Chapter 105: The Furious Squirrel

  Thanks for the reward from Lonely and Slow Run!

  "Look quickly, it's a squirrel!" Ye Xiaoshuang pointed at a pine tree not far away.

  A squirrel sat on the branch of a pine tree, its big tail raised and slightly swaying from side to side. It was holding a pine cone in its arms and nibbling at it fiercely, with pinecone scales falling down all over, while also gazing curiously at Chu Jiaqiang and others, looking very cute.

  Squirrels' teeth are also very powerful, and the nuts in the mountains can be crushed with a single bite. Or it can be said that the teeth of all rodents are particularly developed, and the idiom "sharp teeth and sharp mouth" refers to this type of animal.

  Chu Jiaxiong this silly big fellow immediately picked up a small stone and was about to shoot.

  Li Lao Tou glared at him fiercely and scolded: "You're shooting too, Squirrel? How much meat can you get? Are you trying to accumulate some good karma?"

  Li Lao Tou didn't have a high awareness of animal protection, at least not for squirrels, which were too numerous in the mountains. It was because he saw Ye Xiao Shuang seemed to like this fluffy little thing that he stopped Chu Jia Xiong's behavior.

  "You're so cruel! You won't even spare a cute squirrel." Ye Xiaoshuang accused.

  Chu Jiaxiong saw that everyone was looking at him, and his face turned red. Some of them forced a smile and argued: "Who said I wanted to shoot the squirrel? I shot the big pine tower next to it, and brought it back for those kids to play with."

  After finishing speaking, the already stretched bow was released, and a large pinecone on top of the squirrel's head was shot down. That pinecone was indeed somewhat abnormally large, and it's possible that the squirrel came for that pinecone.

  The squirrel was frightened and jumped to a higher place, throwing an acorn at Chu Jiaxiong. Chu Jiaxiong walked over to pick up the acorn, not noticing the squirrel above, and suddenly got hit. An acorn landed on his head. Although it didn't hurt much, he felt very embarrassed.

  "Bastard!" Chu Jiaxiong was furious and picked up a pinecone from his feet and threw it upwards.

  Then, the struggle between the squirrel and the man began. Chu Jiaxiong's eyes were very accurate and his strength was great, but he still suffered a loss. The squirrel on the tree was very agile and easily dodged Chu Jiaxiong's attacks. On the contrary, Chu Jiaxiong frequently fell into the trap.

  Others burst out laughing, and the squirrel became bolder, even counterattacking. Chu Jiaqiang was somewhat speechless, his own brother actually getting worked up over a squirrel, it's really embarrassing. His own brother is good in every way, but has a rather single-minded way of thinking, in this aspect he's a bit like Ye Xiaoshuang.

  "Alright, Ah Xiong come back! The squirrel is up there, you're at a disadvantage." Chu Jiaqiang shouted.

  Chu's family was indignantly staring at the hateful squirrel above, still unwilling to give up, and picked up another pinecone to throw up.

  The squirrel, seeing that Chu Jiaxiong had no way to catch it, seemed very pleased and let out a happy chirp, jumping around frantically on the tree. But as soon as it relaxed, disaster struck, and it was immediately hit by Chu Jiaxiong, falling from the pine tree.

  "Ah! You're so cruel!" Ye Xiaoshuang exclaimed, then scolded Chu Jiaxiong. This girl was a bit biased, earlier when Chu Jiaxiong was constantly being hit, she didn't show any sympathy.

  The big-tailed squirrel fell to the ground, rolled over, and quickly climbed up a tree again, making a chirping sound, seemingly very angry, then disappeared into the forest after several falls.

  Squirrels generally have two kinds of calls, when they are angry or furious, it's a "gugu" sound.

  The Chu family is not even a little bit aware of their wrongdoing, and not killing that squirrel is already an act of mercy.

  "It's getting late, let's keep going! Once we get past this mountain, we can take a break and have something to eat," said Fifth Uncle.

  After walking for a while, I suddenly came across a snake with a wrist-thick body lying under the tree. The back was yellowish-brown in color, with irregular black horizontal stripes on the rear part of its body that became net-like towards the tail; the front segment of its abdomen was reddish-brown and the rear segment was light yellow. Upon discovering movement, it immediately woke up and wanted to escape at once.

  Apart from the lion, several dogs immediately surrounded it and encircled the snake. The snake immediately felt a great crisis and wanted to slip away, but there was no way out.

  Liu Yang's big dogs were about to pounce on the black snake, but Li Lao's two ghostly dogs immediately let out a low growl, warning them not to come any closer, as if waiting for their master to make his move.

  Ye Xiaoshuang's face turned pale and he immediately retreated to the back, even Chu Jiaqiang stopped in his tracks. But Li Lao Tou's face lit up with joy, this snake wasn't cheap after all. Miao Huo and others seemed to recognize this snake as well, knowing its flavor was good, they also showed a hint of delight.

