Chapter 8 Distributing the Meat
The burly man was thrown away, but the axe got stuck on the crocodile's head. The intense pain made it shake its head violently from under the curtains, letting out a furious roar.
Huang Tao shouted, "Don't go to its side, attack it head-on!"
A large shovel slammed down on the crocodile's head.
"Clang!"
The shovel made a loud noise.
The crocodile's head immediately jerked up.
"Clang!"
The shovel swung down again, this time hitting the axe handle, causing the crocodile to shake its head in pain.
Qin Ziwen stepped forward, raised the handle, and thrust it straight into the crocodile's skin, the impact making his arm go numb: "Such tough skin, we need a heavy weapon."
The bearded man grinned: "Damn it, no matter how fierce it is, it's still just a beast. It'll run away when it hurts."
The crocodile rammed to the other side, and with a hiss, its head finally emerged from a small hole in the curtains.
It glanced back at the humans, then twisted its clumsy body and fled towards the river.
"Grab it!"
A group of people chased after it, but in the grass, the crocodile was no match for the humans.
Two security guards, armed with riot forks, positioned themselves on either side of the crocodile's head.
The crocodile instinctively opened its massive jaws, and Qin Ziwen, who had moved to the front, seized the opportunity. He used a clothesline pole to forcefully shove it into the crocodile's
gaping maw, delivering a deep throat. Qin Ziwen, unsure what he had struck, gripped the pole and twisted it.
The crocodile clawed at the mud, struggling desperately.
Axes, iron bars, and wooden sticks rained down on it.
The crocodile's strength waned.
Finally, it stopped struggling.
Qin Ziwen stared at the crocodile, wanting to see if it would "drop" a card (i.e., reveal its true nature).
Three seconds, four seconds...
until someone nearly severed the crocodile's head from its neck with an axe, there was no change.
It seemed this crocodile didn't meet the criteria for a powerful life form in the area. It took
a dozen strong, adult men, after first obscuring its vision with curtains, taking turns attacking it with long weapons on land before finally killing it.
"The crocodile is dead?"
"Amazing!"
The crowd that had been watching gradually approached, some even kicking the crocodile's carcass with their feet.
Huang Tao pulled out a measuring tape from somewhere and measured it.
"Five meters and three inches long!"
"Wow, that's pretty long."
"Wow, you guys are amazing, killing such a big crocodile so easily."
The young man, who had once been a crocodile keeper, squatted down and couldn't help but exclaim, "Five-meter-long crocodiles are rare in the wild, even zoos rarely keep crocodiles of that size."
Because he had kept crocodiles, he knew better how terrifying a crocodile of this size would be in the wild.
Qin Ziwen came out from the crowd and found the security guard who had been swept away by the crocodile.
He was dragged to the back by the crowd and sat against the wall. His exposed calf was twisted unnaturally, covered in blood, and white bone fragments were sticking out of the wound, probably a broken tibia and fibula.
If he could have been taken to the hospital immediately, he might have been saved, but here he was basically done for.
The security guard's face was covered in sweat, his eyes were closed, and a large pool of blood had accumulated beneath him.
The middle-aged man wearing glasses, who had been crouching beside him, carefully examined him before standing up. "Unless he receives immediate surgery, his chances of survival are very low. He's in aortic hemorrhagic shock and needs a transfusion right away. There are no surgical facilities here. Does he have any family?"
be severe, and they won't have family to take care of them."
An old man next to him said, "Dr. Lin said there's no hope. Sigh, this young man is just unlucky."
An old woman wearing a floral shirt shook her head: "Dr. Lin is a top doctor at the city hospital. If even he can't treat him, then it seems there's no hope."
"Isn't Dr. Lin a chief physician? Even the chief physician can't save him?"
Dr. Lin's face turned green. I'm a doctor, not a god.
Give me an emergency room and I might try. Without an emergency room, how can I save him?
Huang Tao pushed through the crowd, walked over, squatted down, and gently shook the security guard. "Dou Gu, Dou Gu."
Dou Gu's eyelids trembled, and his lips moved, but he ultimately couldn't respond.
Dr. Lin said, "Shock isn't just being asleep. It's the collapse of the body's circulatory system, with severe ischemia and hypoxia in the brain and vital organs. It's physiological coma."
Huang Tao hesitated upon hearing this. "Then… he's hopeless?"
Dr. Lin sighed softly and did not answer.
The bearded man walked over, glanced at the unconscious Dou Gu, hesitated for a moment, and said, "What a pity for this brother. Let's divide the meat; it won't keep well in this weather, or it'll spoil."
Huang Tao nodded, "Okay."
The bearded man behind him extended his hand to Qin Ziwen, his eyes full of admiration, "Brother, you were pretty brave just now, shoving the long spear right into the crocodile's mouth. Let's be friends, my name is Zheng Yuan, I live in Building 3."
The two shook hands.
"Qin Ziwen, Building 8."
Old Deng came over from the side, laughing heartily, "Brother Qin, that cast was spot on! Thanks to you, I caught a five-meter-long fish, I've never caught anything this big in my life."
Qin Ziwen said modestly, "It was only through teamwork that we managed to do it; I couldn't handle a crocodile by myself."
Someone brought over a weighing scale and a large iron basin from home.
They spent the whole morning dividing the crocodile meat.
Many people gathered around, and some even tried to morally blackmail them, wanting a share of the spoils.
Zheng Yuan, known for his fiery temper, snapped back, "Get the hell out of here! I didn't see you when we were killing the crocodile, but now you're shamelessly showing up to divide the meat
. There are so many crocodiles in the river, go kill one yourself if you want some!" Zheng Yuan, who was cutting meat, stood up and raised his boning knife, startling the man who quickly retreated back into the crowd.
Huang Tao tried to ease the tension: "Brother Zheng, you're quite skilled at cutting meat. What did you do before?"
Zheng Yuan sliced off a piece of bright red meat with his boning knife: "I used to butcher pigs. This crocodile has a really low yield, probably only half that of a pig."
In the end, Qin Ziwen received eighty jin of meat.
The crocodile yielded a total of six hundred and four jin of meat. Sixteen people had killed the crocodile, but Dou Gu had an accident and had transmigrated alone, so everyone else tacitly omitted his share.
Zheng Yuan was responsible for dividing the meat; butchering a crocodile was physically demanding, and this one weighed one or two tons—most people couldn't handle that kind of work.
So the extra four jin were considered Zheng Yuan's "labor fee."
Qin Ziwen and Qin Ziwu, brothers, shared a total of eighty jin (approximately 40 kg).
The heavy meat, mostly whitish with pale pink veins, was packed in bags.
Qin Ziwen received the tail meat, which from a distance resembled a huge, coarser-fibered chicken breast.
After receiving their share, not only Qin Ziwen but also Old Deng lost all interest in fishing.
Such a large piece of meat would last the family a long time.
Old Liu was even more envious, his eyes reddening – forty jin! He had only caught a little over two jin of fish all day yesterday.
(End of Chapter)