After three or four days on the train, Li Long stretched as he stepped out of Urumqi Railway Station, feeling as though he had come back to life.
Xiao Wang had booked him a lower berth, which should have been very comfortable. The train was not as cramped as a long-distance bus, either; he could stand up in the corridor.
He had eaten dining-car food all the way, so there was certainly nothing lacking in how he had been treated. Yet Li Long simply felt uncomfortable spending so long in the train's confined space. Now that he was off it, even in the heat, his whole body felt free to stretch, and even breathing felt expansive.
With his backpack on and the local specialties Xiao Wang had prepared in hand, he first went to the place where he had eaten with Yusufu last time. He had a plate of mixed noodles to properly make it up to his stomach, then went to buy some dried fruit from Yusufu.
The Beijing Office served mixed noodles too, but whether it was the flour or the meat and vegetables, they simply had not tasted quite right. Only after eating a meal here did he feel he had tasted the real thing!
Although raisins and jujubes would become the dried-fruit snacks people in Southern and Northern Xinjiang least liked eating twenty or thirty years later, there were still relatively few kinds of snacks available now. They were quite good to keep at home for nibbling.
Yusufu was there and was delighted to see Li Long. His son was absent. When Li Long asked, Yusufu said his son had gone to learn cooking. He did not want to run a stall here like his father; he wanted to open a mixed noodle restaurant.
He had