My Gold Rush Career Begins in 1984

Chapter 14 Confidence: The Grassland Stone Man
In early spring in northern Xinjiang, the wind is still biting cold.

Zhou Jingming tightened his cotton-padded coat, estimated the general direction, and walked northwest along the road.

Altan is characterized by deserts, Gobi, river valleys, grasslands, forests, and mountains, stretching from south to north.

The sky above was filled with countless stars, but it didn't provide enough light. It was pitch black all around, and he could only make out the general outline of the northern mountain ridge where the sky met by the faint light of day.

Beneath his feet lay a vast grassland, sparsely covered by grasses left behind after being grazed by cattle and sheep. No new shoots had yet begun to sprout, resembling the Gobi Desert.

The grassland may seem vast, but the transportation routes are actually quite fixed. Most of the gravel and dirt roads are pasture trails trodden by cattle and sheep.

Along the way, apart from the whistling wind in my ears and the crunching sound of my yellow rubber boots on the gravel, the only other thing I could smell was the pungent odor of cow and sheep dung.

Many places in northern Xinjiang are considered haunted, and locals avoid walking at night.

Zhou Jingming chose to come out at this time in order to avoid being seen by others as much as possible.

During the daytime, many people wander around the town of Altan, seemingly doing nothing, but in reality, there are quite a few ruthless people with sharp eyes, searching for targets to attack or to gain benefits.

It's not until dark that the grasslands are at their quietest and most secluded.

Of course, this does not mean that the grasslands are safe at this time; on the contrary, many dangers still lurk there.

The most troublesome thing is the wolf, which appears and disappears mysteriously on the grassland.

Many wolves, unable to find food in the wild, will choose to approach populated areas, and the cattle and sheep raised by many herders become their prey, resulting in significant losses every year.

Some lone wolves simply sneak into villages or the outskirts of towns, searching for leftover scraps, eyeing the chickens and ducks kept in residents' yards, and even lone children.

These cunning wolves are masters at observing humans; they know very well that the best course of action is to hide when they see people.

Pedestrians holding a stone or a stick can be a strong deterrent to them.

But it is precisely because of this that these wolves become more sneaky and always seem sinister.

If you encounter a pack of wolves, it will be even more dangerous; you won't even know when you'll be surrounded.

Zhou Jingming carried few ceremonial items; besides a small knife for self-defense and a sturdy wooden stick he had picked up, he had nothing else.

The reason he was so bold was that he hadn't gone very far, so the chances of encountering wolves were slim.

Even if he encountered wolves, he knew their weaknesses. If it was just one or two, he was confident he could handle them with just a stick in his hand. Even if he encountered a pack of wolves, he had a way to escape.

Working in the geological team, he spent most of the year camping in the wilderness, encountering lone wolves and wolf packs quite often. His temporary campsites at night were frequently visited by wolves, and he had confronted them more than once or twice.

Moreover, during the two years Zhou Jingming spent as an educated youth in the Great Northern Wilderness, he got to know some local hunters and got along very well with them. He learned a lot from them about dealing with wild animals and hunting them.

In addition, he had traveled the world to seek his fortune in his previous life, which inevitably involved encounters with wild animals and even wilderness survival. He had learned a lot and had already mastered many skills. Even if he were to hunt, he would be a seasoned hunter.

To some extent, the experience and skills he acquired in his previous life for surviving in the wilderness are one of the reasons why Zhou Jingming is now choosing to pan for gold in Altay.

Even the most powerful animals have things they fear.

Although wolves are the animals that cause the most harm to humans, they are most afraid of humans.

Even the most formidable bear in the area is no exception. When it sees people, unless it is a head-on disturbance or a special situation arises, the bear will be the first to run away at the slightest movement.

In the Altay region, brown bears are called "Ha Xiong" (哈熊). To be precise, they should be called "Xia Xiong" (瞎熊), similar to "Hei Xia Zi" (黑瞎子) in Northeast China. However, in the Xihai dialect, "Xia" (瞎) is often pronounced as "Ha" (哈), hence the name "Ha Xiong".

It is precisely for this reason that some mountain valleys are called "Bear Valleys" because bears are said to roam there.

In northern Xinjiang, Zhou Jingming knew of three places called Haxionggou. In later generations, the most famous Haxionggou was the area on the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains, dozens of kilometers east of Wucheng, which later became a forest park and a popular tourist attraction.

