Kazakh herders did not eat many mushrooms at this time, so the young men were curious about what Li Long was doing, but mostly just helped without interfering.
But when Li Long added salt to the mushroom soup and its aroma drifted out, even more young men gathered around.
To ordinary people, herders seemed able to eat meat every day. The mukbang hosts from pastoral regions in his previous life had conveyed much the same impression.
But only after getting to know Harimu and the others had Li Long truly learned that herders only slaughtered a sheep for festivals or visitors. Ordinarily, they lived on milk tea and naan, and their lives were quite hard too.
So eating mutton was an important part of today's work for the young men. At this moment, though, the smell of mushrooms appealed to them just as much as the smell of mutton-normally, even cattle and sheep would not eat those white mushrooms, so how could they possibly eat them?
Li Long remembered meeting herders in his previous life who, once they got to know him, would ask, "You Han Chinese really are strange. You enjoy eating the grass that cattle and sheep eat, things like alfalfa, wild chives, and wild onions. Doesn't meat taste good?"
Of course meat tasted good, but a Han Chinese stomach could not handle that stuff every day.
Young men came riding back one after another. Some had girls and children on their horses, some simply arrived carrying Dombras, and others brought sacks. When they set their loads on the wooden floor of the Winter Camp, they landed with heavy thuds.
Li Long guessed they were stones.
He had to admit that the mountains on the northern slopes of Heavenly Mountain were incredibly rich in jade, though most of