Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Li Zhengtang and Li Zhengting had no choice but to pay the money and start setting up their stalls.

"Selling Fritillaria? Freshly dug?" Someone saw them setting up the stall and came over to ask.

"Yes, it's newly dug." Li Zhengting saw someone coming over to ask, and hurriedly said, "The authentic Fritillaria from the mountain, just dug out, the effect is very good!"

"How are they sold?" The man opened the bag, grabbed a handful and looked at it. "This Fritillaria is not good."

"Well, it's just dug, so it's fresh, so it's authentic." Li Zhengting suddenly had an idea and said, "If it's dried, it might be fake. Four... five yuan per kilogram. Much cheaper than the drugstore! You can take this home and dry it and use it. It's very effective in treating coughs!"

"Five dollars? Are you crazy about money?" The man threw the mother-of-pearl in his hand into the bag and turned away.

"Hey, hey, hey, don't go! We can bargain, four dollars and fifty... four dollars!" Li Zhengting finally met someone who asked for the price, how could he let him go? He shouted hurriedly, but the man turned a deaf ear to him and walked faster and faster. He didn't dare to chase him too far, and finally had to return to the stall in disappointment.

Li Zhengtang watched the whole scene from the side. When Li Zhengting came back dejected, he comforted him:

"It's okay. There are a lot of people in this market. I'm sure more people will come later."

Li Zhengting sat in front of the stall, sulking and silent. He regretted it very much now.

Ten minutes later, an old lady came over, asked some questions, and bargained for a long time, finally buying one yuan of Fritillaria at the price of four yuan per kilogram.

The problem arises again, neither of the brothers has a scale!
How to sell things without a scale? At this time, the two talents realized that they only thought that they would have no worries about selling things, but they did not expect that they still had to weigh things when setting up a stall to sell.

After much persuasion, I borrowed a scale from the stall selling eggs nearby and helped the old lady weigh the eggs. When I returned it, I also gave the stall owner a handful of fritillaria.

Although the business was open, Li Zhengting was not happy at all. He had been squatting for an hour and finally earned back his stall fee. The problem was that two people had two large bags of Fritillaria. If they continued to sell like this, this Fritillaria season would be wasted.

But since I have already set up the stall and paid the stall fee, I have to continue with the stall today even if I have to bite the bullet.

The sun slowly rose to noon. Li Zhengtang and Li Zhengtang were hungry. They had a bowl of porridge in the morning. They had run so far last night and this morning. The energy consumption was too great. It was impossible for them not to be hungry.

Sister Yang has closed her cart. She has already sold breakfast and is now going back to cook lunch. She will come back to sell food in the afternoon. However, she is not the only one taking advantage of this business opportunity. There are also people selling sandwiches here, which is a basket of mixed flour steamed buns on the cart, and a few cold dishes in a few enamel basins on the side. A steamed bun with a few cold dishes costs 15 cents.

The two people paid for a steamed bun each and ate it. After feeling not full, they bought another one.

Li Zhengting still wanted to eat, so he asked Li Zhengtang, but Li Zhengtang said no. If he had the conditions in the mountains, he would definitely eat. But today he was going out and not coming in, and he didn't dig any Fritillaria, so he decided to save some.

Li Zhengtang didn't want to eat, and Li Zhengting was too embarrassed to eat either. He ate too fast just now and choked. The bun seller had cold water, so he asked for it and drank half a spoonful with a ladle before he came to his senses.

When I sat down again, although my stomach was full, I felt cold in my heart. This business is too difficult to do!
Li Long returned to the wooden house, threw the wild boar to the ground, threw the sack containing the three little wild boars on the bucket of the tractor, and sat down on the wooden floor to rest.

After working so hard for so long, the sun finally rose. He rested for less than ten minutes, then got up and started to skin and gut the wild boar. He planned to send half of the wild boar meat to Xiaobaiyanggou to improve the food for the people who organized the gang, and keep the other half here to dry the meat.

Last time we brought back a cow, so our family no longer lacks meat, so we can leave some more here, so that if someone comes to exchange it, at least we have something.

