Chapter 70: Secrets deep in the woods (part one)
Horse-Grazing Mountain Forest Park lay twenty kilometers outside Xiahai City. Covering more than a thousand hectares, it encompassed a cluster of mountains with an average elevation of over seven hundred meters. The mountains bordered a lake, their striking peaks and unusual rock formations making for beautiful scenery.
In summer, the woodland shadows swayed; in winter, occasional snow dotted the summits, while the waters and mountains below remained green.
The buses that circled the lake sometimes passed the foot of Muma Mountain. Reeds covered the lower slopes, and a broad road led uphill, but no bus went directly up the mountain. Su Can had visited before, on family picnics organized by his eldest uncle, who had borrowed a car while working at the Planning Office. There was a campsite on the mountain where visitors had to bring their own barbecue equipment. Coming in summer to pick mushrooms, breathe fresh air, cook, and barbecue a little wild game was quite pleasant.
There was said to be a villa development inside, too, with the villas supposedly owned by wealthy businessmen from the provincial capital, Rongcheng. Sometimes, passing the foot of the mountain on a bus around the lake, one could make out the red roofs and brickwork of the villas among the green mountains and trees.
But because of its remote location and lack of convenient bus routes, residents had criticized the forest park as a private garden built only for the rich.
Some of the facilities up there had long since been abandoned, and the company operating it had withdrawn its staff long ago. The campsite remained, of course, and occasionally a few car owners brought ingredients and charcoal up for a barbecue, but they were very few.
The bus around the lake