Chapter 4: Going up the mountain, grandma is still conservative...
Yan Xue also discovered this problem when she asked the flight attendant to buy a new ticket.
Even though she clearly remembered that Shan Qiufang was talking about Jinchuan, she still couldn't help but ask, "Are there two Jinchuan Forest Farms?"
She was afraid that Shan Qiufang was anxious and didn't explain clearly. Now that the car had left, she couldn't go back to confirm with her.
The attendant held the ticket clip without looking up. "One is Jinchuan, and the other is Xiaojinchuan. The mining time is different, and the ticket price is also different."
Yan Xue thought for a moment, and finally took out 40 cents and bought a ticket to Jinchuan Forest Farm.
Since Shan Qiufang said it was Jinchuan, then we should go to Jinchuan first. If we can't find it, we can still look for it in Xiaojinchuan.
The attendant said that the two sides were not far apart, only one stop away, and you could just walk along the railway tracks.
The train had narrow tracks, so the interior space was naturally much smaller. There were no long seats, only double seats on either side. Yan Xue bought her ticket and found a seat near the aisle. Not long after she sat down, snowflakes began to fall outside the window.
The snow outside the Great Wall is very different from that inside the Great Wall. It has a kind of unrestrained and uninhibited wantonness. Once it starts falling, it seems as if this is the only color left in the world.
When the train first left Chengshui, the snow outside the window was only calf-high. After two stops, it was clearly above the knees. The snowflakes were falling heavily, and soon began to obscure my vision.
Yan Xue swayed in the train for over an hour before she heard the conductor come across the carriage and announce that they had arrived at the Jinchuan Forest Farm.
Although the forest railway station in Chengshui is small, it is at least a station. The Jinchuan Forest Farm doesn’t even have a platform, and Yan Xue simply jumped down to the last step.
She stood firmly and looked at this completely unfamiliar place through the snow.
Since the 1950s, when the state began logging in the Changbai Mountain forest area, several forest farms have been established in Chengshui over the past decade. Jinchuan is relatively new and located deep within the mountains, nestled in a valley. A cursory glance suggests there are at least two or three hundred households.
Because it was snowing, there weren't many people on the road. However, an auntie who got off the bus with her didn't recognize her and asked, "Who are you looking for, girl?"
"Auntie, do you know Qi Fang? He should have just come to the forest farm in the past few years. He's very tall, about 1.8 meters, and very handsome."
Yan Xue was not shy about this sudden enthusiasm, nor was she as timid as other young girls. She described the characteristics clearly, trying to find the person accurately.
The auntie obviously hadn't remembered it, but she was very enthusiastic and took her directly to the site office. "They are in charge of the people, they must know."
This time, she finally found out that there was indeed a young employee named Qi Fang at Jinchuan Forest Farm. The good news was that Shan Qiufang hadn't misidentified the location, and Yan Xue didn't have to make another trip to Xiaojinchuan. The bad news was that this year's logging area was far away, and the logging workload was heavy. To save time, the logging team now lived in the mountains and rarely came down.
"Why don't you stay in the guesthouse for one night and see if there's a commuter bus going up tomorrow." Someone from the field office suggested.
It was unrealistic to wait for people to come down. The road up the mountain from the forest farm was long and the snow was thick. If you walked up on your own two feet, you might not reach the destination even before dark, not to mention that Yan Xue didn't know the way.
Yan Xue nodded, thanked the other party with a smile, and was about to put on her scarf and go to the guesthouse not far away to check in when the door opened and someone else walked in.
"Wait a moment." The man suddenly called her and asked, "Have you repaired your tractor?"
"It's been repaired and we're waiting for the internal combustion engines to be transported up the mountain. I think these RT-12s will be useless sooner or later. They've been used for over a decade, and the Russians won't supply us with parts. We have to break down every now and then."
The man was about thirty years old, wearing a loose blue-gray cotton coat. It was obvious that he was quite familiar with him. While complaining, he relieved himself and went to the iron stove to warm himself.
The people at the farm office were also helpless. "Hold on, everything will be fine after this New Year. I heard the bureau is going to transfer two new 50-ton logging tractors this year."
"Don't be like the previous batch of Dongfanghong 54." The man who just came in still curled his lips.
When logging first began in the Changbai Mountain forest area, the transportation method was extremely primitive. In winter, ox-horse-pulled sleds were used, commonly known as ox-horse sleds, and in summer, rafts were used.
