Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 664: It turns out there were survivors in the mountains
Li Long often went to the mountains, so he had developed the ability to climb mountains. His long legs could take more than one meter in one step, so he could climb uphill and down gullies as fast as an arrow, even if he couldn't walk on flat ground.

After parking the jeep at the entrance of the Jiang family's winter home in Yushan and locking the door, Li Long walked into the mountains carrying his gun and backpack.

Changing direction and walking on an unfamiliar ridge, Li Long looked ahead and felt that the terrain here was somewhat different from what he had seen before.

After entering the Tianshan Mountains for two or three layers, many ditches will be formed horizontally and vertically. Usually, there is a large vertical ditch led by a water system with many horizontal ditches on both sides like fish bones.

This is a fairly standard terrain.

What is non-standard is a winding longitudinal groove with various horizontal grooves on both sides that look like snakes crawling, all of which are irregular in shape.

The mountain in front of us is the kind that is steep and deep. It is not big but has so many layers that you can't see the end at a glance.

Unlike the mountains we have seen before, although they are layered, they are not too dense, and occasionally there are some gentle slopes and small grasslands in between.

At first glance, it seems difficult to see any flat terrain in this area.

Is there any prey in here?

Li Long was a little confused.

But now that we are here, let’s move forward a little more.

There are food, bags, matches and lighters in the backpack.

With a gun in his hand, Li Long was not afraid.

He was just worried that he might not be able to hunt any prey in the afternoon.

There are many wild animals in the mountains, but when they are scattered across the mountains, they become very few. It would be great if you could encounter one - of course, you also need to find a place that suits the habits of these prey.

For example, wild goats like to run on steep mountains, and gray wolves lurk in sparse woods and grasslands because there are roe deer and red deer grazing there.

As for argali and ibex, tall, particularly prominent mountain peaks with little vegetation are their territory.

There are five or six mountains ahead, and then there is a protruding high mountain. There is relatively little vegetation on it, and in some places there are gaps left by landslides, which look like wounds caused by a knife.

Li Long thought, there should be some rare animals in that place, right?
Let’s go there today. When we get there, no matter whether we get anything or not, we should come back.

With his long legs, Li Long easily climbed over a mountain. Without much gain, he bent down, grabbed a handful of wild strawberries and stuffed them into his mouth, then continued on his way.

When the Fritillaria season is about to end, wild strawberries will slowly start to grow and will continue to grow until July.

In some places, they grow in large quantities and you can grab them by handfuls and eat them. There is no pollution here unless you are very unlucky and catch bird droppings.

After climbing over three mountains, Li Long stopped to rest and took out the water bottle from his backpack to drink water.

This imitation military kettle was bought from a department store. It was made of aluminum, green, and had a rope. Li Long had to choose carefully when he bought it - the bad thing about this kind of imitation kettle is that some of them leak.

Fortunately, the service quality of department stores has improved, and he is a big customer, so many waiters know him, so it is normal for him to give it a try.

Anyway, for items like metal kettles, you don't have to worry about them breaking after you pour water into them to test them, and no one will care about it.

Li Long bought several and placed them in the wooden house, and has only exchanged one so far - those herbalists felt that it was not worthwhile to exchange one or two kilograms of Fritillaria for such a kettle.

If you are thirsty, just find a stream or spring and lie down to have a drink.

Li Long is different. He is worried that he might drink leech eggs or something. Since he has the conditions, he might as well get equipped.

Look ahead, the mountain is getting closer.

According to Li Long's own calculations, the altitude of the mountain should be around three thousand meters.

Ma County is located in the southern part of the Junggar Basin. The county seat and the fourth team are located in a plain area with an altitude of about 500 meters, so it doesn't feel like anything at all.

Li Long didn't know what people in later generations thought. They thought that there would be altitude sickness in northern Xinjiang. The altitudes of most places, including Urumqi, Shicheng, and Ma County on the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains and Altay in the north, were similar, not exceeding one thousand meters.

Even the tourist city of Yining has a similar altitude, between 500 and 600 meters.

