Ma Xiaoyan ate three pieces of roe deer meat before going to wash her hands, still wanting more. Then she followed Li Long's example and ladled soup into an enamel basin to drink.
Li Long kept enamel basins on his tractor year-round when he was in the mountains. A quick rinse and they were ready to use. People were not so particular back then.
Li Long had been startled watching Ma Xiaoyan eat the meat. What an appetite! Wasn't she afraid of upsetting her stomach if she kept eating like that?
Apparently not. In those days, men and women alike had little fat in their diets, so it was perfectly normal to eat more when they came across something good.
Just look at Liu Jun. He had eaten four pieces of meat and looked capable of more.
Li Long had only eaten two pieces. One was a leg bone with an ankle bone attached. He gnawed all the meat and sinew off the ankle bone and saved it for Li Juan, Li Qiang, and the others to play with. Then he ate a piece of neck meat.
He had originally wanted ribs, which tasted better, but they did not seem quite tender enough, so he went for the supple meat on the neck instead.
By the time they finished the soup, the sky had darkened. They headed for the wooden cabin after agreeing with Harimu and the others to continue tomorrow.
Tomorrow they would mainly be going to the pasture, both to photograph the hay cutting and to continue the interviews.
Ma Xiaoyan felt there was still plenty of material worth digging into. She would have to give it some serious thought when she went to bed that night.
With the tractor leading and the UAZ-212 following, they managed to