Chapter 583: Another New Discovery

Li Long did not stay long at his eldest brother's house. After drinking two bowls of hot tea, he hastily drove off in the jeep.

It was already dark; he switched on the headlights. Though the beam fell far short of the high beams from later eras, it was sufficient to illuminate the road ahead at this time.

Only after Lu Yingming saw the jeep depart did he make his way to the Li family home.

He tapped on the window of the west room and called out:

"Is Brother Lao Li in?"

"In, in, in! You must be Lu Tie Tou's father? Come in quickly!" Liang Yuemei shouted from inside the house.

This year, many households in the village had earned some money, and several had bought televisions. Although they were all black-and-white, they were still watchable. Consequently, few people came to watch the color TV in Li Li Qing Xia's house anymore, especially at this time when the cold kept everyone indoors.

It would not become lively here again until near the New Year, when the children were on holiday.

Lu Yingming entered the room and saw that the entire Li family was present; the children were talking in the west wing, and the air carried a distinct gamey odor.

"Your family is truly busy today," Lu Yingming said with a smile. "That jeep looks magnificent; is that..."

"Without Xiao Long drove it here," Li Jianguo explained. "The leaders at the prefectural supply and marketing cooperative assigned him a task and left the vehicle for his use to make things more convenient."

"Without Xiao Long drove it? Without Xiao Long knows how to drive a car?" Lu Yingming was equally surprised. "He is truly remarkable!"

"Haha, it is simply that the leaders trust him," Li Jianguo said with a chuckle. "The job will take a long time, so the vehicle remains here. When we went out on errands, Without Xiao Long conveniently gave us a ride back."

"A small car, that is truly a small car," Lu Yingming said, still awestruck. "Without Xiao Long has really made something of himself."

"What accomplishment is there? He is still just a temporary worker," Li Li Qing Xia remarked with a laugh, only to receive a slap on the leg from Du Chunfang.

Although she knew her husband was merely being modest, Du Chunfang still did not wish to hear any negative words about her youngest son.

"Lu Tie Tou's father, here is a leg of yellow sheep; Juan's grandfather and father went out together to hunt it. Take it home and taste the freshness."

"That simply won't do..." Lu Yingming had come to gather information, not to mooch goods; he waved his hands hurriedly. "We have meat at home; no need, no need..."

"Take it," Li Jianguo insisted. "We hunted it in the uninhabited zone to the west, where herds of yellow sheep roam; we bagged quite a few."

Unable to refuse, Lu Yingming had no choice but to accept the leg of yellow sheep.

This single leg weighed five or six Jin Zhong; it smelled gamey, but having dealt with the Li family often, Lu Yingming knew that with plenty of seasoning, the mutton would taste delicious.

After returning home, Lu Yingming immediately told Sister-in-Law Lu about Li Long driving the jeep provided by the prefectural leaders.

By the next day, the entire village knew.

Even when Li Jianguo went to the team headquarters to return the rifle, Xu Chengjun asked with a grin:

"Brother Lao Li, your family's Without Xiao Long is driving a jeep now? That is incredibly impressive! Surely only county-level leaders get to ride in such a jeep? Did you all take a ride? Was it comfortable?"

"It is certainly more comfortable than a tractor," Li Jianguo said with a smile. "It has a roof, so one's face does not freeze in winter, though it cannot carry many goods."

"Did you go hunting yellow sheep? Are there many over there? When Without Xiao Long returns, Brother Lao Li, could you ask if we might go hunt another round?" Xu Chengjun had also become interested.

At present, although they had guns and bullets, reaching a place with yellow sheep was not easy.

"Very well, I will ask when Without Xiao Long returns," Li Jianguo said.

He also gave Xu Chengjun a leg of yellow sheep, and another one was intended for Uncle Lao Luo.

Of course, Li Jianguo did not call him Uncle Lao Luo; each addressed the other by their own customary terms.

Uncle Lao Luo was perhaps the most carefree and content among the older generation in the village. Although he raised many livestock, he did not worry about fodder, as feed was delivered to him.

He ate meat every day, drank wine, and collected a wage, just like a worker in the city.

Other elderly people of the same age were extremely envious.

Perhaps people in later generations would think that not working was comfortable, but in this era, it was different; those accustomed to labor would feel uneasy if they did not work.

