Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 966 Flash Floods: Harmful and Saving
Ma Xiaoyan brought a camera, a pen, and a notebook. Her plan was to take some photos of the workers at the road repair shop and then interview some of them about their experiences.

This was something she was very familiar with, so she came over today in a very relaxed state of mind; it was an easy task to complete. Li Long took Ma Xiaoyan to the naan shop and bought all twenty-odd naans that had just been made that day, placing them on the bicycle seat before continuing on their way.

Seeing that Li Long had chatted with the young man selling naan for a few minutes, Ma Xiaoyan asked Li Long in the car:

"Comrade Li Long, do you know him?"

“I know him. I often buy naan from him. He just said that when I come, those people who usually get up late to buy naan are disappointed because I buy up all the naan from the first pit in the morning. These people have to wait until later to eat breakfast.”

"How many people are going to repair the road? Is this enough naan?" Ma Xiaoyan asked.

"There are about twenty of them. They brought their own rations, and the naan I bought is just a supplement. The workload of road repair is quite heavy, and some people's rations are not enough, so the naan I bought can help in an emergency," Li Long said as he drove. "Yesterday we hunted a wild boar and had an extra meal at noon. I wonder if we'll have good luck today."

"You even hunted a wild boar yesterday?" Ma Xiaoyan asked in surprise. "Was it big? I think you're a very good hunter."

"It's alright, we just happened to run into them." Li Long smiled. "The Tianshan Mountains are very large, and although there are many wild animals, they are widely distributed. If we run into them, it's easy to fight them; if we don't, it's hard to say."

Li Long meant that if they could catch something, they would improve their meals; if they couldn't, they would only have to eat dry naan bread.

Ma Xiaoyan naturally had no objections. At that time, everyone's living standards were relatively low, and it was normal to eat dry naan bread when going out on missions. Occasionally, there would be a packet of pickled vegetables or salted vegetables, which was considered quite a feast.

Of course, she still hoped that Li Long could hunt some game, which would greatly improve the standard of the picnic.

Who doesn't want a good meal?

Even 30 or 40 years from now, a significant portion of the money Chinese people earn will still be spent on food. Therefore, the so-called Engel coefficient is not applicable to Chinese people. After all, food in most European and American countries is just food, not gourmet food. Once they have a certain level of wealth, they will do other things.

Greater China is different. From the south to the south, there are so many cuisines. With easy communication, each city may have more than a dozen cuisines and all kinds of restaurants. If you make money, you have to eat well.

"How long is this road repair project planned to last? Is there a plan?" Ma Xiaoyan was still focused on her work, and she had already started the interview while the car was driving into the mountains.

"The initial plan is to work for half a month and repair a few kilometers of road. Yesterday, we were able to repair three or four hundred meters a day, so we can repair one kilometer of road in three or four days. We are repairing now and summarizing our experiences and lessons learned as we go, which will make the later repairs easier."

"Are you encountering any difficulties at the moment?" Ma Xiaoyan asked while taking notes rapidly.

Because it was shorthand, her handwriting wasn't very neat at this point, so she kept looking up to observe Li Long in front of her as she wrote, not wanting him to see her handwriting at this moment.

"Not yet, but I expect it will happen soon. Road construction is never smooth sailing," Li Long said with a smile.

When they arrived at Qingshuihe Village, some waiting children told Li Long that Meng Hai and the others had already gone into the mountains, so Li Long started the car and continued on his way.

"Company Commander Meng is quite thoughtful," Ma Xiaoyan remarked. "He even knew to remind you, which saves you time."

"Company Commander Meng has high emotional intelligence," Li Long casually explained, only to regret it immediately afterward.

"Emotional intelligence?" Ma Xiaoyan indeed caught the word. "I've heard of IQ, but what is emotional intelligence?"

"It's about how you conduct yourself and how you handle things," Li Long explained simply. "Some people just don't think of these things. It's like intelligence; when doing the same homework problem, some people only know one solution, while those with higher intelligence know several."

Okay, that explanation is close enough.

