Chapter 152: Strive for a Better Life

"Have you eaten?" Li Jianguo's first question to Li Long was this.

"I just ate at a friend's place. What about you?"

"We ate the dry rations we brought," Li Jianguo said. "It's hard to find a spot here; if not for Yun Dong, we wouldn't have found our way in."

"Brother Yun Dong is coming?" Li Long looked left and right but saw no Xie Yun Dong.

"He went to check on the willow branches. He remembered there were dozens of large willow trees up ahead; we'll cut the branches there, carry them back here to burn and weave."

Tao Daqiang spotted Li Long, walked over quickly, and said:

"Brother Long."

"Have you finished digging your earth pit?" Li Long asked him.

"Finished. I'll go chop some tree branches in a bit." Tao Daqiang nodded vigorously. He knew this opportunity to come here was Li Long's suggestion to the team, so he was very grateful to Li Long.

Although he had already been sufficiently grateful to Li Long before.

"Let's go help Old Gu finish digging his earth pit first. He has to dig his own pit and also build a stove; it's quite troublesome."

Gu Boyuan was in charge of cooking, so naturally he was responsible for the stove. At that moment, Gu Boyuan was laboriously digging an earth pit. His movements weren't as fast as others'; by the time he arrived, the better spots had already been taken. He could only choose a collapsed pit; even though it was collapsed, at least he didn't have to dig from scratch.

After Li Jianguo and the other two arrived, Gu Boyuan smiled. Before he could utter any polite words, Li Jianguo spoke impatiently:

"I just want to get back early. No more nonsense. You go build the stove instead; at least everyone should get something hot to eat tonight, right?"

"Fine, fine, fine. Whatever you say goes." Gu Boyuan really didn't need to be polite with Li Jianguo. He smiled and nodded at Li Long and Tao Daqiang, then went to dig the stove.

"Can Uncle Gu build a stove?" Li Long asked, somewhat puzzled.

After all, he was a scholar disguised as a farmer; whether he could actually do manual labor was still questionable.

"He's a university student!" Although Li Jianguo didn't speak well to Gu Boyuan, he highly respected him behind the scenes. "His learning is unmatched not just in our village, but in the entire township! Building a stove is a piece of cake for him!"

Li Long turned his head to look and saw Gu Boyuan finding a slope nearby. He looked at the sky, licked a finger and held it up, seemingly testing the wind direction, then began digging at an angle.

It looked quite professional.

Digging the half-finished earth pits was easy for the three of them. After finishing, Li Long and Tao Daqiang went to the nearby woods to chop tree branches, while Li Jianguo went over to watch Gu Boyuan carve out the stove.

"There are plenty of willow branches here." Tao Daqiang was also a master at weaving carrying frames; all the frames in his family were woven by him. "Weaving them should be quite good—"

"Use larger branches first to cover the earth pit. By the way, if you encounter any animals, tell me when I come over. If I manage to hunt them, we'll split them," Li Long said.

"There are roe deer here. At this time of year, they should be growing new antlers. If you find deer antlers or roe deer antlers, remember to keep them; those are quite valuable."

"Okay, I know. By the way, Brother Long, Xu Jianjun on the cart said he wants to take some time to dig for Fritillaria bulbs and asked if I wanted to go. I said no."

"Don't go. The Fritillaria bulbs here are managed by someone. Without proper permits, if you get caught, the bulbs will be confiscated without a word, and you might even be fined!"

Hearing about the fine, Tao Daqiang immediately shook his head:

"I'm not going." He had almost no money right now, and he still owed Li Long quite a bit.

The two of them chopped quite a few tree branches and dragged some dry sticks from the forest over together.

The two of them first focused on covering Tao Daqiang's earth pit. They covered it densely with tree branches, layer upon layer, and then started covering it with soil. After covering it with soil, they went to work on Gu Boyuan's earth pit.

In the end, these two earth pits were the quickest to finish.

By this time, Xie Yun Dong had returned. Seeing Li Long, he smiled and greeted him:

"Xiao Long, you've come over—will you be staying here too?"

"No, no, no. I have a place to stay," Li Long shook his head. "I just come over to check every day. It's not far from here; my friend's winter dwelling is over there."

Hearing Li Long say this, many people showed expressions of envy. No matter how good an earth pit was, it couldn't compare to a winter dwelling. Inside an earth pit, one couldn't even straighten their back, and since it was freshly dug, the soil was quite damp, making it easy to contract rheumatism or joint pain.

Although "winter dwelling" and "earth pit" differed by only one character, a winter dwelling was actually a house. It was warm, had windows for light, unlike the pitch-black earth pits, and offered much more space.

But envy aside, they knew it was impossible for them to live in a winter dwelling. Just being able to earn money here was already good enough.

