Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

When Li Zhengtang dragged Li Zhengting to the wooden house, Li Long opened the door and prepared to go to the open-air toilet at the back.

When he saw the two brothers, he was also stunned. They had such strong willpower that they managed to come back in just one night?
"Boss Li, please help me." Li Zhengtang no longer cared about the embarrassment and supported the weak Li Zhengting and shouted, "Please help me."

"What's wrong?" Li Long looked at Li Zhengting's red face and asked, "Are you having a fever?"

"Well, we slept in a crevice last night, and the wind blew in the middle of the night, so we caught a cold. Zhengting was already weak, and the root of his illness from the last time had not yet healed, so..."

"Come on, come on in first." Li Long didn't want to chase him away, so he said, "Come in and drink some hot water. I have some medicine here."

"Thank you so much, thank you so much!" Li Zhengtang's face was full of gratitude. "Boss Li, you are a great person!"

"Don't! I'm not saving you for free. You have to pay for the medicine." Li Long was stimulated by something and helped Li Zhengting sit down next to the stove. He said, "I'll give you a pack of medicine. One or two pills won't be enough for him. If you want to eradicate the disease, you have to take the medicine for at least three days. I have a price for this medicine."

"How much?" Li Zhengtang had regretted not buying medicine with the money he received yesterday. Now that Li Long asked him to pay, he opened his mouth without hesitation, "We still have some money..."

"It's not expensive. For this package of medicine, just give me five kilograms of Fritillaria."

"Are you robbing money?" Li Zhengting was not unconscious yet, just weak. Hearing Li Long say this, he couldn't help but speak.

"Of course, you don't have to. You can leave here now." Li Long mocked, "I didn't beg you to come to me for medicine, did I?"

"Zhengting! Shut up!" Li Zhengtang scolded his cousin. At this time, let alone five kilograms of Fritillaria, he would sell fifty kilograms. If his cousin's body was really burned, he would not have to go back home. Besides, is five kilograms of Fritillaria a lot? It's just a day's supply! It's obvious that he said this to give a response to the fact that the two of them ran out of the mountain to sell Fritillaria. If he really kept silent, he would be worried.

After reprimanding his cousin, Li Zhengtang smiled and said to Li Long:
"I'm sorry, Mr. Li. We all have the same surname, so we might have been from the same family five hundred years ago. Since we have the same surname, please give us the medicine. Five kilograms of Fritillaria, no problem! I'll bring it to you tomorrow! Don't listen to Zhengting. He's delirious due to the fever and his words are not trustworthy... Please, please!"

"Okay, there's a bowl over there. Pour him some hot water while I get him some medicine." Li Long pointed to the withdrawal bowl on the chopping board and said to Li Zhengtang, "This medicine is taken twice a day. Give him two tablets each time. I don't think one tablet will work. Don't leave after you finish it. It's quite cold outside. Wait until the sun comes out before leaving."

After Li Long gave his instructions, he went to the cabin and took out a plate of medicine for Li Zhengtang. There were 20 aspirin pills on this long plate, and the medicine company sold them for more than one yuan. The price Li Long offered was more than ten times higher, of course, with a little punishment in it.

It would be fine if he didn't see it, but if he did, he would naturally have to act it out.

You can't be too kind in the mountains, or you won't survive. After all, not all of these migrants are like Sun Jiaqiang, who really came from the mainland to make a fortune. No one can guarantee that behind a kind and honest face there is a desperado.

However, Li Long knew some details about the two brothers Li Zhengtang and Li Zhengting. The behavior of the two men determined that they were neither ruthless nor bad people.

Li Zhengtang fed the medicine to his cousin and asked him to drink another bowl of water. At this time, Li Long had already put the grate on the stove, cut the cold steamed buns into slices on the chopping board and started to roast them. After roasting, they would taste good when served with red tofu.

He baked three steamed buns and gave a few slices to Li Zhengtang and Li Zhengting respectively.

Li Zhengtang hesitated whether to answer it, and Li Long said:
"The five kilograms of Fritillaria include the cost of the meal."

His tone was bland, which did not arouse any gratitude, but he did give them food.

At this time, the two of them were already hungry. One of the reasons why Li Zhengting got sick was because he had not eaten. He was hungry and his immunity was poor. Now that he had something to eat, and thinking that the five kilograms of Fritillaria could be used as part of the meal money, he took the steamed bread and started eating.

