Chapter 17: The drunkard

"Brother Long, I think there should be fallen trees under the snow over there. Let's start working here!" Tao Daqiang panted as he looked around, pointing to a wind-felled tree below the hillside in the distance.

"No, let's keep going a bit further." Li Long pointed to the slope near the winter shelter and said, "That location is the best."

"But there's no road ahead. If we go any higher, our horse cart might not make it up." Tao Daqiang looked troubled.

"Let's push it." Li Long looked at the smoke rising from the winter shelter and said with a smile, "This little difficulty won't stump us."

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

"Alright, let's do it here." Li Long assessed the terrain, felt it was good, and then pointed to the winter shelter:

"Let's go, let's go over there for lunch, and then we'll get to work."

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

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

A winter shelter is a fixed place where herdsmen in the mountains live during the winter. In the summer, they go to higher alpine pastures to graze, which are called summer pastures. In winter, they move to lower altitudes, live in winter shelters, and graze in winter pastures; the process in between is called seasonal migration.

Most of the herdsmen in these mountains are Kazakhs. After the arrival of the new century, the authorities organized them to move down the mountain, allocated land to them, and transformed them from nomadic to fixed grazing.

A few families were allocated to the village 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 bring out milk curds, naan, and milk tea to treat them.

A winter shelter is actually a triangle dug into the hillside, using the mountain as the back wall and wood as support, then building a row of houses. Inside, there are warm pens for cattle and sheep, and living quarters for people. Outside, there is usually a large pile of cattle and sheep manure.

Li Long was planning to come here to haul some manure when spring arrived, because he remembered that in 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. He looked 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 vigilantly 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 knew he meant to tie the horse there, so he led the horse over. The man pulled a bundle of grass from a haystack by the side of the winter shelter and placed it by the horse. The horse Li Long had led over immediately lowered its head and began to eat.

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

Just as he had encountered in his previous life, they were truly very warm.

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

Once they adjusted to the light, Li Long saw that the winter shelter was not very large. There was a wooden kang with a kang table on it, and a small stove was burning with a teapot on top.

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

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

Li Long took out 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 of heartache; these two items together cost several yuan. They could have easily solved lunch outside with all those sesame cakes—that was something they only ate during the New Year! Why go to such a luxurious lunch here?

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

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

He turned his head to look at the woman, then at the old woman, before accepting it.

Both the old woman and the woman smiled. Li Long could tell they genuinely liked the gift.

The man invited Li Long and Tao Daqiang onto the kang and had them sit toward the inside. The old woman took a bedsheet bundle from a cabinet 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 moment. When he returned, he was carrying a piece of air-dried mutton, signaling Li Long and the others to slice it and eat, then he drew his knife, intending to go back out.

"No, no, no, there's no need for such trouble. We need to finish eating quickly and then load the wood to go back." Seeing that this family seemed about to make a big fuss, Li Long immediately waved his hands. "This is enough."

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

That would be making a big deal out of it.

Although sheep were not considered very valuable to herdsmen now, they usually couldn't bear to eat them themselves either.

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

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

!.

The man looked at the object and was stunned for a moment.

Seeing there was a chance, Li Long said with a smile:

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

He could tell it was a deer antler.

A few decades later, deer antlers wouldn't be worth much, as deer farming would become very common by then. The price of velvet antlers would drop significantly, let alone deer antlers.

But at this time, deer farming 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 after reaching 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. "Giving me this is enough."

This deer antler had three tines, and by the looks of it, it must weigh at least two or three kilograms; it was definitely enough.

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

Before long, just as the woman had finished preparing the milk tea and was handing the bowl to Li Long with both hands, the man walked back in, carrying one deer antler and placing it together with the other one.

Li Long could tell that this deer antler was broken at one end, not as good-looking as the original, and not as heavy either.

"This was found in the forest by Nasen." The man pointed to the little boy on the kang.

"We originally planned to burn it as firewood."

Burn it as firewood? What a waste of a precious gift!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 18 =====