Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Li Long was awakened in the morning. He heard some noise outside, got up quietly, put on his clothes, and came to the window with five or six pieces of paper.

Then I heard Harimu's voice:

"Let's put the leather here - when Li Long wakes up, he will take it away..."

"Halimu," Li Long said loudly, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, "I was inside. I woke up and heard it."

After saying that, he opened the door.

Halimu and another young man were outside unloading things from their horses: a few skins, two deer antlers, two roe deer horns, and a bundle of snow lotus.

"I thought you were still asleep." Halimu said after putting his things away, "Are you going down the mountain now? We are not in a hurry."

The other young man wanted to say something, but he didn't say it.

"Since you're here, take some noodles first." Li Long pointed to the small room and said, "I put half a bag of rice and half a bag of noodles, a can of oil in here."

"Okay." Halimu didn't refuse, "Then we won't be polite."

After Halimu and the others left with the rice and flour, Li Long went to the spring to wash his face and looked at the leather.

One roe deer skin and two wolf skins. The antlers looked fresh, they must have fallen off this year. There was blood on the roots of the roe deer antlers, Li Long guessed they must have been taken directly from the roe deer's head.

The grass-cutting season lasts no more than half a month, and the food bought with the skins and antlers is enough to feed us.

Li Long pushed the bicycle out, clamped the leather on the back seat, then tied up the deer antlers and roe deer horns and placed them on the leather, tied it up, locked the door, and went down the mountain with the holster on his back.

After returning to the county town, Li Long went directly to the purchasing station.

Chen Hongjun and his colleagues were cutting watermelons under the shed in the yard of the purchasing station. Seeing Li Long coming over, he smiled and greeted him:
"Come on, come on, let's eat melons together. You're great. You can even get deer antlers at this time... These deer antlers are of good quality."

"A friend sent it down, and I need to exchange some things."

"Well, eat the melon first, and then we'll talk after we're done."

Li Long didn't hesitate, he parked his bike, picked up a piece of melon and started eating. After eating two pieces of melon, Li Long stopped, went to the basin beside the yard to wash his hands, and then took off the horn and skin.

"Well," Chen Hongjun said after washing his hands, "Come, let's take a look at your skins and horns. The horns are good, the deer horns are six yuan a kilogram, and the roe deer horns are five yuan - the skins, this wolf skin has bullet holes, and the positions of the bullet holes are a little damaged..."

After determining the grade, Chen Hongjun went into the house to get a scale, weighed the horns of the roe deer and stags, and finally settled the bill and issued the invoice.

"A pair of deer antlers is 13.2 kilograms, which is 79.2 yuan. Roe deer horns are 3.1 kilograms, which is 15.5 yuan. Roe deer skin is 27 yuan. Two wolf skins, one is 19 yuan, and the other is 37 yuan. The total is 177.7 yuan. Come on, sign... Is that snow lotus in your bag?"

"Comrade Chen, you have a very good nose," Li Long joked, "My friend brought it down from the mountain and planned to give it to his girlfriend."

"Well, this snow lotus tastes really good. It must have been picked not long ago. Not bad." Chen Hongjun understood what Li Long meant and said with a smile.

After signing and getting the money, Li Long said goodbye to Chen Hongjun and left. Seeing that it was almost noon, he went to the big meat canteen, bought ten buns, and returned to the compound.

Seeing that Gu Xiaoxia had not returned yet, Li Long went to the vegetable garden to pick some coriander and two green onions, washed and chopped them, mixed them with chili oil and vinegar to make the dipping sauce, and placed the buns on the dining table.

It would definitely not be enough to just eat the buns, so he made some egg drop soup so that he could drink it after eating the buns.

About ten minutes later, Gu Xiaoxia pushed her bicycle into the yard.

Seeing Li Long, she smiled and said:
"From the team?"

"No, I just came back from the mountains." Li Long said, "I was planning to get some game in the mountains, and I ran into some herdsmen friends. Come on, come on, just in time to show you, they just picked the snow lotus a few days ago."

"It smells pretty good. This scent is pretty unique." Gu Xiaoxia parked the car, held the bunch of snow lotus and smelled it, "It feels a bit cold."

"This grows high up in the mountains, so it should have that characteristic," Li Long said. "If you dry it in the shade and store it, it can be used as medicine in the future."

"Yeah." Gu Xiaoxia put the snow lotus aside and went to wash her hands. While washing, she said:
"Then do you still want to go up the mountain?"

