Chapter 17 17. Catastrophe

I sat on the hillside next to the hut, looking at the sunset.It was on this hillside that I used to call Green home every day.At that time, I always stood here and hummed the melody with a "woo", and Green would come back and sing with me no matter how far away.The past is over, facing the mountain wind, I can't help humming this tune again... The wolf song is swaying in the wilderness... Huh?A small white dot appeared at the foot of the mountain, and it became clearer and clearer that it was Green!I yelled and howled even louder.Green came galloping, as if he had never been far away!

Happiness came too suddenly, am I not dreaming?I slapped myself... I woke up as expected, and then I slapped myself silently.pain! "Are you okay?" Yifeng's voice. I opened my eyes, and Yifeng was sitting by the stove drinking tea with Gongga.Gongga pursed his lips, snorting with a strong nasal voice, his teeth were dazzlingly white.I sat up in shock: "When did you come?" "Before you sang. You sang well! Why did you put it on?" They finally burst out laughing. "There are mosquitoes." I straightened my messy hair in embarrassment, and pushed open the glass window, "What time is it?"

"One thirty in the afternoon. Come and have some dry food, you have slept for two hours." It turned out to be a daydream. The sunshine in June was so strong that it hurt my eyes. I blocked the light with my hands and raised my head to squint. The sky was white, just like my mind when I woke up from a dream. There was nothing there. I wanted to laugh or cry... The humming part of this song was once turned into a wolf tune by me to communicate with Green, because every wolf family has its own unique melody, as long as you hear this tune, you know it is your family.It's been over two years and I still remember the song, Green, will he forget?

There was Tibetan tea burning in the teapot on the stove, and I poured a bowl of it and drank it: "I don't know what's going on with the monitoring installed yesterday. Have any poachers been there?" We must be sure about the monitoring of Langshan, usually four days Go into the mountain once left and right, the wolf is not at ease if you go too often, and we are not at ease if you go less. "While you were sleeping, I sent the aerial camera to scout around, and there was no one in the mountain." Yifeng flipped the oil cakes baked on the iron stove. "Don't worry, the weather is going to change today, and poachers won't enter the mountains. My dad is just worried about you two, so he asked me to come over and have a look." Gongga threw a piece of milk cake to me, "Grandma just made it this morning, try it." A little sweet."

I caught the milk cake smartly, and finally regained a little bit of the face I lost just now. The milk cake has a lot of calories, especially suitable for plateaus.I have eaten a lot of Tibetan milk cakes, most of which are too sweet and greasy, and have a strong yak smell, just like the candy heart of moon cakes.But the milk cake made by Renzeng Wangmo is different. She added a lot of wild sesame seeds, nuts, and highland barley fried rice. It is fragrant and slightly sweet, with a bit of bitter coffee flavor.She will be carved with exquisite Tibetan patterns, which looks more like a cultural relic, yes, like Han bricks.I asked her what she added to bring out such a wonderful taste, but she didn't tell me. At first I thought it was a secret recipe, but later I found out that she didn't know the names of those ingredients in Chinese.

"Thank you, Mom, for me. I'll make steak for you later." The yak meat in the grassland is the greenest and original, and with my craftsmanship, Zeren's family loves this. Gong Ga happily said: "Okay, when we come back from the Fa conference, we will kill the cow and eat the steak." Yifeng interjected: "The Fa conference will start tomorrow, and we promised to send them to Tangke. Lu Wang will stay in the hut to look after the house. You have to prepare food for Lu Wang for a few days." I hesitated and nodded, looked at the Wolf Mountain outside the window, hesitated to speak.

Black clouds rolled in from the other side of the mountain, and a ray of skylight struggled to penetrate the thick clouds, projecting on the pasture like a searchlight in a storm.Soon, even this ray of light was swallowed up.The strong wind scraped and rolled several solar panels leaning against the ground in the courtyard, and there was a sound of clanging and cracking.The three shouted "Oops" and rushed out of the house to rescue them, but the strong wind swept into the doors and windows.As soon as we took back the solar panels, we were hit by a hard object falling from the sky and fled with our heads in our arms, hail!Lu Wang was knocked so loudly that he screamed and followed us into the house.The hailstones were not particularly big, but they were very dense. In a few minutes, the original green grassland was bombarded and turned pale!Gongga's horse tied outside the house was suffocated by the hailstones, so the horse turned around and tried to face the hailstone with its back.

