Chapter 155: Neither side wanted to let the other take a loss

As Li Long walked over, the man was sitting on the concrete railing by the side wall of the Cultural Palace, observing him as well.

There weren't many people watching movies at this hour, and few were coming or going; none of these were the man's potential target customers.

As Li Long approached, the man's vigilance clearly heightened. His hair was slightly long, not parted, and curled a bit on both sides of his face. At this time, there were no film or television programs to lead trends, so most people were quite individualistic.

But generally, people still kept some hair; there weren't many who got a buzz cut like Li Long. After all, in everyone's subconscious, only reform-through-labor prisoners would shave it that short.

"Buddy, got any tickets?" Li Long walked over, pulled a handful of melon seeds from his bag, handed them over, and asked with the air of an old acquaintance.

"What kind of tickets do you want? Regional or national?"

"Regional. Do you have national ones too?"

"Sure do." The man cracked a melon seed, his vigilance clearly relaxed, and said, "The price is cheap now, too."

"What's the price?" Li Long asked curiously.

"Regional grain tickets are eight cents a jin, national ones are nine cents."

"That cheap?" Li Long really hadn't expected it to be this cheap.

"Heh, can't do this for much longer. Once I dump the tickets I have on hand, I'm done with this." The man cracked a seed and poured out his grievances to Li Long, "Now that the morning markets are set up, you can buy many things without tickets. Who still needs them? The higher-ups aren't managing these stalls either. I reckon sooner or later, these tickets won't be used at all."

Li Long hadn't expected this guy's foresight to be so advanced!

It was true that tickets would eventually be phased out, but not just yet. Tickets would still be in use for quite a long time. Li Long remembered that in his previous life, when someone in the village went to college, their family still prepared a stack of national grain tickets for them.

That was in the early nineties—in reality, tickets were rarely used by then, but in some places, they were still in use.

"Do you have other tickets?" Li Long asked.

"Sure. What kind do you want?" The man spat the melon seed shell onto the ground and pulled out a stack of tickets:

"Never mind the sugar tickets, I've got sugar, liquor, meat, industrial tickets..."

"So many?" Li Long looked at the tickets in the man's hand and felt a bit envious. "Give me two hundred city jin worth of grain tickets—"

"Big spender." Hearing Li Long wanted so many, the man's spirits instantly lifted. "Are you planning to resell these?"

"No, no, I'm buying them for a friend." Li Long waved his hand. "Give me twenty jin worth of liquor tickets."

Twenty jin of liquor tickets would be about thirty-plus bottles of small champagne; that should be enough.

Li Long also bought some sugar and industrial tickets; just these cost Li Long over forty yuan.

If he didn't have to save money for tomorrow's purchases, Li Long would have liked to buy even more.

"I'll need to buy more tickets in a couple of days." Li Long said to the man, "You'll still be here, right?"

"I will." The man was also very happy, counting the money while smiling, "My name is Cao Liu, everyone calls me Xiao Liu. You'll definitely be able to find me in this area. What should I call you, brother?"

"My surname is Li..."

"Then I'll call you Brother Li." Cao Xiaoliu was actually quite young; Li Long hadn't expected the guy to just call him 'brother' so directly.

"Alright, see you later. I have to go buy things at the department store." Li Long waved at the man and turned to leave the Cultural Palace.

Watching Li Long's back, Cao Xiaoliu was very happy today. Just from this one deal with Li Long, he could make several yuan!

More than a worker earned!

He could have a better meal tonight!

Cao Xiaoliu looked around contentedly and then left. He was satisfied; today was good enough as it was.

Li Long rode his bike to the department store and began purchasing small champagne and red wine.

Liu Gong was a seller of electronic products. She saw Li Long the moment he walked in. She just hadn't expected Li Long not to come over, which left her feeling a bit disappointed and anxious.

After Li Long bought the small champagne, red wine, and fruit candies, he finally turned toward Liu Gong's counter.

"Hello, comrade. Do you still have that kind of radio from last time?"

"We don't." Although Liu Gong really wanted to help Li Long solve his problem, she couldn't do anything without stock.

Li Long was also disappointed.

"That kind of radio is quite popular, but our county is small, so we don't get many in." Liu Gong thought for a moment and said, "Shicheng gets more of them. If you have time..."

"I see. Thank you." Li Long slapped his forehead. That's right, just because they didn't have them here didn't mean Shicheng didn't.

