Wild 1979: From Fishing and Hunting to Becoming a Literary Master

Chapter 3 Survival Diary

In the sack marked "large" with charcoal, he found a worn-out cotton-padded jacket that fit him fairly well.

Chen Tuo felt a little awkward while changing his clothes.

He searched through all the sacks and the entire three-meter-square cabin, but still couldn't find a suitable set of underwear.

The only two sets of shorts and vests in the room.

Besides being full of patches, the account size is also much smaller.

It's impossible to wear it.

I changed into cotton pants that no longer felt tight around the crotch.

Chen Tuo kept only two bags of potatoes that were susceptible to freezing.

He piled the remaining sacks outside the cabin door.

There is now room to maneuver.

Looking again at the small wooden house blackened by pine smoke, it finally looked like a place to live.

Three thick quilts on the log bed.

Only one quilt is made of cotton.

The other two quilts were made of the same yellow grass fibers as those used in boots.

The cotton quilt with straw fibers once again confirmed his rebirth.

After rummaging around for a while, I finally found two diaries wrapped in red cloth under a pillow covered with a hard shell.

One of the red-covered, black-backed diaries was almost brand new, except for the inscription on the title page.

Smash the old world and create a magnificent new world.

Fang Miao, a veteran from Shanghai.

Presented in 1973.

Another book, also with a red cover and black back, only had a few blank lines left.

But there was some additional information on the title page.

Presented to new recruit Chen Tuo:

We must be determined, unafraid of sacrifice, overcome all difficulties, and strive for victory.

Fang Miao, a veteran from Shanghai.

1973 years.

It is a transit station in Xinganling Special Zone, Songling County, and Xiaoyangqi Forest Farm.

After reading the inscription on the title page of the diary.

Chen Tuo opened his ex-girlfriend's diary.

The diary begins with a somewhat hasty self-introduction.

The diary did not record where the person was from or their date of birth.

In 1973, I went to Heilongjiang Province, Xinganling Special Zone, now Songling area and Xiaoyangqi educated youth settlement, and lived off the registered educated youth.

When the flood ended, they were unable to seize the opportunity to leave Songling.

When the college entrance examination was reinstated, he still failed to seize the opportunity.

1979, which is the middle of this year.

Because too many educated youth were returning to the city, Heilongjiang Province received a notice from higher authorities to be lenient in entry but strict in exit.

They became unregistered residents of Songling Forest Area, which is inseparable from Heilongjiang Province.

The educated youth settlements were merged and the youth were evacuated.

Those registered educated youth were practically ready to pawn off the entire educated youth settlement.

Before the mountains are sealed off by heavy snow in late autumn and early winter.

Chen Tuo became the only educated youth left behind at the deserted Xiaoyangqi educated youth settlement.

In the educated youth settlement.

The grain, firewood, coal, and tools were almost completely sold off by the educated youth who returned to the city or migrated elsewhere.

Seeing that he couldn't even afford to eat, Chen Tuo risked his life to venture into the desolate mountains of the Great Northern Wilderness, where people could hunt roe deer with sticks and scoop fish with ladles...

I came to Songling because of a bite to eat.

I was just rescued because I needed a bite to eat.

By the light of the lamp, I quickly flipped through the diary, which read like a diary.

The last entry reads: December 14, 1979, sunny, out hunting...

Chen Tuo shook his head helplessly.

The original owner of this body was not very knowledgeable in culture, which is why he missed the college entrance examination.

The reason he was able to finish reading the diary so quickly was...

This is because, starting in 1973, the original owner's diary contained mostly numbers.

The attendance record of temporary workers at the educated youth settlement.

The remuneration given to the registered educated youth for their work.

At most, it's just that you might encounter some animals or find some food while working in a certain area or section.

These numbers are put together.

It was just seventy-six yuan and thirty-seven cents tucked inside my diary.

And two large-denomination national grain coupons weighing five jin each.