Li Zhengtang thanked him anyway. Li Long picked up two pieces of red tofu with chopsticks and gave one to each of them. The two men also took it silently.

Li Zhengting ate two slices of toasted steamed buns, relaxed, felt a little stronger, and continued eating. At this time, voices were heard outside.

"Is Boss Li here?"

Li Long recognized it as Wu Benzhong's voice.

"Are you here, Old Wu?" Li Long called out, "Come in and have something to eat."

Wu Benzhong came in with a bag of Fritillaria and was stunned when he saw Li Zhengtang and Li Zhengting. He had seen these two people in the mountains, but he didn't expect them to eat with Li Long here. He knew that Sun Jiaqiang and Li Long had a good relationship, could these two also be?

"Come, let's eat together." Li Long warmed up to Wu Benzhong, "Do you want some toasted buns?"

"Of course I want it." Wu Benzhong didn't hesitate. He put down the bag, took the steamed bun and started eating.

Li Long cut two more buns and toasted them. While toasting, he asked:
“Is this a two-day-old fritillary?”

"Well, the Fritillaria have sprouted in the past two days. They grow fast, so we have to dig them up as soon as possible, otherwise they will be weak by the time they bloom."

"I think it's about 14 or 15 kilograms. You're really good at this!"

"I can't help it. They took away a lot of it before, and now I have to make up for it. You can give it as you like. I have to go back to dig after I finish eating. I was so nervous when I came here just now, for fear of running into that kid."

Li Long knew that he was talking about Hamiti. That guy was really evil and only collected Fritillaria. Li Long suspected that someone might come to him to exchange things and be detained by him on the way.

Li Zhengtang and Li Zhengting felt bad when they saw the Fritillaria cirrhosae that Wu Benzhong had dug. If they hadn't gone down the mountain, there would have been so many Fritillaria cirrhosae in their own dugout, right?
It’s too late to regret. I will never do such a shitty thing again.

Wu Benzhong ate half of the toasted bun and stopped eating. He stood up and asked Li Long to settle the bill.

"Let's weigh them." Li Long said, "How else can we calculate it?" He took the scale from the small room and weighed the fritillaria.

"Fifteen kilograms is still a bit high. How about forty-six dollars?"

Li Long weighed the Fritillaria and poured them into a large basin. The Fritillaria were very fresh, with mud and leaves, but not many. There were both large and small ones.

"Okay." Wu Benzhong naturally had no objection, "I just wanted to come here every two days. This is good. I don't have to carry it to the county."

When he said that, Li Zhengtang and Li Zhengting felt even more uncomfortable. How could they have come up with such a stupid idea before?

Li Long took out money from his inner pocket, counted out four Great Unity notes, one for a steel worker and one for a female tractor driver, swiped the new notes in the shape of a fan and handed them to Wu Benzhong.

Wu Benzhong took the money, put it to his nose and sniffed it, then said with a smile:

"New money smells so good! I can't bear to fold it up. OK, Boss Li, I'm leaving now. I'll come back after digging for another two days."

After Wu Benzhong left, Li Zhengtang and Li Zhengting no longer wanted to eat.

Li Long ignored them and put all the baked steamed bread slices into the steamed bread plate. He took one slice and spread some red tofu on it, then covered it with another slice. Just like eating roujiamo, he could eat almost half of it in one bite.

After the steamed buns were finished, Li Long did not ask the two people whether they wanted to eat or not, and started to clean up. Li Zhengtang hurriedly helped to clean up. He took the enamel basin to the spring to wash, and washed it several times before coming back. Li Zhengting stared blankly outside the door, not knowing what he was thinking.

After a while, the sun came out and the temperature outside rose a little. Li Zhengtang looked at Li Zhengting. Li Zhengting stood up, took a few steps, felt okay, and nodded to him.

"Boss Li, we'll leave now. I'll bring the five kilograms of Fritillaria that we owe you tonight or tomorrow morning." Li Zhengtang said sincerely.

"Okay." Li Long nodded.

In fact, he was just saying it to let the other party know that he gave the medicine for free the first time, and later he actually received a reward, which was a win-win situation. This time, he asked for Fritillaria to tell the other party that he would not give the medicine for free.

If the two brothers don't show up in the future, Li Long won't do anything to them. After all, the mountain is so big, and if they hide inside, Li Long really won't be able to find them.

