Heading into the Mountains Took Preparation Too

Li Long had no idea what the villagers thought of him now, but he did not care either.

He climbed onto the horse cart and tried driving it for five hundred meters before getting the hang of it.

He had done similar work in his previous life. Although Li Jianguo's family had been among the first in the production team to afford a tractor, their main means of transport in the years before buying one had been a donkey cart.

Li Long could not only drive a donkey cart but ride a donkey too. Before his death in his previous life, he had even considered raising donkeys. After all, they rarely got sick, were easy to keep, and fetched increasingly high prices.

"Brother Long, when did you learn to drive a horse cart?" Tao Daqiang asked enviously, sitting on a bundle of hay in the cart.

"What's so hard about it?" Li Long said from the cart's frame. "The road's flat, and our team's horse is gentle to begin with. As long as you don't spook it, you just have to keep an eye on it now and then and keep it moving."

Of course, it sounded simple, but it was not actually that easy. Li Long just did not think there was any need to explain it in such detail.

They saw hardly anyone on the road to the township. By the time they arrived, a white layer of frost had coated their hat brims, eyebrows, and even the fine hair just beginning to grow around their lips.

The sun had risen, and the temperature had climbed a little, but Li Long felt that his feet had gone numb with cold. He got down from the cart and drove it along the main road toward the county town.

The road from the township to the county town was much better. Trucks passed along it, packing down a wider track, and here and there they could see lumps of donkey and horse dung. Li Long remembered kicking them out of boredom when he used to walk to the county town in winter. Camel dung was best: perfectly round, it would roll a long way with one kick. Donkey and horse dung were oval and flattened, so they bounced and rolled off in unpredictable directions.

Then they saw an old man picking up dung with a basket on his back.

That was a rare sight here. With its vast expanses of farmland, Northern Xinjiang had already begun using chemical fertilizers on a large scale. Li Long often saw people collecting dung back in his hometown, but he had hardly seen it since coming here.

By the time the cart reached the county town, both the horse and the men were coated in white. Li Long found the purchasing station and pulled the cart over to the roadside. He took a few handfuls of hay from the cart for the horse to eat, then told Tao Daqiang:

"Daqiang, watch the cart here. I'll go in and see what they'll pay for the water rat pelt."

"Sure." Tao Daqiang nodded vigorously. He felt he was finally being useful.

Carrying the bundle containing the rolled-up water rat pelt, Li Long pushed open the purchasing station's door. A middle-aged man sat behind the counter, reading a newspaper.

The man wore a blue Mao suit and had his hair parted slightly to one side. He looked quite smart-the very image of a cadre from that era.

A stove stood inside the purchasing station, its roaring fire giving off a deep rumble. Without even looking, Li Long knew it had to be packed with coal. What a luxury!

"Comrade, I wanted to ask whether you buy these," Li Long said, taking out the water rat pelt and laying it on the counter.

Chen Hongjun looked Li Long up and down, then rose unhurriedly. He glanced at the pelt and asked:

"Do you know what kind of pelt this is?"

The purchasing station did almost no business in winter, so the staff took turns working there, one person per day, much like being on duty.

Since someone had finally come in with something to sell, he was not overly aloof.

"A water rat pelt. They're also called muskrats, right?"

"That's right. You know quite a bit, young man." Chen Hongjun nodded, felt the pelt, then picked it up to examine it. "Fresh?"

"Yes, I dug it out yesterday. It was a bit of a fluke. They're easy to catch in spring, but getting one now was just luck."

"It's a good pelt. I'll give you five yuan for this one." Chen Hongjun put it away. "If you bring any more, I'll pay the same rate. You should know that's a high price."

It was indeed a high price. It would be another two years before they rose to ten yuan apiece.

"All right." Li Long was already more than satisfied.

After collecting his five yuan, Li Long left the purchasing station. He regretted not having Tao Daqiang come inside to warm up.

Still, they had more things to do, and there would be another chance.

"How much did it sell for?" Tao Daqiang asked immediately when he saw that the bundle in Li Long's hand was much flatter.

"Five yuan." Li Long held up his fingers and said with a smile:

"Come on, let's go to the department store and buy something to eat before we leave."

"That much!" Tao Daqiang's eyes lit up at once. "If we could get a few more pelts..."

"We'll have to wait until spring. Little Haizi is frozen over now. Getting even one was lucky enough." Li Long gathered up the hay the horse had not finished, put it back on the cart, and drove toward the department store.

When they reached the department store, Li Long took out the five-yuan banknote bearing the image of a steelworker and told Tao Daqiang:

"Daqiang, you go in first. Buy a kilo of sesame cakes and two tea bricks, then warm up for a while before coming out to take my place."

"I... I don't dare go." As soon as he heard that he was supposed to do the shopping, Tao Daqiang began to stammer.

"Brother Long, you go instead."

"I'm sending you in so you can warm up. We can't both go inside at once. There's no need to bargain for these things. Just hand over the money and take what you buy."

Only after Li Long urged him twice did Tao Daqiang take the money and head hesitantly inside. He came back out in less than five minutes and handed Li Long a bag of purchases.

"Brother Long, I got them. The sesame cakes were one yuan and twenty-eight fen, and the tea bricks were ninety fen. Here's the change."

Li Long took the money, set the purchases on the cart, and went inside himself.

The department store was much bigger than the purchasing station, with three floors. The ground floor sold food, tobacco, alcohol, and household sewing supplies.

Li Long paid for another kilo of sesame cakes, then thought for a moment and bought a bag of salt as well. He walked around to warm up before going back outside.

Tao Daqiang was pacing in circles beside the cart. Li Long untied the horse and said:

"Let's go. We're heading into the mountains now!"

"Sure!" Tao Daqiang climbed onto the cart too. Li Long flicked the whip, and the cart set off briskly toward the mountains.

A little over an hour later, they reached Clearwater River Commune.

"Brother Long, does your coworker live here?"

"Mm," Li Long answered vaguely. "But we won't visit him yet. We'll go straight into the mountains."

Tao Daqiang did not ask why Li Long wanted to head straight into the mountains. Whatever Brother Long said went.

Most people arriving here would have had to ask the locals for directions into the mountains, or they might not have found the way.

But Li Long had gone into the mountains many times in his previous life and knew the route well. He drove the cart past Clearwater River Commune, then turned onto a narrow road. After several twists and turns, they entered the mountain pass.

Farther ahead, there were still wheel tracks, but the snow was deeper, making it harder for the horse to walk. Both Li Long and Tao Daqiang got down from the cart. Wherever the snow was particularly thick, Tao Daqiang helped push from behind.

Southern Mountain consisted of several ranges. The outermost range, which most people saw, was made up of bare earthen hills with almost no vegetation. Sparse shrubs only began to appear two ranges farther in. Deeper still, the mountains stretched on in unbroken folds, with grasslands, pine forests, and thickets covering their slopes.

By the time Li Long drove the cart into the pine-covered mountains, another hour had passed.

He stopped, panting, then began looking for his destination.

Soon, beyond the pine forest, he spotted what he had been looking for: a winter camp.

(End of chapter)