The grasslands near Yining have an altitude between one thousand and two thousand meters - for example, Tangbula is more than one thousand meters, and Zhaosu is about two thousand meters.

Only the mountain grasslands have a higher altitude, more than 2,000 meters.

For ordinary people, there will be basically no altitude sickness as long as the altitude is not more than 3,000 meters - for most ordinary people, there will be basically no altitude sickness above 4,000 meters, and even if there is, it will be relatively mild.

At least many people have no reaction when passing the Baishifeng section and Guozigou section of the Yizhao Highway. The altitudes of these two places are around 3,400 to 3,500 meters.

The altitudes of some areas in southern Xinjiang may be higher, such as Baisha Lake in Taxkorgan County, or the Xinjiang-Tibet Highway further south.

But there are some places, and the altitude in most places is still very friendly.

The mountain in front is about three thousand meters high and has a bare top. Compared with other mountains with lush vegetation, it is really special.

Li Long knew there were more mountains further in. The border between Ma County and a county in southern Xinjiang was a mountain over 5,000 meters above sea level, with glaciers on top, and Li Long would definitely not be able to find his way through.

Originally he was thinking whether he could climb that mountain today, but now that he saw it, Li Long suddenly made a decision that he must climb up and have a look today.

After going down the mountain and climbing over another mountain, Li Long suddenly found that the scene in front of him was a little different from what he had expected.

When you first look at these mountains, they appear to be arranged in a horizontal line with not much space between them, and they all look similar.

But the ravine in front of us is a bit wide, more than two hundred meters.

Moreover, there are some stone buildings on the flat ground in the middle of the ravine, which are obviously man-made.

Although it looks abandoned, some parts have collapsed, and there are a lot of bushes and grass growing inside, it still looks quite real.

A bit like an old abandoned village?

Li Long ran down curiously.

Maybe you can find some antiques.

Adventure is part of human's instinct to explore the world. From the East to the West, all nations and races have this adventurous spirit.

Li Long ran down quickly. Just as he arrived in front of the ruins, he startled a fox that was resting inside. The fox suddenly jumped out from behind the stone wall, and when it saw Li Long, it turned around and hid in the bushes, and soon disappeared.

Li Long had no intention of keeping the fox. Although its fur was worth some money, it was troublesome to clean up.

He's here for the meat, not the leather.

Unless the leather is very valuable, Li Long really doesn't intend to shoot.

But there is a fox here, and maybe other animals too. Li Long opened the safety of his rifle and walked slowly inside.

Maybe because there are stone slabs under the ruins, the things growing here are basically small shrubs, weeds and some vines growing along the stone walls, and there are no tall trees.

When Li Long was halfway up the mountain, he could already see that there were more than a dozen houses with a stone platform in the middle, something like an altar.

He also didn't expect that there was such an existence in the depths of Tianshan Mountain. In the past, there were not only gold diggers here, but also people living here.

There is a thick layer of moss on the shady side of the stone. Li Long doesn't know how old this relic is, but it should be very old.

Much older than the caves and huts of the gold diggers.

The roofs of the stone houses are gone. Li Long guessed that the roofs of these stone houses should have been made of wood or grass, but now they have all decayed. Only the stone can last for a long time.

The stone wall is very rough and has not been polished very smoothly. The stones have also been simply processed and some natural edges and corners have not been removed, which shows that the level of productivity at that time was not high.

Therefore, the productivity of the people who originally lived here must have been very low, so this must have been something from a very long time ago.

Nothing valuable was found in the first stone house, and even except for the stone stove, nothing else was left.

Li Long didn't have any professional digging tools, he just took a quick look and moved to another place if he found nothing.

After searching two more rooms, they finally found a gold ring wrapped around a snake bone under the stone bed in one of the rooms. It was a little big, not like a bracelet, nor like a gold necklace - it was a little smaller than a necklace.

Anyway, it looks beautiful with its golden glow.

Li Long was very happy and felt it was worth it.

This thing weighs more than one kilogram. Even if it is gold sand, it must be worth a lot of money.

In fact, there were a few bronze artifacts under the bed, but they had turned into a pile of green rust and would break into pieces if touched.