Uncle Lao Luo found this work easy and familiar; although there were still quite a few livestock now, even more than when he raised horses for the team, he remained very happy, feeling that this was good, as raising more livestock proved he was still useful and capable.

This was already far better than the days of suffering in the past.

When Li Long returned to the large compound, it had become completely dark. The jeep's headlights illuminated the road, startling the duty cadre at the police station, who then recalled that the jeep belonged to the household diagonally across, causing his vigilance to fade.

He had originally thought some leader was visiting incognito.

Li Long entered the large courtyard, settled the jeep, and let out a long breath.

Gu Gu Xiaoxia, draped in a cotton-padded coat that made her look somewhat bulky and cute, beckoned Li Long to hurry inside.

Sister Yang had made dough-drop soup, perfect for drinking to ward off the chill.

Li Long held an enamel basin and drank the dough-drop soup in large mouthfuls. Several old basins sat in the storage room, filled with soil in which seeds of baby bok choy and small green vegetables were planted; despite the heavy snow, the seeds in the basins had sprouted and grown shoots, now reaching an edible stage.

Adding some shredded green leafy vegetables to the dough-drop soup made it taste exceptionally fragrant.

Li Li Qing Xia wondered if, in a couple of days, he could utilize the glass shed at the rear as a greenhouse. Even if he did not grow much, at least he could eat some fresh leafy greens during winter.

Actually, this would be quite easy to arrange. The shed itself was made of glass; although a few panes were cracked, none were broken. During the day, the sun made it quite warm inside, and when it snowed, the sloped roof allowed the snow to be cleared away easily from below.

If one installed a stove inside and built a long fire wall, or constructed a long kang heating channel along the north mountain-facing wall, the entire glass shed could be warmed up.

Following later-era practices, one would also add straw mats over the shed, but Li Li Qing Xia felt this was unnecessary. He did not plan to grow many things, just some chives, celery, and small green vegetables; having something green to eat during the New Year would suffice.

Actually, even now, some people covered their chive fields with straw in early winter, then pressed old cotton quilts on top; come Spring Festival, they would brush off the snow, remove the quilts and straw, and find yellow chives underneath.

These items sold for quite a high price.

Li Li Qing Xia pondered these matters while drinking his dough-drop soup.

Thinking about it now was a bit late, mainly because good soil was hard to obtain; if necessary, he could just continue growing them in the storage room for now.

Actually, it was not entirely impossible; although the soil in the fields around the county town was frozen solid, the earth near flowing water in the mountains had not yet frozen. Digging it up would still be quite easy.

Li Li Qing Xia considered whether to find time to enter the mountains again, deliver some goods there, and dig up some soil to bring back.

Of course, that could wait; he was in no rush to go out and preferred to slowly plan everything thoroughly.

After this trip up the mountain, he planned to wait until the snow melted before entering again. The main game hunted in the mountains consisted of deer, roe deer, and wild boar.

His Old Ma Hao already contained all three of these; only the yellow sheep had not yet been raised, and he did not know if they could be kept alive.

For the next week, Li Li Qing Xia stayed genuinely at home, spending his time pondering what to plant or chatting at Gu Gu Bo Yuan's agricultural supplies store.

In between, he made a trip to Chen Hongjun's acquisition station.

The acquisition station in winter was not as desolate as it had been last year; occasionally, people would deliver various kinds of pelts. When Li Li Qing Xia happened to be there, he saw someone delivering rabbit pelts and fox pelts, while another person brought badger pelts.

Li Long was clearly a big spender; he immediately offered ten gazelle hides and one wolf hide, stunning everyone else.

He even gifted Chen Hongjun a personal present of a gazelle leg.

Chen Hongjun made no attempt to hide his acquaintance with Li Long; he greeted him and asked him to wait until last while he finished processing the goods others had brought.

Li Long sat aside and waited.

The hides were indeed expensive; rabbit hides sold for three yuan each, fox hides could fetch thirty-five yuan, and badger hides, though not large, commanded the same price.

By the time it was Li Long's turn, none of the others had left; they wanted to see how much money this big spender would finally get.

They didn't have many hides; apart from the one person with twelve rabbit hides who sold them for thirty-six yuan, the rest only had one or two each.

None of them had received even a hundred yuan.

Most of Li Long's hides were intact; Chen Hongjun examined them one by one, buying seven intact hides at seventy yuan each, three damaged ones at fifty yuan each, and offering the high price of eighty yuan for that wolf hide.

