Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

By the time Li Long and his companions arrived at the rocky hillside, the wolf had long disappeared.

"There, the bear was right there." Talihar suddenly pointed in a direction.

Li Long and Yu Shanjiang looked over there, where the rocks were denser. He opened the safety of his gun and reached over.

There was a large cave entrance hidden among a few bushes. Many branches of the bushes at the entrance were broken. Li Long took a closer look and found that they were old breaks.

There may be nothing in this cave recently.

Li Long turned his head and took a look. He could clearly feel that Talihar was still quite nervous.

Are you afraid there are still bears inside?
Yushan Jiang smiled and said:
"There's definitely nothing in there. The bears aren't stupid. When the weather gets hot, they run deep into the mountains. There's a lot of good food there, and no one will bother them."

Talihar said nothing, pursing his lips tightly.

"Let's go in and take a look." Li Long listened carefully. There was no movement inside, not even the sound of breathing, so he said bravely.

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 first, and you will follow behind."

Talihar hesitated for a moment, 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 shouldn't be anything in here. Even if there is, it's probably bear poop at best."

"I saw the bear right here, with a few wolves on the rocks above. When the bear came out of the cave, its mouth opened so wide that it felt like it could swallow me in one bite. It was so big!"

Talihar felt better after he had spoken out his fears.

The entrance to the cave is still the same entrance, but it is not as scary anymore.

Li Long was on the right, Talihar was on the left, and Yushanjiang did not go in. He also felt that there was nothing inside, so he just watched near the cave entrance.

The cave was pitch black, and after walking a few steps inside you could smell a strong, foul odor.

"Is this the smell of a bear?" Li Long guessed, "It's so smelly?"

Talihar didn't answer, but tightened his grip on the gun and turned on the safety.

The two walked slowly, adjusting to the light inside as they walked.

The reasons for the formation of this type of cave are quite complicated. Some are caused by the squeezing of rocks over millions of years, some are caused by the erosion of limestone, and some are dug out by animals.

This place is squeezed out of two stones. From the outside it looks like it was hollowed out, but when you go inside and look at the top, you can see that the stone slabs on top are squeezed together.

The space inside is quite large when you first enter, then gradually becomes smaller, then turns left, makes a small turn, and then turns right.

Generally speaking, it is not very deep, less than ten meters, and the light can penetrate to the bottom. The ground is uneven and there are two stones blocking it. Both people have good eyesight. When they reach the end, there is a stone pit.

There is grass and manure, but no animals.

Li Long could hear Talihar let out a long sigh, and he didn't know whether he was relieved or felt a little regretful?

The two men searched around again, but unfortunately there were no resources in the cave, let alone the legendary gems and night pearls. Instead, it smelled very bad, so the two men quickly retreated.

After coming out, he found that Yushanjiang was gone, and Li Long immediately shouted:
"Yushan River?"

"Hey, hey, here!" Yushanjiang responded. Li Long looked towards the source of the sound and found that he was in the grass less than 20 meters away from the cave.

"What's wrong?" Li Long walked over with a gun in hand and asked as he walked.

"There's a little roe deer... Now I know what that gray one was doing just now."

Yushanjiang came out holding a little roe deer. The little roe deer was about the size of a half-month-old lamb. It struggled hard in Yushanjiang's hands, and its cries were very tiny.

Li Long turned on the safety of his gun, put it on his back, and went to look at the little roe deer.

"Its mother must have lured the gray wolf away, and this little guy stayed here. It must have been frightened by our movement just now, so it 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 were born in early spring, before the snow melted. By the time the grass grew, the fawns could eat the grass.

"Take it back. We can't keep it anymore." Yushanjiang stuffed the little roe deer into Li Long's arms. "How many do you have?"

"Seven or eight now." Li Long said with a smile, "Two were born last winter, and they are quite big now."

He planned to put it in the big yard in the county when he brought it back, so that Gu Xiaoxia would have something to keep an eye on.

"Hey, there are a group of them." Yushanjiang took the gun from Li Long and walked back with it, "Let's go."

"Let's go." Talihar also smiled 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 and smelled like roe deer on his body?
Maybe.

When the three people returned to the winter den, the ditch had been buried and the women who were handling the sheep were already using the water flowing from the pipes.

Old lady Sana had a particularly loud voice, and Li Long could feel the joy in her voice.

The women were 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 hurried over to take the little roe deer. She got a wool rope to tie it to the side of the winter den, and put a bowl of milk on the side.

The little roe deer was a little frightened at first, so Sana stretched out her finger, dipped some milk from the bowl and smeared it on the little roe deer's mouth. After it smelled the milk, it quickly lowered its head and drank it in big gulps.

Easy to feed.

Li Long felt relieved.

The smell of mutton filled the air, but the aroma of noodles was even stronger.

A basket of naan has been baked and is still being baked in the naan pit.

