My Gold Rush Career Begins in 1984

Chapter 96 The Drifting Water Pants

Peng Yuanchao received the diesel fuel coupons and casually mentioned to Wang Youping that he wanted to ask him to use a tractor to deliver supplies into the mountains.

Wang Youping was already in the business of driving tractors for transportation, delivering gold prospectors and supplies into the mountains, which was his most lucrative way of making money.

He hadn't received any other work yet, so of course he wouldn't miss this opportunity to make money.

I got a diesel-powered water pump from Lao Tang, and naturally, there was plenty of diesel fuel. After using it for a while, I had quite a few empty diesel drums, which I brought with me when I left.

However, it is obviously inappropriate for one person to collect so much diesel fuel at once, as they might be caught.

Peng Yuanchao returned to the inn, gathered everyone together, and distributed diesel coupons, instructing them to take turns carrying diesel barrels to the supply and marketing cooperative to collect diesel.

A liter of diesel fuel weighs less than a liter of water. Four hundred and thirty liters would only weigh about three hundred and sixty or seventy kilograms. Eighteen people, all young and strong, came this time, so transporting it into the mountains wouldn't be difficult.

However, Peng Yuanchao still bought a new cart. Firstly, it would make transporting things into the mountains easier. Secondly, the cart was worn out from running back and forth on the gravel road every day on the small peninsula, so it was worthwhile to bring it into the mountains as a spare.

Actually, he had been quite worried about the small peninsula. Only Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang were guarding it, and he was afraid that if something happened, there wouldn't be enough people to handle it. He was also eager to go back.

Fortunately, the group of people I brought along were quite obedient and didn't do anything too outrageous.

However, a few newcomers from Yuzhou, at the urging of some veteran customers, went to find women. This is why, after settling their money and belongings, they still wanted to wander around Tiemaike and insisted on staying another night.

The life of gold prospectors in the mountains is monotonous and boring. Over time, their personalities seem to change, becoming irritable and prone to violence. A slight slip of the tongue can easily lead to a fight.

When people are in their prime, when their blood and energy are most easily stirred, they need to be relieved and released, which cannot be done by a pair of hands.

That's just how things are these days, it's human nature. Plus, most people are repressed these days, and some can't even find a wife. When there's an opportunity that can be bought with money, it's hard to resist. And it's something that's easy to get addicted to once you've tried it.

Peng Yuanchao had been through these things before; he himself had even gone looking for women.

Those women were quite expensive; those with even a little bit of looks dared to ask for three or four grams of gold.

But gold panning is relatively easy to make money from, so people don't really care. They think that if they spend it, they can just pan for gold again to earn it back.

The only two people who weren't messing around in the hotel were Lao Wang and Bai Zhishun.

Bai Zhishun had originally gone with Peng Yuanchao, but after Peng Yuanchao came out, he waited for quite a while and didn't see him. He was startled and thought something had happened.

When he returned to the hotel, he found that Bai Zhishun had already come back. He was rejected because he was a hunchback and they wanted more money to accommodate him. He was heartbroken and turned to leave.

After much effort, the diesel fuel was finally produced. Wang Youping then drove his tractor over, loaded the diesel fuel onto the truck, and then went with Peng Yuanchao to the street to pick up some potatoes stored by farmers from last year, as well as fresh cabbage and some sauerkraut sauce. They loaded all of these onto the truck as well.

He also specially brought a large plate of chicken for Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang, and bought naan bread for the journey, urging everyone to set off.

There were eighteen people, all crammed into the truck bed. Including other supplies, it weighed nearly two tons. After everyone was on board, the tractor started running, and the sound it made was noticeably duller.

Fortunately, this time we didn't go into the mountains overnight, but during the day.

Peng Yuanchao was not worried about those strange things happening again.

The road was flat, and the uphill sections weren't very steep, so the tractor ran smoothly and happily. It was still on the same road leading into the mountains, but it deliberately avoided the checkpoints and took a slightly roundabout route. Putting everything else aside, Peng Yuanchao himself couldn't produce any identification.

Wang Youping was of course aware of this situation. He was already used to it and didn't find it strange. He was also familiar with the roads in the mountains. In any case, as long as the price was right, he would do the job.

As the tractor chugged across the Fourth Mine Bridge, on the opposite side of the small peninsula, Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang, carrying pickaxes and gold diggers, resumed their guerrilla-style gold panning.

It was originally a side gully, and the river's water volume was far less than that of the main channel of the Haiertes River. The deepest part was only up to chest level, a few dozen meters. Now that the ice and snow have melted, the water has risen considerably, but it is still only a dozen meters wide. Crossing it is not difficult.