"Whose dog is this? I'm about to hold my breath." Gong Ga pointed out the window, and the three of them moved closer to the window. A big black dog with its tail between its legs and its head down looked everywhere for shelter from the air raids.The black dog's eyes were blinded by the hailstones, snorting loudly and circling around the off-road vehicle. I guess he wanted to hide under the vehicle, but his body was too big to get in. "This is a stray dog," Yifeng said, "she often comes to our place. When we first came to the grassland to feed the wolves, she came to eat every time. Later, when we stopped feeding, she shared the stove. Wang's dog food."

The black dog continued to circle the house looking for a place to leeward, and walked around the window from the window with its head down.The hailstone hit the dog's head bang bang, she endured it silently.Looking at this stray dog, I seemed to see Green alone in the wilderness.Green is also fighting against extreme weather in this way. Does he have a place to hide at this moment? I love wolves and dogs, so I sympathized and said, "Open the door and let her come in and hide?" "Don't, wild dogs can't figure out their temperament. If they don't please you, it won't pay you to bite you." Gongga saw a lot of prairie dogs, and if he was bitten by such a strong dog twice, he might have to lie down for several months.

"No, we've known her for so long, she's kind of friendly." I opened the door. Gongga knocked on the glass, smacked his lips and called the dog through the window.Unexpectedly, the black dog glanced at us from the window and walked away.The black dog walked to the distant hillside, lay down with its back against the wind, its two paws were like human hands holding its head tightly, covering its eyes and nose, waiting for the natural disaster to pass. Gongga raised his eyebrows: "Look, she doesn't appreciate it. Hailstorms are a common occurrence in the prairie. The animals are used to seeing them, and they have to carry them by themselves in any weather. Prairie dogs can't get in without thunder. "