Skinning, gutting, and eviscerating the meat, putting the boar meat in a basin, all of these were cooked. It took Li Long more than an hour to finish all of this.

It's quite a sense of accomplishment. It takes five or six people a whole morning to kill a pig at home. Although the wild boar I caught was not big, only about fifty or sixty kilograms, it was really great that I was able to finish it so quickly.

After washing the knife with water, wiping it on his clothes and putting it back into the sheath, Li Long felt a little hungry, so he went back to the cabin, cut some of the dried cooked meat that he had left behind and put it in his mouth, chewing it slowly.

The fires on the two stoves were lit. After Li Long finished eating, he continued to work. Some of the pork was cut into small pieces, rubbed with salt and hung in the cabin to dry first, and some of it was rubbed with salt and directly put into a large basin and put on the tractor. The three little pigs kept crying, but Li Long didn't care about them. There was no place to put them now.

After locking the door, he drove the tractor towards Xiaobaiyanggou and met Bolati on the way.

"Where are you going?" Bolati stopped his horse and asked:

"I just got about ten kilograms of Fritillaria and was thinking of exchanging them with you."

"Money or goods?" Li Long stopped the tractor and asked loudly, "I'm going to Xiaobaiyanggou now, where my brothers live and are preparing to form a gang. I want to bring them some meat."

"Then let's exchange money. Do you have money with you?" Pola asked. "Come and exchange things next time. Your wine is good!"

"Okay, I'll change the wine for you next time. But aren't you drinking too fast?" Li Long got off the tractor and came to the horse. Bolati got off the horse. Li Long could smell the alcohol directly. Drinking so early in the morning?

After weighing it, Li Long found that the bag of Fritillaria must be about 12 or 13 kilograms. He simply took out the money and counted out 40 yuan and handed it to Bolati:
"this is for you."

"We don't need so many..." Bolati felt a little embarrassed when he saw that there were four big unity cards, "How can there be so many?"

"Got it," Li Long smiled. "Just come to my place often to change it. Okay, I have to hurry to Baiyanggou. My brothers are busy there, I have to make sure they don't get bullied by others."

"No, no! Although I'm not in charge of that area, I told my friends that Sun was there. I told the people there not to make things difficult for them." Bolati heard about Xiaobaiyanggou and immediately said, "I'll go over and tell my friends later. Your people have gone there, so we should treat them as friends and leave them alone!"

"Okay, okay, thank you. I'm leaving now!" Li Long got on the tractor, waved to Bolati, shifted gears, released the clutch, stepped on the gas and left.

Watching Li Long driving away, Bolati shook his head. This thing is not as easy to ride as his own horse.

When Li Long arrived at Xiaobaiyanggou, he found Li Jianguo and Lu Yingming roasting rice strips in front of a fire. Each of them had a large bundle of rice strips in front of them, and it was unclear whether they had been cut yesterday afternoon or this morning.

Li Long estimated that these strips alone could be used to form four or five gang leaders.

"Xiaolong is here." Lu Yingming was the first to greet him. "Are you here to take a look? What's in the car? From the sound, it's a pig?"

"Well, I trapped a few wild boars this morning, and also caught a half-grown one. I brought some meat with me. When Old Huang comes, I'll use it to improve your meals."

"Hey, that's great!" Lu Yingming's family is not as good as Li Jianguo's. Although he made some money last year, he contracted land this year. The cost of farming is high, and the children are in school, so it's good enough to have meat once a month.

Now seeing that Li Long killed the wild boar so easily and brought the meat to him, he was naturally very happy.

Li Jianguo was relatively calm. His family had meat almost every day. They were not short of meat, but money. Otherwise, he would not have come. Neither he nor his two children had a great demand for meat, so he just looked at the little wild boar and asked:
"Are you planning to take it back and keep it in the stable?"

"Well, let's see if we can get more little guys from Mahao this year to raise. We can sell them or eat them." Li Long said.

"Then you can just bring Lao Tao and the others over when you go back." Lu Yingming said, "There are not enough people to edit, so they are not motivated."