  This snake is called the "black meat snake" in Chujiacun, and its real scientific name is the "rat snake". It often appears on slopes, fields, ditches, and near residential areas. It moves quickly, is active day and night, and preys on toads, frogs, lizards, snakes, mice, etc., with a particular preference for mice. When it discovers a mouse, it quickly chases after it, and if the mouse escapes into a hole, the snake follows it in and catches it inside. If the hole is too small for the snake's body, it waits at the entrance of the hole, and when the mouse reappears, it seizes it with lightning speed.

  This snake is also non-venomous and very afraid of humans, it will run away when seeing people.

  Old Man Li stepped forward, stretched out his hand and pinched the head of the black snake. The body of the black snake immediately wrapped around Old Man Li's arm. This familiar move showed that this guy was quite skilled at catching snakes.

  "Haha! Good luck, the taste of black snake is also good. Unfortunately, we don't have a pot, this snake should be stewed to eat well." said Old Man Li.

  At this time, Ye Xiaoshuang's face turned even paler. She felt a chill at the sight of snakes, let alone eating them. She asked in alarm: "Are we going to eat snakes?"

  At this time, Ye Qijun suddenly remembered that her sister was afraid of snakes. Old Man Li frowned, sighed, turned the snake's body over, and then threw it down the mountain, letting the snake go. Although Miao Huo and others felt a pity, they didn't say anything. Chu Jiaqiang, Ye Xiaoshuang, and Professor Wen let out a sigh of relief.

  Chu Jiaqiang and Ye Xiaoshuang were simply afraid of snakes, while Professor Wen's disciples were haunted by their own professional thoughts.

  "The slider snake is also a protected animal, at the national level it's classified as near threatened." said Xu Hao.

  "Really? I often see it in some restaurants, it seems to be a signature dish, and the advertisements are all out." Miao Huo said.

  "That's artificial breeding, not wild. If it were wild, they would have closed down long ago." Xu Hao shook his head.

  Chu Jiaqiang also knew that the black snake meat was not only delicious, but also a kind of traditional Chinese medicine, which had the effects of dispelling wind and dampness, relaxing muscles and activating collaterals. It was used for rheumatic joint pain and hemiplegia after stroke. However, he didn't dare to eat it either. Maybe if he ate it unknowingly, there wouldn't be a big problem, but knowing that it was snake meat, he would absolutely not eat it.

  "Never mind, it's just a snake. We can catch mountain chickens, rabbits, or fish in the stream, and maybe even wild boars, there are plenty of things to eat." Chu Jiaqiang said.

  Mr. Liu nodded, since he knew that this thing was also a protected animal, it didn't matter if he didn't eat it! Anyway, he wasn't picky about food, and other game was fine too.

  Just as everyone was about to leave, they suddenly heard a rustling sound approaching. This sound was still familiar to everyone, and they all looked in the direction of the sound, only to see twenty or thirty squirrels jumping on the pine trees in the forest, rushing towards them, their cheeks puffed up with anger.

  "What do they want to do?" Ye Xiaoshuang was somewhat surprised.

  "It's possible that the squirrel from just now went back to inform on us and is now leading a group here for revenge!" Chu Jiaqiang guessed.

  As expected, the squirrel from just now was inside, pointing at Chu Jiaxiong and chattering to the many squirrels, as if telling everyone that Chu Jiaxiong was the culprit. The angry squirrels immediately plucked the pine cones from the tree and pelted Chu Jiaxiong with them like hailstones. Chu Jiaxiong covered his head and scurried away, cursing loudly.

  Not to mention Miao Huo and others, even Li Lao Tou and Wu Shu Gong have seen such a scene for the first time. That squirrel is too clever, isn't it? It seems that it's not much worse than several animals in the Chu family.

  Chu Jiaqiang saw that this was not a solution, so he immediately blew a whistle and summoned the snow sculptures in the sky to come down and prepare to drive away these squirrels.

  A loud, shrill cry suddenly came from above, and the squirrels that were having a great time immediately froze, their eyes filled with an unprecedented look of terror. They then scattered with a loud noise, quickly disappearing into the forest, leaving only the original squirrel behind.

  This squirrel, although also afraid of the big snow owl in the sky, did not show as much distress as the other squirrels. Instead, it jumped onto a broad-leaved tree and hid itself among the dense leaves, peeking out with its head to steal a glance at the snow owl in the sky. Seeing that the snow owl had not come down, it patted its chest with its paw and let out a sigh of relief.

  Except for Ye Xiaoshuang and Chu Jiaxiong, everyone else felt a bit defeated. This squirrel was too cunning. Ye Xiaoshuang liked this cute squirrel very much and took out her phone to take pictures.

  Chu Jiaxiong pointed at the squirrel above and said to Chu Jiaqiang, "Big brother, hurry up and let Xueying catch that guy."

  He spoke with great resentment, apparently the previous incident had thoroughly irritated him. If not for considering Chu Jiaqiang's thoughts, he would have picked up his slingshot and attacked, unable to tolerate the little squirrel's arrogance.

  "Never mind, just scare it away and it'll be fine. Besides, in such a dense forest, it's not easy to catch the snow sculpture either." Chu Jiaqiang comforted his unlucky brother.

  ;