I was stunned and looked at Luwang under my feet. Tashi once said that real prairie dogs would never enter the house, and now Gongga said the same. Did we raise Luwang as a pet?Can he adapt to the grassland in the future? Tang Ke's Fa Conference was the largest religious gathering we have ever attended. Tens of thousands of tents built a new city on the grassland overnight.Nearly a million people from all over the country gathered in front of the living Buddha's main tent to listen to the Buddha's voice.Many of them kneeled down.The believers wore heavy Tibetan clothes and bowed devoutly under the scorching sun. No one complained about the heat, no one ate snacks or drank water quietly, and no one took off their stuffy coats. "Only religion has this kind of power." Yifeng sighed, "Such a spectacular scene, if it is captured by aerial photography, it must be quite shocking." I nodded and smiled. In order to respect Tibetan beliefs, we did not bring any camera equipment. Some images are more profound and lasting in my heart than recorded in the camera.The fragrance of grass sprouted melodiously, the sound of sutras was loud, and the prayer wheels in people's hands creaked and squeaked. The sound carried faith and went round and round, and it went straight to my heart. On the second day of the Fa conference, amidst the crowds, I was pleasantly surprised to find Abba Nanka—the old herdsman who entrusted the little wolf Green to me in the first place.I gave him Green's story a year ago. Dad couldn't read, but the old man groped for the illustrations in the book over and over again: "Okay, okay, where did you come from..." Because the herdsmen are nomadic, I have not been able to find Nanka's father this time when I went to the grassland. I did not expect to meet him at the Fa conference today.Nanka's father has lost a lot of weight, but he is in good spirits: "It's you, wolf girl, is your Green okay?" I'm frustrated: "I don't know either. So far, nothing about him." "It doesn't matter. With the blessing of the Living Buddha, Green will live a good life. In the past two years, I told people when I saw them that the Living Buddha blessed the wolf! Wolves can't be beaten." "Will they obey when no one is in charge?" "Inner faith is the best order." Abba smiled and looked at the devout Buddhists. Yes, a nation cannot live without faith. Some photography enthusiasts hid their cameras and shuttled through the crowd to take sneak shots.Yifeng, who was dressed in Tibetan clothes, became the focus of their locks, and the sound of shutters kept ringing around him. Yifeng, who never liked being photographed, had to cover his face with a felt hat: "Don't take pictures of me, I'm not Tibetan." The photographers whispered to each other: "He speaks Chinese really well..." They continued to shoot wildly. Yifeng was speechless, he got out of the crowd in embarrassment, and was stopped by a motorcycle after he didn't escape very far. Two Tibetans in the car spoke a lot of Tibetan that he didn't understand. He guessed from his expression that the other party regarded him as a local The man was asking for directions, so he raised his sleeves and pointed in the direction of the venue, and the two said, "Deck! Deck!" (Thank you!) and went in the direction he pointed. Can this be fooled?Yifeng breathed a sigh of relief and rushed back to our temporary tent. As soon as he entered the tent, he took off his robe, took off his T-shirt, and wrung out a lot of sweat, only to find that I was sitting behind the curtain of the tent. He was startled, and hurriedly put on the T-shirt: "Why are you here?" Squeak? Hey, what's the matter? His face is so bad..." "Yifeng," I pressed my heart and frowned, "I'm flustered... I want to go back." Yifeng knelt down and touched my forehead: "Is it heatstroke?" I shook my head with a pale face. Since we set off yesterday, I have had a feeling of ecstasy, as if someone had plucked out a piece of flesh from the top of my heart. Just as he was talking, there was a rush of footsteps outside the tent, and Zeren broke in with his mobile phone in hand: "Yifeng, Weiyi, something happened to the wolf's den!" Yifeng and I drove back to Langshan anxiously. It usually takes an hour and a half to climb up Wolf Mountain, but now we have reached the wolf den in half an hour. The hillside is dead silent, and some scattered firecrackers are still flying in the wind. Zeren told us earlier that the left-behind gang at Wangqingjia Ranch called and said, "Your two Han friends dug out the wolf den and captured three wolf cubs. The wolves are killing sheep on his ranch for wolves. Baby..." Zeren knew it well, and after notifying us, he immediately went to Wangqingjia Ranch to check the situation of the sheep being attacked. The wolf den was indeed robbed! Poachers are usually scruples about herdsmen and dare not start.During the Fa conference, Zoige became an empty city, and the pastures were left unattended, which was a good opportunity for them to poach.A covert camera caught one of them blowing firecrackers by the wolf's den.This man is not the poacher we saw confronting