Chapter 155: Neither Wants the Other to Suffer a Loss

When Li Long walked over, the person was sitting on the cement railing against the wall on the side of the Cultural Palace, and he was also observing Li Long.

Not many people could watch movies at this time, and not many people came in and out. These were not the potential target users of this person.

When Li Long walked over, the other party's vigilance obviously increased. This person had slightly long hair, not parted, and slightly curly on both sides of his face. There was no film or television program that could lead the trend at this time, so most people were relatively individual.

But basically, most of them still kept some hair. There were not many people who made it into a crew cut like Li Long. After all, everyone's subconscious was that only prisoners would shave so short.

"Brother, do you have tickets?" Li Long walked over, took a handful of melon seeds from the bag and handed them over, asking familiarly.

"Which tickets do you want? Regional or

"Regional ones. Do you have national ones too?"

"We do." The man cracked a sunflower seed, clearly relaxing his guard, and said, "The prices are cheap now, too."

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

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

"That cheap?" Li Long truly hadn't expected them to be this cheap.

"Heh, it won't last much longer. Once I dump the coupons I have on hand, I won't be doing this anymore." The man cracked a sunflower seed and vented his frustrations to Li Long, "Now that the morning market stalls are set up, you can buy many things without coupons. Who still wants them? The authorities aren't managing these stalls either. I reckon these coupons won't be needed sooner or later."

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

Coupons would definitely not be needed in the future, but not at this moment. They would still be in use for quite a long time. Li Long remembered that when someone in his village went to university in his previous life, their family still prepared a stack of national grain coupons for them.

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

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

"I do. What kind of coupons do you want?" The man spat the sunflower seed shell in his mouth onto the ground, then took out a stack of coupons:

"I won't even mention sugar coupons; there are sugar coupons, liquor coupons, meat coupons, industrial coupons..."

"So many?" Li Long looked at the coupons in the other person's hand and felt quite envious. "Give me two hundred jin worth of grain coupons—"

"Big spender." Upon hearing that Li Long wanted so many, the man immediately perked up. "Are you planning to resell these?"

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

Twenty jin of liquor coupons, counting small champagnes, would be about thirty-some bottles; that should be enough.

Li Long also bought some sugar coupons and industrial coupons; these alone cost Li Long over forty yuan.

If it weren't for the money he needed to keep for tomorrow's purchases, Li Long would have liked to buy even more coupons.

"I'll need to buy some more coupons in a couple of days." Li Long said to the man, "Will you still be here?"

"I will." The man was also very happy; while counting the money, he smiled and said, "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 other person to call him 'brother' so directly.

"Alright, see you later then. I need to go to the department store to buy some things." 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 transaction with Li Long, he could earn several yuan!

Much more than a worker earns!

He could have a better meal tonight!

Cao Xiaoliu looked around contentedly and then left the place. He was satisfied; today was enough.

Li Long got on his bicycle and went to the department store, starting to purchase small champagne and red wine.

Liu was a salesperson for electronic products. She saw Li Long as soon as he entered. She just hadn't expected Li Long not to come over, which made her feel a bit disappointed and anxious.

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

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

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

Li Long was also very disappointed.

"That type of radio is quite popular, but our county is small, so we don't get many in." Liu 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 don't have them here doesn't mean Shicheng doesn't have them.

"Then give me two packs of size-one batteries and two flashlights," Li Long said.

Liu quickly got the items for Li Long and used the hemp rope on hand to skillfully wrap and tie them up for easy carrying.

After Li Long paid, he thanked Liu and turned to leave with his bags.

"Looks like this one is quite wealthy, Liu." The older sister nearby teased, "He's already bought several of these radios, and now he wants to buy more..."

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

After Li Long went to the courtyard and unloaded his things, he took advantage of the fact that it wasn't dark yet and went to the grain store. This time he had grain coupons and bought fifty kilograms of flour directly.

He already knew that Halimu and the others were at the summer pasture and that their staple food was naan, so they used more flour. Rice was mainly used for making pilaf and wasn't eaten often, 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 them into the mountains tomorrow.

After all this was done, Li Long was 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 fried flour, but rather hand-pulled noodles stir-fried with vegetables. This was common in later generations, but now he had to make it clear to the server.

After all, there was another kind of fried noodle that existed—fried flour.

After the fried noodles were served, Li Long habitually asked the server for some vinegar to add in, then began to eat heartily.

When he finished and returned to the courtyard, it was already getting dark. Li Long entered his bedroom, turned on the light, and since he couldn't fall asleep for a while, he took out the small-caliber rifle and began to clean 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 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 becoming familiar with it; Li Long had a deep understanding of this in this life. After cleaning the gun, Li Long loaded the bullets, engaged the safety, and only then slept 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 items onto his bicycle, and rode toward the mountains.