"Then give me two boxes of size D batteries and two flashlights," Li Long said.

Liu Gong quickly got the items for Li Long and skillfully tied them up with hemp rope for easy carrying.

After paying, Li Long thanked Liu Gong and turned to leave with his bags.

"Looks like this one is quite wealthy, Liu Gong." The older sister next to her teased, "He's already bought several of those radios, and now he's buying more..."

Liu Gong didn't speak, not knowing what she was thinking inside.

After Li Long unloaded the goods at the courtyard, he took advantage of the daylight and went to the grain store. This time he had grain tickets and bought fifty kilograms of flour directly.

He already knew that Ha Li Mu and the others were at the summer pasture, where their staple food was naan, so they used more flour. Rice was mainly for making pilaf and wasn't eaten much, so Li Long mainly bought flour this time.

After bringing the flour back to the courtyard, Li Long redistributed the supplies to make it easier to take to the mountains tomorrow.

After finishing all this, Li Long felt a bit hungry. He didn't want to cook, so he went to the meat canteen and ordered some fried noodles.

These fried noodles weren't stir-fried flour, but boiled *latiaozi* (hand-pulled noodles) stir-fried with vegetables. This was common in later generations, but now he had to be clear with the server.

After all, there was another kind of "fried noodles" that existed—stir-fried flour.

After the noodles were served, Li Long habitually asked the server for some vinegar, added it in, and began to eat heartily.

When he returned to the courtyard after eating, it was already getting dark. Li Long entered the bedroom, turned on the light, and since he couldn't fall asleep for a while, he took out the small-bore rifle and began cleaning it.

Cleaning the gun after every use was a must. After firing, there would be gunpowder residue in the barrel, which needed to be cleaned out with a cleaning rod and cloth, otherwise, it would affect the accuracy of the next shot.

The process of disassembling the gun was also a process of getting familiar with it; Li Long had a deep realization of this in this life. After cleaning the gun, Li Long loaded the bullets, engaged the safety, and only then did he sleep peacefully. He wondered how that thief had been dealt with in the end.

Early the next morning, Li Long ate a simple breakfast at the meat canteen, returned, tied the goods to his bicycle, and headed toward the mountains.

There were more pedestrians on the road. When crossing the Wuyi Highway, Li Long noticed more cars coming and going; one had just passed, and another was in the distance.

Pedaling hard, thinking of his friends in the mountains waiting for him, Li Long felt full of energy.

Upon entering the mountains and arriving in front of Ha Li Mu's winter quarters, Li Long found Ha Li Mu outside, seemingly waiting for him.

"Li Long, you finally came!" Seeing Li Long, Ha Li Mu shouted and ran over, "Those young lads are all waiting for you!"

"Let's unload the stuff first before we go over." Li Long pointed to the items on the back of the bike, "I brought some drinks with a liquor flavor. We'll have a drink together once the house is built."

"Good, good, good. Let's put those things aside for now. The lads have already built the house for you and are making the wooden *kang* (heated bed) right now. But that's not what they're anxious about. Hurry, let's move the stuff over... forget it, let's just push the bike over together."

There was a sheep path from here to Li Long's winter quarters. If one was good at riding a bike, it was possible to ride it over.

Li Long could feel Ha Li Mu's urgency, so he said:

!.

"Alright, let's push it over."

Li Long pushed the bike with Ha Li Mu following behind. After a while, Li Long felt the road was rideable, so he got on and followed the winding path toward the other side of the mountain.

When going uphill or where the road was difficult, he would get off and push. Most of the time, he could ride. When Li Long arrived at his winter quarters, he found that there was indeed a complete house there.

However, the roof was covered with mud, and the four walls were plastered with mud, making it look like an earthen house; the original wood was no longer visible.

Yushan Jiang and a few others were sawing wood outside, while others were mixing mud. There were also people working inside the house, and the sound of hammering wood echoed in the valley.

Seeing Li Long, Yushan Jiang shouted, and the young lads crawled out of the house, shouting loudly at Li Long.

Li Long smiled and waved at them, pushing his bike to the front of the wooden house.

"Li Long, you didn't come yesterday, and it made several of the lads anxious. Ta Sa Si Ken was almost crying." Yushan Jiang joked, "He led two fawns over, and in the end, he had no choice but to lead them back."

"Two fawns?" Li Long was startled, "He actually caught fawns?"

"Yeah. Two!" Yushan Jiang held up a finger and smiled, "He said he wanted to trade them for a radio."

