By the time Li Long and the others arrived at the rocky hillside, the wolf had already disappeared.
"There, that bear was at that location." Talihar suddenly pointed in that direction.
Li Long and Yu Shanjiang looked over there. The rocks there were denser. He opened the safety of the gun and touched it.
There was a large cave entrance hidden by several bushes. The branches of the bushes at the entrance were broken a lot. Li Long took a closer look and saw that these were old fractures.
There may be nothing in this hole recently.
Li Long turned his head and glanced, and he could clearly feel that Talihar was still quite nervous.
Are you afraid there are bears inside?
Yushanjiang smiled and said:
"There will definitely be nothing inside. That bear is not stupid. When the weather gets hot, he goes deep into the mountains. There are a lot of delicious food there and no one bothers him."
Talihar said nothing and pursed his lips tightly.
"Let's go in and take a look." Li Long listened carefully and found that there was no movement at all, not even the sound of breathing, so he boldly said.
He is quite confident in his hearing.
Talihar did not move, Li Long continued to move forward, and Yushanjiang said:
"Talihar, give me the gun. Li Long and I will go in in front, and you will follow?"
Talihar hesitated, shook his head, and strode after Li Long with his gun in hand.
Li Long looked at Talihar beside him and said with a smile:
"There should be nothing left in here. Even if there is, it's just bear dung at most."
"At that time, I looked at the bear right here, and several wolves on the rocks above. When the bear came out of the hole, its big mouth opened, and I felt like it could swallow me in one mouth. It was so big. ! ”
Talihar expressed his fears and felt better.
The entrance to the cave is still the same, but not as scary.
Li Long was on the right, Talihar was on the left, and Yushanjiang didn't go in. He felt that there was nothing inside, so he just watched near the entrance of the cave.
The cave is dark, and you can smell a strong stench after just a few steps inside.
"Is this the smell of a bear?" Li Long guessed, "Is it so smelly?"
Talihar didn't reply. He tightened his grip on the gun and turned on the safety.
The two people walked very slowly, adjusting to the light inside as they walked.
The reasons for the formation of this kind of cave are relatively complex. Some are caused by the extrusion of stones over millions of years, some are caused by the erosion of limestone, and some are dug out by animals.
This is made by extruding two stones. From the outside, it looks like it was pulled out. When you look inside, you can see that the stone slabs are squeezed together.
The space inside is quite large as soon as you enter, then gradually becomes smaller, then turn left, make a small bend, and turn right again.
Generally speaking, it is not very deep, less than ten meters, and the light cannot penetrate to the bottom. The ground is uneven and blocked by two rocks. Both of them have good eyesight. At the end, there is a stone pit.
There is grass, dung, and no animals.
Li Long could hear Talihar let out a long breath. I don't know if he was relieved or a little regretful?
The two people searched around again, but unfortunately there were no resources in the cave. The legendary gems and luminous pearls were even more impossible. On the contrary, they smelled bad, so the two people quickly retreated.
After coming out, he found that Yushanjiang was missing. Li Long immediately shouted:
"Yushanjiang?"
"Hey, hey, it's here!" Yushanjiang responded. Li Long looked towards the source of the sound and found that he was in a grass tree less than 20 meters away from the cave.
"What's wrong?" Li Long walked over with a gun and asked as he walked.
"There is a little roe deer... Now I know what that gray was doing just now."
Yushanjiang came out with a baby roe deer, which was about the same size as a half-month-old lamb. It struggled hard in Yushanjiang's hands and made a very small cry.
Li Long turned off the safety of the gun, carried it on his back, and went over to look at the little roe deer.
"His mother must have lured the gray wolf away. This little guy is staying here. He must have been frightened by our movements just now. He moved a little. I went over to take a look..."
Li Long smiled. This little roe deer was actually born late. Many roe deer and red deer give birth in early spring, before the snow has melted. When the grass grows, the deer can eat it.
"Take it back, we can't raise it any more." Yushanjiang stuffed the baby roe deer into Li Long's arms, "How many do you have there?"