us last time. In the final video, we only saw the little female wolf "Scud", and the other three little wolves were gone.Scud, who had survived the catastrophe, was still in shock, sniffing hole after hole in the wolf's den, looking for her lost brothers and little brother.When she finally looked at the camera without tears, my heart was bleeding. After recovering the video evidence, we rushed to the home of the rancher Wang Qingjia. Wang Qingjia and Tashi also rushed back from Tangke. Whenever something happened in the village, the village chief Tashi would definitely come forward. They and Zeren had already counted the casualties. Five dead and two were injured. The sheep can't stand it for a few days.The neck of the dead sheep was bitten to pieces by the wolf, but it didn't eat a bite. It was purely an act of revenge. It was the poachers who dug out the wolf den, how could the wolves fight against the ranchers? Wang Qingjia angrily talked with Zeren in Tibetan, speaking very fast, we couldn't understand and couldn't get in the conversation. Standing beside us, Tashi roughly translated: "Wang Qingjia said that he has been in the Langshan Ranch for so many years, and the wolves have never eaten his cattle and sheep. Why did Zeren's Han friends want to pick up wolf cubs and offend the mountain god?" !" Tashi put Yifeng's ears on and said, "Don't worry, Wang Qingjia is my brother-in-law, so he has a straight temper." Zeren pointed to Yifeng and I, who were still wearing Tibetan clothes, and introduced: "They are my Han friends. We all attended the Fa conference in Tangke, and we didn't pick up the wolf cubs. There was a misunderstanding." Wang Qingjia looked at the two of us angrily, and asked, "Han people, who are you?" "Oh (yes), actually we wanted to visit you when we found the poachers in the mountains, but we couldn't get in touch." I finally interrupted, "I have a few questions and I want to ask your helper ——The wolf mountain is hidden, and the situation in the mountain cannot be seen from the outside world. How does he know that the wolf cub has been taken out? The wolf cub was caught in the mountain, and your sheep was killed here. Even if you use a telescope to look at it from such a long distance, you can ride it The man on the horse is just a small dot the size of a sesame seed, and cannot be identified at all, how could it be possible to see that the three little wolves were taken away?" Wang Qingjia was also suspicious when Tashi finished translating my words. Tashi said: "Since this was told by a helper, don't mention it first, let the helper come and admit it." Wang Qingjia called for help.The gang didn't recognize us, but I recognized him at a glance!He is the one who shot the cannon in front of the wolf den in the surveillance video! The gang never expected that we had video footage. Before the evidence, he had no choice but to confess honestly: "The poachers gave me a few hundred dollars this morning and asked me to take them to the mountain to find the wolf den. When I entered the mountain, the wolf cub was at the foot of the mountain. While playing, the poachers told me to blow firecrackers on the hillside, saying that the cubs would not dare to go up the mountain to return to their dens. The pups couldn’t run fast, so the poachers caught three wolf cubs at the foot of the mountain, and one of them ran away. Later they shouted to leave quickly, fearing that the big wolves would come back when they heard the sound of firecrackers. Who knew that the poachers had just left, and when I returned to the pasture, I found seven or eight wolves rushing to the pasture to slaughter the sheep. I took the rest After the firecrackers were set off, they ran back to the mountains. I was afraid that the master would blame me, and I heard that two of Zeren’s Han friends had also gone into the mountains to look for wolves, so I simply pushed them on them.” No wonder the anger of the wolves came here. The wolves can tell the difference between right and wrong. Two years ago, the wolves also faced the pain of losing their sons. The male wolves would rather stand on the side of the road for a long time to stop the car to check, and did not vent their anger on the herdsmen.Because there was no direct relationship with the herdsmen that time, but this time the scene left a smell of helping others, so if you don’t ask him to settle accounts, you can find someone. Wang Qingjia was indeed a frank Tibetan man. After finding out the truth of the matter, he immediately apologized to us with a smile and insisted on buying us a drink. It seemed that the death of a few sheep was nothing to worry about in front of new friends. I smiled: "There is no need to apologize for misunderstandings." Then I said impatiently, "Now is not the time to drink, this matter is not over yet, if you don't hurry up to recover the little wolves and return them to the mountain god, the wolves will come to kill you sheep!" Before I finished speaking, a wolf howled from the direction of the back mountain, like a mountain god roaring.Everyone's heart trembled. Tashi said: "Maybe