By now, Gu Boyuan had finished digging the stove. Li Long went over curiously to look and was surprised to find it was a double-eye stove: one hole for firewood, but two stove eyes on top, allowing water to be boiled and food to be stir-fried simultaneously. The flue was dug quite long, looking quite scientific.

Truly someone who had attended university.

"Get some wood and try it out." Li Jianguo brushed the dust off his hands. "It might look nice but be useless in reality."

"Then let's try it." Gu Boyuan smiled. "There's plenty of dry wood. I'll pick some up. I'll go get the pot and boil some hot water for everyone to drink."

Saying this, he went to move the pot. Li Jianguo went over to help carry the cooking supplies, while Li Long and Tao Daqiang went to gather firewood. There were many withered branches here; a few sweeps were enough to gather an armful of firewood.

Tao Daqiang put down the firewood and took a bucket to fetch water. At this time, others who had finished their earth pits started laying out their bedding inside; no one came over to help.

Gu Boyuan placed the pot on the stove eye. Seeing the stove was slightly too small, he used an iron shovel to adjust it, then set the pot on top. When Tao Daqiang returned, he poured the water into the pot and started the fire.

"Where did you get the water?" Li Long asked.

"There's a spring in the ditch up ahead." Tao Daqiang pointed to the side of the ditch. "The spring was bubbling up quite vigorously, so I scooped the water there."

At this time, the groundwater level was quite high. Not just in these mountains, but even near the small lake in the village, there were many springs. Beside the small lake, there was an artesian well drilled over twenty meters deep; that water flowed until the late 1980s, when it was filled in to make way for farmland.

With the water heating in the pot, Gu Boyuan unfolded the cutting board he had brought. Looking around, he found nothing suitable to place it on.

"Uncle Gu, wait a moment. Daqiang and I will go move a stone over." Li Long patted Tao Daqiang. The two of them found a few stones in the ditch, carried them up, and placed them beside the stove platform.

Gu Boyuan set up the cutting board, adjusted it slightly, and wedged a stone slab under one of the stones to level the board.

"Alright, you two stay here. I'm heading back." Seeing that things were mostly settled here, Li Jianguo said, "Xiao Long, are you staying here, or going to that winter dwelling over there?"

"Big Brother, wait a moment. Daqiang and I will go get some wind-fallen wood for you to haul back. I have a use for it."

"Alright." Li Jianguo thought that since they were already here, it would be awkward to return with an empty cart, so he followed Li Long and the others, carrying axes to find wind-fallen wood.

Watching Li Long and the others leave, Xu Jianjun sneered:

"Li Long treats Tao Daqiang like a dog, and Tao Daqiang eagerly follows along. Truly spineless."

Tian Siping, standing nearby, glanced at him and said:

"If you paid me five yuan a day, I'd let you treat me like that too."

Xu Jianjun was choked by these words and rolled his eyes. Originally, he wanted to use this topic to stir up everyone's jealousy toward Li Long, but he hadn't expected the others to be so smart.

These jobs were introduced by Li Long; offending Li Long at this moment was just asking for trouble.

Seeing no one respond to him, Xu Jianjun's eyes rolled, and he turned to Xie Yun Dong, saying:

"Old Xie, I'm going to wander in the woods; I'll be back soon."

Without waiting for Xie Yun to agree, he quickly darted into the woods.

Xie Yun watched his retreating back, shook his head, then looked at the others and said:

"If you want to go, that's fine. You're all adults and don't need me to manage you too much. But venomous snakes have already emerged in the mountains. You know this from when we arrived; the forestry team is patrolling right now. If you get caught, it's hard to say what will happen with the work assignment later.

Instead of wasting this time, you should properly fix up the earth dugout to make living more comfortable. If you really have nothing to do, go cut some willow branches or dig pits for the work assignment. Isn't it better to do more and earn more money?"

Upon hearing this, the others immediately got busy. Most of them were honest folks who knew Xie Yun was right.

Li Long, Tao Daqiang, and Li Jianguo quickly found a wind-fallen tree, likely toppled last year. Li Long chopped off the branches with an axe, found them still sturdy, knew the wood was usable, and said:

"Let's take this one."

Three people, three axes; some chopped branches while others cut the trunk. In less than an hour, a pine tree thick enough for three people to embrace was cut into three sections. Li Jianguo hitched a horse cart, loaded the wood, and headed down the mountain.

Passing the stove, Gu Boyuan called out:

"Stop and drink some hot water."

!.

"Okay." Li Jianguo went over, took the bowl of cooled boiled water Gu Boyuan had prepared, drank it in one gulp, and left.

Gu Boyuan watched his back, said nothing more, and began preparing dinner.

