Chapter 166: Scythes are hard to buy

Early the next morning, after Li Long finished his meal, he rode his bicycle out of the village. After dropping Li Juan off at the primary school, he continued riding toward the county seat.

There were no scythes at the county supply and marketing cooperative’s retail outlet, which left Li Long feeling somewhat disappointed.

He then went to the department store.

The hardware section of the department store only had common tools; there wasn't even a sickle. Li Long wondered if things had been going too smoothly for him lately, and now his luck tank was empty.

"Comrade, what do you need to buy?"

A crisp voice rang out.

Li Long turned his head and saw a somewhat familiar face. He quickly remembered that this was the salesclerk who had sold him the radio.

Huh? Salesclerks these days were quite enthusiastic; that was nice.

Xiao Liu had watched Li Long circle the counter twice and was about to leave without buying anything. Guessing that he hadn't found what he wanted, she couldn't help but take the initiative to ask.

"A scythe, I want to buy a scythe..." Li Long replied. Thinking the girl probably didn't know what a scythe was, he added an explanation: "It's the large sickle herdsmen use to cut grass."

"We don't have tools like that here," Xiao Liu said after thinking for a moment. "The supply and marketing cooperative has more hardware items; over there..."

"I've already been there." Li Long gave a bitter smile. "They don't have any either."

"Then you'll have to go to the regional level," Xiao Liu said. "Or maybe Shicheng. The department stores and supply and marketing cooperatives there are of a higher grade, and their stock will be more complete than ours."

Li Long had actually been thinking the same thing. He said:

"Then thank you. I'll head over there now to take a look."

Buying scythes for the herdsmen in the mountains was the top priority right now. Li Long didn't want to waste time, so after saying goodbye to Xiao Liu, he left.

Xiao Liu felt a bit of regret. Why hadn't she asked for his name or what he did for a living?

But as a young girl, she was thin-skinned; how could she bring herself to ask?

"Xiao Liu, next time this young man comes by, do you want me to help you ask?" The older sister beside her had long since seen through Xiao Liu's thoughts and said with a smile, "The young man looks decent, speaks well, and seems to come from a good family. I wonder which unit he's with..."

At this time, it was assumed that salesclerks would look for someone with a public sector job. Xiao Liu was pretty and educated; if she found someone from the countryside, she would likely be laughed at. Of course, rural men weren't in the category of people being introduced to her.

As Li Long rode his bicycle toward Shicheng, he was already thinking that if Shicheng didn't have any, he would find a blacksmith's shop in the county to have them forged. The forging would take longer, but he hoped it could be finished before Halimu and the others began their seasonal migration.

In his previous life, Li Long had seen the million-head livestock migration of the Yisai pasture trail in Guozigou on short videos. At that time, both the summer and winter migrations were on a massive scale. It was said that traffic used to be restricted because of the migration. Later, after the expressway was built, the migration became much more convenient, and it was even broadcast live by CCTV and featured on the evening news.

The scale of the Nanshan herdsmen's migration was much smaller, but it would still happen a bit earlier, as summer arrived earlier here. The herdsmen's summer pastures were deep in the northern slopes of the Tianshan Mountains, where the water and grass were better in the summer. After the migration, the grass in the winter pastures could grow rapidly, making it convenient for the livestock to graze there in the winter.

Hopefully, there would be enough time.

Riding into the old street, Li Long found it much livelier than the morning market in Maxian, with many more stalls than before. There were several stalls where he used to set up his own to sell fish, and everyone was shouting to sell their goods.

Li Long had no interest in browsing the stalls and went straight to the department store.

As expected, although the department store had more items than the one in Maxian, it also lacked scythes.

Li Long asked the salesclerk for the location of the supply and marketing cooperative’s retail outlet, and the clerk actually told him.

Leaving the store and riding his bicycle to the cooperative, Li Long found that it was quite crowded, unlike the one in Maxian, which only had a few people occasionally.

There was a bike shed on one side of the cooperative’s entrance. Li Long put his bicycle inside, locked it, and entered the store.

The interior of this store was also much larger than the one in Maxian. There were four salesclerks behind the counter. Li Long chose an older one wearing glasses, subconsciously feeling that this person looked kind. At that moment, the clerk was patiently explaining the use of a sprayer to an old farmer.

Li Long waited patiently behind the old farmer. The bespectacled clerk glanced at him and continued the explanation.