"Hey," Li Jianguo laughed when he heard this, "You are an outsider, aren't you? Now you can easily get a lot of police nearby and make up whatever you want. When they all come here, you will have to run into the mountains if you want to get police. It will take a lot of time to go back and forth."

"That's right." Lu Yingming reacted. Although it was easy to get a job with lots of willows and elms nearby, Li Long had received a job for a thousand people. How many jobs would he need? By the time everyone came, the jobs nearby might be gone in three days, and he would have to go to a place farther away.

Li Long smiled and unloaded the meat. The meat was smeared with salt, so although wasps and flies flew over, they dared not land and could not eat it, so they dispersed. It was not known whether it was Li Jianguo or Lu Yingming who dragged a fallen tree here, and Li Long put the bag on the wood, and then put the basin of meat on the bag.

"Brother, Brother Lu, you guys go ahead and do your work. I'm going to drive the tractor back. Put the little wild boar down and see who else can be pulled over."

"Okay, go ahead and get busy."

"I have already greeted people here, so no one should come to cause trouble. If anyone comes, just say that the supply and marketing cooperative and the forestry team have given permission." Li Long thought that he would have to go back and ask Li Xiangqian for a certificate, otherwise if someone really came over, at least he would have someone to explain.

The tractor drove away, and Li Jianguo and Lu Yingming continued to weave the handles. Now they could get four yuan for each one they weaved, which was real money, and they were very motivated.

It only took more than an hour for the tractor to reach the county town, and Li Long was impressed again. He first went to the supply and marketing cooperative and told Li Xiangqian about the certification.

"This is easy." Li Xiangqian said after listening to Li Long in the office:
"I'll write a note and you can just stamp it."

He took a pen and paper, quickly wrote a note and handed it to Li Long, then talked about other things:
"Xiaolong, do you still have the lynx whip?"

"Yes." Li Long smiled. "Section Chief, do you want it? I'll bring it to you this afternoon."

"Hehehe, it's not me who wants to do this. I told this to a leader in the state, and he said he wanted to take a look."

"Then I'll send it to you this afternoon." Li Long saw that it was almost time to get off work and he was running out of time, so he decided to go back to the team first.

Li waved his hand forward:

"No rush, just these few days will do. If the mountain has already started, you can take care of that first. I'm not free these two days either, and I'll have time to go to the state in two days."

Li Long took the note and asked someone to stamp it, then drove the tractor to Sister Yang's house for dinner.

While eating, Sister Yang told Li Zhengtang and Li Zhengting about her encounter with them.

"Those two people looked like drifters from the mountains. They were dirty, their hair and beards were not cut, and they looked very slovenly. They didn't even have a scale to sell the things, and I don't know how they sold them."

Li Long was moved when he heard this, and he said to Sister Yang:
"Sister Yang, are you going to the market to sell food this afternoon?"

"Yes."

"Then go and take a look. If those two people haven't sold their Fritillaria, you can buy them. Three dollars a kilogram... three dollars and a half. You said you want all of them, so that's the price. I think the Fritillaria of those two people combined must be thirty or forty kilograms. Based on forty kilograms, I will give you one hundred and fifty dollars. You buy those Fritillaria, and after you bring them back, you can dry them in the yard. The rest of the money is your wages. How about it?"

"Well, uncle, what are you doing? Can I still ask you for money? It's okay to take this! I have money here..."

"The money is yours. Han Fang still has to go to school, and you have a lot of places to spend money. You have to take this money." Li Long said seriously.

After he said that, and with Gu Xiaoxia also persuading her, Sister Yang accepted the money. However, she had made up her mind that she would pay the Fritillaria for whatever it cost, and she would definitely return the remaining money to Li Long. How would she get paid for her work?

After dinner, Li Long and Gu Xiaoxia came out together. Gu Xiaoxia rode her bike to work, while Li Long drove the tractor to the big yard first, put the Fritillaria he brought back this time up to dry, looked at the Fritillaria that had been dried previously, turned them over, and then wrapped the lynx whip in cloth and went out.

He went to the supply and marketing cooperative and handed the whip to Li Xiangqian, then drove the tractor back to the team.