Li Long went over and washed his hands under the water, then picked up a naan from the basket, broke it into two pieces, stuffed one half to a young man passing by, and started eating the other half himself.

It smells really good. This is the dough made with milk, and a little bit of pi yazi is sprinkled on the leavened naan. It tastes really good.

"We'll eat mutton later." Halimu put down his tools, sat next to him and reminded him.

Li Long broke off a piece from his own uneaten part and stuffed it into his mouth. He ate it and said with a smirk:

“This… is delicious too.”

Halimu smiled, wiped the mud off his hands on his clothes, took the naan and started eating.

"That's great." He suddenly said as he looked at the water pipe from which water was flowing continuously.

Li Long followed his gaze and smiled.

It is, that’s great.

After dinner it was time for a break. Old lady Sana walked up to Li Long, and behind her was Talihar, who was holding a flat round stone weighing seven or eight kilograms in his hands.

When Li Long took a first look at it, he thought that if his sister-in-law saw this stone, she would definitely like it very much. This stone would be perfect for putting in a jar to press pickles.

Rural women pickle pickles in autumn in jars, big jars that can hold a person.

After pickling, the vegetables cannot be exposed to water, otherwise they will go bad. At this time, a good pickle pressing stone comes in handy.

Most good stones are found in rivers, and they need to be of relatively high density; ordinary sand and gravel will not work.

Usually a good stone for pressing a jar can be used for many years. In the early spring, the pickle jar is emptied, and the stone is taken out, cleaned and placed on the flower wall in the yard. This kind of stone is not afraid of wind, sun and rain, and it is washed again in autumn and pressed into the jar.

Repeatedly.

Li Long thought the stone that Talihar was holding was quite good - but unfortunately the stone was emerald green and no one was willing to give it away.

Yes, this is a piece of top-quality Mahe Jasper, dark green all over. There is a palm-sized piece of leather, which is gray-black, and the rest of the area is polished to a translucent green color.

"We picked up this stone this year. It was washed down by a flood." Old lady Sana was talking, and Talihar was translating. "You are a good young man. You have done a lot of good things for us. We all remember them. This stone is yours."

Then Talihar handed the stone to Li Long.

The stone is really beautiful. In other words, none of the Mahe jade that Li Long had picked up or exchanged before was as beautiful and regular as this one.

It looks like a fake. I don't know how much grinding this jade had gone through in the riverbed before it was picked up by old lady Sana to become what it is now.

There are some small spots of mud on it. In fact, if you look closely at this jade, you will find that there are small pits and bumps on the surface. Fortunately, there are no cracks. It is a complete piece of high-quality jade.

Li Long guessed that if this piece of jade was taken to a jade carving factory, it would cost at least two hundred yuan per kilogram - of course, he couldn't sell it now.

There are still a lot of raw jade ore in Mahe, but most of them have black spots like fly droppings. The pure ones like this one are very rare.

Li Long took the jade to the water's edge and washed it. The stone looked even more beautiful under the reflection of the water.

Halimu and Yushanjiang came over to look at the jade, exclaimed in admiration, and then went about their own business.

The same thing happened to the other guys.

Li Long felt that in their eyes, this piece of jade was just a relatively beautiful stone.

That's it.

Instead of looking at this stone, it is more important 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.

It's impossible to say that they don't know that this stone can be sold for a lot of money if it is taken outside.

After all, the jade mines in Ma County have existed since the mid-Qing Dynasty. Although they were later stopped, most people nearby know the value of jade.

But to them, this piece of jade is not necessarily more important than a bag of rice or flour, or a few bricks of tea.

The values ​​are different.

After resting for half an hour, the boys got up at the call of Yushanjiang and Halimu and went to another winter den.

In addition, the winter den is less than two kilometers away from here, and the little roe deer and the jade are originally placed here.

The women also stayed here because the boys would come here again in the evening to eat meat and naan.

Li Long carried a shovel and a rifle and followed them towards the winter camp.

He found that the next road was not directly south, but directly into the deepest mountains. The winter nests of these tribes were scattered. For example, Halimu's winter nest was at the outermost edge, Yushanjiang's was southwest of Halimu's winter nest, and Talihar's was southeast of Yushandong's winter nest.

The distribution of winter nests is not artificial. In the southern mountains of Ma County, there are limited pastures, all in small pieces. Wherever there is pasture, there is a winter nest.

This place is not like places like Nileke Gongliu in Zhongtian Mountains. There are no trees in the mountains, only large grasslands, so the winter nests can be built more casually.

There are also Kazakh ranches there, and some of them are even related to this place.

After all, there were only so many Kazakh tribes in the beginning.

But the mountains blocked their communication.

When we arrived at another winter home, everyone had already mastered this job.

Yushanjiang and Halimu decided on the route for digging the trench, and then everyone was assigned a section. There was no need to measure with a ruler or anything, just measure roughly and then dig. No one cared if someone was half a meter more or less.

They were chatting and laughing while digging, but they were absolutely serious about their work.

