The herd of wild donkeys ran fast. By the time they saw the Jeep-or rather, heard it-they had already turned and fled deeper into the dunes.
"Hey, they're fast! If they were a little slower, we could've shot one," Li Qingxia said, watching them.
Encountering wild donkeys suggested there should be plenty of wildlife here, and all three men relaxed.
The Jeep continued forward. Li Jianguo suddenly pointed at a snow-covered stretch of ground ahead and said:
"This is land the Company farmed when I was Quartermaster. There's an apple orchard farther on, too. Don't know if it's still there... hey, the Woods are still there."
The cultivated land covered nearly a thousand mu, an enormous expanse. The Corps in Northern Xinjiang had begun mechanized land reclamation very early on. Here on the edge of the Junggar Basin, the terrain was completely flat, and the fields were huge, stretch after stretch that were hard to see the end of.
Beside this farmland stood a rather sparse apple orchard. The fruit trees weren't tall and appeared to have been pruned. Li Long could even see a shriveled apple hanging on a tree at the edge of the plot. A few birds perched on the branches, then flapped away as the Jeep approached.
"So is this all farmland? Does that mean we won't see any more Mongolian gazelles farther on?" Li Qingxia sounded a little disappointed. "Where's the Company you used to stay at?"
"Still farther ahead. It's a long way," Li Jianguo said. "Look at this stretch-fields south of the road, Gobi and dunes north of it. It's fine. Back then, we often saw Mongolian gazelles, red deer, and things north of the road. There are some, definitely!"
By the time they drove here, it was past one in the afternoon,