Chapter 17

"Brother Long, I see that there should be fallen trees under the snow over there. Let's start working right here!" Tao Daqiang panted as he looked around, pointing to a wind-fallen tree at the foot of the slope in the distance.

"No, let's keep going a bit further," Li Long said, pointing to the sloping land by the side of the winter shelter. "That spot is the best."

"But there's no road ahead. If we keep going up, our horse cart might not be able to make it," Tao Daqiang said, feeling a bit troubled.

"Let's push," Li Long said with a smile, looking at the smoke rising from the winter shelter. "A little difficulty like this shouldn't stop us, right?"

So he pulled from the front, and Tao Daqiang pushed from behind, moving the horse cart onto the gentle slope ahead.

"Alright, let's do it here," Li Long said after assessing the terrain and deciding it was a good spot, then pointed to the winter shelter and said:

"Let's go over there, have some lunch, and then get to work."

"Go there... for lunch?" Tao Daqiang was a bit surprised. "Will they let us eat there?"

"Don't worry, those people are very hospitable," Li Long said, pointing to the tea leaves and salt they had brought on the cart. "We aren't unwelcome guests; we brought things with us."

A winter shelter is a place where herdsmen in the mountains live during the winter for fixed grazing. In the summer, they go to higher-altitude alpine meadows to graze, which are called summer pastures. In the winter, they come to lower-altitude places, live in winter shelters, and graze in winter pastures; the process in between is called transhumance.

Most of the people grazing in these mountains are of the Kazakh ethnic group. After the arrival of the new century, officials organized them to move down the mountain, allocated land to them, and turned these people from nomadic to fixed grazing.

A few households were allocated to the production team where Li Long lived, so he was quite clear about the situation here.

The Kazakh people are very hospitable. In the past, when strangers arrived at their yurts, they would usually take out dried cheese curds, naan, and milk tea to treat them.

A winter shelter is actually a triangle dug into a hillside, using the mountain body as the back wall and wood as support, and then building a row of houses, which include warm pens for cattle and sheep, and a place for people to live; outside, large amounts of cattle and sheep manure are usually piled up.

Li Long also planned to come here to haul some manure when spring arrived, because he remembered that by spring, the first round of land contracting would begin.

Although each person was only allocated two mu of land at that time, that was land that truly belonged to them!

After unhitching the horse cart and leading the horse to the front of the winter shelter, they saw two dogs rush over, barking wildly at Li Long, Tao Daqiang, and the horse.

The door of the winter shelter opened, and a man in his thirties walked out, looking a bit surprised to see Li Long and the others.

"Hello, we are here to haul wood. We're tired from walking; can we rest here for a while?" Li Long said with a smile.

After the middle-aged man guardedly sized up Li Long and the others, he nodded, scolded the dogs, walked out, and pointed to a wooden post not far from the winter shelter.

Li Long understood that he meant to tie the horse there, so he led the horse over. The man pulled a bundle of grass from the haystack by the side of the winter shelter and placed it by the horse, and the horse Li Long had led over immediately lowered its head and began to eat.

Li Long tied the horse up and saw the herdsmen's own three horses eating grass not far away, and he smiled.

It was just as he had encountered in his previous life; they were truly very hospitable.

The man led Li Long and the others into the winter shelter, and the view instantly darkened.

Once they adapted to the light there, Li Long saw that the winter shelter wasn't very large; there was a wooden kang, a kang table placed on it, and a small stove burning, with a teapot on top.

In the room, there was also an old woman sitting by the edge of the wooden kang, head bowed, fiddling with a ball of wool, and a woman in her thirties wearing a headscarf was looking at them with some unease.

On the wooden kang, a wool blanket was spread out, and two children were playing with a pile of sheep knuckle bones on it, also looking at them.

Li Long took the brick tea and salt from his bag and handed them to the middle-aged man, saying: "These are for you."

Tao Daqiang felt a bit pained; these two things together cost several yuan. They could have completely solved lunch outside with so many sesame cakes—that stuff was something you might only get to eat once a year during the New Year! Why did they have to come here for such a luxurious lunch?

But since Brother Long had made the decision, there must be a reason for it.

"... Thank you." The man was a bit surprised and even a bit moved when he saw the tea leaves Li Long had taken out.

He turned his head to look at the woman, then looked at the old woman, before finally accepting them.

Both the old woman and the woman smiled. Li Long could tell that they truly liked this gift.

The man invited Li Long and Tao Daqiang onto the kang, letting them sit on the inside. The old woman took a bedsheet bundle from the cupboard and opened it on the kang table; inside was naan broken into small pieces. The woman began to prepare milk tea, while the man went out for a trip. When he returned, he was carrying a piece of air-dried mutton in his hand, gesturing for Li Long and the others to slice it and eat, and then he drew a knife, intending to go back out.

"No, no, no, no need for so much trouble. We need to finish eating quickly and then load the wood to go back." Seeing that this family seemed to be about to make a big move, Li Long immediately waved his hand. "This is enough."

The man was unwilling, but Li Long directly held him back. He could tell that if he didn't hold him back, he would most likely go out and slaughter a sheep.

That would be making a big deal out of it.

Although sheep weren't considered valuable to herdsmen nowadays, they usually couldn't bear to eat them themselves either.

The old woman said something in Kazakh to the man, and the man wanted to break free from Li Long to go out. In his urgency, Li Long looked around, then pointed to something by the stove and said:

"Don't slaughter a sheep; just give that to me and it'll be fine!"

!.

The man looked at that thing and was stunned for a moment.

Once Li Long saw there was a chance, he said with a smile:

"I just want that... this can be sold for money when taken out."

He could tell that it was a deer antler.

In a few decades, deer antlers wouldn't be worth much, after all, farming deer would be very common by then. The price of velvet antlers would have dropped quite a bit, let alone deer antlers.

But at this time, farming deer was still a very rare affair, and ordinary people basically never saw it.

The antlers of male red deer in the mountains would fall off once they reached a certain stage, and the antlers found could truly be sold for money.

"Really?" the man asked suspiciously.

"Really, one yuan per kilogram," Li Long said randomly. "This is enough for me."

This deer antler had three branches; it looked like it had to be at least two or three kilograms, which was definitely enough.

Only then did the man put down the knife, but after thinking about it, he went out again.

Before long, when the woman had already prepared the milk tea and was serving it to Li Long with both hands, the man walked back in, carrying one deer antler in his hand and placing it together with another one.

Li Long could tell that this deer antler was broken by a section; it didn't look as good as the original one, nor was it as heavy.

"This was found in the forest by Nasen," the man said, pointing to the little boy on the kang.

"We originally planned to burn it as firewood."

Burn it as firewood? What a waste of a heavenly treasure!

(End of chapter)