"There are seven or eight of them." Li Long said with a smile, "The two were born last winter, and they are quite big now."
When he took this back, he planned to put it in the county yard first, so that Gu Xiaoxia would have something to look at.
"Hey, there are a group of people." Yushanjiang took the gun from Li Long's hand and walked back, "Let's go."
"Let's go." Talihar also had a smile on his face and glanced at the little roe deer.
I don’t know why, but the little roe deer was not so nervous in Li Long’s hands.
Li Long wondered if it was because he went back to Laomahao from time to time that he smelled of roe deer seeds?
Maybe.
When the three people returned to the winter nest, the ditch had been buried, and the women handling the sheep were already using water from the pipes.
The old lady Sana's voice was particularly loud, and Li Long could feel the joy in her voice.
Women are especially happy to have running water.
Much more convenient.
When Sana saw Talihar coming back, she could feel that her grandson's mood had obviously changed. She looked at the little roe deer in Li Long's arms, called out, and quickly came over to pick up the little roe deer and give it to him. I got a wool rope and tied it to the edge of the winter nest, and got a bowl of milk and put it next to it.
The little roe deer was a little frightened at first, so Sana dipped her fingers into the bowl and dipped some milk into it and put it on the little roe deer's mouth. After it smelled the milk, it quickly lowered its head and drank.
So feeding.
Li Long was relieved.
The smell of mutton is permeating the air, but the stronger flavor is the flavor of noodles.
A basket of naan has been baked, and the naan pit is still baking.
Li Long went over and washed his hands under the water pipe, then went to the basket and picked up a naan, broke it into two pieces, gave half of it to the young man passing by, and gnawed the other half himself.
Fragrant, really fragrant. This is noodles made with milk, and some sprouts are sprinkled on top of the yeasted naan. It tastes really good.
"Eat mutton later." Harimu put down his tools and sat next to him, reminding him.
Li Long broke off a piece from the place he didn't chew and gave it to him. While eating, he said in a mumble:
"This...is also delicious."
Harimu smiled, wiped the mud on his hands on his clothes, took the naan and started eating it.
"That's great." He said suddenly, looking at the water pipe that was continuously flowing out of water.
Li Long followed his gaze and smiled.
Indeed, it's great.
After dinner, it was time to rest. Old lady Sana walked up to Li Long. Behind her was Talihar, who was holding an oblate stone weighing seven or eight kilograms in his hands.
Li Long looked at it for the first time and thought that if his sister-in-law saw this stone, she would like it very much. This stone would be perfect for pressing pickles in a vat.
Rural women pick pickles after autumn in a large vat that can hide people.
After the pickles are pickled, the vegetables should not be exposed to water, otherwise they will spoil. This is when a good pickle pressing stone comes in handy.
Most of the good stones are found in rivers, and they need stones with relatively high density. Ordinary sand and gravel will not work.
Usually a good cylindrical stone will last for many years. In the beginning of spring, the pickle jar is emptied, and the stones are taken out and washed and placed on the flower wall of the yard. This kind of stone is not afraid of wind, sun, and rain. In autumn, it is washed and pressed into the jar.
What goes around comes around.
Li Long thought that the stone Talihar was holding was good - unfortunately, the stone was green and no one wanted to part with it.
Yes, this is a piece of top-quality Mahe jasper. It is dark green in color and has a palm-sized piece of skin. The skin is gray-black, and the rest of the jade is polished to appear green.
"We picked up this stone this year. There was a flood in that place and it washed down." Old lady Sana spoke, and Talihar translated, "You are a good young man. You have done many good things for us. We Remember it. This stone is yours.”
Then Talihar handed the stone to Li Long.
The stone is really beautiful, or in other words, none of the Mahe jade stones that Li Long picked up or exchanged before was as beautiful and regular as this.
It almost seems fake. I don’t know how much tempering this piece of jade went through in the river bed before it was picked up by old lady Sana before it became what it is now.
