My Gold Rush Career Begins in 1984

Chapter 235 The Girl Chases

Zhou Jingming didn't know what Batu wanted to say. He asked him a question, but was only told that he would find out when he went to see him the next day.

Since he was unwilling to talk about it, Zhou Jingming did not press him further. After seeing him off, he instructed Peng Yuanchao to arrange for some people at the mine to slaughter the sheep. Except for one that was killed that day, the rest were smoked and stored.

The next morning, after having breakfast, Zhou Jingming arranged the work at the mine, called Wu Yang, and led Jin Wang to find Batu.

This time, the reason he didn't call Old Man Liu was because Zhou Jingming felt that so many things had happened in the valley, and some people might still be angry. He had to be careful in case someone tried to sabotage him.

Compared to that, Wu Yang is much better at dealing with this kind of thing.

The two did not linger and went straight into the mountains.

After crossing two mountain ridges, we arrived at a valley with sparse trees and a larger area covered by wild grass and shrubs.

The two continued walking into the valley along the trail trodden by Batu's flock of sheep.

After walking for a full hour and a half, we finally saw Batu's yurt.

On a large grassy area next to the yurt, a sizable fence was simply erected with wooden stakes, and Batu's sheep were kept inside.

Even from a distance, you could hear the bleating of the sheep.

Batu's family was busy at work; judging from how they pulled the ewes out of the pen, they were probably preparing to milk them.

With the arrival of summer, it is also the season for ewes to produce milk.

When Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang got closer and saw the family clearly, they were stunned.

"One, two, three... four..."

Zhou Jingming blinked hard: "Wu Yang, if I remember correctly, there are four people in their family, right?"

"That's right, it's four people...Nora?"

Wu Yang's eyes widened as he saw the slender figure carrying an iron shovel in front of the yurt: "Is that Nara?"

Like Zhou Jingming, he was also somewhat incredulous.

After exchanging a glance, the two quickened their pace and headed towards Batu's yurt.

Jin Wang had already rushed over.

Batu's two sheepdogs came over. After several encounters, they were repeatedly suppressed by Jinwang. The male dog no longer had the intention to fight Jinwang. After barking a few times, when it saw Jinwang rushing towards it to bite, it quickly and wisely rolled over and lay on the ground, exposing its belly.

This is a sign that the dog is showing weakness.

After barking fiercely at it, Jinwang let it go and went to find the female dog. Unfortunately, it wasn't mating season yet. After sniffing the female dog, it didn't do anything else and instead set its sights on the sheep that were being led out one by one.

Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang quickly approached and saw Batu and his parents tying the sheep together with their heads facing each other and crossed over each other with wool rope.

Batu's mother and sister are milking a ewe with a small iron bucket.

After Batu tethered the ewe he had just pulled out, he rubbed the dirt off his hands and greeted the two men with a beaming smile, all traces of his previous anger gone.

Zhou Jingming pointed at Nara and asked with a puzzled look, "What's wrong with your sister?"

Batu seemed a little unsure what to say: "She just got back a couple of days ago... You know, girls pursue you, right?"

"Know!"

Zhou Jingming nodded.

Wu Yang was indeed a little confused: "What is 'Girl Chase'?" Zhou Jingming explained: "Girl Chase is a horse racing activity in which young men and women from different clans, tribes or regions of the Kazakh people gather. You can think of it as a matchmaking activity for us Han people."

At the start of the event, a man and a woman ride horses to the designated location in pairs. On the way, the young man can tease the girl, make all sorts of jokes, and even kiss or hug her. In short, no amount of playful banter is too much, and the girl won't get angry.

Upon reaching the designated location, the young man immediately spurred his horse and galloped back, while the girl chased after him relentlessly. Once she caught up, she could even whip the young man with her riding whip, at which point the young man would not retaliate.

If it's something I genuinely like, I'll just pretend and won't really fight. But if I don't like someone, I'll be ruthless.

Wu Yang grinned as he heard this: "There's such a way to play..."

As he said this, he looked at Nara again and asked Batu, "Then who was the woman found in the forest?"

Batu shook his head: "I don't know either."

"No, can't you tell if it's Nara or not?"

The one who asked this question was Zhou Jingming.

Batu shook his head again, and said in broken Chinese, "You all saw it then, the body was gnawed beyond recognition by the red-haired wolves, but the clothes really were Nara's. I was anxious at the time..."

When Nora returned, I asked her and learned that she had ridden her horse into the forest to pick mushrooms that day. However, she hadn't gone far into the forest when she suddenly encountered a bear, and the bear slapped her horse.

The horse was startled and ran wildly with her on its back, heading deep into the mountains and forests. It wouldn't obey her commands and galloped far away.

Later, she herself was knocked off the horse by a branch, and the horse ran away on its own.

She was determined to find the horse no matter what, so she followed the hoofprints. However, she got lost in the forest and couldn't find her way out…

Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang struggled to understand, and after a long time, they roughly grasped that Nora had been wandering in the mountains alone for three days. On the first day, she spent one night under a rocky cliff, and on the second day, she spent one night by a pool.

These past few days, we've been eating mostly wild fruits from the mountains.

As a result, on the third day, while wandering in the woods, she discovered that she was being followed by several wolves. After running around in a panic, she finally had no choice but to jump into a river and be swept downstream by the current. She managed to escape the wolves, but by the time she reached the bank, she was already half-drowsy from choking on the water and passed out on the riverbank.

When she woke up, she had already been taken home by another herder family.

On this trip, she traveled more than 200 miles.

She originally wanted to ask that family to send her back, but they happened to run into a girl-chasing event there, so she stayed to participate in the event and was told they would send her back after it was over.

And so, she stayed away for many days until the event ended, when the herdsman brought her back.

Little did she know that so many things had happened here because of her disappearance.

Zhou Jingming didn't know what to say, and only asked, "What about the one you buried?"

Batu smiled somewhat awkwardly: "What else can we do but bury it? We can't just dig it up again. I also asked around among the herders, and they didn't see anyone missing. The clothes were washed by Nara and hung out to dry on the grass... Do you think it might be a woman brought by you gold miners who ran away?"

Zhou Jingming shook his head: "How would I know? Anyway, in the Haxionggou River Valley, apart from the one in my area, I haven't seen any other teams."

Now he understood why Batu said he wanted to drive away the gold prospectors in the valley, but he only went to chase them away that one time. Even though he knew the gold prospectors would return to their respective mines, he did not take any further action.

They also understood that Batu still had the mood to drive sheep to sell to him.

He just gave a wry smile: "Do you know that because of this incident, I was surrounded by more than two hundred people at the mine site in the ditch, and a fight almost broke out. They all thought that I sent you to deal with them."

Batu shrugged: "I didn't expect it to turn out like this either."

I actually know about this. I even took some time to visit your area. So, I called you over here to tell you about a great place to strike it rich…”

(End of this chapter)