Chapter 667

Bolati also sighed with emotion:

"Every year, it's said that people die in these mountains. Some die from drinking too much, like this one today who was gnawed on by wolves, and others die from bleeding out after falling and having no one to save them..."

This was the first time Li Long had seen it, or rather, he had experienced a part of it, and he really felt a bit emotional.

"Alright, I'm off. I just came to tell you about this matter and to let this Sun fellow be a bit more careful; there are bad people in the mountains."

After speaking, Bolati rode off on his horse.

After he left, Sun Jia Qiang came over and asked with some worry:

"Brother Long, are we still going to sell these knives? I feel like selling knives to others is a bit dangerous..."

"Sell them." Li Long waved his hand. "The fritillaria season shouldn't have more than ten days left, right? Once this fritillaria season is over, you can also leave the mountains."

"Then those mushrooms..." Sun Jia Qiang actually didn't really want to leave; he was still thinking about earning a bit more.

Although staying in the wooden cabin was comfortable, the money wasn't that much.

"Oh, oh, oh..." Li Long slapped his forehead. "I completely forgot. You stay here; I'll go into the forest right now to look. There are still quite a few morels this year."

Sun Jia Qiang immediately wanted to follow.

"Then lock the door," Li Long said. "It's just as well to let you see where morels are easy to find."

There were plenty of these things in the mountains, but Li Long didn't have the time to look for them himself. Once the fritillaria was collected and the carrying poles were woven in the next two days, he would at most pick a few to take back to nourish his parents and Gu Xiaoxia.

As for selling them, he was too lazy to bother.

Sun Jia Qiang excitedly and quickly tidied up the things outside the door, while Li Long took the gun out of the car, with his backpack still on his back.

Seeing Sun Jia Qiang carrying a bag, Li Long was amused and said:

"Let me tell you, you keep an eye out too. After I show you where they grow and how to pick them easily, we'll pick for a while; whoever picks them gets to keep them."

Saying this, he walked toward the forest in the southeast.

This side was the closest.

After entering the forest, Li Long walked inside with ease and familiarity, not stopping at all on the way.

Sun Jia Qiang clearly saw quite a few mushrooms along the way, but Li Long didn't even glance at them.

"Brother Long, these mushrooms... can't they be eaten?"

"They can be eaten, but their nutritional value isn't as high as morels," Li Long said while walking. "And they aren't as expensive as morels, either."

There were many edible mushrooms in the mountains: white brittle mushrooms, porcini mushrooms, and enoki mushrooms—the enoki mushrooms in the mountains were golden yellow, larger than the ones sold in supermarkets in his previous life, and better in color.

Li Long had actually always been unable to figure out why those white ones were called enoki mushrooms; it was only after seeing the ones in the mountains that he understood: true wild enoki mushrooms are golden yellow.

But this wasn't the time to pick those mushrooms; Li Long just wanted to pick more morels.

Li Long had a long stride, and Sun Jia Qiang followed him at a trot, panting.

After walking more than a hundred meters and climbing a mountain ridge in the pine forest, Li Long suddenly stopped.

"Come, come, come, take a look, do you see it?" Li Long called Sun Jia Qiang over.

Sun Jia Qiang scanned the area, but for the life of him, he couldn't see anything.

"Squat down." Li Long smiled and signaled for Sun Jia Qiang to squat down and look.

He had had this experience before; when he followed others to dig for mushrooms, they would dig up a cluster every now and then, sometimes even right in front of his feet, but he just couldn't see them.

In the words of those people, he hadn't changed his visual habits yet; his "eyes hadn't been opened."

Right now, Sun Jia Qiang was just like that.

"Where is it?" Sun Jia Qiang squatted down but still didn't see anything.

"Here." Li Long pointed to a grey-black protrusion on the edge of a patch of moss. "Do you see it? This is a morel."

After speaking, he directly pinched the stem and "picked" the morel.

"So this is it! It really does look strange... don't you want the root?" Sun Jia Qiang looked at the morel in Li Long's hand and sighed; it really was right in front of his eyes and he couldn't see it.

The cap of this morel really did look like a sheep's stomach, with grids and ridges.

"You can keep the root; it adds weight when selling, but this thing will be deducted for impurities, and it's quite troublesome to eat. I'm getting some today to take home to eat, so I don't want the root. If you're picking them to sell, you can pull them out by the root."