From a distance, the old horse is still quite old, but this large building is still unique in the whole team. Now someone has demolished the old team headquarters, and many walls have collapsed, slowly becoming a ruin. The old horse was originally facing the same fate, and now that it has been "saved" by Li Long, he still feels a sense of accomplishment.

Uncle Luo heard the sound and walked out of the yard. He looked at Li Long's tractor and grinned.

Li Long parked the tractor, turned off the engine, and took the bag from the bucket at the back. The little wild boars inside had lost the strength to cry out, and occasionally made a few humming sounds, indicating that they were still alive.

"Did you get another little wild boar?" Uncle Luo asked as he watched the things in the sack moving.

"Well, I caught three this morning. Let's take them back and keep them." Li Long walked in with the bag. "Uncle Luo, do you still have some sugar residue?"

"Yes, yes, enough." Old Uncle Luo said with a smile, "I make grass for the big animals and the little roe deer every day, and this little guy just eats the food, and there is still enough food."

"That's good. I'll go to the grain bureau in a few days to get some bran and chaff and mix them with the food."

"Hey, this is really good. People used to eat these things." Uncle Luo is old, and when he sees or hears something, he will think of the past.

People of this age are the most grateful to this society and the Party. They have experienced the darkest time in China and also caught up with the new life. Now they have enough food and clothing, and in the future they will be able to eat meat every meal without feeling any food stuck in their teeth. They have the deepest feelings.

After putting the little wild boar in the pen to let it adapt, Li Long went to find Xie Yundong.

Xie Yundong breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Li Long, and before Li Long could speak, he started talking:
"We were originally planning to leave today, but some people haven't packed up yet, so we can only wait until tomorrow."

"Then go ask who is willing to go with me today. I'll take them away first, and the rest can leave in a carriage tomorrow." Li Long said, "I'll be back with an empty carriage anyway, so why not take some people over first."

"Bring Old Huang along, as well as the two Xu brothers, Daqiang's father and Jia Weiguo also want to leave. Actually, I want to leave too, but since I'm responsible for organizing people, I can only wait for them to come together at the end." Xie Yundong was quite worried.

Li Long thought about it and said:

"Brother Yundong, you are so troublesome. After this work is finished, I will give you a bonus of fifty yuan. For the work done by the team last year, your organization can give you work points. I can't give you work points, but I can't let you work for nothing."

After Li Long said this, Xie Yundong felt embarrassed. He said, "That's not what I meant. It's just that this person has different thoughts when he gets together."

"It's okay, Brother Yundong. If you do more work, you should get more money. We can't let you work hard and think for nothing. Organizing people is a very laborious job. This fifty yuan will be your salary for organizing this month. How about it?"

"Xiaolong, since you said so, don't worry, I will take good care of you for this month."

"Well, you can manage it without any worries. If he refuses to obey, let him go back."

The two of them finalized the matter in a few words. Xie Yundong was motivated and Li Long was also happy. He was a lazy person and didn't like to manage other people's affairs. Now someone was taking care of it, but he only had to pay a little more, which was great!
"Brother Yundong, I will wait at my house until 5:30 in the afternoon. Those who can come will come, and those who can't will not wait. We arrived in the mountains at around 7 o'clock, and they still had to clean up the cave, so the time had to be so tight."

"Okay, I'll go and notify them one by one now." Xie Yundong said, "You go back and rest first. You must be tired after running all the way back."

Li Long drove the tractor back to Li Jianguo's home and saw his mother Du Chunfang chopping pig food in the yard. No one else was there.

"Your two sisters-in-law went to the fields to weed." Du Chunfang said, "Your father was tending to your vegetable garden in the front yard. He also wanted to work in the fields, but your sisters-in-law wouldn't let him go, saying it was unnecessary. He had to go set up the nets later, so he didn't go."

As he was speaking, Li Qingxia returned to the yard carrying a shovel and looked at Li Long with a smile on his face.

Although I don’t have old friends to chat and play cards with now, my life is better than back home. My sons are doing well here, my grandchildren are studying well, and I can make a lot of money every day. What else can I say? (End of this chapter)