My Gold Rush Career Begins in 1984

Chapter 157 The Determination for Revenge Should Not Be Underestimated

"Actually, you can't blame Zhang for withholding the gold that should have been yours and not giving you any wine. He said he was just worried that you would get into trouble from drinking and didn't want you to seek revenge and lose your life. After all, he's getting old, and he hopes you can't take it and will think about going home on your own."

Knowing that Zhou Jingming and the others were in a hurry, Old Man Liu did not delay and got up to follow. Zhou Jingming then briefly explained to him the reason why Zhang Ba Tou had told him that he did not like Old Man Liu.

Whether it's true or not, Zhou Jingming is willing to believe it's true, after all, it's a rare instance of kindness heard in the Gold Rush Valley.

Old Liu curled his lip: "Don't be fooled by him. I've known this Zhang guy for many years. I know what kind of person he is. If it were really as he says, would I have drawn my gun against him?"
I'm not that unreasonable.

My youngest son went out to pan for gold the following year. He came out with him and the one lying in the river. The reason I insisted on joining his group was because he was the most likely person to know what happened to my youngest son. I was just confirming some things.

As for getting around here, this gun in my hand is enough for me; I don't necessarily need that gold.

The man surnamed Zhang, back in his hometown, was a notorious womanizer, gambler, fighter, and highway robber with a gang of thugs... He did all sorts of bad things, a truly depraved individual.

He was lucky; my youngest son's death had nothing to do with him. Otherwise, I would have dealt with him too.

Upon hearing this, Zhou Jingming could only say that you can't judge a book by its cover.

Of course, he had long seen through Zhang Batou's shrewdness and the cunning in his bones. However, since they were all out hunting for gold, they didn't have much interaction. Once they left the valley, who would know who?
Therefore, Zhou Jingming just listened to many of these words without taking them seriously, since it didn't concern him.

Wu Yang asked curiously, "Grandpa, how did you find that person in the river?"

"It took some effort to get out of the valley. My idea was simple: I would go through each valley and search each gully. As long as he was still here, I would search the entire northern Xinjiang region. I believed I could find him eventually."

Old Liu took out his wine gourd and took a swig: "I first stayed in Tiemaike for a few days, asked around to find out where there were gold mines, prepared some dry food, and started looking for them one by one. It took a lot of time, and finally I arrived at Doleburqin. At the station, I actually saw one in a bus I happened to pass by."

I didn't have time to catch up at the time, but I knew they were coming to Altan. They stayed in Doleburqin for two more days. When the bus arrived, I followed them back here. I happened to be eating at a roadside stall when I saw them board the bus to Temaike... I missed them again.

The buses here are such a hassle, they only run once a week. I couldn't wait, so I just set off and followed them all the way to Timberland.

Since I'm already here, I must be in one of the few gold-mining valleys around. I've already searched all those valleys, so I wasn't worried about searching again. It took some effort, but I finally found it.

Zhou Jingming shook his head as he listened: "Grandpa, how far have you walked? So many mountains, so many river valleys..."

He dared not even think about it. The northern Xinjiang region is vast, and going to any place can easily take hundreds of miles. Just by walking, he could travel from Altan to Doleburqin, which is quite a journey.

"I've spent most of my life in the mountains, hunting and gathering herbs. My specialty is traversing mountains and valleys. I can walk seventy or eighty li every day for ten days or half a month without any problem. The most I've ever walked in a day was over one hundred and forty li."

That time it was winter. I was searching for a leopard that had jumped down from a tree and scratched me. I injured it, but the injury wasn't serious. I followed it for several days, but couldn't get close enough. I got annoyed and thought, "You think you can run? Fine, I'll follow you and exhaust you..." Finally, I chased it until it was completely unable to run anymore, and then I killed it. The next day, I carried the leopard and walked back home.

When talking about this, Old Liu said with a confident look, "It exhausted me. I slept for three whole days after I got home and recovered."

People in later generations may find it exaggerated to hear that walking mountain roads can be hundreds of miles long, but people in those days did not have such convenient means of transportation, so they relied on their own two legs and were particularly good at walking.