Seven hundred and twenty yuan!

Now that land had been distributed, each household held anywhere from ten to several dozen mu; a year's income might not even equal half of this amount!

Some felt envy, others jealousy, and a few began asking where one could obtain so many gazelle hides.

"In the sandy depressions to the north, in the uninhabited Gobi to the west, there are large herds of gazelles," Li Long spoke honestly. "But you need a gun; humans certainly can't outrun them."

At this time, obtaining a gun for hunting wasn't difficult; clearly, these people were tempted.

After the others had left, Chen Hongjun pointed at Li Long and said:

"You there, you're stirring up others' greed." "Am I not increasing your sales volume? If they get hides, they'll end up selling them to you anyway," Li Long joked. "You should thank me."

"Fine, fine, fine, I thank you." Chen Hongjun slapped him on the shoulder. "It seems you really did get quite a lot."

"Indeed, there are many herds of gazelles in the uninhabited zone east of Kuitun; if you take a gun there and can just wait, you're bound to encounter a gazelle herd."

"But one must be able to travel that far. You have a tractor; others do not." Chen Hongjun still didn't know Li Long had acquired a jeep; Xiang Qian hadn't told anyone else about this.

After all, Director Qian had said to keep it confidential.

Li Long chatted a bit more with Chen Hongjun before heading home.

Seven hundred and twenty yuan was enough to spend throughout this winter.

At the very least, it was enough to buy supplies for going into the mountains.

Over the next few days, Li Long went out daily, either to the Medicinal Materials Company to buy common winter medicines, or to the free market to buy some eggs—Kazakh herdsmen ate eggs too.

There were also potatoes, piyazi (onions), and so on; these had to be stored properly, as freezing would spoil them.

!.

For herdsmen, the usual diet consisted mainly of naan bread and milk tea; they couldn't possibly eat meat every day, not even an ordinary bay lord.

When cows weren't producing milk, they drank clear tea; their primary method of obtaining vitamins was from tea leaves.

Therefore, brick tea was essential; this item, like flour and salt, was a major consumer good.

Ever since Li Long began transporting grain into the mountains, the herdsmen had been eating coarse food less and less; at first, Li Long transported cornmeal into the mountains, but later he simply transported white flour directly.

They could afford it.

Judging by the hides and deer antlers Ha Li Mu and the others had given Li Long, they could certainly afford it.

Li Long also needed to buy some batteries; once winter arrived, each household's activity level decreased, so radios were basically turned on every day, resulting in enormous battery consumption.

Some radios had already begun to malfunction.

Therefore, he needed to repair two radios; the varieties of portable radios available now had increased somewhat.

Although the border regions were special, particularly lacking the full range of industrial goods found in the interior, light industrial products had gradually become more abundant over the past two years.

Another week passed like this; after telling Gu Gu Xiaoxia, Li Long drove the jeep toward the mountains.

People and vehicles in the county all scrambled aside upon seeing the jeep; Li Long drove out of the county town, headed west to the intersection leading to Passing Qingshuihe, then turned south, where he noticed snow had only been compacted in the middle section of the road, leaving just two tractor tracks, while the road itself remained uncleared.

He grew somewhat worried whether the road into the mountains would be problematic; after all, in Li Long's view, the jeep was inferior to a tractor when driving on snowy roads.

Fortunately, after passing Passing Qingshuihe, he discovered cart tracks leading into the mountains; Li Long guessed someone had entered to haul timber. Once the snow had been compacted, driving the jeep became easier.

When the vehicle reached a point two kilometers from Shankou, the red willow bushes by the roadside were suddenly startled, and several animals fled panic-stricken toward the west.

Li Long was also startled; he turned his head to look—these seemed to be... some kind of animal similar to gazelles.

Seeing that remarkably distinctive nose, Li Long nearly shouted out:

Saiga antelope!

It must be them!

Although Li Long, even in his previous life, had never seen one of these creatures in person, just by looking at that large nose on their faces, resembling a giant Mao Mao caterpillar, Li Long was certain: it was them!

Observing the fur on their bodies, a certain memory suddenly flashed through his mind; Li Long immediately realized—wasn't this exactly the group of creatures that didn't look like gazelles which he had encountered while hunting with his father and elder brother that day?

Was it the same herd, or a different one?