Everyone had brought cornmeal. Even a clever housewife cannot cook without rice, so he couldn't make anything delicious. After steaming cornmeal sponge cakes, he found some wild vegetables by the ditch, blanched them in another pot of boiling water, and prepared to make a cold salad.

Everyone had brought red tofu; when outside, one shouldn't expect too much.

"Uncle Gu, there are still some dried mushrooms from last year in the woods, and this year's mushrooms should be coming down soon; they're all edible." Li Long reminded him, "If they have objections, stir-frying them is no problem."

"I know," Gu Boyuan said with a smile. "You go ahead with your business."

Li Long did not return to the county town with Li Jianguo. Instead, he rode his bicycle along a goat path toward the gully entrance near Harimu, actually intending to find the place where they had hunted the yellow sheep.

Li Long wanted to see if any yellow sheep remained in that area.

Unfortunately, there were none.

Since there was no one nearby, Li Long simply leaned his bicycle against the mountainside, locked it, and climbed into the mountains himself.

He thought that since Harimu and the others had found so many deer antlers after the snow melted, perhaps he would have such luck too?

After crossing two mountains and passing through several pine forests and thickets, Li Long returned to his bicycle, dejected.

It seemed deer antlers were not that easy to find.

He rode his bicycle along the goat path, climbing higher and higher, until he finally reached the mountain ridge. Only then did Li Long realize he had changed routes.

Looking down from the height, he saw this location was separated from the original path only by a mountain, so he didn't change his route and continued down along this path.

The goat path sloped all the way to the bottom of the mountain gully. The terrain here was flat, with a large patch of wild garlic and similar plants growing, though they had just sprouted.

There was a small wetland. This area was likely once a spring, but perhaps the groundwater level dropped and the spring no longer seeped out. However, the ground remained relatively damp, supporting many plants and some low shrubs.

Then Li Long saw a large area of damp soil that had been uprooted.

Wild boars were here!

Li Long got excited. He put down his bike and ran over, seeing that the area where the wild boars had dug was about the size of a basketball court, churned up messily. Some grass roots were turned over, still bearing tender white sprouts.

Because the ground was damp, footprints of various sizes were clearly visible—large wild boars, small wild boars, and likely some very tiny ones, just like the piglet Li Long had caught two days ago.

And there were quite a few!

Li Long's heart raced! If he could catch a few small wild boars and raise them together with domestic pigs, wouldn't that be interesting?

However, catching such creatures was certainly not easy.

Li Long naturally knew that killing wild boars was easy. He could lie in ambush here early tomorrow morning and shoot when the boars arrived.

But catching a wild boar alive was more troublesome.

But there was no lack of methods.

Li Long carefully examined the surroundings and the terrain. He felt it necessary to try an experiment!

If he really managed to catch a wild boar piglet, wouldn't that be a fun story?

Since things were not busy right now, Li Long decided to carry out this plan.

He stopped wandering in the mountains, turned back to lift his bicycle, swung his leg over, and pedaled along the goat path to the mountain pass, then rode back to the compound along the same route.

He retrieved a gun, wire, pliers, and other tools from the compound, left the yard, locked the door, and went to the grain shop. There, he bought several kilograms of corn, packed it in bags, and headed into the mountains.

By the time he returned to where the wild boars had been, the sun was nearly setting.

Li Long began setting up.

Having already observed the environment clearly when he left earlier, he now started scattering corn kernels from where the wild boars had dug up the ground all the way to the thicket, spreading them over a wide area to cover the shrubs.

Next, he began looking for sturdy shrubs to set traps.

He used No. 12 wire, twice as thick as thin wire. The trap setup was somewhat similar to rabbit snares. Fearing he might miss, he set several more. Such traps certainly couldn't catch large wild boars, but if small wild boars dug under the shrubs to eat the corn kernels, they would easily get caught.

Li Long set over twenty traps, including both ground snares and upright snares, using up all the wire he had brought before stopping.

Since this was his first time doing this alone, he lacked experience, so he made the setup as comprehensive as possible.

Now that all the traps were set, he rode his bicycle back again.

Li Long's plan was to return to the compound and sleep first, then come check the situation just before dawn tomorrow. He didn't want to go to Harimu's winter camp yet—after all, it was no longer winter, and squeezing in would be inconvenient.

By the time he returned to the compound, it was completely dark. Although still somewhat excited, he knew he needed to rest early, so he found something to eat in the kitchen, ate quickly, and went to sleep.

Originally, Li Long worried he might not wake up early the next morning, but fortunately, his biological clock promptly reminded him to open his eyes.

Seeing the dim light outside, Li Long knew he had to hurry to the mountains.

(End of Chapter)