When the old farmer finished listening and finally indicated that the sprayer was too expensive and he wouldn't buy it, the clerk didn't say anything and then looked at Li Long.

"I want to buy scythes—the large sickles herdsmen use to cut grass." Li Long added an explanation, worried the clerk wouldn't know what they were.

"Scythes, huh," the clerk thought for a moment and said, "I remember we brought in a batch a while ago that wouldn't sell, so we marked them down for clearance. I think there are still a few left. How many do you want?"

Upon hearing there was stock, Li Long was overjoyed and said:

"I want fifteen."

There were seven or eight young men building the winter shelters, and counting Yushanjiang and Halimu, that made ten. Li Long planned to prepare a few extra so they would be easier to distribute.

"I'll go check, wait a moment. There might not be that many." The clerk said, "We don't have many herdsmen around here, so few people ask for these."

After waiting a while, the clerk carried a bundle of items over and placed them on the wooden-framed glass counter, which made a crisp sound.

"Come, take a look and see if these are the scythes you wanted." The clerk said with a smile.

These items were wrapped in kraft paper and then tied together with rope, quite securely.

The clerk untied the rope and opened the kraft paper, revealing the metal objects inside.

They were indeed scythes, with blades about seventy or eighty centimeters long. Li Long touched the edge; they had been sharpened and felt very keen.

"You'll need to add a wooden handle yourself," the clerk said. "I remember you need to nail a small bracket at an angle on the wooden handle. I've never used one, just seen them."

This person was quite knowledgeable. Li Long looked at the clerk and then counted them: fifteen.

"Comrade, are there any more?" He felt that if he brought these over, Halimu and the others would definitely like them.

"No more. These fifteen are the last of the stock." The clerk said with a smile, "We're clearing out the bottom of the inventory. If you hadn't asked, they might have been returned in a few days."

"Alright, how much for one?" Li Long knew he couldn't ask for more; finding them at all was already a surprise.

"We're clearing inventory. The original price was four yuan and seven jiao. I'll give them to you at cost: three yuan each."

"Good." Li Long counted out forty-five yuan and handed it over.

"Please wrap them up for me." "No problem, please go over there and get a receipt."

Carrying the wrapped scythes, Li Long felt a heavy stone lift from his heart. At least these scythes would fulfill his commitment.

He had originally thought about going into the mountains right now to give the scythes to Halimu and the others, but after thinking about it, he decided against it. It would be better to hitch up the horse cart and go, bring the little deer back, and incidentally haul a load of manure back; he needed to plant vegetables in the courtyard too.

With his business finished, Li Long returned to the old street to take a good look around. He saw people selling fish and paid special attention to them.

There were three fish stalls. One specialized in large silver carp, while the other two were like his used to be, selling whatever fish they had. However, the quantity of fish wasn't high; he didn't know if it was because the time had passed and most of the fish had already been sold.

The price of fish had dropped a bit, which surprised Li Long. Although the small crucian carp weren't as pretty as the ones he caught in the small lake, the price was seven to eight jiao, and the large carp and grass carp were nine jiao to one yuan. There were still quite a lot of people buying fish.

Li Long guessed it was because the weather had turned hot and fish were easier to catch, so the price had fallen.

Ninety percent of the stalls on the old street sold handmade items and agricultural products, and the prices weren't low.

Li Long thought again of the suggestion he had made to Qin Hongyan: weaving baskets to sell.

There were a few stalls selling baskets, both large and small, as well as pot racks and hexagonal steamed bun trays made from sorghum stalks (broomcorn millet), mostly for one or two yuan.

Xinjiang was vast and sparsely populated, and labor had always been more expensive than in the interior. Especially at this time, the country's light industry hadn't developed yet, so many tools and utensils were handmade. The same item might sell for five jiao in the interior but could sell for a yuan here; after all, there were few people, but many things were needed.

!.

So in the coming years, a large number of people would come from the interior to look for work here.

Li Long remembered a famous question on the internet in later generations: why did so few people from Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia go to the interior to work? Naturally, it was because there were more job opportunities locally.

Of course, if you were talking about upper-level channels and high-paying positions, it naturally couldn't compare to the interior, as development was slower.

From Li Long's perspective, he couldn't think that high; he only knew that until the time he had his brain hemorrhage, rural areas, especially the Production and Construction Corps, were constantly in need of people from the interior to come and work.