The term IQ itself is foreign, so Ma Xiaoyan thought about the term EQ, and later wondered if it could be considered "shrewdness" or "smoothness".
As the jeep entered the mountain pass, Li Long looked ahead and said, "It seems like it rained in the mountains last night; the road is all wet."

“Yes, there’s still dew on the leaves of the bushes. It must be raindrops left over from yesterday, right?” Ma Xiaoyan also noticed this.

"We need to hurry over and check if the road is affected." Li Long stepped on the gas and sped up.

When the jeep arrived at the road construction site, it found that Meng Hai and his men were already working on the road.

The road repair method was the same as yesterday: trees were cut down in front, trees were hauled away in the back, and tractors widened and compacted the road surface.

Because it rained last night, the road was slippery and muddy, and stepping on it would kick up a lot of mud.

Although the workers complained, none of them seemed angry; most were just joking and continued with their tasks. Meng Hai didn't drive the tractor; he moved back and forth coordinating the work, occasionally shouting for everyone to be careful.

After Li Long's jeep stopped, Meng Hai walked over carrying a stick and said:

"Comrade Li Long is here...and Secretary Ma is here too?"

"You guys are here early." Li Long took the stick from Meng Hai and poked at the mud stuck in the jeep's four wheels as he spoke. "You've been working on this for over an hour, haven't you?"

“It rained yesterday, so we had to come early. When it rains, our work efficiency drops, and if we don’t come early, we won’t be able to finish today’s tasks,” Meng Hai explained. “At this rate, it looks like we won’t be able to reach yesterday’s workload today.” As he spoke, he picked up a stick from the side and helped Li Long poke the mud off the jeep’s wheels.

"It's alright, it's just the weather, no need to rush." ​​Li Long smiled and said, "We don't need to be so mechanical in our work; we need to be flexible when necessary."

After cleaning the mud off a wheel, he looked around at the sky and said, "Once the sun gets higher, the mud on this road will dry quickly, and we can work without worry. But it's still raining to the south, so there might be a flood. The road we're building is on a riverbank, so we need to be careful about flood prevention. If water comes down, we must get everyone to the side as soon as possible."

"I understand," Meng Hai said. "This riverbank is too flat; we really need to be careful."

The routes chosen by herders during their migrations have withstood the test of time for decades, even centuries. The snow only begins to melt during the annual migration, before snowmelt floods occur, making these routes very safe.

Moreover, the chosen roads are as flat and wide as possible, with terrain conducive to the passage of large numbers of livestock, so that at least when resting in the middle, hundreds or thousands of livestock will not be crammed into narrow mountain gullies.

Such places are usually flat riverbeds.

After the relocation is completed, in June, the snowmelt floods will come and wash the area clean, so the impact of the relocation will be minimal.

But the road construction has a significant impact.

In the 1980s, information was not readily available, and the floods that people saw were simply the rising water levels in rivers and the release of water from reservoirs.

Li Long had seen videos of people camping by the river being swept away by sudden floods, and he knew the power of such floods.

But Meng Hai and the others didn't know that, so Li Long was still quite concerned.

Leaving aside those short videos, in the early 20th century, a flood in the southern mountain valley of Wucheng swept away several important people at the time—a lack of awareness of prevention makes it easy for accidents to happen.

So Li Long originally planned to go to the cabin to take a look, but at this time he let Ma Xiaoyan do the interview herself, while he carried his gun and walked upstream along the riverbank to see the situation upstream and see if there were any signs of flooding.

We walked uphill for several kilometers without seeing a single wild animal, and of course, there was no sign of flooding; the water flow became smaller and smaller as we went further up. The route for this migration was a large ditch, with small streams of water occasionally flowing in from a side ditch, adding a little noise to the water in the main ditch.

All the incoming water flows were gentle and calm, and the water was clear, showing no signs of flooding.

Li Long felt somewhat relieved and began to expand his exploration area, but even after expanding the area, he still did not find any wild animals.

He guessed that the gunshots yesterday must have scared those guys away, so Li Long had no choice but to run back.