After squatting down, Sun Jia Qiang felt much better. He scanned the surroundings and immediately discovered another morel, pointing it out to Li Long with pleasant surprise.

"Right, that's the feeling." Li Long smiled. "Let me tell you, morels usually grow in patches; they rarely grow as a single stalk. So once you find one, if you look around nearby, you should be able to find quite a few. Sometimes you can find twenty or thirty nearby."

After speaking, Li Long stood up, clapped his hands, placed the morel in his hand into Sun Jia Qiang's, and pointed to the south, saying:

"Alright, I'm going further in. You can pick some, or you can go back now and wait to trade for fritillaria; it's up to you."

After speaking, Li Long continued toward the south.

Sun Jia Qiang looked at the morel in his hand, then looked at Li Long's back as it appeared and disappeared among the pine trees. After thinking for a moment, he squatted down and started picking morels.

At first, he was just like Li Long, pinching off the stems of the morels directly, and instead of putting them in a bag, he just held them in his hands.

After picking the ten or so morels nearby, Sun Jia Qiang stood up, caught his breath, and then turned back.

He would pick more after the fritillaria season was over. For now, he'd go collect fritillaria first; he'd earn some cash first.

Li Long was carrying a cloth bag in his backpack. After parting ways with Sun Jia Qiang, he continued to walk inside.

Based on Li Long's experience from two lifetimes, morels usually grow in two types of places in the Tianshan Mountains: one is in thick moss on shady mountain slopes, and the other is in gently sloping areas of mountain forests. They need somewhat moist soil, but it can't be too damp; if it's too damp, they won't grow.

There are also morels in the plains, but the morels in the mountains are pointed and long, like a pointed chili pepper, while the caps of morels in the plains are mostly round, and they are grey rather than grey-black.

After parting ways with Sun Jia Qiang, Li Long walked for a while longer and discovered a large morel in the grass. He squatted down to pick the palm-sized morel and discovered that this thing was a bit old.

The difference between morels and other mushroom species is that they generally don't get worms. Even if they are old, they just rot or dry out, whereas most other mushrooms get worms inside after they grow old, and then they get eaten hollow and damaged by worms, and then they rot.

In the past, Li Long had superstitiously believed that mushrooms themselves were like living things, that worm eggs were part of the mushroom, and that they would naturally grow worms. Later, there was also a saying that mushrooms with worms were non-toxic, and toxic ones didn't grow worms.

Later on, he learned that these were all wrong.

Morels are a bit more unique; after they grow out, they can stand upright for many days until they get old, or until the next rain or wind, and then they rot and get damaged.

Li Long immediately picked this morel and put it into his cloth bag, then squatted down and looked at the nearby grass almost horizontally, searching for other morels.

Very quickly, he discovered a few small morels. As he went over to pick them, he suddenly discovered that a snake over a meter long in the grass ahead had also been startled. It first coiled up and faced Li Long, then seemed to discover or feel that something was wrong, and then darted directly into the grass.

Its reaction was extremely fast.

Li Long was also given a fright, and by the time he reacted, the snake had already run far away.

He had no interest in snakes, so he didn't chase after it. He looked around again, and seeing no other danger, he picked those two morels.

He picked ten or so in total nearby, and Li Long felt it was quite good.

He had a sharp eye, and the resources nearby were plentiful; very quickly, he had picked a whole cloth bag of morels.

There were certainly more in the forest, but there was no need to get more, so Li Long turned around and walked back.

He remembered hearing people say when he traveled to Yili in his previous life that once the morel season arrived, the vegetable shop owners in the market would drive to familiar mountain passes early in the morning, enter the mountains to harvest, pick a few kilograms or four or five bags in two hours, and then drive back. By this time, the market would have just opened, and they would start selling directly.

How refreshing.

Around 2010 was when the market price of morels was at its most expensive. It was said that at that time, dried morels sold at stalls in the county seat of ZS cost over two thousand per kilogram.

A sky-high price.

Seven kilograms of dried goods made one kilogram, which was equivalent to over three hundred per kilogram for fresh ones.

Too exaggerated.

The amount Li Long had picked right now was over two kilograms, a large cloth bag. This thing didn't add weight at all; it was mainly hollow and had thin skin. It was said that some dishonest people would directly stuff an iron wire inside.

Also a "talent."