Li Long saw someone selling vegetable seeds and bought some. The tomatoes at this time tasted much better than the so-called "fruit tomatoes" of later generations. He decided he must save the seeds in the future, lest he have to go to a seed company to buy seeds when the 2010s arrived. Although they produced more and looked prettier, the taste was never as good as in the 1980s.

Li Long had once thought it was just nostalgia for the taste of his childhood, as food wasn't abundant back then.

It wasn't until one time when he was traveling in the mountains and saw a poorly managed tomato patch in a farmhouse courtyard with a few ugly but red tomatoes that he picked one to taste, and then he knew—this damn thing was the taste of his childhood.

Unfortunately, after he ate it, the others traveling with him followed suit, and soon all the ripe tomatoes were picked and eaten, causing his plan to save seeds to fall through.

He regretted it for a year afterward!

Why was he so greedy at the time?

After buying the seeds and wandering around, finding nothing else he needed, Li Long rode his bicycle to the Mahe Bridge and stopped.

The water in the Mahe River had already risen, and the floodwaters were surging through, waves slapping against the bridge piers with a loud sound.

What surprised Li Long was that he actually saw people on both sides of the upper reaches of the river, heads bowed, looking for something.

Looking for jade?

Were people starting to get into jade at this time?

Clearly, he wasn't the only smart person at this time. There were many opportunities, and many people who seized them.

After resting for a while, he continued riding toward the county seat. He arrived at the courtyard, put down the scythes, stored them away, and then planned to see if he should plant some vegetables in this yard.

There were two small plots in the yard, each about a hundred square meters. Li Long thought he might as well plant tomatoes and chili peppers. Tomatoes, chili peppers, and eggplants were the most common vegetables stir-fried for *latiaozi* (hand-pulled noodles) in northern Xinjiang villages—if there was meat at home, adding some braised meat made the taste incredible.

Tools were standing against the courtyard wall. Li Long took a hoe and opened up rows in the two plots, buried the seeds in the furrows, and then used his feet to fill the furrows and pack the soil down.

While he was planting, a knock on the door rang out.

"Come in." Li Long shouted, continuing his work—who would be coming at this time? The water and electricity bill collector?

The person who entered was Officer Guo Tiebing, which surprised Li Long.

"Comrade Xiao Li, are you planting vegetables?" Guo Tiebing was also surprised to see Li Long holding a hoe. "What kind of vegetables?"

"Tomatoes and chili peppers." Li Long put down the tool and said with a smile:

"Is Officer Guo on a house call?"

"House call?" Guo Tiebing was a bit unfamiliar with the term. He shook his head and said, "No, I'm here to report the handling of that thief from last time. It's been cleared up. He came all the way from the interior, stole from seven households, and also snatched some supplies on the train, injuring three people. After we contacted our counterparts in the interior, we confirmed he had another assault case there. The person has now been taken away by our counterparts in the interior. Conservatively estimated, he should be sentenced to ten years or more."

"That's good." Li Long hadn't expected the person he encountered to be such a serious criminal. He felt a lingering fear. If he hadn't had the gun that day, it would likely have been a double injury.

"You don't live here often." After reporting the situation, Guo Tiebing asked, "I haven't seen you for several days."

"I'm a part-time purchasing agent for the supply and marketing cooperative, running around everywhere." Li Long explained, "I just purchased a batch of supplies from Shicheng to send into the mountains, and then I need to bring a batch of supplies down from the mountains. There's also the task of weaving carrying poles there, which I have to keep an eye on."

In fact, Guo Tiebing already knew about Li Long being reported for speculation, and he also understood that Li Long was a part-time purchasing agent for the cooperative; he just felt this person wasn't simple.

After Guo Tiebing left, Li Long finished planting the seeds and watered them. With nothing else to do, he wandered around the courtyard again.

This courtyard was certainly more "luxurious" than the winter shelter, but it didn't feel as intimate.

He wandered along the wall and discovered that there was something in the cracks of the blue brick wall!

The cracks were a bit small, so Li Long found a small knife and slowly pried the tiny things out of the wall cracks.

Money!

Looking at the "Bank of Communications" written from right to left and the traditional characters for "Republic of China National Currency," Li Long immediately confirmed that this stuff was "fabi" (legal tender)!

No wonder it was stuffed into the wall cracks.

Li Long suddenly became interested and searched every wall crack. Soon, he had a stack of fabi and gold yuan notes in his hand. What surprised him was that he even found a "Yuan Datou" (Yuan Shikai silver dollar)!

This was truly an unexpected joy!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 167 =====