Chapter 16: Preparations Are Needed Even to Enter the Mountains

Li Long did not know how the villagers now viewed him, nor did he care.

After climbing onto the cart and driving it for five hundred meters, he became proficient.

In his previous life, he had done similar work. Although Li Jianguo's family was among the first in the production team to afford a tractor, in the years before buying it, their main transport tool had been a donkey cart.

Li Long could not only drive a donkey cart but also ride a donkey; before passing away in his previous life, he had even considered raising donkeys, since they fell ill rarely, were easy to keep, and their selling price kept rising.

"Brother Long, when did you learn to drive a horse cart?" Tao Da asked, sitting on a bundle of hay atop the cart, speaking with envy.

"This is nothing," Li Long said, seated on the driver's bench. "The road is so flat, and our team's horses are naturally gentle; as long as you don't startle them and just occasionally urge them forward, that's all there is to it."

Of course, saying it made it sound simple, but in reality, it was not that simple; Li Long simply felt no need to explain it in such detail.

All the way to the township, they met few people; frost, white as snow, had already formed on the brims of their hats, their eyebrows, and even on the fine down just beginning to grow around their lips.

The sun rose, and the temperature increased slightly, but Li Long felt his feet had frozen numb; he got off the cart and drove the horse along the main road toward the county town.

The road from the township to the county town was much better; trucks passed over it, pressing the surface wide, and occasionally one could see donkey or horse dung pellets. Li Long remembered that in winters past, when walking to the county town, he would kick these pellets out of boredom; the best were camel dung pellets, perfectly round, rolling far with a single kick, whereas donkey and horse dung pellets were oval and flat, rolling in irregular paths when kicked.

Then he saw an old man carrying a dung basket, collecting dung.

This was rare; in Northern Frontier, because the land area was vast, chemical fertilizers were already being used on a large scale, so while Li Long had often seen dung collecting in his hometown, he had rarely encountered it here.

By the time the cart reached the county town, both the horse and the men were covered in white; Li Long found the purchasing station, drove the cart to the roadside, pulled several handfuls of grass from the cart for the horse to eat, and told Tao Da:

"Da Qiang, you stay here and watch the cart; I'll go in and ask what price they give for muskrat pelts."

"Alright!" Tao Da nodded vigorously, feeling that he was finally of some use.

Li Long, holding the bundle containing the rolled-up muskrat pelts, pushed open the door and entered the purchasing station, where he saw a middle-aged man sitting behind the counter reading a newspaper.

The man wore a blue Zhongshan suit, his hair parted four-six, looking quite spirited—exactly the appearance of a cadre from that era.

A stove stood inside the purchasing station, its fire burning fiercely with a roaring sound; without even looking, Li Long knew the stove must be stuffed full of coal—how luxurious!

"Comrade, I'd like to ask if you purchase this item," Li Long said as he took out the muskrat pelts and placed them on the counter.

Chen Hongjun looked Li Long up and down, then slowly stood up, glanced at the pelts, and asked:

"Do you know what kind of pelt this is?"

In winter, the purchasing station basically had no business, so the staff worked in shifts, one person per day, just like being on duty.

Since someone had finally come to deliver goods, he did not appear overly cold.

"It's muskrat pelt; by the way, this thing is also called a musk rat, right?"

"Correct. You young man know quite a lot," Chen Hongjun nodded, touched the pelt, then picked it up to examine it further, asking, "Fresh pelt?"

"Yes, extracted yesterday; you could call it an accident. These are easy to get in spring; getting one now is just good luck."

"The pelt is good; I'll give you five yuan for this one." Chen Hongjun put the pelt away. "If you have more in the future, the price will be the same—you should know this counts as a high price."

It was indeed a high price; in another two years, the price would only rise to ten yuan per pelt.

"Alright." Li Long was already very satisfied.

After taking the five yuan, Li Long exited the purchasing station and felt some regret; he should have let Tao Da come inside to warm up.

However, there were still matters to attend to and opportunities ahead. "How much did you sell it for?" Tao Da asked immediately upon seeing the bundle in Li Long's hand had become much thinner.

"Five yuan," Li Long gestured with his fingers and said with a smile:

"Let's go to the Department Store; we'll buy some food before leaving."

"So expensive!" Tao Da's eyes instantly lit up. "Then if we could really get a few more..."

"Maybe in spring. Right now, Little Little Haizi is frozen over; getting even one is already a stroke of good luck." Li Long gathered the grass the horse hadn't finished eating, put it back on the cart, and drove toward the Department Store.

Upon arriving at the Department Store, Li Long took out the five-yuan steelworker banknote and said to Tao Da:

"Da Qiang, you go in first, buy one kilogram of sesame cakes and two bricks of tea, then warm up for a while before coming out to relieve me."

"I... I don't dare to go," Tao Da stammered upon being told to go buy things himself:

"Brother Xiao Long, you go instead."

"I'm sending you in so you can warm up. We can't both go in at once; buying these things doesn't require haggling—just pay and take the goods."

After Li Long urged him twice, Tao Da finally took the money and hesitantly walked in; less than five minutes later, he came out carrying a bag of goods for Li Long:

"Brother Long, I've bought them. The sesame cakes cost one yuan and twenty-eight fen, the brick tea ninety fen; here is the change."

Exclamation mark! Period.

Li Long took the money, placed the goods on the cart, and walked inside himself.

The Department Store was much larger than the purchasing station, a three-story building where the first floor sold food, tobacco, alcohol, household needles, thread, and the like.

Li Long paid to buy another kilogram of sesame cakes, thought for a moment, then bought a bag of salt, walked around a bit to warm up, and went back out.

Tao Da was pacing in circles beside the cart; Li Long untied the horse's tether and said:

"Let's go; now we enter the mountains!"

"Alright!" Tao Da climbed onto the cart as well; Li Long cracked the whip, and the cart sped quickly toward the mountains.

More than an hour later, they arrived at Passing Qingshuihe Commune.

"Brother Long, does your fellow worker live here?"

"Mm." Li Long gave a vague reply. "But we won't go there yet; we'll head straight into the mountains."

Regarding Li Long's decision to enter the mountains directly, Tao Da did not ask why; whatever Brother Long said, that was what they did.

If an ordinary person arrived here and wanted to enter the mountains, they would have to ask a local, otherwise they might not necessarily know the way in.

But Li Long had entered the mountains many times in his previous life and knew the routes well; he drove the cart past Passing Qingshuihe Commune, turned onto a small path, wound through seven twists and eight turns, and entered Shankou.

Further ahead, although wheel tracks were still visible, the snow was thicker, making it difficult for the horse to walk; both Li Long and Tao Da got off the cart, and in places where the snow was deep, Tao Da even pushed the cart from behind.

Nanshan consisted of several ranges; ordinary people seeing the outermost layer, Tushan, which had basically no vegetation, would need to walk inward two more mountain layers before encountering sparse shrubs, and only further inward would the mountain ranges become continuous, featuring grasslands, pine forests, shrub thickets, and so on.

By the time Li Long drove the cart into the mountains where pine forests stood, another hour had passed.

Panting heavily, he stopped and began searching for his target.

Soon, behind the pine forest, he saw the target he had been looking for: the winter camp.

(End of Chapter)