After coming out of the mountains, Li Long saw Sun Jia Qiang there talking to someone about trading things. He walked over, didn't say much, put his backpack into the jeep, and prepared to go to Halimu's winter shelter to see how the sheep-washing pool was being dug.

"Hey, hey!" Just as he was about to climb into the jeep, someone shouted. Li Long turned his head and glanced; he hadn't originally thought this was shouting at him.

"You!" The shout was indeed directed at him.

Li Long looked toward the source of the sound; two figures were actually coming from the east.

Li Long vaguely remembered having seen these two people; they were both medicinal herb gatherers who had traded things in his hands, and it was only because Sun Jia Qiang was too busy that they had found him.

"Do you want to trade for things?" Li Long asked.

"Yes, yes, yes, we want to trade for a few more knives."

"How many do you want to trade for?" Although Li Long was a bit puzzled as to why they wanted to trade for so many knives, since people wanted to trade, he would trade.

"I want three, he wants two," the bearded man in the lead said hurriedly. "One knife for two kilograms of fritillaria, right?"

"Right." Li Long looked at the bag in his hand and said, "There should be more in here."

"Trade the rest for dried noodles." The other party had probably already thought it through. "We traded for meat a few days ago, and originally thought we could have a good meal, but didn't expect that just eating meat wouldn't work; we still need grain, otherwise we can't take it."

Li Long smiled. Grain is converted into energy. Humans aren't cattle or sheep; they can't convert grass into energy, only grain. So just eating meat or just eating vegetables clearly wouldn't work; they must have a staple food.

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Li Long had things in his jeep, so he directly traded for the knives and dried noodles. The two people held the five knives and divided them up there, looking at Li Long from time to time.

Li Long gently patted the gun on his back and didn't speak.

The two people hurriedly took their things and left.

It seemed that knives really couldn't be sold in too large a quantity.

Li Long turned his head and glanced at Sun Jia Qiang; he discovered that Sun Jia Qiang was still quite vigilant when trading things with others.

After the trading over there was finished, Li Long still went over to give a reminder, telling Sun Jia Qiang to close the door early every day, to prop the door with something at night, and not to open it even if someone called.

Sun Jia Qiang clearly knew these things; after nodding in agreement, he started washing the fritillaria he had just traded for.

Only then did Li Long drive the jeep toward Halimu's side.

When the car entered that gully, Li Long heard the sounds of many people talking and joking.

He could feel that the people working were very lively. Thinking about it, it was normal; usually, when people gathered together to work like this in the team, it was to put mud on someone else's roof or to build a new house.

On such occasions, many people gathered, and the work was done lively.

Li Long drove the jeep to the entrance of Halimu's winter shelter and discovered that a simple stone stove had already been set up there, and Old Huang was cooking meat by the stove.

Someone even shouted toward this side:

"Old Huang, we ate boiled meat yesterday, are we eating it again today?"

"We have it, we have pilaf," Old Huang said with a smile. "If you don't want to eat boiled meat, eating pilaf is fine too."

Li Long's jeep stopped, and just by scanning, he discovered that the sheep-washing pool over there was already more than half finished. Actually, the sheep-washing pool itself could be big or small. If you wanted to save trouble, digging a pool three meters in diameter and pouring in more medicinal water would also be enough to wash hundreds of sheep.

But Li Long was thinking about making it a bit bigger; in any case, once this thing was built, the herdsmen in the nearby tribes could all come over to wash their sheep.

At that time, they would only need to buy the medicine for washing sheep; they wouldn't need to go to the livestock team to pay money to wash sheep anymore.

So this pool was dug relatively large.

Because time was relatively tight and there wasn't enough time to make mud bricks to build walls, Li Jianguo directed everyone to pile the dug-up soil on the side, and then use wooden boards to pound it hard, piling the walls in the form of rammed earth; this was more durable than simply piling up soil.

Others were picking stones in the nearby river gully; these stones would eventually be laid at the bottom of the sheep pool, which would be more convenient.

When Li Long came over, the project was already more than half done. He greeted Old Huang and then went over to take a look.

Seeing him come over, Li Jianguo pointed to the bottom of the pool and said:

"After digging down one meter, clay came out. The bottom is good, so water won't seep through, and it will be easy to wash. Water enters here and exits there, and we'll make a small drainage channel in the middle; when the time comes, the water after washing can be released directly."

His eldest brother really knew a lot, having thought of everything that should be thought of.

