My Gold Rush Career Begins in 1984

Chapter 145 See you again, acquaintances
Wu Yang was still thinking about treating everyone, and now that he had the money, he immediately called Zhou Jingming and Bai Zhishun to a barbecue restaurant. He ordered a hundred skewers of lamb and also specially ordered two jin of Yili Special liquor.

Winters in northern Xinjiang are long and cold. To combat the harsh cold, people not only eat high-fat foods, but also love to drink alcohol, especially strong liquor.

Yili liquor is not cheap. It is known as the best liquor in the region and is praised for its mellow and rich taste.

Perhaps because mutton is the most common meat available in the mountains, they started to get used to it. Mutton fat, which Wu Yang and Bai Zhishun originally disliked, became something they could enjoy eating without restraint.

This time, the three of them ate and drank to their hearts' content, spending over forty yuan on a single meal of meat and wine.

However, Wu Yang did not expect that when he went to pay, the shopkeeper told him that Bai Zhishun had already paid.

Back at the hotel, he was still brooding over it: "Shunzai, I was the one treating, why were you so busy paying? You're so disrespectful. I finally get to treat you guys to a meal."

Bai Zhishun's answer was also quite reasonable: "I'm not very smart, and even if you asked me to treat you, I wouldn't know what to eat. This time it's on me, you can treat me next time!"

Wu Yang rolled his eyes: "If you were really stupid, how could you have avoided being caught as a vagrant? If you were really stupid, how could you have escaped from that shady inn? If you were really stupid, how could you have found your way to such a remote place as Haxionggou? And just now, I told you I'd treat you, but you took the opportunity to stand in for me... You're so good at finding opportunities, who would dare say you're stupid?"

Bai Zhishun was stunned after being scolded by Wu Yang, and didn't know what to say.

The speaker has no intention, the listener has the heart.

What were originally just a few casual words between the two people turned out to have a different meaning in Zhou Jingming's mind.

He recalled the years Bai Zhishun spent in the Gold Rush Valley in his previous life. If things had been done according to common sense, someone as honest and simple as him would have been devoured long ago.

But although he didn't get any money, he was perfectly fine. How did he manage to get away with that?

Now, after hearing what Wu Yang said, Zhou Jingming really felt that he had seized some opportunities just right, and that he knew when to give up and when to let go, and that he was decisive in dealing with things.

The way he looked at Bai Zhishun became somewhat strange.

"Alright, stop fooling around and get some sleep. We'll be busy in the coming days, so we need to get some rest."

In his previous life, Zhou Jingming always thought Bai Zhishun was honest and simple, or to put it bluntly, he thought he was a bit simple-minded and silly. But now, he realized that he didn't really know Bai Zhishun well enough.

That's not surprising. One is a technologist, and the other is a laborer. They are at different levels, so it's easy for them to overlook each other.

However, Bai Zhishun's quick wit is something to be happy about for Zhou Jingming, at least he doesn't have to worry too much about not handling the tasks assigned to him well.

This is like a thoroughbred horse that has never met its discerning owner; it has the ability but no opportunity to showcase it, and thus fades into obscurity.

Wu Yang only warned Bai Zhishun: Don't try to take it from me next time, you hear me?

Bai Zhishun said "Oh," and then followed Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang to get onto the kang (heated brick bed) to sleep.

The three of them got up very early the next morning.

Zhou Jingming specially bought a lot of wine and some layered naan bread.

Using alcohol to keep warm and using sachets as dry rations, these things should last for quite a while.

Most importantly, he led the two to a fur shop on the street and bought three leather sleeping tubes made of roe deer skin from the shopkeeper.

It wasn't just hunters in Northeast China who had these leather tubes; herders, who roamed with their livestock year-round, couldn't even find a place to stay during the winter snow. The leather tubes, with their excellent insulation, became an indispensable tool for sleeping outdoors in the winter.

There are two other things that should not be overlooked: leather hats and leather gloves.

The harshness of winter in northern Xinjiang is well known: nighttime temperatures in the mountains and forests can drop by more than ten degrees Celsius, and extremely severe weather can occur.

After the snowfall, there are hardly any living things to be seen.

If you're unlucky, you might encounter a blizzard.

This is one of the weather conditions that herders fear most; they call it the "white-haired wind."

This kind of weather is actually what Northeast China calls "big smoke cannon," an extremely severe weather phenomenon, a blizzard.

A sudden gust of wind swept up snowflakes, swirling and crashing around like tiny blades scraping against my face. As far as the eye could see, there was nothing but white snow.

The temperature dropped even more drastically, and without proper protection, it was common for ears and fingers to be frostbitten.

Now that everything was ready, the three of them set off again for the Haiertes River.

There were no unusual events along the way, and it took two days to reach the Gold Rush Valley.

Unfortunately, the weather turned against them. As the three arrived at the main channel of the Haiertes River Gold Rush Valley in the evening, a northeasterly wind picked up in the mountains, and within just one hour, the once clear sky turned overcast.

The whistling cold wind felt like needles, constantly piercing through my clothes.

Fortunately, there are still many dugouts left behind by gold prospectors along the banks of the Gold Rush Valley, so finding accommodation for the night is not a problem.

The three of them temporarily chose a dugout on the riverbank where there was still some firewood, went inside, lit the earthen stove, huddled inside to warm themselves, ate some naan bread, drank a few sips of wine, unfolded the roe deer skin tube, and went to sleep on the earthen bed.

As we walked into the valley, the valley, which had been bustling like a large construction site, was now deserted.

