"Silly child, what a question to ask. I’m an old hunter. The 'Jue-ba-zi' I use—aside from the barrel, which I scavenged from a proper rifle—is a piece I built myself from scratch."
The *Jue-ba-zi*, also known as the "Single-Stroke" or "Unicorn," was a homemade pistol used by the Eighth Route Army and local militias during the War of Resistance. It was an incredibly clunky contraption: to load it, you had to break open the breech, shove a bullet in from the rear, and pull the pin. It fired exactly one shot. If you didn’t kill the black bear with that single shot, the beast wouldn't exactly give you the chance to reload! After all, the bear was sleeping perfectly fine in its den, and if you insisted on using a string of firecrackers to wake it up and then try to take its life, anyone would fight back for their survival.
Generally, most people believe that when a black bear goes into "winter storage," it’s hibernating, and once it’s fast asleep, it effectively shuts out the world. But that isn't true. When a bear is in its den, it looks like it’s sleeping, but it’s actually in a state of semi-hibernation. From time to time, hunger will rouse it. It will lick its right paw for a bit of energy, roll over, and go right back to snoring. Anyone who has eaten bear paw knows that of the four, the front right one is the best. That’s because before settling into the den for the winter, the bear will marinate that right paw with wild berries and honey. I’ve never seen a bear paw, let al…
Chapter 41