Li Long finally understood how his elder brother Li Jianguo felt when he looked at those rotten copper coins after plowing out the money cellar.

After searching the remaining stone houses, Li Long found two more gold circles, but they were not big, weighing about half a kilogram in total.

The most important stone platform is searched last.

There was a small stone house on the stone platform. It was the only building with a roof, a stone roof. When Li Long walked onto the stone platform, he saw two copper fork-like objects stuck in the ground in the small stone house, which was as big as a sentry box.

The two brass forks had rusted green, but they didn't look completely broken.

There is a stone table in the middle back, on which sits a somewhat strange-looking statue.

The surface is golden and about 30 centimeters high. This statue is a beautiful woman riding a tiger.

Such an exquisite statue really doesn't match the roughness of the building at all.

Li Long picked up the statue. It was heavy, but not as heavy as pure gold.

Li Long guessed that it should be made of copper covered with gold.

It's quite exquisite, the only flaw is that there is some bird droppings on it. I don't know which birds did that.

After wiping off the bird droppings with his clothes, Li Long put the thing into his backpack with satisfaction. Anyway, he couldn't make out the words, and he didn't know what era it was from, so he packed it away first.

Just as he was about to take the two forks, there was a sudden noise outside. Li Long turned around and rushed out with his gun.

From the stone platform, he saw two elk running up the slope in the southwest as if frightened.

Something frightened them.

Li Long looked around and finally saw a few gray wolves in the ravine.

Their bodies are not as tall as those of elk, so they are not very conspicuous in the knee-deep grass, so they are not easy to see at first glance.

This is considered an excellent grassland. Li Long was a little puzzled as to why no herdsmen built winter homes here.

After all, the grassland in this ravine alone is enough to raise two or three hundred cattle and sheep, or more than enough.

Is it because it is too far from Beishan?

Li Long felt a little regretful. The two sika deer ran a little too fast and a little too far. They were already more than a hundred meters away from here. It was difficult to catch up with them. Otherwise, it would be nice to have venison tomorrow.

They were two male deer. Judging from the horns on their heads, they should still be young, weighing about 60 to 70 kilograms.

I don’t know if it got separated from the herd of deer or if there were some other reason.

Although it was a pity, he still had something to gain. He planned to climb over the mountain and continue moving towards the higher mountains.

However, at this moment, the cry of a deer successfully attracted Li Long's attention again.

A gray wolf suddenly appeared in front of the two elk and intercepted them, forcing the elk to turn around and run southeast - there were wolves at the bottom of the slope to the north and to the west, so they had no choice but to turn around.

Li Long was happy. He put on his backpack and rushed up the mountain with his long legs. If he could get to the top of the ridge before the elk, he would have the final say in whether to hunt wolves or deer.

When Li Long climbed up the hillside panting, he turned his head and found that the two elks had reached the ridge almost at the same time, while the gray wolf chasing them was still rushing up the hillside about ten meters away from the ridge.

The two sika deer also saw Li Long. Without any hesitation, they turned their heads to the southwest and ran diagonally down the ridge.

Li Long half-knelt, raised his gun and aimed at the elk about fifty or sixty meters away. He steadied his breathing and fired two shots.

One elk fell to the ground, and the other disappeared into the bushes.

The gray wolves were stunned for a moment when they heard the gunshot, turned around and ran back. Li Long adjusted the muzzle of the gun, aimed at the gray wolf's butt and fired.

"Bang bang bang bang!"

Hitting a moving target was more troublesome. After firing four or five shots, only one gray wolf was left. He estimated that the other two were probably injured. However, these gray wolves were very tenacious and the minor gunshot wounds did not seem to stop them.

At most it howled twice and then disappeared into the bushes or grass.

The sound of gunfire echoed through the valley and did not subside for a long time.

Someone was picking herbs in the distance and was startled by the sound of gunfire.

Li Long went over with his gun to check. The elk had been shot in the stomach and was still twitching on the ground, but was not far from death.

He kicked and the sika deer moved again.