Li Long served soup to the two people and asked:
"Yes. They brought down some leather and antlers, and I sold them, and then went to buy some food to bring back. Have you been busy lately?"

"These few days are for preparations, and we will be busy in a while." Gu Xiaoxia sat at the dining table, preparing dishes while saying, "School is about to start. After the village primary school is cancelled, the brigade primary school will definitely be under more pressure. We will have to inspect it then. Although I am a newcomer to the Education Bureau and a seconded cadre, I will also participate to see the preparations and enrollment status of each school."

"Well, this shouldn't be difficult for you." Li Long poured some dipping sauce into his bowl, picked up a bun, dipped it, and started eating.

There were ten buns, Li Long ate four and Gu Xiaoxia ate two. When Li Long persuaded her to eat more, she said she was full.

"I've been sitting at work lately, not doing much physical work, and the weather is hot, so I eat less."

"Are there any watermelons left in the house? Should I buy a few more later?"

"Don't go." Gu Xiaoxia waved her hand. "I can't eat a whole melon by myself. It would be a waste to buy too much. You can take a rest after eating, and then go to do business. I guess they will have a lot to buy."

Quite a lot indeed.

Gu Xiaoxia went to work, and Li Long started buying various things.

A bag of rice and flour, brick tea, sugar cubes, rope, grindstone, salt...

Li Long bought a lot of things and went into the mountains with them.

When he brought the things to Halim's winter nest, he didn't see anyone there. The door of the winter nest was not locked, and the nose lock was just hanging. So Li Long moved the things in.

After returning to the cabin and locking his bicycle, Li Long walked slowly into the mountains with five or six guns.

He planned to continue to look for the hot springs. If there were no hot springs today, he would look for one tomorrow morning. Regardless of whether there were any hot springs tomorrow morning, he would go down the mountain to buy things again.

The sky was a little cloudy, the clouds were moving very fast in the sky, and there was some wind, so it felt a little cool.

I don’t know if it will rain tonight.

Li Long thought so in his mind, without stopping, but not fast, he entered the hot spring ditch with a gun on his back and a sack in his hand.

Li Long found that the water level was higher than yesterday. He wondered if it was because it rained in the deep mountains, so the groundwater level rose.

Walking upstream along the stream, Li Long moved slowly and searched carefully. He walked all the way to the pond and found no movement.

But Li Long was not discouraged. He looked around and found that there was indeed new feces.

Li Long turned around and went into the woods, waiting at the place where he had ambushed yesterday.

Now is the time to test your luck and patience.

Time passed minute by minute, and Li Long watched the sunlight shining through the woods move up little by little until it was almost gone. When he was about to leave, he heard movement from the pool below.

A small wild boar grunted and ran over.

This wild boar looked like it was born earlier this year. It weighed less than 50 kilograms and was quite thin. After running over, it looked around and was a little alert. Then it rushed to the stream between the two pools and rolled around there. It didn't bathe in the pool. Was it because there was no mud in the pool?

Li Long guessed.

He slowly turned on the safety at half an inch and aimed at the wild boar.

This wild boar seemed to be alone and had no companions. Li Long waited for a few minutes and saw that the wild boar was having a lot of fun in the mud. He knew that he would not be able to wait any longer, so he decided to fight it.

It's better to be thinner than nothing.

"boom!"

A bullet passed through the wild boar's shoulder blade and hit its head. The wild boar raised its head violently, as if trying to jump up, and then fell heavily to the ground, with blood splattering under its body.

Li Long opened his bayonet and walked forward with his gun, until he was two or three meters away from the wild boar. He looked carefully and found that the wild boar was really dead, so he felt relieved.

The wild boar was covered in mud. Li Long dragged one of its legs into the pond and turned it over vigorously to rinse off the mud. He then stuffed it into a sack and carried it downstream.

It is not safe to skin the animals here. It would not be worthwhile if wolves were attracted.

There is wind in the valley. It won't be long before the smell of blood dissipates and the bloodstains are washed away by the water.

Li Long didn't feel very tired even though he was carrying forty or fifty kilograms of things. When he returned to the wooden house, the sun had already set.

He rested for a while, then took the wild boar to the spring, got a basin, and began to skin and gut it.

Although Li Long was considered a hunter, the smell of dirt when the belly was opened still made him turn his head away.

Doesn't smell good.

The knife passed through the gap between the skin and the meat, directly cutting the gap without damaging the skin - Li Long was able to do this. Of course, he still admired Halim, who used his fists most of the time when peeling sheepskin, directly using his fists to push between the sheepskin and the mutton to peel off the skin.