Those who hunt and gather herbs are among the best.

Even Zhou Jingming himself, when he was in the Great Northern Wilderness, once received an assignment from the farm manager to do something quite urgent. The roads were not smooth, so he could not use a vehicle and had to walk, which was more than a hundred miles round trip.

He walked the whole way on his own, and his feet were swollen and sore for several days.

Zhou Jingming smiled and said, "It's worth traveling such a long distance and sleeping for so many days. Leopards aren't cheap."

Old Liu grinned, "That leopard, skin and bones, I remember selling for over a thousand yuan..."

Bai Zhishun was astonished: "Over a thousand? That's worth so much?"

"Of course it's valuable. Leopards have excellent fur in winter, and their bones can be sold as tiger bones. They are also good medicinal materials. They are all valuable and valuable items."

Zhou Jingming knew a little about hunting and wasn't surprised: "It's just that leopards are rare, and you don't encounter them many times throughout the year. They're too fast and good at hiding. If you don't have some skills, you won't even see one, let alone hunt one."

He paused, then asked Old Liu, "We encountered these people in the mountains, there were more than ten of them. Grandpa, how did you manage to get them out? I heard from Foreman Zhang that he's become a big shot, isn't he? He must be tough to deal with."

"What a load of bull! This kind of person wants to be a boss. He's the kind who's only good when he's rich and starving when he's broke. When he's rich, he lives a life of debauchery. Only when he's broke will he think about getting something from the outside world. He'll target people from the same place. Even if he becomes a boss, he won't last long."

Old Liu took off the gourd hanging from his waist and took a swig of wine. His face was flushed, whether from the wine or the cold weather, no one knew.

"Anyway, when I found him in the mountains, he looked like he was being ordered around and running errands. I went straight to those people, and when he saw me, he was busy hiding and wouldn't show his face."

I yelled at those guys, telling them to kick him out, to say directly that they were there for revenge, to kill him, and that anyone who harbored him should also be killed. Anyway, I'm all alone now, so it doesn't matter.”

"They agreed?"

"Of course they wouldn't agree so easily, until I fired two shots at them, both hitting the water bottles on two of them, and then they realized the danger and kicked him out."

These past few days, I've been in the mountains, not killing him, just chasing him around, taking away his food, taking his luggage, and even tying him up and stripping him naked while he was asleep. I just wanted to watch him starve and freeze to death. Killing him with a single shot would be too easy for him.

The clothes he was wearing were tattered pieces that had been found in a dugout…

These words shocked Zhou Jingming and the other two.

What defines a ruthless person? Old Liu is one. Zhou Jingming couldn't help but sigh inwardly: one's determination for revenge should never be underestimated.

Therefore, some things must be done to prevent them from having the chance to seek revenge.

The four of them walked and talked along the way.

It took more than two hours to reach the Fourth Mine Bridge.

In the distance, we could see people at the checkpoint set up at the bridgehead. A large group of Qingshan team members were doing something at the checkpoint, and their horses were all tied up outside.

Zhou Jingming roughly guessed that this was their last trip to clear the mountains before winter, to remove anyone still remaining in the mountains. This was something they did almost every year before the heavy snow arrived.

Even 20 or 30 years from now, if people are still hiding in the valley panning for gold, the government will still organize people to clear the mountains, and if necessary, will even send helicopters to rescue them.

He remembered that in his previous life, around 2010, there was a news report on TV about a dozen gold prospectors who were trapped in the mountains and couldn't get out, and that helicopters were used to carry out the rescue.

When Zhou Jingming saw the report, he learned that those people were guarding mines or washing ore in the mountains, and they could only earn three or four thousand yuan a month, even though they were working like their lives depended on it.

By then, he had already moved abroad and was no longer causing trouble in the country.

Since there was the Qingshan team, Zhou Jingming naturally didn't want to go near them. He immediately chose to go into the forest and prepare to go around to the other side of the fork in the road leading to Haxionggou.

If these people see us and chase after us on horseback, all the gold we obtained from this risky trip to the restricted area to clean the cave will probably be confiscated.

