gave Ying Kongtu a headache.
Most importantly, there was absolutely more than one herd of wild boars in the mountains.
If every wild boar herd had more than a dozen boars, the number of wild boars in the mountains might break a hundred.
Ying Kongtu stared at the fresh hoofprints for a moment. Then he pulled the machete from his back basket and decided to first go into the woods to cut a bundle of bamboo, make a simple fence, and enclose the vegetable garden.
Fencing the vegetable garden was very time-consuming.
Ying Kongtu had originally planned to water the vegetables and then go inspect the mountain. Unexpectedly, he spent the entire day directly in the vegetable garden.
The next day, Ying Kongtu went to the county library to borrow books and bound volumes of periodicals.
He had just finished borrowing them and had not yet left the library when Xing Chang called him. “Kongtu, which day are you free recently? We need to do a scale assessment.”
The Abnormality Management Bureau had designed specialized assessment scales specifically for people with extraordinary abilities.
Newly joined ability users like Ying Kongtu needed to do one every three months, and each assessment took twenty to thirty minutes.
It was mainly used to survey the condition of ability users and better help the Abnormality Management Bureau manage them.
Ying Kongtu had already done the scale twice and was not opposed to it. “I’m at the library. I’m free today. If it’s convenient for you, we can meet at a nearby teahouse later.”
Xing Chang said, “I’ll come right over.”
A little over twenty minutes later, the two met in a private room at the teahouse.
Xing Chang looked at the bound journal in Ying Kongtu’s hand. “Key Points for Preventing and Controlling Wild Boar Damage? Why are you reading this?”
Ying Kongtu said, “To see how people nowadays manage wild boars. I remember it’s illegal for private individuals to hunt wild boars?”
“Yes. We have the Wildlife Protection Law now. Have wild boars come onto the mountain? Are there many?”
“Very many. I was just reading the journal. It said that in our area, wild boar density should not exceed two per square kilometer. On my mountain, the number of wild boars per square kilometer has already exceeded five.”
As a local, Xing Chang had actually often heard of wild boars coming down the mountain and ruining corn, sweet potatoes, and the like.
He leaned over to look at the journal. “It seems like you can apply for people to come catch the wild boars. I’ll go back and check how to handle it.”
“Thank you. I’ll look into it on my side too.”
Speaking of wild boars, Xing Chang became curious. “In ancient times, were there many wild boars around here? How were they dealt with?”
Ying Kongtu shook his head. “Far fewer than now. In the past, there were leopards, raccoon dogs, tigers, gray wolves, jackals, black bears… Now, you can’t see a single one. Only that day on Yehang Mountain did I see a golden cat from afar. With all the fierce beasts gone, the wild boars have become dominant.”
“A golden cat! There are still golden cats on Yehang Mountain! Can golden cats catch wild boars?”
“They can catch young boars.”
“Then what about adult boars? There don’t seem to be many beasts in the mountains that can beat an adult wild boar?”
“Fierce beasts could, and hunters at the foot of the mountain would also make a move,” Ying Kongtu said. “Sometimes I would make a move too.”
Xing Chang exclaimed in amazement, “You know how to hunt wild boars too?”
“I do. Generally, while the wild boar piglets are still small, I castrate them and release them back into the mountain. If they are eaten by other wild beasts while growing up, then so be it. If they are not eaten, once they grow to about the right size, I will treat them as prey, either to add to my own meals or to feed the creatures I raise.”
“That definitely won’t work now.” Xing Chang immediately said, “There are regulations now. I’ll go ask. We should be able to apply to the Forestry and Grassland Bureau to install protective facilities, monitoring and early warning facilities, and things like that. If that still doesn’t work, we’ll have to apply for the Forestry and Grassland Bureau to send a professional hunting team to handle it.”
Ying Kongtu nodded.
Xing Chang lowered his voice. “We now prohibit the consumption of wild animals. Even if wild boars are caught, they have to be disinfected with quicklime and buried. They can’t be eaten.”
“I know.”
Wild boars that had not been tended by a mountain god became very unpleasant to eat when grown, with tough skin and a gamey stench.
Ying Kongtu glanced at him. “I don’t eat random, messy, bad-tasting food.”
Ying Kongtu submitted the application to manage the wild boar problem. It would take at least seven working days for approval to come down.
As for waiting for officials to organize people to install protective facilities or send a hunting team, that would take even longer.
Ying Kongtu walked through the nearby mountains and discovered that the wild boar problem was indeed serious.
On the vegetable garden side, he had raised the fence, so it was temporarily fine.
But the masson pine seedlings had already sprouted. He needed to cultivate forests and manage the plants and trees in the mountains. If there were too many wild boars constantly coming to cause damage, it would indeed be troublesome.
After looking up information, Ying Kongtu ultimately decided to go to the market and buy a batch of domestic pigs to release onto the mountain to oppose the wild boars.
Domestic pigs had a certain sense of territory. Once they formed a herd, they were also very fierce and could drive away wild boars from their territory.
In addition, the diet of domestic pigs was far less complex than that of wild boars, and their destructive power was much lower. Releasing them onto the mountain would help reduce the number of wild boars on the mountains nearby, giving the plants, trees, and other wild animals in the forest more living space.
The county had a dedicated livestock market. Usually, it held a small market, while on the first and fifteenth of every month, it held a large market.
Ying Kongtu chose to go to the market on the fifteenth.
Changchuan County was a mountainous county, and the residents of the towns and villages under the county had always had the custom of raising pigs.
