Chapter 975: Have you ever seen a jade stone as big as a house?

Li Long ran to the rock and observed it carefully before heaving a sigh of relief. The base of the "small" rock that had been split off had already separated from the giant boulder, but the power of the explosion was just a little short of knocking it down.

Li Long stepped forward and pushed it. The rock swayed slightly. He began to shake it hard, and the amplitude of the rock's swaying became larger and larger. Seeing that the timing was right, Li Long gave it a fierce push, and the rock detached from its base, rolling down to the river beach, flattening a patch of shrubs and pressing them against the stone wall in the process.

When Ma Xiao Yan poked her head out to look again, she happened to see Li Long pushing that big rock down. She sighed at Li Long's strength, then went back to picking mushrooms.

She might not come tomorrow, so she had to get more today.

Looking at the giant boulder, which was less than half its original size, Li Long knew that the dynamite might not be enough, but most of the obstacles caused by the rock had already been removed. Even if the rest wasn't enough, at most he would just go get some more.

The supply and marketing cooperative had been a bit busy lately, so it was unlikely they could come to help, but getting some dynamite and detonators was still no problem.

First, he looked at the places where dynamite could be installed on the remaining rock. After looking for a long while, Li Long chose the side of the rock closer to the mountain slope this time—although he hadn't studied physics much and didn't know much about mechanics, he knew that if he blasted from the back of the rock, the blasted stones should fly toward the direction of the road.

Even if it didn't blast open and only left a crack like before, it would be easier for him to push.

He didn't consider these things when the rock was big, because the dynamite he placed couldn't completely blast the whole rock. Now that there wasn't much rock left, he needed to consider it. If he placed dynamite on the road side, and the rock happened to fall onto the mountain slope, it would be quite troublesome to push it down later.

Returning behind the tree, he bundled all the remaining dynamite together. Li Long took it to the rock, stuffed it into the rock fissure he had chosen earlier, pulled the pull-tube, and ran quickly toward the mountain slope—this time he didn't run behind the tree, mainly because it wasn't convenient.

He ran thirty or forty meters out and stopped. Just as he turned his head, he felt the ground shake, and then heard a "boom." He watched a cloud of black smoke rise into the air from the rock, and the rock split into two halves.

What surprised Li Long was that the effect was even better than he had imagined. A rock slightly smaller than the one that had fallen earlier tumbled down, rolling to the river beach. The other piece also fell to the ground; although it didn't roll down, its base was already broken, so it should be relatively easy to handle.

Not bad, it saved a lot of trouble.

Li Long walked to the rock with light steps and looked at the big rock that had fallen down. It must have weighed several hundred kilograms. He tried to lift it and could move it, but it was difficult to lift it up, so he didn't move it again.

Anyway, the rock had already been blasted open. When Meng Hai and the others brought people over to build the road later, a few people would be able to pry it with crowbars.

The remaining base of this giant boulder was higher than the roadbed, but Li Long didn't bother with that either. When the time came, they just needed to pave the road higher or use a sledgehammer to smash some of the rock's base.

Removing this giant boulder felt like completing a major task. He clapped his hands, smiled, and went behind the tree to tidy up the remaining things.

"Comrade Li Long, it's time to eat!" In the distance, someone from the road construction direction shouted toward Li Long.

"Okay, I know," Li Long said. "Coming right over."

"Is Clerk Ma over there?" that person shouted and asked again. "Call her along too!"

"I'll notify her, you go ahead," Li Long waved his hand at him, then turned his head and shouted toward the location where Ma Xiao Yan had been earlier:

"Clerk Ma, time to eat!"

The voice of the villager who had just called Li Long was quite soft by the time it reached here, and Ma Xiao Yan naturally couldn't hear it in the mountains. But Li Long's position here was a transit point, and Li Long's voice was loud, echoing directly in the valley. Ma Xiao Yan, who was looking for mushrooms, heard it, crawled out from a forest nearby, and said to Li Long: "I'm coming!"

Her satchel was bulging, and she had taken off her coat and was carrying it in her hand. The two sleeves of the coat were tied together, forming a bundle, which should also be a bag of mushrooms inside.

"There are really many wild mushrooms in these mountains!" Ma Xiao Yan said happily as she walked closer. "In just this short while, I've picked several kilograms. I'll dry them at home, and they'll last for many days."

