The Purchasing Station had changed life for Chen Hongjun's family, and more people who went into the mountains to gather medicinal herbs had made money from it too.
At this time, people had explored only an extremely small part of the Heavenly Mountain. Even thirty or forty years later, hikers who regularly ventured into the mountains would still have only a very limited understanding of it.
The Heavenly Mountain Range stretched for thousands of kilometers and held countless hidden places. With Xinjiang's population remaining small, this situation would continue for a long time yet.
So even though more people entered the mountains to dig medicinal herbs every year, and their harvests kept increasing, the mountains' treasures and resources still seemed inexhaustible.
Of course, that might also have been because the Heavenly Mountain's environment was particularly harsh for human survival. The outer layers of earth-covered hills, the layers of shrub-covered mountains farther in, and the few roads leading into the mountains blocked some would-be developers.
This ensured that the vast forests, grasslands, and rivers of the Inner Mountain, along with the precious plants and animals living there, could survive.
Thirty or forty years later, frequent disappearances and deaths among hikers would lead to the closure of many ancient hiking routes that they had considered hidden wonders, leaving the mountain environment even more "natural."
Of course, in the 1980s, development of the Heavenly Mountain was still unregulated. Although the Forestry Team had begun managing the area, the mountain range was simply too vast for them to guard every mountain pass.
More and more people entered the mountains seeking wealth, with people from Inland China like Mo Linsheng and the Wu Family uncle and nephew making up the main force.
After seeing Jia Tianlong off, Li Long could not withstand Mingming and Haohao's