they think the little wolf has been taken back to your pasture. In that case, you won't be able to keep hundreds of sheep." Wang Qingjia grabbed the chi-long Tibetan knife: "I want to see which bastards dare to poach in my territory." The helper shouted sharply, "Lead the way!" In the evening, the helper took us to find the home of the poachers. The one who opened the courtyard door was a wretched man under thirty years old, but with an old face, not the poachers who confronted us on the mountain.His camouflage uniform was covered with dust, as if he just got out of the ground, he looked at me and Yifeng outside the door: "Who are you looking for?" "I'm looking for you!" I pushed the door open and stepped into the courtyard, Yifeng followed closely behind me.I quickly scanned the messy yard, except for a watchdog barking.My eyes stopped on the face of the camouflage uniform: "Where did you hide the wolf cub?" The camouflage uniform stared at us, hooked his little finger and picked his nostrils.He looks dark and simple, just like an ordinary rural person, his right hand is twisted and disabled, not quite like the vicious image of a poacher I imagined, is it this person?I glanced back, but the guides were hiding somewhere.While hesitating, the camouflage uniform grinned, but instead asked in a familiar way: "Where did the girl come from?" I was taken aback: "National Highway 213." Right after I finished my answer, I realized that I was being silly. This is the rhythm of questioning on roads in police movies, but I answered insanely, which obviously hit his laughing hole. "Hahaha, the national road is good, you can go anywhere, but you have come to the wrong place. The wolf cub you are looking for is not here. Go out, walk around..." The camouflage uniform smiled and gave the order to chase away guests. Yifeng tugged at my shoulder, and he found a woven bag under the huge tarpaulin, with several steel wire sleeves protruding from it. I walked over quickly, picked up the woven bag and shook it, and the wire sleeves, traps, and poison bottles poured out. I buried my head and uncovered the tarpaulin, which was full of marmot carcasses. There are hundreds of them, and there are a few foxes that just died today. Can't go wrong!I said angrily: "How dare you say that you didn't poach, these..." Before I finished speaking, the camouflage uniform picked up the iron rod and swung it at me. I hurriedly hugged my elbows to protect my head, listening to the sound of metal friction with air, followed by "bang!" But it didn't hit me. I let go and saw that Wang Qingjia and the others had already entered the courtyard. Seeing the camouflage uniforms making a move, Wang Qingjia couldn't help but kick him away. The movement was so fast that there was no prelude.The rest of the people also put on the posture of copying guys.The tarpaulin has been knocked over, the dead marmots are scattered all over the place, and the camouflage uniform has been curled up on the pile of corpses, grinning in pain.What he swung over to attack me just now was the pig iron rod used to hook the marmots after they were poisoned.This person had smiled so "kindly" before, but he didn't expect to do it when he said he would do it. "How dare you fight with us!" Tashi roared, tying the sleeves of his robe around his waist.A person followed behind him, I took a closer look, Solange.Tashi said outside the courtyard just now that he was waiting for someone, so he was probably waiting for him.Suolan has been fighting poaching for many years and has the most say. "Don't do anything, don't do anything!" A man with a Jian Yang accent ran out of the back room in a panic, his cloth jacket was as greasy as leather, and smelled like otter oil, "Speak up if you have something to say, we are all friends .” "Who is your friend! Wolves and marmots are national second-class protected animals. It is a crime for you to poach wild animals, which is enough to arrest and sentence you!" A sense of justice against poaching.But... I felt a change in the atmosphere. The courtyard, which was still a little noisy, became silent for a moment. It seemed that even the dogs stopped barking, and everyone stopped talking, as if I was being silly. Yifeng squeezed my hand tightly: "Let them talk." Zeren and Tashi are half-brothers with deep roots in the local area. The whole village is basically related to them. Poachers fear the locals. Zeren coughed: "Stop talking nonsense, and hand over the wolf cub you caught today." "I swear to God, I really didn't catch wolves, and I didn't even go out today." The oil jacket carefully considered his own words, or was calculating the pros and cons, "These prey were purchased, not me." "Go around in circles again, and I'll tear down your nest!" Tashi didn't agree with him at all. "There are so many hunting bosses on the grassland, I'm just a small shrimp, why are you trying to settle accounts with me!" "You dig out the wolf's den, and the wolf will never end with me. If the wolf kills my sheep, I will kill you!" Wang Qingjia roared and pulled out the Tibetan knife. "I really didn't hit the