Walk over and take a look at the gray wolf halfway up the hill.

The gray wolf was slightly bigger than Halim's dog, weighing about thirty or forty kilograms. The bullet entered from its buttocks, and no one knew whether it severed an artery or hit the internal organs. Anyway, there was a large pool of blood on the ground.

The wolf is dead.

Li Long put the rifle in his left hand, and came to the red deer with the wolf in his right hand.

He sighed and looked up at the mountains in the distance.

There might be snow lotus and argali on that mountain.

It’s a pity that I can’t go today.

Li Long put the gun on his back, then picked up the elk and put it on his shoulder, and finally picked up the wolf and went down the mountain.

I was very fast when I came here, but I had to go slower when I came back. The mountain is quite steep, so I couldn't go fast at all.

In other words, he was stronger than ordinary people, otherwise he would have been exhausted after carrying a deer and a wolf over two or three mountains.

Even so, by the time he carried the deer and the wolf to the jeep, he was already exhausted and out of breath.

That is because in the mountains the temperature is not that high, otherwise Li Long himself would not be able to bear it.

He put the deer and the wolf into the car and rested for a few minutes before going to the water pipe in front of Yushanjiang Dongwozi to wash his face thoroughly. Then he turned back and drove the car back.

This time Li Long drove directly to Xiaobaiyanggou. He planned to eat the meat here tomorrow, so he decided not to go to the wooden house.

For twenty people, one deer and one wolf would definitely be enough to eat. Old Huang was also packing up his things, and when he saw Li Long coming over, he looked at him curiously.

When Li Long brought down the sika deer and the wolf, Lao Huang and the remaining few people in the temporary camp gathered around.

"Xiaolong, you are amazing. You have only been out for a short while and you have already killed a deer and a wolf... Wow, this wolf skin is so beautiful."

"This deer is so beautiful. Is that antler on its head? I heard it's not cheap."

The antlers on the red deer's head are not long, less than twenty centimeters, and Li Long has not cut them off yet.

When the sika deer fell, it fell on its side and its antlers were not damaged.

"We'll eat this meat this afternoon and tomorrow." Li Long said with a smile, "I'll skin the deer and wolf now. Brother Huang, can you help me take out the stomach and intestines and cook them?"

"That's great." Old Huang said with a smile.

Deer meat tastes better than wolf meat, so Li Long skinned the elk first.

Of course, he has to cut off the deer's head first so that it will be easier to handle the antlers later.

Skinning is a familiar job. Seeing Li Long peeling the skin skillfully, the other onlookers were amazed.

"What are you looking at? Take the basin. When we open the wolf's stomach, we need to take out the offal." Old Huang saw that everyone was gathered around and immediately dismissed them. "Or you can skin the wolf."

Sure enough, after hearing this, everyone dispersed.

Li Long's familiar elder brothers, Xie Yundong, Tao Daqiang and others were not there, but Jia Weidong was there. He went to get a basin and helped Li Long pull the sika deer's legs so that it would be easier to skin it.

"This sika deer is quite big. It can produce a lot of meat, right?" Jia Weidong suddenly asked.

"The deer weighs about 60 to 70 kilograms, and the meat... maybe 40 to 50 kilograms." Li Long was talking about the meat including the bones, that is, the deer.

Since it's going to be cooked, it must be with bones.

After skinning and gutting the sika deer, Lao Huang and Jia Weidong dealt with the stomach and intestines. Li Long rested for a while before dealing with the gray wolf.

In fact, he didn't expect it to be so smooth. He originally thought that if he couldn't catch anything today, he would go hunting again tomorrow morning when his elder brother and others were digging the sheep washing pond.

I don't know if my brother has found anything in the salt cave in the east.

If we can catch it, we will have much more food to eat today and tomorrow.

Wolves are smaller than deer, so they are quicker to skin.

After opening the wolf's stomach, Li Long found that the bullet had penetrated into its stomach, messing it up and making most of its internal organs inedible. He simply took these things out and put them in a basin, planning to find a place to bury them.

Don't throw it around randomly, otherwise it will attract other animals.

(End of this chapter)