The next morning, we followed the car arranged by Li Guofeng and headed to the forest farm.

The forest farm is located in the depths of the mountains, more than twenty miles away from the county town.

As soon as you leave the county, you see a road leading straight to the forest farm. On both sides of the road are high fences and barbed wire, as if this place was the border.

Seeing our confusion, the driver who picked us up, Uncle Wang, explained——

This road was mainly used for transporting timber. To prevent theft, there’s only one road out of the forest farm. The other three sides border the national boundary and the vast snowy wastelands.

So, without going through the forest farm's checkpoint, no one can leave the forest farm.

At this point, Uncle Wang seemed to think of something, suddenly turning his head and saying: "Not exactly."

Although I wasn’t interested, I tactfully asked: "Oh? Who’s that?"

Uncle Wang just smiled and changed the subject: "We’re at our destination."

Raising my head at the sound, I found we were climbing a small hill with a sign that read "Welcome to the Forest Farm. ”

The snowy scenery of the northern wilderness was already beautiful, but as the vehicle crossed the hill, the quality of the scenery suddenly improved.

Because there are so many trees here! It’s as if in an instant they crowded the entire view. The thick trunks all seemed like century-old trees, tightly enclosing the road, densely extending to the distant mountains, covering the entire field of vision.

Entering the center of the forest farm, this feeling didn't dissipate.

The forest farm’s organization belongs to a state-run farm, roughly at the village level, yet its popularity far exceeds that of the county town.

The people here have built a considerable settlement centered around the forest farm's government building.

In the extremely cold deep winter, there were still many people on the streets chatting, with shops around the central square open and people going in and out shopping from time to time.

Because it was close to the New Year, the roads were decorated with many ice sculptures, and the shops hung lanterns.

Uncle Wang enthusiastically introduced the lively customs of the New Year here and kept inviting us to stay for the celebration. Naturally, the photographer and I politely declined.

While resting after getting off the car, the photographer and I casually discussed that a settlement of this scale would need at least ten thousand people to sustain it, which was very rare in the rapidly disappearing northern counties and towns.

It seemed that the economy here should be pretty good.