He doesn't want to be a money-giving boy.

He hadn't originally planned to go to Tiemaike immediately; he was thinking of checking out the situation in Haxionggou first.

Seeing Zhou Jingming and the others hide in the woods, Old Liu looked towards the checkpoint and followed them in.

Zhou Jingming stopped in the woods and asked him, "Grandpa, what are your plans now? You've avenged yourself, are you going back to your hometown, or...?"

"I'm fine with going anywhere!"

Old Liu said indifferently, "Since you've already asked that Zhang guy and know my situation, going back will just mean guarding my empty house and my lonely family grave... It's meaningless!"

"Don't you have an older son?"

Zhou Jingming, intending to recruit him, tentatively advised, "Go back and straighten out the family rules; life still goes on."

Old Liu shook his head, his face bitter: "Don't even mention it. That spendthrift son, I can't care whether he lives or dies. If he hadn't squandered the family like that, would my youngest son have chosen to come here to pan for gold? Would he have died here? Besides, I don't know where he went, whether he's alive or dead, so I'll just assume he's dead."

After working hard for most of my life, this is the end result. What sins did I commit in my past life?!
I don't care where I go now. Maybe I'll just stay here this year. There seem to be plenty of animals around. I can hunt some in the winter, and next year I can find a team to pan for gold and make some money. We'll see what happens later.

Seeing his attitude, Zhou Jingming was actually quite pleased: "Sir, if you put it that way, I do have a good place to go, it just depends on whether you're willing to go or not."

"What are some good places to go?"

“After we’ve panned for most of the gold on the small peninsula, we’ve chosen another mining site. The location is even better than the peninsula. It’s surrounded by forests, so you can hunt if you want. You can join us for gold panning next year, but we won’t be sharing the gold. We’ll just pay you a salary of 600 a month… If you’d like, why don’t you come with us to take a look? We’re on our way to the mining site.”

"Six hundred is not bad. I don't have many expenses... Let's go take a look and decide after we see it."

Zhou Jingming glanced at the checkpoint at the bridgehead and saw that the Qingshan team was riding their horses on the road and not heading towards Haxionggou. Reassured, he walked out of the forest, returned to the road, and headed towards Haxionggou.

They spent another night in the mountains, and it wasn't until around noon the next day that they arrived at the pincer-shaped ravine in Haxionggou.

Along the way, they passed through vast forests and saw traces of several wild animals. At that time, Old Liu seemed very happy, saying it was a good place for hunting.

When he arrived at the dugout, he climbed up the hill behind it to look around. Back in the dugout, he immediately decided: "I'm not going anywhere this winter. I'll stay here and watch over the dugout and guard the mine site for you."

Zhou Jingming originally planned to guard the sheep himself, which is why he bought so many sheep to slaughter in preparation for winter. However, after some deliberation, the plan changed. Now that Old Liu is helping to guard the sheep, that would be even better.

But there were some things he felt it was necessary to make clear to Old Man Liu: "You can use whatever you want in the dugout, but let me make this clear from the beginning, I can't give you any money for now. Also, guarding the dugout is not like working in the gold mine, and the pay won't be as high. At most, it'll be three hundred a month."

"Don't underestimate me. I don't care about your three hundred dollars. I think there are some minks around here that they've been talking about. You can easily get several hundred dollars for one... I don't want your money. Here we have wine, meat, and grain. We lack nothing. That's more than enough!"

Old Liu waved his hand, speaking casually, but soon he looked at Jin Wang again: "The dog has to stay with me, to keep me company... Otherwise, I'll be too bored all by myself. When I have nothing to do, I can talk to the dog."

Zhou Jingming looked at Jin Wang: "This dog isn't trained properly; it'll bite!"

Old Liu laughed: "Perfect opportunity to teach you a lesson. Don't forget what I do; I know a thing or two about dealing with dogs."

Zhou Jingming thought about it and realized that he had indeed been overthinking things.

I was thinking of taking Jinwang back by car, but now it's great that someone is looking after him and it saves us the trouble on the road.

(End of this chapter)