Li Long halted the jeep, grabbed his gun, and darted out.

Since he wasn't wearing his cotton coat inside the jeep, he ran extremely fast.

Those antelopes naturally ran faster than him, but the snow was extremely deep, and their legs were so thin that each step sank them in; although they were gradually increasing the distance from Li Long, the gap wasn't widening much.

While running, Li Long released the safety, racked the bolt to chamber a round, and panted heavily as he waited for an opportunity; there were seven or eight antelopes in the herd, and he was focusing on the three males with horns.

Hitting any one of them would suffice.

However, the distance continued to widen step by step; after all, these antelopes were creatures extremely adept at running, and the potential they unleashed when facing danger was something Li Long couldn't match.

His stamina and endurance far exceeded those of ordinary people; otherwise, he would have been left behind long ago.

Actually, the distance to those antelopes was now seventy or eighty meters, but the shrubs here were far more numerous and dense than in the uninhabited zone, so opportunities to fire were scarce.

Li Long chased those antelopes for two or three kilometers; he felt his throat was about to catch fire, when suddenly the antelopes ahead seemed startled by something, and their running direction abruptly shifted collectively from west to southwest!

The opportunity had arrived!

Li Long immediately crouched down, raised his gun to aim; at this moment, the antelopes presented him with more than half their bodies, rather than just their rear ends.

This was just like naval fleet battles in the Second World War where one must seize the T-crossing position, allowing one's own cannons to fire upon the enemy's hull.

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

Li Long fired three shots in succession; one of the antelopes dropped, and Li Long, gun in hand, quickly ran over.

A minute later, passing that spot, he saw the dead male antelope but did not stop, continuing to chase the herd.

For he had not only killed one but also wounded another!

That injured antelope ran with the others, trailing blood, growing slower by the moment as the bleeding worsened and frothy blood bubbled from its mouth.

The bullet had struck the edge of its lung, inflicting a wound that was not immediately fatal.

Had it been able to rest quietly, it might have survived for some time.

But in the midst of a panicked flight, how could it be allowed to rest?

Li Long pursued from behind with his gun; he had opportunities to fire again but held his fire. After chasing several dozen more meters, the injured antelope finally could run no further; it collapsed in the snow, coughing up frothy blood incessantly.

As Li Long approached, the antelope struggled to rise but ultimately failed.

Li Long holstered his gun, drew his knife, and slit its throat, granting it a quick end.

Both antelopes were males; this one was clearly older, its horns bearing heavier spiral patterns.

The one that had fallen earlier was younger.

Waiting until this antelope's blood had drained and he had mostly recovered his breath, Li Long hoisted it onto his shoulder and started back.

He could not carry the other antelope as well, so he could only drag it along.

Running out here, he had been too excited to care about anything, but the return journey was truly difficult. Dragging the antelope through the snow, he would occasionally snag on a tree stump or rock hidden beneath, which yanked him backward.

By the time he finally dragged it to the Jeep, Li Long felt as if smoke were rising from his head.

He hurried into the Jeep, pulled out his cotton-padded coat to put on, and donned his cotton hat; otherwise, he would surely catch a cold today.

Looking at the two antelopes, Li Long thought for a moment, then merely slit their bellies open to release the internal heat. Since the blood had already drained completely, he was not worried about them spoiling.

After resting in the Jeep for a while, once the antelopes had frozen half-hard, Li Long loaded them into the vehicle and continued driving deeper into the mountains.

This was not the time to process them; moreover, the Jeep's trunk was already packed with many items, so processing the antelopes now would leave no room to store them.

Thus, the two antelopes had to be uncomfortably placed on the front seats.

He would deal with them once he reached Ha Li Mu's home; in any case, Ha Li Mu's skill at skinning was surely superior to his own.

The snow track pressed by the cart turned into a gully upon reaching the third mountain tier.

Li Long knew that dense snow forests lay there.

From here on, the Jeep would have to break its own path.

Fortunately, the wind had blown the mountain snow unevenly, thick in some places and thin in others; in some spots, the soil layer was nearly exposed, making the going somewhat easier.

Before long, Li Long spotted Ha Li Mu's winter dwelling; smoke rose from it, indicating the owner was inside.

Before Li Long's Jeep had even come to a stop, barking sounds came from that direction.

Then, Ha Li Mu bent down and walked out of the winter dwelling. (End of Chapter)