The "big fella" that Mountain Runners talk about is the Ma Lu. And the "big lone fella" they mention refers to a large, solitary boar.
For a wild boar to be called large, it has to be a male weighing upwards of three hundred and fifty jin.
And "lone" refers to a boar that has left its sounder to live by itself.
Wild boars are social animals. A boar living alone out in the wild either has a story behind it, or it's had a mishap.
Usually, it's the latter.
According to Wei Lai, this large, solitary boar first injured someone on the twenty-eighth of the twelfth lunar month. That day, it gored an old man who was setting up a root cellar in the mountains.
The old man's surname was Feng, and he spent his years in the mountains setting traps for yellow foxes.
He was just heading down the mountain to reunite with his family for the New Year.
But unexpectedly, as he was passing the foot of Little Gu Mountain, he saw a large wild boar charging straight down the slope.