There were more pedestrians on the road. When crossing the Wuyi Highway, Li Long noticed that there were 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 his whole body fill with energy.

Upon entering the mountains and arriving in front of Halimu and the others' winter camp, Li Long discovered Halimu was right outside, seemingly waiting for him.

"Li Long, you finally came!" Seeing Li Long, Halimu shouted loudly and ran over, "Those young men are all waiting for you!"

"Let's unload the things first before we go over." Li Long pointed to the items on the back of the bicycle and said, "I brought some drinks with a liquor flavor; we'll have a drink together once the house is finished."

"Good, good, good. Put those things aside for now. The young men have already built the house for you and are making the wooden kang now, but that's not what they're anxious about. Hurry, let's move the things over... forget it, let's just push them over together with the bicycle."

There was a sheep path from here to Li Long's winter camp; if one was good at riding a bicycle, it was possible to ride it over.

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

!.

"Alright, let's push it over then."

Li Long pushed the bicycle with Halimu following behind. After following for a stretch, 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 when the road was difficult, he would get off and push; most of the time, he could ride. When Li Long arrived at his winter camp, he discovered that there was indeed a complete house there.

However, the roof of the house was covered with mud, and the four walls were also plastered with mud, making it look like an earthen house; the original appearance of the wood could no longer be seen.

Yushanjiang and a few others were outside sawing wood, 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, Yushanjiang shouted, and the young men all crawled out of the house, shouting loudly at Li Long.

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

"Li Long, you didn't come yesterday, and it worried the young men to death. Tasken was almost crying." Yushanjiang joked, "He brought two fawns over, and in the end, he had no choice but to take them back."

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

"Yeah. Two!" Yushanjiang held up a finger and said with a smile, "He said he wanted to trade them for a radio."

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

"One is enough, then you just bring him more batteries. My radio, the four batteries are already dead; it's been playing all day long." Yushanjiang said, "Batteries, they're too expensive!"

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

After he parked his bike, he went into the house to look and found that a wooden kang had already been built in the large room. It wasn't finished yet, and the young men were installing the wooden frame under the kang.

He had only seen the outside of the wooden kangs in Halimu and Yushanjiang's homes before; now he knew that inside, it was built like a grid of wooden frames, and then a layer of wooden boards was nailed on top.

"Put the things from your bike here. We can finish installing the door and laying the wooden 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 house; this was originally intended to be 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 hides. Li Long could recognize deer hides, roe deer hides, and wolf hides.

Jade, mainly Mahe jade, and there were a few pieces of very good quality.

These things were piled up half the room; Li Long estimated that to transport them all back, it 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 it was even possible he would have to go to Wucheng, otherwise, he wouldn't be able to get enough.

Seeing Li Long come over, the young men came over to greet him with laughter, but they didn't stop; they continued working until the boards on the wooden kang were laid. Only then did Yushanjiang shout, and everyone gathered around to rest beside the wooden boards outside.

Halimu took the mare's milk that had been placed in a cool spot, poured a bowl, and handed it to the young man next to him, who took it and handed it to Yushanjiang.

Yushanjiang then handed it to Li Long, and Li Long hurriedly waved his hand:

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

Yushanjiang didn't decline; after drinking it in one gulp, he handed the bowl to Halimu, who poured some and handed it to the next person.

After everyone had drunk, one young man couldn't wait and said a string of words. Halimu looked at him and smiled, translating for Li Long:

"Berik 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 Berik was very capable.

"It can be traded," Li Long said, "Maybe even a bit more."

"That's enough, that's enough." After Halimu finished telling Berik, Berik was all smiles, speaking as Halimu translated.

"Then I'll take the things down today, and bring them up after I've made the trade."

"Tangboli brought two wolf skins, one roe deer skin, and a piece of jade, saying he wants to trade for a radio." Halimu translated the next person's words.

After Tangboli finished speaking, he ran into the house and hugged his piece of jade out.

The jade was as big as a soccer ball. Li Long saw that the surface was dusty, so he found some water to wipe the surface of the jade and discovered there was still a layer of stone skin on it, so he had no choice but to shine his flashlight on it.

The green jade had faint black spots inside, but it was large, so Li Long nodded and said:

"It can be traded, it can be traded. I don't know the price of the hides, but this jade alone is enough to trade 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.

"Tasken says his two fawns are to be traded for a radio." Halimu finally mentioned Tasken, who was a shy young man who stuttered a bit when he spoke.

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

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

After hearing Halimu's words, Tasken added another sentence, and Halimu translated, saying he also had a piece of jade and didn't know if it was valuable.

Li Long said solemnly:

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

(End of chapter)