After two days of doing nothing, the area around the small peninsula was quite peaceful. Apart from seeing two groups of people going upstream, there was nothing unusual.

Once they had rested up, the two couldn't stay idle and decided to go to the other side of the river to search for some gold.

Of course, guarding the small peninsula was the most important thing. The two did not go far, leaving Jinwang on the peninsula. After crossing the river, they searched the crevices of the rocks on the opposite bank of the peninsula, carefully cleaning out the mud and sand from the gaps. They worked for a while and then rested for a while, just like playing. But by the time evening approached, the two of them had still managed to get about six or seven grams of gold.

Seeing that it was almost time, the two crossed the river and went up to the small peninsula riverbank.

Jinwang couldn't cross the river with them in the morning. At first, he stood on the riverbank of the small peninsula, barking and howling at Zhou Jingming to express his dissatisfaction. He also ran up and down the riverbank, trying to catch up, but he couldn't find a place to cross. He could only return to the small peninsula and watch the two of them across the river.

Perhaps feeling that being exposed to the scorching sun on the small peninsula was too hot, they chose to run back to the birch forest near the dugout, wandered around in the forest for a while, and finally fell asleep in the shade next to the tent.

When the two returned, it immediately ran towards the small peninsula, rushed to Zhou Jingming, and pounced, jumped, and licked him.

Zhou Jingming was putting on his pants when it almost knocked him over.

Jin Wang is getting stronger and stronger, and his weight is approaching 100 pounds.

Unable to refuse Jinwang's affection, Zhou Jingming had no choice but to temporarily abandon getting dressed. He first reached out and scratched its neck, then gently patted its head to comfort it before pushing it away a little. Seeing that it was about to pounce again, he commanded, "Sit down!"

Every day when feeding it, Zhou Jingming tried to train it to follow his commands, but no matter how much he taught it, Jinwang seemed to have only learned to sit down after sitting for less than three seconds, shake hands, and a few simple commands such as attack and search.

Perhaps because it had been slapped hard in the face before, it had a deep memory of not eating food from others. If anyone dared to throw food at it, it would tilt its head and bark fiercely at that person.

This aspect pleased Zhou Jingming.

After Jin Wang sat down, Zhou Jingming quickly got dressed and sat down with Wu Yang on the pebbles on the riverbank to roll up some cigarettes.

"Bang... bang..."

Two gunshots suddenly rang out from upstream. The gunshots were very close, startling the two men who turned their heads sharply to look.

Even Jinwang was startled and barked wildly.

But no matter how they looked around, they couldn't figure out where the gunshot came from. They could only roughly guess that it was in the birch forest between the small peninsula and Zhang's camp.

The two men were on guard and quickly grabbed their hunting rifles.

Wu Yang reminded him, "It's too open here, with no shelter at all. Let's go back into the woods!"

After saying that, he ran away.

Zhou Jingming also realized what was happening and followed him towards the dugout. Once they were outside the small peninsula, there were birch trees. The two of them found a birch tree to hide under and looked in the direction of the gunshot.

However, after waiting for a while without any further movement, and seeing that Zhang and his group were still panning for gold without any unusual activity, the two finally felt a little relieved.

It was probably Zhang and his gang who put it there themselves.

The two cleaned and dried the gold they had acquired that day. When they weighed it on Peng Yuanchao's small scale, it weighed only six grams. Since it was a small amount, Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang split it equally.

Afterwards, they started a fire to cook dinner. As for the dishes, they planned to cook a pot of fish with the pickled vegetables and sauerkraut from the camp, and add some sand onions that they had picked from the Gobi Desert.

After about an hour of fussing, the food was ready, and the two were eating in the tent when Jinwang outside started calling out again.

The two men dared not be careless. They quickly put down their chopsticks, picked up their hunting rifles, and went out to check. After waiting for a while, they saw Old Man Liu, the old hunter from Zhang's team, coming over from the woods carrying a dark, murky object.

Zhou Jingming quickly stopped Jin Wang and called out to Old Man Liu, "Grandpa, what are you doing?"

Old Liu waved the things in his hand: "I brought you some things!"

As Zhou Jingming got closer, he could see that what the man was carrying was actually a black pheasant, also known as a Silkie chicken, or scientifically as a Black-necked Pheasant.

Zhou Jingming had seen and eaten this stuff in the Great Northern Wilderness, and he had also eaten it when he was doing geology and gold panning in Altay.

This is a rather aggressive bird, but it also likes to live in flocks.

When he was in Northeast China, Zhou Jingming saw large flocks of hundreds of them, and in the Altai Mountains, he also saw groups of dozens.