There are some small mud spots on it. In fact, if you look closely at this piece of jade, you will see that there are small pits and pits on the surface. Fortunately, there are no cracks. It is a complete piece of high-quality jade.
Li Long guessed that this piece of jade would be taken to a jade carving factory for at least two hundred per kilogram - of course, he couldn't sell it now.
From now on, there will still be a lot of raw jade ores in Mahe, but most of them are with black spots of fly droppings. Pure ones like this are very rare.
Li Long took the jade to the water and washed it. Under the light of the water, the stone became even more beautiful.
Harimu and Yushanjiang came over to look at the jade, admired it, and then went about their business.
So are the other boys.
Li Long felt that in their opinion, this piece of jade was a relatively beautiful stone.
That's all.
Looking at this stone, it is better to measure the pipe and think about how many meters of pipe you need in your home.
This made Li Long feel a little emotional.
Check out the 16-9 book bar to see the correct version!
If you want to say that they don't know that this stone can be sold for a lot of money outside, that's impossible.
After all, the jade mine in Ma County has been around since the middle of the Qing Dynasty. Although it stopped later, most people nearby know the value of jade.
But for them, this piece of jade is really not necessarily more important than a bag of rice noodles or a few bricks of tea.
The values are different.
After resting for half an hour, the boys got up at the greetings of Yushanjiang and Halimu and went to another winter nest.
In addition, the winter nest is less than two kilometers away from here, and the young roe deer and jade were originally placed here.
The women also stayed here, because the boys still had to come here in the evening to continue eating meat and naan.
Li Long carried the shovel and carried the rifle and followed them towards the winter nest over there.
He discovered that the next road was not directly south, but directly into the deepest mountains. The winter nests of these tribal families are distributed in a scattered manner. For example, the winter nest of Harimu is at the outermost edge, the winter nest of Yushanjiang is southwest of the winter nest of Halimu, and the winter nest of Talihar is in the east winter nest of Yushan. of the southeast.
The distribution of Dongwozi is not just where people want to be. Further into the southern mountains of Ma County, pastures are limited, and they are all small and small. Where there are pastures, there are winter dens.
This place is not like a place like Nilek Gongliu in the Zhongtian Mountains. There are no trees in the mountains, just large grasslands, so it is more casual to build a winter nest.
There are also Kazakh ranches over there, and some are even related to them here.
After all, from the very beginning, there were only so many Kazakh tribes.
But the mountains blocked their communication.
When we went to another winter home, everyone was already familiar with this task.
Yushanjiang and Harimu determined the trench digging route together, and the next step was to divide it into sections for each person. There is no need to use a ruler to measure anything, just measure it roughly in steps and then dig. No one cares who is half a meter more or less.
They talked and laughed while digging, but they were absolutely unambiguous about their work.
This time Talihar joined the trench digging process, and Li Long came to the top water source.
What surprised Li Long was that the water source here was actually a hot spring.
The spring is about 120 meters away from Dongwozi, and the height difference is about 20 meters. The water here comes out from the cracks in the rocks. Li Long touched the temperature of the water after it came out. It was about forty degrees, and it was slightly higher than body temperature when he touched it.
Hey, what a great place!
The entire Tianshan Mountains are earthquake zones, and there were also volcanic zones. Now there are mud volcanoes in Shawan and Wusu.
So it is normal to have hot springs.
After Li Long sighed, he found a place to dig a hole. With this hot spring, the water here is definitely not afraid of freezing in winter, and the water is still warm for washing things in winter, which is very convenient.
Uniquely blessed.
Yushanjiang came over after allocating the work. He looked at the steaming water. After touching it, he also sighed:
“Buick’s water is really good.”
In fact, the water used in Dongwozi is in a stream 40 to 50 meters away from Dongwozi. The water there has flowed in the open air for a period and is already at a normal temperature.
But if you use a pipe to lead it, it's different.
"At least our shoes won't feel so uncomfortable if our shoes get wet." Li Long joked and continued digging.
