My Gold Rush Career Begins in 1984

Chapter 167 The Girl Sleeping in the Upper Bunk

There are advantages to traveling early; at least the carriages are less crowded. Otherwise, even sleeper carriages would be packed with people.

As usual, Zhou Jingming prepared dry food before getting on the bus.

In the past, when money was tight, he would only prepare some steamed buns to make do. This time, Zhou Jingming was much more extravagant and bought half a bag of Juntun Guokui (a type of flatbread).

The dough is mixed with meat, then spread with pork fat, Sichuan peppercorn powder, fennel, star anise, ginger powder, and other ingredients. It is then fried in rapeseed oil until golden brown to create a layered flaky effect, which looks very much like a ghee flaky pastry. It is also called ghee pancake.

In Chengdu, a bowl of fatty intestine noodles paired with a few Juntun guokui (a type of flatbread) has always been a popular classic breakfast.

You can't bring fatty intestine noodles on the train, but you can bring cold dishes like Sichuan-style spicy chicken or sliced ​​beef and tripe in chili sauce.

Originally, the guokui (a type of flatbread) in Sichuan was similar to a sandwich, and could be filled with anything.

Once you get on the bus, you can stuff the cold dishes into a guokui (a type of flatbread). Even though they're all cold, it's still very satisfying and much more enjoyable than eating bland steamed buns and bread the whole way.

In addition, Zhou Jingming also bought a lot of hot pot base to bring with him, so that he could taste the flavors of his hometown from time to time after arriving in Haxionggou.

To pass the time during the journey, Zhou Jingming brought a deck of cards and also bought several magazines such as "Legend of Today and Yesterday", "Reader's Digest", and "Martial Arts".

After getting everything ready, the three of them boarded the train and found their berths. The small compartment had six hard sleeper berths that were still empty. Their tickets were in the same compartment. They put their luggage away and waited for about ten minutes until the train started moving. No one came on board, which made it quite peaceful.

It was quite cold in the carriage. The three chatted briefly, and then Zhou Jingming pulled up the blankets, wrapped himself up, lay down, and picked up a magazine to read.

He had seen the scenery along the way more than once or twice, and was not very interested in it.

But Zhao Li and Li Guohua had never seen it before, especially Li Guohua, who had rarely traveled far from home. Wrapped in his blankets, he lay on his small bed, gazing longingly out the window. Everything outside was so new and exciting to him.

The train kept stopping and starting along the way. After flipping through half a magazine, Zhou Jingming felt a bit dizzy. He told Li Guohua not to wander around and then covered his head and fell asleep.

"Peanuts, sunflower seeds, cigarettes, eight-treasure porridge... Come on, comrade, make way..."

The shouts of the train vendors in the adjacent ordinary-seat carriage startled Zhou Jingming awake. He looked up and realized that it was already evening. There weren't many people boarding along the way, and so far, the six berths in the compartment still only had the three of them.

They must have been tired from watching, because Zhao Li and Li Guohua had already fallen asleep.

Zhou Jingming got out of bed and walked around the aisle of the carriage a few times. He went to the carriage junction, smoked a cigarette, and then came back. He felt a little hungry, so he took a guokui (a type of flatbread) and some thinly sliced ​​Sichuan-style chicken. Since he didn't have chopsticks, he used his fingers to pick up some meat, put it in the guokui, folded it up, and ate it in big bites.

Before I could finish eating my guokui (a type of flatbread), a train attendant walked by and said that we had arrived in Fucheng, and that passengers who needed to get off should prepare to disembark.

Li Guohua and Zhao Li woke up one after the other when the flight attendant called them. Zhou Jingming invited them to come down and have something to eat.

Not long after, the train stopped at the platform. Only a very small number of people got off, but quite a few people got on.

The cubicle where Zhou Jingming and his group were located was suddenly filled with people, one man and two women.

One of the girls, after putting away her luggage, had a bed above Zhou Jingming's. When she got into bed, her eyes met Zhou Jingming's, and she immediately blushed. She quickly lowered her head, exuding a faint fragrance, and climbed up to the upper bunk, pulled the covers over herself, and made no further noise.

The girl looked to be about eighteen or nineteen years old. She appeared slightly flustered and shy, so it was probably her first time going out.

Zhou Jingming had traveled all over the country and had seen many women, but even from the perspective of his previous life, just a glance at this girl gave him a feeling of being bathed in a spring breeze. She was natural, pure, and made him feel comfortable.

However, having experienced things in his previous life, Zhou Jingming was no longer the impetuous young man who would be eager to meet a pretty girl, and he didn't care too much.

The three of them ate and drank as usual, and after they were full, they lay down to sleep.

After lying down, Zhou Jingming naturally thought of the girl sleeping on the upper bunk; his young body was still quite honest.

But he only thought about it casually before suppressing his slightly agitated emotions.

We didn't interact much along the way; at most, people getting on and off the bunk beds would give way to each other.

Before long, it was daytime. Zhou Jingming, whose eyes were sore from reading, got bored and called Zhao Li and Li Guohua to play Dou Dizhu (a card game).

This card game, which originated from the Chu region's "Run Fast," didn't exist back then. Zhou Jingming simply explained the rules, and Zhao Li and Li Guohua were able to pick it up quickly.

The three of them had a great time.

Although the game was simple, it was quite novel for the three passengers in the same compartment, and it also attracted people from other compartments to come and watch.

Suddenly, Zhou Jingming caught a faint fragrance again. He instinctively looked up and saw the girl on the upper bunk lying on the small bed, her hand supporting her cheek, craning her neck, watching with great interest.

Their eyes met again, and the girl blushed once more, quickly shrinking back.

Zhou Jingming smiled slightly, recalling a saying he had heard in his past life: if you like someone, you can smell their body fragrance.

