My Gold Rush Career Begins in 1984

Chapter 124 Dragon-Patterned Viper

Zhou Jingming's Yingjisha knife is only sixteen centimeters long, shaped like a crescent moon, and is very finely crafted.

In fact, the distinctive feature of Yingjisha knives is their novelty and uniqueness. They come in various shapes, such as fish belly, phoenix tail, eagle, and lark head. Regardless of the style, they are all very pleasing to the eye, especially in the handle.

Zhou Jingming originally wanted to see if he could find deer antlers while exploring in the wild to make knife handles, but his friend was in a hurry to go home and urged him to make them in bronze instead.

Incidentally, he also had a friend take back several aquamarines he had found in the wild and have them set into the hilt of his knife.

Although the aquamarine colors weren't quite pure, the effect of setting them on the knife handle was far better than those set with stained glass.

Moreover, because it uses automotive leaf springs, the steel is pure in color and the furnace fire is pure. I don't know what technique the master craftsman used, but the blade is like jade in steel, with a sharp edge. When you use the knife to scrape iron bars, you can see iron filings rising up, but the blade does not chip or bend.

Add to that a patterned leather scabbard, and the whole thing looks absolutely gorgeous.

However, Zhou Jingming rarely showed the knife to others, and he was not used to using it to eat meat or anything like that. He kept it close to his body most of the time for self-defense.

Seeing Wu Yang playing with the knife and not helping him fix his hair, Zhou Jingming smiled, knowing that Wu Yang liked it: "When you have the chance, find some materials and you can make one too, or get a set of Chen Zheng knives. Those knives are also very neat and beautiful. As long as you are willing to spend money, you will not have to worry about not having a good knife."

They sell them in stores, but those are unreliable, so forget about them!

Wu Yang nodded: "I'll definitely get one if I have the chance."

After he finished speaking, he took out a knife and started grabbing Zhou Jingming's hair to help him clean up.

The sharp knife cut through the hair with surprising ease. However, Wu Yang's hair-cutting skills were truly appalling. In the end, Zhou Jingming looked at his head's reflection in the water and saw that it looked like it had been gnawed by a dog, turning into a bald patch.

But at least the hair won't always block my eyes and affect my vision, so it doesn't matter.

During his first two breaks, Zhou Jingming spent them leisurely, taking baths in the river and sunbathing on the grass—a rare treat in the otherwise monotonous gold panning life. This time was no exception.

After soaking in the river for a while, he felt a bit cold, so he simply wiped himself with a towel, put on a set of dry clothes, rinsed his dirty clothes in the river a few times, took them out, wrung them out, shook them a few times, and laid them out to dry on the bushes on the riverbank.

Rough men almost always do a shoddy job when washing clothes.

Because they wear work clothes and are in contact with mud and sand every day, no matter how clean they are, they will get covered in mud and filth in just half a day.

The "unnecessary" rinsing was only to wash away the salt stains and sour smell left on the clothes after days of sweating, just to make myself feel less uncomfortable.

After hanging up the clothes to dry, he took a novel, as usual, and went to the birch tree where he often sunbathed. He broke off a branch, haphazardly patted it down onto the grass next to it, and seeing that there was nothing unusual, he lay down sprawled out and tried to read to help himself fall asleep.

The summer sun in northern Xinjiang is scorching, so it's impossible to be completely exposed to the sun; some shade is still necessary.

The sunlight penetrates the sparse branches and leaves, and the heat contained in the dappled sunlight is just right.

His body, which had felt a little chilly after being soaked in the water, quickly became drowsy under the warm sunshine.

He simply covered his face with the book and gradually fell asleep.

He didn't know how long he had slept, but when he heard a lot of talking, he opened his eyes groggily and vaguely recognized that Li Guozhu was leading people back from buying things.

A group of people were gathered together, but he couldn't hear what they were saying.

Suddenly, he saw something and was so shocked that he almost lost his mind.

Right next to his head, a snake about 40 or 50 centimeters long had coiled up, sometime during the night.

Presumably startled when he woke up, it is slowly moving around.

The crucial point is that, of all times, it crawled towards Zhou Jingming, its tongue flicking out as it rested its head on his neck.

The instant his skin touched him, the slight chill sent shivers down his spine, and his mind instantly became crystal clear.

But he still didn't dare to move.

Upon seeing the snake with a slightly triangular head, a short and thick body, a yellow back, and wavy light black longitudinal stripes along its spine, Zhou Jingming immediately recognized it as a venomous snake that lived in the Altai Mountains, commonly known as the dragon-patterned viper.

He had been bitten by this kind of snake in his past life when he was doing field exploration.

At first, there will be severe pain near the wound, and after twenty minutes there will be an even more serious reaction.

The bite site swelled up badly, and I felt dizzy and couldn't help but want to vomit.

But that's not the worst part.

After about five or six hours, this excruciating feeling will become even more intense.

The reason he knew so much was because he was in the deep mountains at the time, and there was no medicine available for treatment.

He endured the whole process.

Although it didn't kill him, he really didn't want to experience that feeling again.

Unexpectedly, even though they had patted the grass with a branch before sleeping on it and thought there was no problem, problems still arose in the end.

He dared not make any sudden movements, for fear of being too startled and the snake would immediately bite his neck.

If bitten in such a critical location, the toxic reaction may be even more intense.

He could only endure it, even trying his best to control his breathing and slow it down as much as possible, and praying that it wouldn't get into his clothes.

And so, the snake's cold body slowly wriggled, swimming up Zhou Jingming's neck, its head flicking its tongue, tapping his face a few times, before slowly crawling past his ears.