Many of the road workers were in good spirits when they saw Li Long walking ahead with his gun, assuming he had gone hunting. They thought there would be a good meal at noon, but more than an hour later Li Long returned, still carrying his gun, and his backpack didn't seem much bigger, clearly indicating he hadn't caught anything.

Many people were disappointed. It seemed they would be eating dry steamed buns today. Ma Xiaoyan overheard some of the discussion and, as Li Long passed by, asked him with a smile:

"Didn't you hit anything up there?"

“I’m going to check if there are any signs of flooding up there,” Li Long said. “Of course, I’ll also walk around and see if I can find anything, but unfortunately I didn’t see a single wild animal. Now I’m going to check on my old cabin. When I went there yesterday, I found that the lock had been pried open. I’ll go there today and see if I can catch the vandal.”

"Then you go ahead, I'll continue the interviews here." Ma Xiaoyan said it was an interview, but she had just asked some people and didn't get much material out of them; she mainly took photos.

"If you want to do an interview, ask Lao Meng more questions; he's got a lot to say," Li Long reminded him, before heading to get the jeep.

The sun has already risen, and now as the jeep drives back, the road is much easier to travel on. It's no longer kicking up mud or kicking up as much mud, and it's much faster.

When Li Long arrived at the cabin, he found that the door, which had been locked the day before, was still intact. He guessed that the people who had pried open the door were the same ones who had dug up the fritillaria bulbs. Some of them were familiar with the place, since he and Sun Jiaqiang had been waiting here to exchange fritillaria bulbs for other goods in the past two years. This year, with no one guarding the place, those who wanted to exchange goods couldn't get any, so they pried open the door.

Li Long had no choice; he was stretched thin. All the people he knew well were married, and it would be cruel to leave a married person here for a month. Besides, he also had road repair work to do, so he simply gave up on the wooden cabin exchange point for the time being.

We'll see if we have the chance to find someone else later.

Li Long opened the room door, took out the bedding to air it out, and then drove the jeep to the spring, taking out tools from the trunk to wash the car body.

He wasn't in a very good mood for hunting today. Just like Ma Xiaoyan said, it would be best if he could find something, but it would be normal if he couldn't.

The jeep was covered in so much mud that it took Li Long more than half an hour to clean it.

After finishing all that, Li Long checked the time. It would be lunchtime in an hour, and he had to rush back—Ma Xiaoyan hadn't brought any food, and he couldn't very well ask the road workers to give her food. He'd also forgotten to leave his own naan there.

When the jeep had driven half a kilometer, Li Long saw Borati riding a horse galloping towards him.

Clearly, Polati had already seen him and was coming specifically for him.

Li Long stopped the jeep, got out, and waited for Polati to arrive. After they shook hands and greeted each other, Polati said:
“I’ve been waiting for you to come this year, but you haven’t come. Your wooden house was even broken into by someone. When I came, I didn’t see anyone, and I waited for two days but no one came…”

"There's been so much going on this year," Li Long explained. "Is your house in that yard any good to live in?"

Polati's son got married, and Li Long exchanged the money he had kept with him for a yard. This happened last year.

“Great, my son is very satisfied,” Pollati said with a smile. “I heard from Airi that you went to our forestry team to pick up goods a few days ago. There were some things I intercepted there. You haven’t been here for a while, and I had nowhere to send the intercepted things, so I brought them to the team. By the way, Airi is a good team leader. He shared some of the money from the sales with us.”

Polati came here because he heard that Li Long was building roads, and he wanted to try his luck to see if he could meet Li Long. As it turned out, he actually did meet him.

“They’re doing roadworks lately, so I came to check on things. I’ve already changed the lock,” Li Long said, pointing to the wooden house over there. “When you have time, could you keep an eye on it for me and make sure no one pries the door open again?”

“Okay, no problem,” Polati said. “Are you going back to the road construction site now?”

"Well, I originally came here to check out the house and see if there were any wild animals, but I didn't find anything, so I'm going back now," Li Long said.

“I have a roe deer I caught this morning, you can take it,” Polati said generously. “It’s not big, but the meat should be very tender. I haven’t had time to skin it yet.”