The introduction of a batch of Su'erguan logging tractors in the 1950s significantly improved efficiency. Unfortunately, the subsequent dictatorship launched a satellite, and forest farms competed to break the largest logging record. This resulted in overloaded machines, severe wear, and frequent repairs.
The Dongfanghong 54 was transferred to the area around this time, but it was an agricultural tractor with limited clearance, low efficiency, and no dedicated skidding equipment. After a trial period at various forestry farms, it proved unsuitable and was subsequently transferred to the forestry and agricultural fronts.
The people at the farm also knew that "the 50 logger is good this time. Some forest farms have been using it for several years and they all say it's very efficient and better than the KT-12."
Then he said to the visitor, "Since you are going up the mountain, take this woman with you. She is looking for someone in our forest farm."
"My vehicle is a transport tractor, not a commuter vehicle. How can I carry people?" The man then looked at Yan Xue, his tone clearly showing impatience.
When his eyes touched Yan Xue's face, his impatience paused and subsided a bit, "Even if you lead people, you have to stand on the trailer."
Although Yan's mother did not give Yan Xue a tall child, she did give her a good appearance, a typical sweet girl's face.
The stove was lit at the field office, making it much warmer than outside. As a gesture of courtesy, she pulled her breath-frozen scarf up to her chin as she spoke, revealing a pretty face the size of a palm. Her eyes were bright and clear, a smile etched in her eyes. Her features were small and delicate, yet softly defined, without any aggression.
The person at the field office knew something was up and asked Yan Xue for her opinion: "Is it okay to stand on the truck bed?"
If you don't stand on the truck bed, you will have to wait until tomorrow to go up the mountain. You don't know when the commuter bus will come tomorrow. Yan Xue naturally has no objection.
So they changed their means of transportation for the second time that day, and it was an open-air one. Yan Xue braved the wind and snow and went deeper into the mountains.
"Girl, are you here to visit relatives?" asked the man who came in later on the road.
He introduced himself as Liang, and asked Yan Xue to call him Brother Liang. He was one of the only two tractor drivers in Jinchuan Forest Farm.
"I guess so." Yan Xue didn't say she was here for a blind date. Instead, she asked, "It's so cold, and you still have to go up the mountain to cut down trees. It must be very hard work at the forest farm, right?"
"Of course. One night, when I get home, my cotton pants are soaking wet. I can't wear them unless I dry them on the stove. This is still the case now. Logging is only done in winter. Before, we had to log year-round. We'd leave before dawn every morning and come back after dark. The children would be asleep early, and they wouldn't even know what their father looked like for several years."
When this was mentioned, Brother Liang became noticeably more talkative. Yan Xue did not interrupt but just listened quietly.
"Who are you looking for up the mountain?" Brother Liang went around in circles and the topic returned to Yan Xue.
There was nothing to hide about this, so Yan Xue told the truth, "Qi Fang."
"That kid." Liang Ge paused, perhaps thinking of something, and said, "That kid is quite capable."
Soon, the internal combustion engine, pulling the trailer, stopped at a makeshift camp on the mountain. Brother Liang drove the tractor down and insisted on personally taking Yan Xue to find the person. "We don't have enough tractors to begin with, and they're always broken down. Logging has stopped these past few days, and they're all working on ice trenching. You don't know anyone, so you won't be able to find them on your own."
Compared to decades later, forestry workers of this era probably never knew what a snow break was. Even if the heavy snow kept falling, it would not stop them from working hard.
Fearing that the heavy snow would obscure the felled timber, leading to it being lost during transportation and rotting in the mountains the following spring, thus failing inspection, the workers sped up their work even further. From a distance, Yan Xue could hear the workers' chants as four or six men apiece lifted the timber.
"That's an ice ditch, used to store wood. You haven't seen it before, right?" Brother Liang pointed to a long snowy trail not far away.
This ice ditch was somewhat similar to the one used to place tires in the later Ice and Snow World, but it was much larger and longer. The ice surface in the ditch was covered with snow, and it looked very slippery. Yan Xue had never seen such a thing before.
Brother Liang explained to her as they walked, "You have to start working on this thing as soon as it snows. You have to choose a spot, a gentle slope, and a curve, otherwise the force of the rush down will be too strong and you won't be able to stop. The curve can't be too big, otherwise it will fly out. Sometimes the wood can't be carried down, so you have to pour water on it, but it's faster than carrying it on people or pulling it with oxen or horses."