The hot spring water here is better than the one in the hot spring ditch. Although the water flow is small, it doesn't have such a strong sulfur smell, which is good.
When Li Long dug out a pit, Yushanjiang also dug a ditch next to it. However, the stones here are messy and there are many, so digging the trench is slower.
After the ditch at the back was dug, the ditch here was almost dug.
Buick and Talihar had already come over to help. They were holding on to the pipe. Li Long put down his shovel and started wrapping gauze on it, while Talihar followed suit and tied the wire.
After the water pipe was finished and buried, Buick excitedly walked down the pipe little by little.
Li Longze and Yu Shanjiang skillfully pressed the picked gravel and then big rocks towards the mouth of the pipe.
Li Long looked at the hot spring water channel and said:
"There is less sand here. Buick and the others may not need to take care of the pipe openings here for two or three years."
"It's so comfortable." Yushanjiang nodded. He walked about twenty steps downstream of the puddle, then found a gentle place, took off his shoes and soaked his feet in the water.
There is a gap of three or four meters between Li Long and Li Long. Looking at the terrain, Li Long could really build a hot spring pool there if he dug a hole.
It's just a pity that there is no shelter around here, so it's not easy to take a bath.
Li Long also took off his shoes and socks, went to the opposite side of Yushan River, and soaked in it.
In the morning, there was water in my shoes and my socks were wet. I ignored them and now my feet are wrinkled and soaked.
But to be honest, I felt really good. Someone on the downstream side exclaimed, obviously feeling the temperature of the water.
People with nearly buried water pipes gathered towards the head of the water pipe, wanting to feel the temperature of the hot spring.
Harimu looked up and saw Yu Shanjiang and Li Long soaking their feet, so he followed them in stride and started soaking together.
"It's still comfortable here! It would be great if there was a hot spring over there!" Harimu sighed.
"I think so too." Li Long washed the socks while soaking. Anyway, Buick and his family won’t use the water from downstream anymore, so it shouldn’t be a big deal to soak their feet and wash their socks here.
The work actually didn't take long, and all the work went faster than Li Long imagined. Of course, this was mainly due to the fact that he had set the project quantity to only dig the ditch half a meter deep. For the black soil under the turf, digging this ditch is really not difficult.
Of course, Li Long does not intend to change the depth temporarily, there is no need.
After finishing the work here, the young men stepped hard on the backfilled soil. Although it was still higher than the two sides, it would slowly sink.
Next they would return to the Talihar family's winter home, where they would have a delicious dinner. According to Talihar, there will be fried potato chips for dinner.
Kazakh fried potato chips were relatively famous in Ili in later generations, along with milk tea, Bolsak and milk pimples.
Of course, most people can't get used to the last one.
Before the boys left, they saw Li Longyu Shanjiang and the others soaking their feet there, and a few of them came over to soak their feet. A few of them were embarrassed and went back.
Li Long soaked for a while. The sun was setting to the west and the mountains blocked the sun. It was a bit cold where he was sitting, so he stopped soaking and put on his shoes and socks and walked back.
After lunch at Talihar's winter nest, the young men dispersed and went back to their respective homes.
Before leaving, when Li Long was taking the jade, he entered Talihar Kong's winter nest.
All the furniture in this winter nest has been replaced with new ones, and it looks very beautiful. But Dongwozi itself has been around for some time, and there are already many holes on the walls, and the walls inside are also dark.
It can be seen that this condition is worse than almost any of the four teams.
But whether it is old lady Sana, Talihar or other family members, the smiles on their faces are sincere, and you can feel that they are happy.
This feeling is more amazing. They can easily give away things worth thousands of dollars, and they can also live a fulfilling life that is not rich.
fine.
PS: Some people sent me messages on Douyin, asking why they couldn’t read the last dozen chapters. Others asked why the last dozen chapters were from other novels. I reacted for a while before replying to them: What you are watching is a pirated version. I really can’t solve this problem unless you watch the original version...(End of Chapter)