"Thank you then, here's the bill," Li Long said happily.

"No need, no need." Polati shook his head. "It's only a dozen or twenty kilograms, it's not worth much money."

“The hides are worth some money,” Li Long said. “It seems like the price of hides has gone up this year.”

"No, no, I already got my share of the money," Polati firmly refused. "We're friends, no need for such formalities!"

Li Long didn't stand on ceremony. He took the bag containing the roe deer roe and put it in the jeep, and gave Polati a few new bags.

"Over there, over there, and over there too, wild boars have been coming down here and there lately." Polati pointed in a few more directions to Li Long. "If you come early, you can go check those out. You guys are building roads, you need meat to keep your energy up!"

Li Long noted down the location, thanked Bolati, and drove towards the road construction site.

When Li Long drove to the road construction site, the work was still underway. Li Long then called Meng Hai to have someone come and help set up a stove; they would cook meat again today.

Since there aren't many people cooking, it's better to keep it simple.

Li Long was only responsible for peeling the skins. He noticed that the water in the ditch seemed to be a bit more abundant than in the morning, but the water was still quite clear.

Li Long was conflicted, worried about both the flood and the wasted time by acting rashly.

Ma Xiaoyan was also helping with the cooking. She praised Li Long, "You're amazing! You always have a successful hunt. Your hunting skills are truly those of a veteran hunter."

"I didn't shoot this. I didn't find any prey, and I ran into a friend from the forestry team. He shot it and gave it to me," Li Long explained, not wanting to take credit for someone else's work.

"I see." Ma Xiaoyan was a little disappointed. In her opinion, Li Long was almost "omnipotent", but she didn't expect that he would be empty-handed sometimes.

Because it was getting late, the meat was only cooked for about half an hour. Once it was done, Li Long asked Meng Hai to gather people over for dinner.

Everyone was tired and hungry, so they didn't care about anything else. There was a large stack of enamel bowls in the trunk of Li Long's jeep; these were standard items in his trunk.

The steamed buns they brought, along with a bowl of soup with meat and bones, made everyone very happy.

After eating and resting for less than half an hour, Meng Hai called everyone to get back to work.

Li Long took his gun and went upstream again. He found that the water in the ditch had risen a little, but not by much. So he turned back and reminded Meng Hai to try not to go to the other side of the ditch. He then took his gun and went into the woods to see if he could still shoot something.

With Meng Hai directing and Ma Xiaoyan conducting interviews, he felt constrained, unable to effectively utilize his abilities on either side—because when Li Long was present, Meng Hai had to consult Li Long before directing any action, making him uncomfortable on both sides.

Li Long entered the mountain with his gun and found that many fritillaria bulbs had bloomed, morel mushrooms were almost nowhere to be seen, but black tiger paw mushrooms had not yet grown, while some pine mushrooms, porcini mushrooms, and large white crisp mushrooms were growing quite well.

The Codonopsis pilosula plants are in full bloom, and some of the upper plants are as thick as a thumb, so the Codonopsis pilosula plants below must be quite large.

Li Long didn't dare to go far, so he just wandered around nearby. He would look south from time to time and see that dark clouds in the mountains to the south would occasionally pour down in large clumps, which meant it was raining.

Still feeling uneasy, Li Long circled around but didn't see any wild animals. He then turned back towards the road construction site and heard a rumbling sound—the flood was coming!
He immediately sped up, and when he reached the road repair site, he saw that the floodwaters had almost reached the road surface under repair, while Meng Hai was calling everyone to walk up the hillside.

What angered Li Long was that someone was running in the opposite direction of the flood. When Meng Hai called out to him, he was shouting that he had left his shovel there and had to retrieve it or it would be swept away by the flood!

Li Long was furious and cursed, "Isn't this harming people?"
Then this guy was swept into the water by the suddenly rising flood!

Meng Hai and his men rushed over immediately, trying to rescue the person.

What made Li Long a little anxious was that Ma Xiaoyan also rushed over!
Damn it, do you want to be Tian Xiaoxia?

(End of this chapter)