This time, Talihar joined the ditch digging team, and Li Long came to the water source at the top.

What surprised Li Long was that the water source here was actually a hot spring.

The spring is about 120 meters away from Dongwozi, with a height difference of about 20 meters. The water here comes out from the cracks in the rocks. Li Long touched the water temperature after it came out, which was about 40 degrees, slightly higher than body temperature.

Hey, what a great place!
The entire Tianshan Mountains are an earthquake zone, and there used to be a volcanic zone. There are still 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 it is still warm water for washing in winter, which is very convenient.

Blessed with natural advantages.

After Yushan Jiang finished his work, he came over and looked at the steaming water. After touching it, he also sighed:

"The water at Buick's is really good."

In fact, the water used in the winter nest is in a stream forty or fifty meters away from the nest. The water there has reached normal temperature after flowing in the open air for a period of time.

But if you use a tube to lead it in, it will be different.

"At least our shoes are wet, so it won't be so uncomfortable." Li Long joked and continued digging the hole.

The hot spring water here is better than that in my own hot spring ditch. Although the water flow is small, it doesn’t have such a strong smell of sulfur, which is quite good.

When Li Long dug a pit, Yushanjiang also dug a ditch on the side. However, there were many stones here, so the ditch was dug more slowly.

The ditch on this side was almost finished after the ditch at the back was dug.

Buick and Talihar had come to help. They were straightening the tube while Li Long put down the shovel and started wrapping gauze on it, while Talihar was tying the wire.

After the water pipe was finished and buried, Buick excitedly pulled the pipe down little by little.

Li Longze and Yu Shanjiang skillfully pressed the broken stones they had picked up towards the pipe mouth, and then the big stones.

Li Long looked at the hot spring waterway and said:

"There's not a lot of sand here, so Buick and his team may not need to fix the pipe opening here for two or three years."

"It's so comfortable." Yu Shanjiang nodded. He walked about twenty steps downstream of the puddle, then found a flat place, took off his shoes and soaked his feet in the water.

There is a difference of three or four meters between the mountain and Li Long. Li Long looked at the terrain and thought that if he dug a hole, he could really build a hot spring pool there.

It’s a pity that there is no shelter around here, so it’s not easy to take a shower.

Li Long also went over, took off his shoes and socks, went to the other side of the Yushan River, and took a bath in it.

Water got into my shoes this morning and my socks were wet. I didn't take care of it and now my feet are wrinkled from being soaked.

But to be honest, I was in a really good mood. Someone downstream exclaimed, obviously feeling the temperature of the water.

People who had almost finished burying the water pipes gathered toward the pipe heads, wanting to feel the temperature of the hot spring.

Halimu looked up and saw Yushanjiang and Li Long soaking their feet, so he strode over and started soaking their feet together.

"It's still more comfortable here! It would be great if there were hot springs over there!" Halimu sighed.

"I think so too." Li Long washed his socks while soaking. Anyway, Buick's family would not use the water downstream anymore, so it should be okay to soak feet and wash socks here.

It didn't take long to work, and all the work was done faster than Li Long had imagined. Of course, this was mainly because he had set a construction schedule of digging the ditch only half a meter deep. For the black soil under the grass, digging this ditch was not a difficult task.

Of course, Li Long did not plan to change the depth temporarily, there was no need.

After finishing the work here, the young men stepped hard on the backfill soil to make it firm. Although it is still a bit higher than the two sides, it will slowly sink.

Then they would return to Talihar's winter home, where they would have a delicious dinner, which Talihar said would include fried potato chips.

Kazakh fried potato chips are quite famous in Yili in later generations, along with milk tea, baursak and milk lumps.

Of course, most people are not used to the last kind.

Before the young men left, they saw Li Long, Yu Shanjiang and others soaking their feet there, so a few of them followed them to soak their feet. However, some felt embarrassed and went back.

Li Long soaked in the water for a while. The sun was setting in the west and the mountain blocked the sunlight. It became a little cold where he was sitting, so he stopped soaking, put on his shoes and socks, and walked back.

After having lunch at Talihar's winter nest, the boys dispersed and went back to their homes.

Before leaving to get the jade, Li Long entered Taliharkong's winter den.

The furniture in this winter house has been replaced with new ones, and it looks beautiful. But the winter house itself is quite old, and there are many holes on the walls, and the walls inside are also black.

It can be seen that these conditions are worse than those of almost any of the four teams.

But whether it was old lady Sana, Talihar or other family members, the smiles on their faces were sincere, and you could feel that they were happy.

This is a strange feeling. They can easily give away things worth thousands of dollars, and they can also enjoy their not-so-rich lives.

pretty good.

PS: Someone sent me a message on TikTok, asking why I couldn't read the last dozen chapters, and some asked why the last dozen chapters were chapters from other novels? It took me a while to respond before I replied: You are reading a pirated version, I really can't solve this problem, unless you read the official version... (End of this chapter)