"It looks like it can be finished by mid-afternoon," Li Long said with a smile, looking at the progress of the project.

"Yeah, it's very fast. You see, his winter shelter is also a bit broken, and the grass on the top is almost rotten. If you think it's alright, then we'll put some good mud on his roof and plaster the walls. Since we've come to work, we should do it properly."

"Alright." Li Long was amused when he heard this. "Then you guys work, I'll go roast some meat for you!"

His own labor actually only added the strength of one person, but roasting some meat for everyone was something he was good at.

There were seasonings in the jeep, and Old Huang had salt; Li Long got chili powder and cumin powder, and then went to Old Huang's place to get a piece of meat.

He first cut the meat into chunks and marinated it, and then started opening the trough.

The trough left behind when the young men of those tribes gathered here to work hadn't been completely abandoned; Li Long only needed to clean it up. Next was to go get some charcoal and put it into the mud trough.

After getting this done, Li Long went to cut some red willow branches and skewered the marinated meat.

Time was short, so the meat chunks he made were relatively large. Fortunately, the charcoal in the trough wasn't smoky coal but red charcoal, with no open flames, so it could be roasted slowly.

The smell of roasted meat was easier to diffuse than the smell of boiled meat, and it was also more tempting. Very quickly, the people digging the sheep-washing pool over there started shouting.

To tell the truth, just now when Li Long was busy over here, some people were paying attention to him. Watching him busy with one thing after another, they were curious at first, and then they understood.

"Uncle Lao Li, is it time to rest? Let's eat before we work?"

Someone started making requests and suggestions to Li Jianguo.

After all, the smell of this roasted meat was truly too tempting.

Li Jianguo smiled:

"Alright then, let's rest. Everyone go wash your hands and get ready to eat. After eating, rest for half an hour, and then we'll work again. We agreed just now, after finishing the sheep-washing pool, we still have to put mud on the roof of that winter shelter over there and repair it; don't anyone be lazy."

"Don't worry!" Xu Haijun laughed and climbed out of the pit. "With meat to eat, isn't working just what we should do? When else can we eat deer meat and wolf meat together?"

Everyone laughed and ran to the water pipe to wash their hands, and then most of the young people rushed to Li Long's place.

"Is it cooked yet?" Liang Wenyu and Xu Haijun considered themselves to have a good relationship with Li Long and were the first to ask together.

"It's cooked, but there aren't many skewers, one per person," Li Long said, handing them out one by one. "There aren't any extra. If you want to eat more, go cut the meat and skewer it yourself; I can roast it."

No matter how he worked by himself, he couldn't make that many meat skewers in a short while; being able to provide one per person was enough.

The meat skewers were large; to tell the truth, if you went by the appetite of those "little fairies" of later generations, one skewer would be enough to be full.

However, in this day and age, the appetites of young men and middle-aged people (those in their thirties, forties, and fifties) were not generally large; eating five such meat skewers per person was no problem at all.

So those who got a meat skewer, after eating just one bite, immediately went over to pull at the meat, wanting to cut it into chunks and skewer it, preparing to bring it over to be roasted.

After Li Long finished distributing them to everyone, he still had two skewers in his hand; he kept one for himself, preparing to give the extra one to his eldest brother.

Li Jianguo didn't want it, telling him to eat it himself.

When Old Huang saw this situation, he couldn't help but shout:

"There's still pilaf over here, you guys are just eating roasted meat, then who's going to pile up the pilaf and hand-torn meat?"

Others all laughed out loud, but none of them were slow to act; some people couldn't wait for Li Long to come over and roast it, and started doing it themselves.

In any case, this trough was long and could accommodate four or five people roasting head-to-head.

Li Long was also too lazy to take it easy.

Roasted meat, just tasting the flavor is enough; pilaf is the main event.

He also wanted to have a good taste of the pilaf Old Huang made.

In this day and age, a master chef who could stand the test of a large rural banquet had no problems with their culinary skills. Although Li Long had lived two lifetimes and made decent pilaf, he really couldn't make it as well as this large pot.

When Old Huang uncovered the pot, Li Long couldn't wait to fill an enamel basin with meat and rice, and sat on the side to eat.

Li Jianguo, Lu Yingming, and others were all the same.

To truly fill one's stomach, it had to be rice.

Roasted meat, just taste it for freshness. (End of chapter)