"They're all mushrooms you recognize, right?" Li Long helped her carry them and asked. "Don't pick any poisonous mushrooms."

"Hmm, they're all ones I recognize. Big white brittle mushrooms, porcini, enoki mushrooms, pine mushrooms. I didn't pick any others I didn't recognize."

Now the morel season was over, and the black tiger palm mushrooms hadn't come down yet. In the forest, the wild ones were mainly these mushrooms.

When the two arrived at the road construction area, the villagers had already found places to eat. This time the stove wasn't set up at the winter camp, but built right here on the river beach. Everyone still had an enamel bowl, a large piece of meat, and a bowl of soup.

Li Long didn't specifically go to buy naan today; the naan from yesterday hadn't been finished yet. He took the naan and shared it with Ma Xiao Yan, then learned from everyone else, holding an enamel bowl with soup, intending to find a cool place to sit down and eat. Meng Hai was greeting him not far away, so Li Long walked over.

Ma Xiao Yan sat with a few female villagers, chatting and laughing with them.

"The rock is almost solved, right?" Meng Hai asked. "The power of those few explosions just now was not small. A few rabbits were startled directly on the opposite side of the river beach, and they all dashed into the water. We almost caught them."

"Almost. You can handle the remaining small work. In the afternoon, I'll go ahead to see if there's anything else that needs handling." Li Long was full of confidence at this moment. "I think this is quite good—"

As he spoke, he glanced at the progress of Meng Hai and the others' work and found it was quite fast, having advanced more than a hundred meters since they came in the morning.

And the quality was also not bad. A thin layer of sand and gravel had already been paved on the pushed roadbed, and there were also tracks left by the crawler and the small four-wheeler.

This kind of road couldn't be built perfectly all at once. In fact, the most important thing was to widen the original road so that a small four-wheeler could pass. As for what the roadbed looked like, the terrain in the mountains often changed, and the road built today might change its appearance after a flood passed tomorrow.

So Li Long didn't make too many demands, taking it one step at a time.

After eating, the villagers scooped hot water at the stove to rinse their enamel bowls, then went to the riverside to wash them, put them away, and hurried to rest.

Some leaned against trees and closed their eyes for a nap, some gathered together to play cards, and others chatted about everyday life.

Poor people have the happiness of poor people, and even if it's just a little bit of leisure time, they can find some fun—Li Long also saw someone enter the forest, and he guessed it was highly likely they had the same idea as Ma Xiao Yan, to pick some mushrooms to take back.

Li Long remembered the movie "Return to Dust" he saw in his previous life. It seemed completely bitter and deep, but in fact, ordinary common people have the happiness of ordinary common people. Although they don't know what it means that life must go on, that's how the days are lived. Poverty has the fun of poverty; it's not that the petty bourgeoisie imagines out of thin air that there is no happiness if one is poor.

Li Long also rested against a tree for a while. Meng Hai didn't come to disturb him, but took two team leaders to the front, probably planning the work for the afternoon.

When work started, Li Long still walked forward. Ma Xiao Yan didn't follow him this time, mainly because Li Long was going to scout the road. He told Ma Xiao Yan not to go too far from the team; it would be troublesome if she ran into wild beasts.

Although the huge sound of the dynamite had scared away most of the wild beasts nearby, no one dared to be sure if there would be any bold guys running over.

Ma Xiao Yan followed the advice and stayed active nearby.

Li Long shouldered his rifle and walked upstream, walking all the way to the blasted giant boulder. He didn't stop and continued walking forward. The terrain along this road rose and fell, generally getting higher as he walked, and then he entered another gully.

Li Long summarized it now: this herding path mainly followed rivers and streams, traveling along the riverbanks and in the valleys. This would greatly save time—constantly climbing slopes would not only waste physical strength greatly but also increase many uncertain troubles during the journey.

Continuing into the mountains from the giant boulder, although this gully wasn't very wide, it was very long. The river beach was sometimes wide and sometimes narrow. Li Long walked more than a kilometer along the traces left by the transhumance livestock and discovered a new obstacle.

From the giant boulder all the way to this place, the main work needed in the middle was to expand the roadbed and fill some pits with mud and sand.

Although there were also trees and shrubs that needed to be removed, basically there weren't many. ===== CHAPTER 976 =====