"That can definitely be traded!" Li Long was genuinely surprised, "Two could even be traded for..."

"One is enough, just bring him more batteries. My radio's four batteries are already dead; it's been playing all day long." Yushan Jiang said, "Batteries are too expensive!"

Li Long thought that was true. Fortunately, batteries didn't require tickets, so he could get more.

After parking the bike, he went into the house to look and found that a wooden *kang* had been built in the main room. It wasn't finished yet, and the lads were installing the wooden frame underneath.

He had only seen the outside of the wooden *kang* when staying at Ha Li Mu and Yushan Jiang's homes. Now he knew that the inside was built like a grid of wooden frames, with a layer of wooden boards nailed on top.

"Put the stuff from your bike here. We can finish installing the door and laying the *kang* today. If you have bedding, you can sleep inside tonight."

Li Long thought that was right, so he simply moved the grain, liquor, drinks, and snacks one by one into the small room, which was originally intended as a storage room.

He just hadn't expected that after moving them in, he would find that quite a lot of things had already been placed inside.

Antlers were the most numerous, followed by various skins. Li Long could recognize deer skin, roe deer skin, and wolf skin.

There was also jade, mainly Mahe jade, and several pieces were of very high quality.

These things piled up half the room. Li Long estimated that transporting them all back would take several trips—at least a horse-drawn cart would be needed.

If they all wanted to trade for radios, he would really have to go to Shicheng, and perhaps even Wucheng, otherwise, he wouldn't be able to get enough.

Seeing Li Long come over, the lads came over to greet him with laughter, but they didn't stop, continuing to work until the boards on the wooden *kang* were laid. Only then did Yushan Jiang shout, and everyone gathered around to rest by the wooden boards outside.

Ha Li Mu took the *Ma Naizi* (fermented mare's milk) from a shaded place, poured a bowl, and handed it to the lad next to him, who took it and passed it to Yushan Jiang.

Yushan Jiang passed it to Li Long, who hurriedly waved his hand:

"You guys drink. You've been working for so long, you've worked hard."

Yushan Jiang didn't decline. After drinking it in one gulp, he passed the bowl to Ha Li Mu, who poured and passed it to the next person.

After everyone had drunk, a lad couldn't wait and said a string of words. Ha Li Mu glanced at him and smiled, translating for Li Long:

"Bie Li Ke says he wants to trade four antlers for a radio, a box of batteries, and a flashlight. He asks if it can be traded."

Four antlers!

Li Long remembered there were only six or seven antlers in the wooden house in total. This Bie Li Ke was quite capable.

"It can be traded," Li Long said, "maybe even more."

"That's enough, that's enough." After Ha Li Mu finished telling Bie Li Ke, Bie Li Ke's face was full of smiles. As he spoke, Ha Li Mu translated again.

"Then I'll take the stuff down today and bring it up after the trade."

"Tang Bo Li brought two wolf skins, a roe deer skin, and a piece of jade, saying he wants to trade for a radio." Ha Li Mu translated the next person's words.

After Tang Bo Li finished speaking, he ran into the house and brought out his piece of jade.

The jade was as big as a soccer ball. Li Long looked at the surface, which was dusty. He found some water to wipe the surface and discovered a layer of stone skin. With no other choice, he took a flashlight to shine on it.

There were faint black spots in the green jade, but it was large. Li Long nodded and said:

"It can be traded, it can be traded. I don't know the price of the skins, but this jade alone is enough for a radio."

Even at the lowest price of fifteen yuan per kilogram from the last sale, this piece of jade weighed at least eight kilograms, so it could definitely trade for a radio.

"Ta Sa Si Ken says his two fawns are to be traded for a radio." Ha Li Mu finally mentioned Ta Sa Si Ken, a shy lad who stuttered a bit when he spoke.

"It can be traded, it can definitely be traded. One fawn is enough for a radio."

"No, no, no. If it were an adult deer, it could be traded." Ha Li Mu said very seriously to Li Long, "These deer are very hard to raise. A fawn at this time is not more valuable than a sheep. Li Long, you can't take the risk yourself just because we have a good relationship..."

Hearing Ha Li Mu's words, Ta Sa Si Ken added another sentence. Ha Li Mu translated, saying he had another piece of jade and didn't know if it was valuable.

Li Long said solemnly:

"It's really enough, one fawn is enough..."

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 156 =====