As he was speaking, a shout came from the mountain over there: "It's going down!" The logs that were lined up at the top of the ditch like fish bones had their small ends pried up again and rolled down into the ditch.
The trees in this old forest are very old, some weighing over a thousand pounds. When they hit the ditch, the sound is muffled and heavy, and they quickly make a few turns and crash to the bottom of the ditch. There are people waiting at the bottom of the ditch, hiding in pre-selected shelters. As soon as the logs come to rest, they rush over to check the size, load them onto trucks, and transport them down the mountain to the storage yard.
Brother Liang squinted his eyes and looked around in the snow, then led Yan Xue over there and said, "This should be the team."
The snow was deeper on the mountain, but the logging team had been working here before and had trampled out many paths, so it was not as difficult to walk on as imagined.
Brother Liang led the way, and did not forget to turn around and ask Yan Xue: "Can you keep up?"
"Yes." Yan Xue could already feel the snow pouring in from her ankles, slowly cooling her entire calves, but she didn't slow down. "Isn't it unsafe for us to get so close?"
She saw with her own eyes how much force the logs had when they slid down, and she was really worried.
"It's okay. Are you still worried about me leading the way? Before there were tractors, I was the one who led the work of clearing the ice trench."
Brother Liang didn't care.
Before Yan Xue could say anything else, a figure suddenly approached rapidly, grabbed Liang Ge by the back of his collar, and made him retreat several steps.
How come Brother Liang, who is over 1.7 meters tall, was completely unable to resist and just fell down in the snow?
"Who the hell pulled me?" He swung his arms violently. Just as he was about to curse, a log as thick as a man's arms brushed past the spot where he had just stood and slid out heavily.
The log slid for more than ten meters and its momentum was still unabated. If it hit a person, even if it just grazed them, they would be seriously injured if not killed.
Brother Liang's words stopped abruptly. Although Yan Xue was still some distance away, she was also startled.
The man who had just pulled Brother Liang away had already hidden behind a nearby rock. His gaze passed over Yan Xue and landed on Brother Liang's pale face. "Why aren't you leaving yet? Are you waiting to be a safety training case?"
Before the logging season begins every year, everyone in the forest farm has to undergo safety training. Moreover, Brother Liang is an old employee of the forest farm, yet he could make such a low-level mistake.
Brother Liang's face flushed. "Does anyone know who built the glacier this year? We can slide out from such a long distance."
This was obviously an attempt to save face. The other person's eyes became even colder, and he didn't even say a word, and simply looked away.
This kind of disregard was more painful than ridicule. Liang Ge's face turned red and white, "Why are you pretending? If I weren't helping you lead people, do you think I would want to run here?"
Help him bring people?
Yan Xue was reaching out to support Brother Liang, "Are you okay?" Hearing that, he couldn't help but look at the man again.
This time she looked more closely and saw that he was a very young man. He was very tall, definitely over 1.80 meters, which made him look particularly slender. He was wearing the same blue-gray cotton-padded uniform as the forest farm, but it didn't make him look bulky.
Hearing what Brother Liang said, the other party raised his eyelids and glanced over without much attention.
The animal hide ears under the rattan helmet covered many of his facial lines, but it still couldn't hide his handsomeness, especially his pair of peach blossom eyes. Although he should be affectionate, he exuded a coldness from the inside out.
If this is the Qi Fang she's looking for, then my great aunt is still being conservative...
This look is not just good, it's simply superb.
As she was thinking, Brother Liang had already avoided her hand that was holding her up, "Aren't you looking for Qi Fang? He is it." He got up with a dark face and left her.
Now she and the young man were the only ones left there, and the man's gaze finally fell on her face. "You looking for me?"
His tone was so calm that no emotion could be heard, and there was even a hint of laziness between his eyebrows.
"Are you Qi Fang?" Although Brother Liang said so, Yan Xue still confirmed it again to be on the safe side.
The other party did not answer, but chose to ask her: "What's the matter?"
This reaction seemed as if she had forgotten the blind date. If the name, appearance, and height were not exactly the same as her great-aunt's description, Yan Xue would have suspected that she had found the wrong person.
So she confirmed with the other party again, "You should have received the letter a few days ago, right?"
After things were settled, my great aunt wrote back, in which she told us the time she would be leaving. It turned out that she would arrive in the next two days.
As expected, the other party raised his eyes upon hearing this, his pupils, which had been half-covered by his eyelids, were pitch black. "Are you Yan Xue?"
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