After returning from the hot spring, Li Long went back to his room to rest. Catching fish that morning had left him exhausted and freezing, but the soak had made him feel much better.
They ate dinner at the hotel without going out. Li Long already felt the trip had been worthwhile.
After breakfast the next morning, Liu Gaolou and Bek loaded plenty of things into the vehicle, then called Li Long over to leave with them.
"Aren't we calling Wu Yongbo?" Li Long asked as he drove Dong.
"Not for now," Liu Gaolou said. "We're going to celebrate the festival with Bek's relatives this time. Wu Yongbo has his own things to do. We don't need to worry about him."
They were all Liu Gaolou's friends anyway, so Li Long gave it no further thought and drove along the route Bek pointed out.
He felt they were heading toward Gongliu, but he was not certain. The roads were so different from those forty years later that a rough sense of direction was not enough to tell.
Fortunately, their destination was not far, only thirty or forty kilometers away. Of course, that was in his Type 69 Vehicle. An ordinary sedan could easily have gotten stuck in these conditions.
Some stretches were simply tracks worn straight across the grassland. People were not so particular at the time, with so few vehicles around anyway. The turf had turned green, and tender grass shoots had just emerged. The vehicle crushed them as it passed, releasing a faint scent of fresh grass juice.
Yellow flowers were already blooming in places-dandelions hugging the ground, along with other wildflowers he did not recognize. Scattered through the green grass, they looked quite pretty.
To Bek and Liu Gaolou, of course, these sights were nothing unusual. The