By the time Li Long returned to the roadworks carrying the half-grown wild boar, the safety officer had already been replaced.
This time, Li Long did not do the work himself. He had Meng Hai find one of the cooks to butcher the boar, then slung his gun over his back and headed into the mountains again.
Ma Xiaoyan followed this time. She ran up to Li Long and asked breathlessly:
"Comrade Li Long, this boar should be enough to feed all of us, shouldn't it? What else are you planning to do?"
"Less than a kilometer ahead, there's a huge boulder blocking a spot this road has to pass through. I'm going to take a look and work out how to get rid of it."
"Then I'll come and have a look with you," Ma Xiaoyan said. "Is it big?"
"Very big. As big as several rooms. We can't dig it out, so we'll probably have to blast it apart," Li Long said.
The last time Li Xiangqian and the others had come to work here, they had brought plenty of explosives. They had used some then and left the rest as a reserve.
Li Long wanted to examine the boulder. He reckoned they would have no choice but to use explosives once the road reached this spot.
When they reached the boulder again, Li Long pointed below it and said, "That's where I picked up the boar just now."
"Picked it up?" Ma Xiaoyan was astonished. "You can just pick up a wild boar?"
"It fell down from here this morning while heading back into the deeper mountains with the main herd after feeding. It hurt its hind legs and couldn't get away, and I happened to come across it." After explaining, Li Long went to examine the