wolf, my grandson lied to you!" "Hit this grandson!" "Don't fight, don't fight!" Oil jackets and camouflage uniforms wailed like pigs. Yifeng and I became more and more anxious as we listened. In the brutal negotiations between Tashi and the poachers, the word "Fa" was not mentioned. Instead, we talked with fists and kicks. The oil jacket used a trick that poachers have not changed for thousands of years, pretending to be innocent: "I just hunted otters for a living, my son is useless, if you don't hunt, what do you want me to do? Always leave some way for us poor people to survive . Woohoo!" The poacher's tears arouse nothing in me.People should only sympathize with the weak, not those who use weakness as an excuse to mutilate living beings to satisfy their selfish desires.Such a person will only cry for his own pity, and will never think about the pity of others. Suo Lang, who had been silent all this time, finally spoke: "Feng Hanchuan, I will not fine you today, nor will I confiscate your bastard. The wolf cub must be with you. The gang has already confessed. If you deny it again, I will leave. You pay for the medical expenses yourself." I was startled to hear Solange calling the poacher by name.Solange knew him? !And from Suo Lang's tone, the stolen goods are all there, and he doesn't want to deal with the poachers, what's the situation? Feng Hanchuan weighed the situation here, and he was bored for a while, he stopped talking, and lowered his head and said to the camouflage uniform: "Go and take it out." Suo Lang continued to speak: "Hand over all the living things. I know where you hide the living things. Afterwards, you asked me to find one with a broken leg." Feng Hanchuan reluctantly confessed: "Apart from the wolf cub, there are only two mantas still alive, and the fox has been killed." The camouflage uniform moved out of a cage, opened it, and the two cats in the cage shrank in fear.He took out a sack, pulled a hind leg out of the sack, and violently lifted a little wolf upside down. The little wolf curled up in pain, instinctively opened his mouth to bite, and then shut his mouth forcefully to hold back. Biting is the only way to die. "Give it to me quickly! Don't touch him again!" I ran forward. The camouflage uniform threw the wolf cub into my arms, I hurriedly caught the wolf cub, and Yifeng snatched the sack with his hands. In the dark, I felt that the wolf cub was very thin and small, it should be a little bit!As soon as I put the shivering little boy into the Tibetan robe, he immediately slid into the wide sleeve along the waist, and arched hard along the sleeve, as if he regarded my sleeve as a wolf's cave, and the dark cave was his. The only place where I feel safe.I was afraid that he would fall out, so I gently pinched the cuff.The little one crawled over the elbow of the sleeve, and stopped at my wrist, quietly motionless, only the beating little heart clinging to my pulse. Yifeng took another little wolf out of the sack and brought it into my arms. As soon as he stuffed it into the Tibetan robe, the little wolf also kept trying to get into the sleeve, but it couldn't get in, so it had to turn around and go around. I hid the waist of my robe, climbed into the big pouch tied by the belt on the back, hugged my waist and stayed there.This little wolf is bigger.I thought to myself, I didn't see clearly whether it was Fu Zai or the nunchuck. Yifeng shook his empty pockets: "Why are there only two? And a little wolf? A total of three were taken out!" It was another tense cross-examination.Feng Hanchuan only said that another boss took away the biggest wolf cub, and he refused to say who the boss was even after killing him. Both Yifeng and I refused to leave, so we searched the house again, but we couldn't find the third little wolf. It was late at night, and everyone had to persuade us to go back temporarily. On the way back, Yifeng held the steering wheel with one hand, and touched my bulging robe with the other: "Look, who are they?" With the light of my mobile phone, I reached into the pocket of the robe and took a picture. Two pairs of small green eyes stared at the light in horror, and shrank into the depth of the pocket of the robe. "Don't be afraid, don't be afraid! I found you, and I'll take you home right away." I comforted me softly, and howling like a she-wolf, the little wolves calmed down a little, and turned their little heads to look behind the phone. "It's the little one, and the other one is... Fuzai." I don't know why, when I confirmed that Fuzai was still there, I suddenly felt a little comfort in my heart.Whenever I see Fu Tsai, I always think of Green when he was a child. He is the child who I care about most after Green. Fortunately, he is still there. "Alas...the nunchucks are lost...I'm afraid I'll never get them back." Yifeng looked at the end of the road with sad eyes. The nunchucks were his favorite among the young wolves.At the beginning, he firmly believed that the smartest and strongest nunchaku in this litter of young wolves would become the wolf king, but this child was taken away forever by poachers.