There was also a gold mining site in that Haxionggou Valley. Zhou Jingming had once considered going there, but because it was too close to Wucheng, the controls were strict, and a wealthy boss named Jin had already moved in. So Zhou Jingming, who was just starting out, gave up the idea of ​​getting a share of the pie.

He knows his own limitations very well.

Two thousand years later, he revisited Daxigou in Haxionggou, Guohouxia as a tourist. It was midsummer, and Daxigou was in its high-water season, with muddy water carrying sediment.

It is precisely these murky waters that are the "money" in the eyes of gold prospectors.

Many gold prospectors still camp out in the deep valleys, secretly panning for gold. The riverbeds are riddled with holes. There are even several sand mining bases that use large equipment such as engineering vehicles to carry out large-scale mining operations.

Zhou Jingming could tell at a glance that they were just putting on a show, ostensibly mining sand but actually panning for gold.

Another place, Haxionggou, is located deep in the mountains north of Altan, in a border area. At an altitude of 2,600 meters, there is a lonely outpost guarded by only two people.

Thinking back carefully, it must have been last year when the wooden hut at the outpost was replaced with a brick house, and the number of personnel increased from two to five. They didn't concern themselves with the gold miners; they just patrolled the border and kept watch.

In Zhou Jingming's notebook, there is a key location recorded for this Haxiong Valley. This is the real reason why he chose to go to northern Xinjiang to seek his fortune, and why he chose Altan as his first choice. He was hoping to get his first slightly larger sum of start-up capital there.

Zhou Jingming only turned on his flashlight after leaving the county town for more than a mile, dimming the light and speeding up his journey.

About half an hour later, he arrived at a round-topped bald mountain in the northwest. On this bald mountain, there was a pile of stones two or three meters high.

To be precise, these are stone sculptures, later known as the Altay Grassland Stone Figures. They are rough human figures carved primarily from stone and represent a major historical and cultural landscape on the northern Xinjiang grasslands.

These stone figures come in various shapes and sizes, with carvings ranging from exquisite to rough. They can be found in the mountain grasslands of the Altai and Tianshan Mountains, but most are solitary and scattered, with many hidden among the lush weeds, making them difficult to spot without careful searching.

According to Zhou Jingming, these stone figures exist not only in the vast area north of the Tianshan Mountains and south of the Altai Mountains, but also in Mongolia and Russia. Some scholars have suggested that they are stone carvings left by the Turks in history.

The Turks were warlike and martial, and after death, it was customary to have "pictures of the deceased's appearance and the battles they fought in during their lives" painted on their tombs, which were the burial sites of Turkic nobles.

In other words, these stone figures are equivalent to tombstones, portraits of the deceased. Because the Turks worshipped the sun, most of these stone figures face east.

However, Zhou Jingming believes that these bald men have "lion noses and huge jaws," which are more like the faces of Mongolians. Some people say that these bald men are guarding gold in the mountains, and the Mongolian word for Altai Mountains is also "golden mountain," which is worth investigating further.

Even in later generations, many questions about these stone figures remain unanswered, making them seem very mysterious.

Zhou Jingming went to this round, bald mountain to hide his notebook in the tomb beneath the grassland stone figures.

Perhaps because these stone figures are located in the tomb, many people are unwilling to approach such places, because whenever there are stone figures, it always gives people a very uncomfortable feeling.

From a distance, these stone figures on the barren mountain look like several long, upright stones, standing crookedly.

When Zhou Jingming was in the geological team, he was also attracted to look at this place when he first passed by. It was just a simple carving of a human face and clothes on a long stone, half of which was covered by half-person-high withered grass.

He quickly arrived at the foot of the stone figures. Between the two tall stone figures, there was a small stone figure completely covered by withered grass, which should be a child's grave.

The stone figure wasn't large; Zhou Jingming could move it himself. He had tried before and knew that there was a stone slab underneath it. If the slab was lifted, there would be a small stone tomb inside, containing some pottery jars, bones, and the like.

This is a good place to hide things, because in his previous life, five years later, when he returned to Altan, he saw these stone figures again and found no trace of them being disturbed.

He quickly moved the stone figure away, lifted the stone slab, and peeked inside with a flashlight. It was still the same as before, a fairly dry place. Reassured, he put the notebook and five hundred yuan, which he had already wrapped in oil paper, deep into the tomb. Then he put the stone slab back on, returned the stone figure to its place, and covered the marks he had made with grass.

Having finished his business, he breathed a long sigh of relief, turned on his flashlight, and returned to his woodshed in Altan as quickly as possible, where he fell asleep peacefully.

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(End of this chapter)