The skin of a wild boar is different and difficult to deal with.

After skinning the wild boar, gutting it, and taking out its internal organs, Li Long thought that Halimu and the others would not be here tomorrow morning, so he first removed some of the meat, then rubbed salt on the bones and other parts, and hung them on the wooden pole to air dry.

He first put the meat in a pot and covered it, then dealt with the internal organs.

There was enough time for him to start cleaning his stomach and turning over his intestines.

Spring water is living water, and that’s its advantage: anything that comes in will be washed away directly.

What is not washed away becomes fertilizer directly - the grass grows very well around the spring.

Li Long was even thinking about whether he should open a vegetable garden in this area.

Later I thought, forget it, there are so many wild vegetables in the mountains that we can’t eat them all, so why bother planting them?

After cleaning the intestines and stomach, Li Long began to add firewood to the stove and boil water, preparing to cook and braise the internal organs.

As for the wild boar skin, I buried it. It was useless.

It was already dark and cold outside. A few wolf howls were heard in the distance, but Li Long was not afraid. He even felt a little emotional - in a few years, he would only be able to hear this kind of thing in movies and TV shows.

Younger people like Li Qiang have never actually seen a wolf in the wild.

After the offal was cooked, Li Long looked at his watch. It was one o'clock in the morning.

It's only at this time that I put aside my life, finished watching short videos and reading novels, and am ready to take a break.

It felt very late at this time.

I looked up to the north and saw the Big Dipper and the North Star hanging clearly in the sky, flashing from time to time.

Ah, very good.

It’s a pity that I don’t have a mobile phone - alas, the habits from my previous life have not yet been abandoned, and I want to take a picture of anything interesting when I see it.

Disgusting habit!
sleep!

The next morning, Li Long got up, took the food out of the pot, put it in a basin and brought it to the small room, then took his gun and went to the hot spring again.

It was a little late, and by the time he arrived at Wenquangou, the sun had already risen.

The pond was a bit dirty, and there were quite a few hoof prints beside it. Li Long knew that these must be roe deer or wild goats coming by.

He was somewhat disappointed, yet somewhat happy. He was sure that there was indeed something inside, but he was just too late.

Then come early tomorrow morning.

Returning the same way, Li Long looked at the meat and bones hanging on the rack and saw that there was not much change. He pushed the bicycle out, put the basin of entrails on the back seat, and rode down the mountain.

He returned to the compound, put the offal away, and then went out to buy food.

He estimated that the food might not be enough for Halim and his men. After all, they were doing heavy physical work, and modern people were short of oil and water - even herders were the same, so it was right to buy more.

He bought another bag of rice and another bag of noodles, and then went to the market to buy a large basket of peppers, tomatoes, potatoes, and sprouts, as well as a small basket of eggs. For people like Halimu, these were usually the only dishes they had, and they couldn't cook more.

After buying and packing up the things, Li Long rode his bicycle back to the yard.

He looked at the time and realized that the only thing left was to steam the rice. He steamed the rice, then cut a few peppers and stir-fried a dish of green pepper tripe and a dish of green pepper pig intestines.

The portion was quite large, so the leftovers were given to Gu Xiaoxia as dinner.

At this time, the leftovers are not wasted, especially when they are meat dishes.

Gu Xiaoxia came back ten minutes later than yesterday. When she saw Li Long, she explained while holding the bike:

"On the way back, I ran into Gangdan's mom from our team. She said she was here to buy something, and we chatted for a while."

"The team isn't very busy right now." Li Long said, "Wash your hands and have dinner."

"Not busy, she said. She brought her children to dig Cynomorium songaricum and sold it to you a few days ago and made some money. School is about to start, so she brought her children to the street to buy some things today as a reward."

"That's good." Li Long said with a smile, "This way the kids will have motivation to go to school."

"I've been praising you for a while, saying that you've done a great job for the team. Otherwise, there's no extra money at home, and we can't even afford the school fees for our kids."

"Haha, I like to hear that." Li Long put a piece of tripe in Gu Xiaoxia's rice bowl with chopsticks and said with a smile, "I made money and gained fame. It seems that I have to do this more often in the future."

The two chatted and laughed as they finished their meal. Gu Xiaoxia cleaned up the dishes while Li Long cut up the remaining stewed food and hung them out to dry. This stuff can't be allowed to go bad. It can't be wasted. (End of this chapter)