However, the black pheasants in Altay are not as big as those in Northeast China, weighing only about two kilograms.

"Sir, were you the one who fired those two shots?"

“I was the one who opened it. Someone in the team went to take a dump and saw a flock of these birds in the woods. He ran back and told the leader, and the leader told me to go and shoot them.”

"Then why didn't you keep it for yourselves?"

"I fired two shots, using bird bullets, and hit five birds. I left them four, that's enough for them to eat!"

Old Liu wouldn't come to deliver things for no reason, and Zhou Jingming immediately knew his true intention: "Grandpa, is your wine gourd empty again?"

Old Liu grinned, revealing a mouthful of blackened teeth from years of smoking a pipe: "You really understand me!"

"Better late than early! We're having dinner right now, we have fish, wanna have a drink?"

"There are fish? That's great, I'll take advantage of that!"

Seeing how readily he agreed, Zhou Jingming fetched him a bowl and chopsticks, poured him some wine, and invited him to eat together. He also took the opportunity to ask him for advice on using a gun and setting up some simple hunting traps.

Old Liu didn't hold back at all, speaking eloquently and even demonstrating himself. But most of the time, he was telling the two of them about his hunting experiences over the years, saying that he had hunted black bears, leopards, wild boars, and even a tiger in the 1960s. He still has a jar of tiger bone wine at home.

After eating and drinking to their hearts' content, Old Liu did not linger there for long, saying he was busy going back to divide the gold, and left after asking for some wine.

Watching him leave, Zhou Jingming couldn't help but sigh, "If only we had a hunting expert like him in our team, it would be so much easier to get meat!"

He glanced at the black pheasant lying on the ground, then smiled at Wu Yang: "Tomorrow's vegetables are ready!"

Wu Yang took a deep breath: "Tonight's plans are also settled."

Zhou Jingming was taken aback: "What is it?"

Wu Yang pointed at the black pheasant: "Boiling water to pluck its feathers, what do you think we should do tomorrow—roast or boil it?"

"Roasting them would make them too dry, let's boil them! We haven't accomplished anything these past few days, but we've certainly been having a good time. I wonder how Peng Yuanchao and the others are doing; they should be back tomorrow!"

Zhou Jingming looked into the darkness outside the tent: "Don't all go out and have so much fun that you don't want to come back, and you'll delay the gold panning."

Wu Yang also looked outside: "It should be soon!"

As expected, Peng Yuanchao and his group returned to the small peninsula near dusk the next day.

It's only because a large number of people went that these supplies could have been delivered the next day, otherwise they would have had to spend another night in the wilderness.

They had traveled quite a distance carrying their belongings and were all exhausted. They chatted briefly about their trip to Timbuk to buy things and about the situation on the small peninsula over the past two days. Seeing that nothing major had happened, the group ate the naan they had brought, drank some tea, and went to bed early.

Just before going to bed, Peng Yuanchao gave the braised chicken he had specially brought to Zhou Jingming and Wu Yang.

The two accepted the food without hesitation, heated it up, and shared it in their tent that night. They couldn't find such a delicious meal in the mountains.

The group rested for another day the next day.

It wasn't until the third day that things started to function normally again on the small peninsula.

In the afternoon, Zhou Jingming shook the gold dipper, but seeing that the gold yield was not ideal, he temporarily put down the dipper and went to check the situation in the sand pit where they were digging. He found that their digging direction was somewhat off from the gold-rich zone, and after pointing out the correction direction, he climbed out.

Just as they were about to go back to continue panning for gold, they heard the Yuzhou people pulling carts to deliver materials shout, "Something is floating down the river!"

Zhou Jingming looked closely and saw that what appeared to be a pair of waders floating down the river was inflated with air, making it look bulging.

Rubber waders are a must-have for gold diggers. They are waterproof and heat-insulating. Only by wearing these can you stand in the water for a long time, otherwise your body will be soaked and damaged.

The key point is that these days, waders are quite expensive, and they're hard to repair when they're broken. If you want to buy them, you have to go to the town, where the locals who transport supplies into the mountains to sell them charge exorbitant prices. They're a rare commodity.

Peng Yuanchao assumed it had accidentally fallen into the water and been swept away from the mine upstream, so he immediately ordered the man, "Go and retrieve it to see if it's alright."

The man ran into the shallow water and tried to reach out, but seeing that his waders were floating too far from the riverbank to reach, he ran back to get a pickaxe and chased after it to hook it.

After he used his pickaxe to hook the waders and pull them close, he suddenly fell face-first into the water, yelling in terror, "Ouch... Holy crap..."

　The third update for today!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)