When Zhou Jingming caught a glimpse of the snake's tail leaving his head out of the corner of his eye, he jumped up from the ground as if he had been electrocuted and ran away.

He cursed, "Fuck!"

He looked around and ran towards a clump of bushes, intending to break off a stick to kill the wretched snake. Otherwise, given what he had just experienced, he suspected he might even have nightmares at night, his scalp tingling with pain.

A group of people were chatting by the tent when they suddenly noticed Zhou Jingming's reaction. Wu Yang immediately asked, "Brother Zhou, what's wrong?"

"Damn it, I was sleeping on the grass when a poisonous snake crawled across my neck and scared me half to death... I'll beat it to death!"

Zhou Jingming grumbled as he broke off a branch, quickly stripped off the leaves, and headed towards the patch of grass.

Wu Yang and a few others, who were curious, immediately gathered around and searched the grass.

As soon as everyone started making a fuss, Jin Wang, who had been hiding in the woods for who knows what, also ran out of the woods and sniffed around.

Soon someone spotted the snake's black and yellow body in the swaying grass and immediately shouted, "Here it is! Here it is!"

Zhou Jingming immediately rushed over, raised the branch in his hand, and started wildly whipping and hitting the bushes where the snake had crawled into.

As a result, many of the grass stems and leaves were broken and thrown away, but the snake seemed unaffected and continued to burrow into the grass.

Jinwang saw it too and went over to try to bite it, but it had to be wary of the stick in Zhou Jingming's hand. Several times it got close, but was afraid of being hit and retreated. This time, it stopped chasing the snake and started barking at Zhou Jingming instead.

But Zhou Jingming had no time to deal with it at that moment; he just wanted to get rid of the snake as soon as possible.

Seeing this, some of the others picked up stones to throw at the person, while others broke off branches to whip them.

Now, Jin Wang had no way to stand aside.

Finally, someone struck the snake, and it lashed out at the person with lightning speed, startling them into jumping away.

Knowing it's a venomous snake, no one wants to be bitten by it.

Knowing it couldn't escape, the snake twisted its body into a figure eight shape, raised its neck, and assumed a defensive stance, immediately turning its head away from anyone who approached.

Zhou Jingming was not about to let this opportunity slip by. He knew, of course, that to strike a snake, you must strike its vital spot. With its head held high, this was the best time to strike that spot. He immediately shouted, "Make way, make way, let me do it! I'll whip it to death in one go!"

Just as he was raising the thin branch and approaching the snake, preparing to strike it, Bai Zhishun squeezed through: "Brother Zhou, let me do it, let's catch the snake and extract its gall to make wine."

Zhou Jingming was slightly taken aback, not remembering that Bai Zhishun from Luoyue was an expert in catching snakes.

Back in his hometown, he used to catch snakes to extract their gallbladders and collect their molted skins. Both of these ingredients could be used in medicine, and this was one of his ways of making money.

Moreover, soaking snake gall in alcohol can indeed help relax muscles and tendons, and dispel wind and dampness.

Rheumatism is a problem that almost every gold prospector suffers from.

Zhou Jingming would wear rubber boots and soak in cold water every day to shake the golden bucket. When he was young, he didn't feel anything, but when he got old, he truly understood how annoying rheumatism was.

He quickly called out to the crowd, "Stop fighting! Stop fighting! Everyone move aside and let Shunzai handle this!"

Upon hearing this, everyone stepped aside.

Some people questioned, "Shunzai, are you even capable?"

Someone else warned, "Shunzai, be careful, this snake is poisonous!"

Bai Zhishun just smiled憨厚ly. Seeing that the snake was about to slither away into the grass again, he hunched over and took two big steps to approach it.

Without any hesitation, he slowly bent down, his right hand flashing out like lightning. As he pulled it back, he had already precisely grasped the snake's vital spot and lifted it up.

The snake coiled around his arm, but he seemed completely unaffected, showing no discomfort whatsoever.

Seeing him catch a snake as easily as picking up firewood, Zhou Jingming couldn't help but sigh: professional tasks should be done by professionals.

"Shunzi, you're pretty good, kid!"

"It's really awesome!"

"I never would have guessed, Shunzi, you've been hiding your true abilities all along!"

……

Everyone praised him, never expecting that the usually quiet and hardworking young man, who only knew how to do whatever he was told, would be so skilled at catching snakes.

Others are already afraid when they hear that it is a venomous snake. They feel their scalp tingle when they see a snake crawling in the grass, as if there are snakes everywhere, and they dare not go near it.

Bai Zhishun just scratched his head sheepishly: "I used to catch snakes all the time, does anyone have a knife?"

Many people who come to Altay carry a knife for self-defense.

Immediately, someone pulled a switchblade from their waist, flicked out the blade, and handed it to him.

He switched the snake from his right hand to his left, grabbed its tail, and yanked it.

The snake that had just been coiling and writhing around his arm immediately went limp.

Then, he took the knife, made a cut a little below the snake's seventh inch, pinched it with his fingers, and a bluish-black snake gall bladder wrapped in a membrane was revealed. He then pinched it off with his fingernail.

His method of extracting snake gallbladders was terrifyingly familiar.

Afterwards, Bai Zhishun casually tossed the snake onto the grass some distance away and glanced at everyone: "If any of you have seen a snake, let me know, and I'll catch a few to extract their gallbladders and make a bottle of snake gall wine for Brother Zhou."

It was a very simple and unpretentious sentence, yet it stirred up many memories in Zhou Jingming's mind. This hunchbacked young man was still so heartwarming.

(End of this chapter)