I don't know if it's true.

But he did have a thought in his mind: this girl boarded the train in Fucheng, so she should also be from Sichuan... If he could marry her, it would be quite nice, saving Shen Fengqin from constantly urging him to come home.

He just didn't know what their temperaments were like. He began to pay attention to the three of them.

Judging from their accents, only the girl had a Sichuan accent, while the other two, a man and a woman, spoke with accents more from the Northwest.

They exchanged a few words occasionally and learned that the man and the other woman were a couple who worked in the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. They said that there was always endless work to do there, such as farming and picking cotton, but they were short of people. It was easy to find work, and as long as you were hardworking, you would have plenty to eat and drink.

He also said that the girl shouldn't be too sad, and that the most important thing was to find a way to make her life better.

From the few words he uttered, Zhou Jingming learned that the girl's name was Su Xiulan.

Her father was a farmer in the mountains of Beichuan, Fucheng.

To make money, they dug a coal mine in the mountains last year. The family of four worked together: the father and brother were responsible for digging inside, while the mother and she were responsible for carrying the coal out of the mine and piling it outside, waiting for buyers to take it away.

It was in this coal mine that the problem occurred. A sudden collapse buried her parents and brother inside. She happened to be carrying coal out and narrowly escaped the disaster, but she was left all alone.

Without family to rely on, and because she was pretty, she was easily bullied and harassed by some local thugs, which led her to consider going out to work.

The couple who brought her out seemed to be distant relatives, and they went to the May Day Farm.

Zhou Jingming, who has worked in Wucheng for several years, knows that this farm is less than 30 kilometers from the city center and is a pretty good place.

Of course, Zhou Jingming was just paying more attention; he didn't think that a relationship could be formed in just a few days on the train.

In fact, when they transferred trains to Jincheng at Shanggui, they had to buy separate tickets, so he didn't know which carriage the three of them went to, nor did he make a point of looking for them.

The three of them then spent the rest of the journey in a drowsy state, and a few days later, they arrived in Wucheng.

After leaving the station, Zhou Jingming paid special attention to the passengers exiting the station, but he didn't see the girl. He didn't know if she had already left the station, hadn't come out yet, or hadn't even arrived in Wucheng. So he gave up on the idea.

The time he had agreed upon with Wu Yang and Bai Zhishun was fast approaching, and not wanting to delay, he quickened his pace and went out to the woods on the outskirts of the city to retrieve the two pistols.

It wasn't yet the peak season for gold prospectors, so naturally there weren't many passengers heading to Altan at this time.

The three got into the car and there were no problems along the way. They arrived in Altan as it was getting dark.

Zhou Jingming didn't go far either. After getting off the car, he led the two through the city gate, which was blue on the bottom and white on the top. They turned left and entered a large courtyard with a gravel floor. It was Altan's passenger station.

There are two single-story buildings on either side of the courtyard gate, with flat roofs and white walls. The building on the right is the ticket office, but there is no waiting room. The building on the left is the guardhouse. A middle-aged man wearing a red armband is sweeping the courtyard.

At the far end of the courtyard are several rows of single-story houses with flat roofs and white walls; these are the bus station inns.

The crackdown on migrant workers is not strictly enforced in northern Xinjiang; otherwise, there wouldn't be so many migrant workers and criminals coming here, and people could stay in train stations and hotels without worry.

Each room in the hostel has four simple iron beds, and the floor is paved with red bricks. The bricks are quite old, and they have a dark, grayish-brown color. In some places, there are some unidentifiable grime left behind as "maps".

Besides the four beds, there were no chairs, tables, hot water bottles, or other basic items that Zhao Li thought should be provided.

The three of them could only use the bed as a chair to sit down and rest.

The hostel wasn't cheap either, costing two yuan a night. After checking in at the ticket office, Zhou Jingming led the two of them to have a hearty barbecue meal before returning to sleep.

The meeting time with Wu Yang and Bai Zhishun was approaching. Although Zhou Jingming felt that since he had set off on the third day of the Lunar New Year without any delays and had only just arrived in Altan, it was unlikely that Wu Yang and Bai Zhishun would arrive if they brought a large number of people. He still wanted to get to Tiemaike as soon as possible because he had some things to take care of.

As it turned out, when they asked at the station the next day, they found out that there were only three passengers. The bus to Timac wouldn't depart for another five or six days. There were too few passengers, and the area was too vast. The bus to the town would definitely not leave until it was full.

What annoyed Zhou Jingming even more was that he waited for a long time on the pastoral road to Tiemaike, but he still couldn't catch a car heading to Tiemaike.

Wild and undeveloped places are always inconvenient in various ways.

Walking for dozens of kilometers in such weather, surrounded by snow, is definitely not a wise choice.

Whenever he thought about the difficulty of traveling, Zhou Jingming had the idea of ​​buying a tractor.

Putting everything else aside, once we move into Haxionggou, we'll need to frequently travel between Haxionggou and Tiemaike to buy diesel fuel and various supplies needed for production and daily life. Having our own tractor will make things much more convenient, as we won't always have to look for people.

Perfect timing! We've got the manpower, but we can't start work right now. After settling them in, we can repair the road to Haxionggou, as long as the tractor can get there.

Seeing that he couldn't get a bus, Zhou Jingming simply returned to the hostel at the bus station and planned to stay there.

He thought to himself that if Wu Yang and Bai Zhishun arrived, they would definitely get off at the bus station and meet in Tiemaike, so there was no difference between meeting them here and meeting them here.

Little did they know that on the evening the three of them checked into the hotel, when they returned from dinner, they found that the only empty bed was occupied by a guest—the girl who had slept in the bunk above Zhou Jingming on the train.

With three men and one woman in one room, Su Xiulan immediately became nervous.

(End of this chapter)