Not having saved enough money for a train ticket may also be a major reason why the original owner was stranded in Songling and became an unregistered resident.

I finished reading the information in the diary.

Chen Tuo began to flip through the diary entries from back to front.

He soon discovered the purpose of the diary.

The location where the original body was "hunted" was not randomly selected.

Rather, it is a summary of his survival experience in the pine forest area over a period of more than five years, less than six years.

On the north mountain of Xiaoyangqi educated youth settlement.

The hunters in the Dobukur Oroqen settlement hunt once a year in mid-December.

At that time, wild rabbits and pheasants will fly all over the mountains.

Unlucky people will fall and die in the snow.

Referring to the summary in the diary, Chen Tuo flipped through the pages.

Over the course of more than five years.

Mid-December in previous years.

The original owner had found prey in the North Mountain three times, and more than one at that.

Apart from Kitayama, who was "hunted".

In his recent diary entries, he also mentioned Lianghe Kadangdi, which was not far from the educated youth settlement, several times.

There are dozens of ponds there, which will freeze dry in mid-December or early January.

You can go smash the dry pot and dig out the fish.

Turning the page further back, it reveals the original owner's repeated failed attempts to set traps on the mountain after the registered educated youth left.

Describe according to the contents of the diary.

It's easy to find traces of wild rabbits and pheasants after it snows.

However, his success rate in setting traps in the mountains was very low each time.

It takes about a hundred or two hundred snares to catch prey once in a while.

He also wasted a lot of effort.

After the registered educated youth left, the original owner's biggest source of food was fishing.

But as November approached, the ice on the river and the ponds grew thicker and thicker.

And it's getting colder and colder.

He has a hard time holding on until he catches the fish.

There are also some unfrozen sections of the Dobukuer River and the Xiaoyangqi River, both upstream and downstream.

These unfrozen river surfaces are too far from the Xiaoyangqi educated youth settlement.

After the snowfall and temperature drop, it becomes difficult for him to make a round trip within a day.

Moreover, his cotton-padded jacket and trousers were too thin, and wearing two layers would make him move too slowly.

Between fishing and finding a bargain, he chose the latter.

However, an unexpected event occurred, and he was frozen in the snow, which gave Chen Tuo a chance to be reborn.

As Chen Tuo flipped through the survival diary, he felt somewhat stifled.

In the past, the registered educated youth who were often asked to take over the work shifts would leave with nothing but tattered cotton-padded jackets and trousers that they could never take home.

They didn't leave him anything useful.

Even buying it with money won't work.

Apart from a few tools.

More than 20 jin of coarse corn, half a vat of rice seeds in their husks, two sacks of potatoes, five or six jin of coarse salt, and a pile of Schisandra chinensis vines picked from the mountains—that was all the original owner's food reserves.

The rationed grain, self-grown grain, and supplementary foods such as potatoes, cabbage, and radishes at the educated youth settlement were all exchanged for grain coupons by the registered educated youth before their departure.

Before parting, everyone went back to their own homes and to their own mothers.

The original owner's friends, brothers, and sisters portrayed the story vividly.

Besides the tools that were intercepted, the Xiaoyangqi educated youth settlement also had a locked tool room.

The tools distributed by the forest farm at the beginning of this year are stored there, and there are detailed accounts.

The registered educated youth, longing for their hometown, didn't dare to sell those things.

Chen Tuo was not a person from the 1970s, so he didn't have the awareness that public property was more important than life.

Just as Wu Laowai hinted.

If we don't have good firewood, we can still keep warm by dismantling the educated youth settlement, right?

Since it's a forest area, there must be plenty of timber in the mountains.

He can't let himself freeze to death again because he's afraid of this and that, can he?

Having learned about the original owner's general experiences, Chen Tuo also found a place to release his excitement.

Although the night was deep outside, even the deepest darkness could not suppress the restlessness in the man's heart...