But he believed that Li Zhengtang would not do such a stupid thing.

After watching the two people leave, Li Long took the Fritillaria brought by Wu Benzhong to the spring to wash it, and then hung it on the table outside to dry.

Then he drove the tractor to the west side of the cabin and stopped. He used a large broom to sweep the wooden floor in front of the house clean. He went to the cabin to get the Fritillaria he had collected yesterday and poured it on the wooden floor to dry in the sun.

After drying the Fritillaria, he took out the bedding from the bedroom and hung it on the tractor outside to dry it in the sun to kill bacteria and disinfect it.

After all these were done, when Li Long was about to take out the wild boar meat to continue drying, the sound of horse hooves was heard and Bolati came riding over from a distance.

"You got another harvest?" Li Long was a little surprised. "Whose Fritillaria did you get?"

"It's not collected, it's not collected." Bolati waved his hand and said, "This is what the leader of my group in our forestry team gave me. He asked me to exchange it with you for some rice, flour, wine, salt, brick tea, and sugar cubes."

He took the bag off the saddle and handed it to Li Long.

The bag was quite heavy. Li Long weighed it and felt it was about ten kilograms. But when he opened the bag, he found that it was too dirty. Li Long opened the bag and frowned as he said to Bolati:

"Look for yourself, this is too dirty."

"It's okay. If it's dirty, you can give me a lower price." Bolati didn't side with his team leader at all. "I know you. You're very fair. Just give me the price and we'll exchange the items."

Li Long took a large basin and poured the Fritillaria into it. He felt that there must be at least one and a half kilograms of impurities in the ten kilograms of Fritillaria.

"These Fritillaria are worth 25 yuan." Li Long said, "How much rice and flour do you want?"

"How about a bag of each?"

"Okay, I'll give you a bag of each." One bag is 25 kilograms, which comes to about twelve yuan in total.

"For loose liquor, I need a basket of five kilograms, is that okay?"

"Row."

"You can give the rest as you wish. It doesn't matter if you have them or not." After getting the most important things, Bolati didn't give any suggestions on the rest.

"Okay, rice, flour, wine, five bricks of tea and five pieces of salt."

That's almost it. Li Long finally added a sugar cube, which made Polati happy. He put it on the horse when Li Long moved things, and he also used a large cloth sheet to wrap the rest, so he was not afraid of damaging it.

After getting on the horse, Bolati pointed at Li Zhengtang and Li Zhengting who were still walking in the distance and asked:
"Are those two your friends? Do you want me to take care of them in the future?"

"No, no." Li Long waved his hand. "I'm here to exchange things too. You can handle it. By the way, where's Hamidi?"

"He was beaten by someone." Bolati waved his hands. "This guy was too cruel. He kept an eye on a few people every day, waiting for them to dig up the Fritillaria and then went over to confiscate it. As a result, they ganged up on him and beat him up. Fortunately, those people didn't want to cause trouble, so they didn't beat him to death, but one of his legs was broken. I guess he won't be able to come for a few months."

Polati shook his head and left.

Li Long was really surprised, and then he was a little confused.

The forestry team members had guns in their hands, so how could they be shot by others? Was this a trap?
is there any other reason?
It seems that you really can’t be too nice in this mountain, otherwise you’ll easily get beaten!
Li Long waited until Bolati was far away before he took out the dried wild boar meat and hung it on the rope outside to dry. The meat was not very dry yet, and if it was not dried in the sun, it would be a bit difficult to preserve. Drying in the sun would make it easier to preserve and exchange.

After hanging the dried meat, Li Long closed the door, carried his gun and machete, and headed for the forest ahead. He planned to cut some branches and build a toilet.

Although the road was shorter, he thought it was better to carry the gun because of Hamiti's incident. No one dared to say whether there was any danger nearby.

When Li Long was carrying a bunch of branches towards the wooden house, Li Zhengtang and Li Zhengting also entered the woods.

"Brother, put me down and go get our things from the crevice. Otherwise, if we leave them there for too long, I'm worried that they will be damaged by wild beasts." Li Zhengting said.

He was still rather weak, and he felt exhausted after walking a dozen meters out of Li Long's house. But since he had already walked out, it would not be convenient for him to go back, so Li Zhengtang had to support him and walk forward.