However, the peak period for buying piglets was from February to April. Now, it was already late May, somewhat late, so there were relatively few people selling piglets.
Ying Kongtu looked through the stalls one by one and discovered that the piglets in the market were all quite good.
Compared with several hundred years ago, these piglets were healthier, sturdier, and larger in build—clearly the result of modern breeding.
Ying Kongtu crouched in front of a bamboo-woven basket and reached out to gently touch the round little piglets.
Over these several hundred years, humans truly had done many remarkable things, in every aspect.
After walking around once, Ying Kongtu stopped in front of one stall.
The owner greeted him. “Buying piglets? How many do you want? This litter is the strongest this year. No matter which one you buy, you won’t lose out.”
Ying Kongtu bent down and touched the black-skinned piglets that were snuffling and grunting.
These piglets were indeed quite good. They had large frames, bright eyes, and sturdy bodies. They looked very healthy.
“How much for this one?”
“Twelve hundred.” The owner looked at Ying Kongtu’s expression. “Don’t just look at the price and think it’s expensive. This is a new breed cultivated by the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, crossed from a northeastern large pig and a local black pig. It can grow to five hundred jin!”
Ying Kongtu carefully examined the piglet in the bamboo basket. He felt that growing to five hundred jin would be a stretch, but growing to four hundred jin should be no problem.
He switched to another one. “What about this one?”
“This one is also twelve hundred. They’re from the same litter. All twelve hundred.”
“Other people are only selling theirs for six hundred. Boss, your price is doubled.”
“Other people’s piglets aren’t as sturdy as mine.” The owner lifted the piglet by the back of the neck, supporting its belly to show Ying Kongtu. “A big piglet almost thirty jin. Raw suckling pigs at the market sell for twenty or thirty yuan per jin.”
Ying Kongtu inspected them one by one. “Twenty or thirty and thirty or forty are very different, not to mention raw suckling pigs at the market don’t sell for that much either.”
“How much are you offering?”
“Seven hundred.”
“No, no, that won’t do. At least one thousand. Look how much better my piglets are than other people’s piglets. If they’re only a hundred more expensive, how would that make sense?”
“Seven hundred. I’ll take all seven.”
“Then I’d be losing money. How about we each take a step back, nine hundred?”
“If it’s nine hundred, I’ll go look at other stalls.”
Ying Kongtu haggled with the owner for a while and finally settled on a price of eight hundred per piglet, seven piglets in total.
After confirming them one by one, Ying Kongtu transferred the money to the owner and asked for a receipt.
Once the five thousand six hundred yuan was transferred, Ying Kongtu’s savings bottomed out again.
The account balance was so low that he wanted to sigh.
Seeing that the piglets had been sold smoothly, the owner happily loaded the piglets onto a three-wheeled vehicle together with Ying Kongtu.
When selling slightly larger live animals like this locally, the seller was responsible for delivery.
Riding his motorcycle, Ying Kongtu communicated with the owner. “Let’s take the road along the river and stop beside the mountain god temple in the county.”
The middle-aged owner took a while to remember where there was a mountain god temple. “The mountain god temple at the fork in the road, right?”
Ying Kongtu nodded. “Yes.”
The owner looked at him with surprise. “Young man, you still worship gods?”
Ying Kongtu felt rather helpless inwardly. If it had been more than three hundred years ago, when his divine power was still strong, he would not have needed to come to the mountain god temple to go through this process at all.
Now his divine power was weak, so he had no choice but to rely on the mountain god temple.
After all, the mountain god temple had received incense offerings for so many years and held a certain amount of divine power.
This batch of pigs was going to be free-ranged on the mountain and could easily get lost.
Bringing them here to “register their household” would make it convenient for him to find the pigs later.
At this moment, he could not say much, so he only said, “It’s what the older generation said. Worship a little, and things will go more smoothly later.”
The owner said, “That’s true. ‘If you respect the gods, the gods are there; if you don’t respect them, the gods won’t blame you.’ There’s no harm in worshiping.”
The owner parked the vehicle by the roadside.
Ying Kongtu carried the piglets down.
The piglets’ bristles were still soft, and their skin was smooth and slightly cool. Ying Kongtu did not find them unpleasant to hold.
It was just that the piglets were afraid of strangers. The moment Ying Kongtu picked one up, it struggled desperately and shrieked at the top of its lungs. “Aow-ji—”
Its voice was extremely loud and clear.
Everyone on the street looked over, looking at both the person and the pig. Quite a few people even stopped specially to watch the commotion.
Ying Kongtu used both hands to firmly control the piglet that wanted to jump out of his arms. With a stern face, he forcibly carried the little pig to the front of the mountain god temple, grabbed its hoof, and pressed a hoofprint onto the incense platform.
The small hoofprint remained in the soil, and as expected, he gained a little more perception in his heart.
Ying Kongtu let out a breath of relief.
As long as it worked.
When he came back, the owner was sitting in the driver’s seat, grinning widely.
The people gathered around to watch the scene were also looking at Ying Kongtu and laughing.
Perhaps because he was too good-looking, the sight of the little pig struggling with all its might in his arms looked especially amusing.
Ying Kongtu forcibly pretended not to see it. Pressing down the feeling of embarrassment, he switched to another little pig and continued taking it to press its hoofprint.
The mountain environment was complicated, and the piglets were fragile. Only after setting up some protection for them would Ying Kongtu feel at ease.
After all, this was a herd of piglets that had emptied out his savings.