Along the way, the group still saw two or three groups of people on the riverbank, collecting and sorting materials.

There were two dugouts, and as they passed by, four or five men carrying hunting rifles suddenly emerged, watching the three of them warily. They were probably left at the mine to guard it.

"Should we let Jinwang in?" Before getting into bed, Bai Zhishun glanced outside and saw Jinwang's body trembling slightly, so he asked with some concern.

Zhou Jingming shook his head: "Don't worry, it was born and grew up in icy and snowy weather, so this weather is not a problem for it."

"We can't let it in. We have to keep watch outside. Otherwise, the three of us sleeping soundly inside might not even realize when we've all been wiped out. That would be a huge loss." Bai Zhishun didn't think much of it. He climbed onto the kang (a heated brick bed), unfolded his roe deer skin tube, and asked curiously how to use it.

Zhou Jingming knew he had never encountered anything like this before, so he explained it to him briefly.

Wu Yang wasn't used to using the roe deer skin tube. He always felt uncomfortable after crawling inside, so he struggled to crawl out and fiddled with it for a while: "This thing, you can't stretch your arms and legs out, it's really uncomfortable inside."

"It's uncomfortable, but it keeps you warm. You should curl up to sleep so that there are fewer parts of your body that can lose heat. Even your head should be buried in it so that your breath is warm and you won't get cold while sleeping."

Otherwise, how do you think such a small roe deer skin container keeps things warm? It mainly relies on its own heat; it's responsible for trapping the heat.

After all, they came from places like western Hunan, the Yue region, and Sichuan, where there wasn't much harsh cold. They were still somewhat unaccustomed to the harsh climate of northern Xinjiang, including Zhou Jingming himself.

Even though both he and Wu Yang had lived in Northeast China.

Sure enough, it snowed that night.

Sleeping in the dugout, you can hear rustling sounds outside.

Jinwang was at the door, scratching at it with his claws, making the door rattle and whimper.

Zhou Jingming heard it, but ignored it.

After a while, probably realizing there was no hope of getting into the dugout, it curled up at the entrance of the dugout passage and fell asleep.

"This snow couldn't have come at the worst possible time!"

Wu Yang was still awake: "Now, we can't do anything."

"It's good that it snows. When it snows, fewer people go out, making things easier and more discreet!"

Zhou Jingming listened to the sounds outside: "Don't worry, it's only late autumn now, it's not really cold yet, the snow won't be heavy."

Wu Yang let out a long sigh, curled up and buried his head in the roe deer skin tube, and stopped talking.

Zhou Jingming was still pondering where to begin tomorrow.

But he didn't know anything about the mines in those restricted areas. He thought and thought, but couldn't figure it out, so he drifted off to sleep.

"boom……"

The next morning, the sudden gunshots and Jinwang's barking outside the dugout startled the three of them awake. They hurriedly crawled out of their roe deer hides, jumped off their earthen beds, put on their shoes, and opened the door.

Bai Zhishun was in a hurry to squeeze out, but Wu Yang pulled him back: "Do you want to die? What if it's targeting us? If you show your face, you might get shot... Back off..."

Bai Zhishun retreated behind Wu Yang in a daze, and was then pulled behind Zhou Jingming.

"Don't move, let me take a look first!"

Wu Yang gave the instructions and slowly moved outwards, hugging the earthen wall on the left side of the passage.

When he could barely see what was happening outside, he quickly peeked out and then quickly pulled back. Seemingly seeing that there was nothing on the right side of the dugout, he turned around, leaned against the right earthen wall, and quickly peeked out again, looking towards the left side of the dugout.

After turning back, he turned to Zhou Jingming and said, "Two men have crept up from the riverbank below, both carrying hunting rifles, about forty or fifty meters away. Jin Wang is biting those two."

He quickly peeked outside again to confirm: "There's no one else here."

Zhou Jingming thought for a moment, but he couldn't figure out the two people's intentions. However, letting them get closer was obviously not a good thing.

He moved closer and peered down onto the riverbank. In that instant, he saw one of the two men raise his gun and point it towards the dugout. The target…

It's Jinwang!
He was startled and reacted quickly, raising his shotgun and firing a shot into the sky.

Then he peeked outside again.

Clearly, the two men were also startled by the gunshot and immediately crouched down.

Seeing this, Zhou Jingming breathed a slight sigh of relief. He rushed out of the passage with his gun, aiming it at the two men outside: "What are you two doing?"

Wu Yang also came out, aiming his gun at the two men.

Seeing this, the two dared not move for a moment.

One of them shouted back, "Don't misunderstand, we saw a dog wandering on this riverbank and thought it was a dog abandoned by a herder who had come here looking for food. We wanted to catch it and eat it... We didn't mean anything by it."

When Zhou Jingming saw them measuring Jin Wang, he roughly guessed their intentions.

This is a normal thing.

The sheepdogs abandoned by the herders became wild dogs. Unable to find food, they would either approach populated areas to look for food such as feces or come to the Gold Rush Valley.

After all, for a long time, many people stayed in places like the Gold Rush Valley, eating and defecating in the wild, and they could indeed find a lot of food to fill their stomachs.

It's understandable that some people would think that way about Jin Wang.

Zhou Jingming felt that one of them looked familiar. After examining the two of them closely for a while, he was somewhat surprised to find that one of them was actually an acquaintance from his previous life.

He put the gun down: "This dog is ours, not a stray. Don't mess with it!"

(End of this chapter)