He had walked less than a kilometer when his head was already covered in sweat and he could no longer hold on.

"Don't leave yet. What if I leave and you find something and eat it?" Li Zhengtang glared at him. "Human life is the most important, everything else is secondary. If you can't walk, come and I'll carry you."

Although Li Zhengtang is older than Li Zhengting, he has a solid foundation and has never been sick, so he has no problem carrying someone on his back.

Li Zhengting was not happy, but Li Zhengtang didn't want to waste any more time here, so he carried Li Zhengting on his back and quickly went to their dugout.

After four breaks, they finally reached their cave. Li Zhengtang was exhausted. He helped Li Zhengting into the cave, covered him with a quilt and let him rest. He then managed to get some firewood and lit the stove made of three stones. He put water in a steel pot and boiled it. He also went into the cave to rest. He waited until the fire under the stove was about to go out and the water in the steel pot was about to dry up. Li Zhengtang got up, put a torn towel under the pot, found two enamel basins with half of the porcelain broken off, poured boiling water into them, then went to the stream to get water and put it on the stove. He added some firewood under the stove and then took out some corn flour from the cave to make some porridge.

The supplies that were bought are not there, so we have to go back soon. Although Li Zhengting is now in the dugout and is temporarily safe, he does not plan to go get the things now. He is worried that if he goes now and comes back and runs into the young man from the forestry team, his things will definitely be taken away. The young man is unreasonable and will not ask where the things came from. He has a gun in his hand and he talks big.

He didn't know that Hamiti had been beaten up and wouldn't meet them for a while.

Li Zhengting had fallen into a deep sleep and his fever had subsided a little, but Li Zhengtang knew that he would probably have a fever again in the afternoon, so the most important thing right now was to get through the day.

Of course, he had to have something to eat to get through it. Now he regretted not buying some food from Li Long. Although they still had some food in stock, there was nothing nutritious left.

I should have changed the meat earlier.

After Li Long used branches to tie up the toilet, he felt it looked good and clapped his hands in satisfaction.

He had originally planned to hang a sign on it, with one side saying "occupied" and the other side saying "no one", but after thinking about it he decided not to. There was no need to go through all this trouble.

After cleaning the toilet, the morning is almost over and it’s time to prepare lunch.

We just had some makeshift meals last night and this morning, so Li Long plans to have a good meal at noon.

He cooked some rice in the house, got some wild onions and mushrooms, and fried two dishes with meat. Because the table was occupied by Fritillaria, he simply filled an enamel basin with rice, covered it with a thick layer of dishes, and ate it while sitting on the door frame.

Very beautiful!
After dinner, Li Long saw that the sun was shining brightly, so he moved a stool to the door, basked in the sun, took a nap and listened to the radio. It was so comfortable.

Then someone interrupted.

Two strange vagrants came over with bags on their backs.

Li Long reached out and picked up the gun from the door.

He squinted his eyes and looked at them, and was sure that this was the first time he saw these two people.

"Boss, I heard that your Fritillaria can be exchanged for money or other things?" The thinner of the two men spoke in a northwestern dialect, which was similar to the Xinjiang dialect.

"Yeah." Li Long nodded, "What do you want to change?"

"I'll change the money."

"I want to exchange something. Do you have rice or flour? Do you have matches?"

"Exchange money. One kilogram of Fritillaria is three yuan." Li Long said, "If you want to exchange things, just exchange at this price."

"Three dollars? Isn't that a little too little?" The one who wanted to exchange money was a little dissatisfied. "My Fritillaria is half dried..."

"Open the bag, let me see." Li Long was still quite alert. Someone had injured Hamiti, could it be these two people?

"Okay." The two men put down their pockets and took two steps back.

Very tactful.

Li Long stepped forward and grabbed a handful of Fritillaria and took a look at it.

It is indeed half dry, about 40% dry, and it will probably be dried in a few more days of sun exposure.

It's also a bit dirty inside, with dry pebbles and stones.

"Well, I'll take ten yuan for this." Li Long said, "It has a lot of impurities."

"Okay, ten bucks, that's fine!"

"What about mine?" asked the other man.

Li Long also grabbed a handful of the other party's Fritillaria and took a look. This one was much cleaner, but not as dry as the other one. He said:
"It's eleven dollars for something."

"Okay!" Both of them were very happy.

Li Long was also very happy. (End of this chapter)