Chapter 265: Tao Dayong gets smart for once

When Li Long returned from the county and went to set the nets with Tao Daqiang, he brought this matter up.

"If your big brother wants to earn money now, then go dig for this Cistanche. I'll buy as much as you can dig. Of course, the Cistanche dug up must be complete, without damage, and you have to clean off the soil on top. Pass this message on clearly; don't let your brother bring over a pile of damaged ones later, because then I won't buy them, and the one who will be in trouble then is you."

Li Long's words were earnestly noted by Tao Daqiang.

"I only buy fresh ones, at five cents per kilogram. If you work hard, digging over a hundred kilograms a day is no problem, and you can earn a few yuan, which isn't a small amount." Li Long then stated the point Tao Daqiang cared about most.

"That's not a small amount either." Li Qing Xia, listening from the side, chimed in.

Although Li Qing Xia could earn dozens of yuan every day now, he hadn't forgotten his previous state—five yuan a day was once his dream of a high salary!

Now, he actually looked down on it a little.

Although he knew that earning this money now certainly couldn't last forever, why did he have such a sense of superiority?

Tao Daqiang naturally didn't know what Li Qing Xia was thinking. He turned Li Long's words over in his mind twice more, and only after confirming he had remembered them did he set his heart at ease.

Actually, regarding the matter of catching fish, Li Long had also thought about gathering all the people setting nets and catching fish in the Little Haizi, and just being responsible for collecting the fish to sell, earning the price difference, but later he thought, forget it.

The current amount of fish was already the limit of what he could transport. If there were more fish, he would need a bigger and faster vehicle. Although a horse-drawn cart could carry more, the speed was slow, and the fish would die easily, making them hard to sell. Unless he got a tractor or other motorized vehicle, this couldn't be done.

Of course, this matter still required these people to take the initiative to propose it. Now that they were selling fish at the market, they had already tasted the sweetness, earning a few yuan or over ten yuan every day. If they were asked to sell the fish to Li Long, they certainly wouldn't be willing, as they would feel Li Long was earning the price difference.

This matter needed an opportunity.

This time, Li Long still set twelve nets. Selling fish on both sides was quite good, equivalent to attracting most of the people who liked to eat fish in the two markets.

After the nets were set, Li Long paddled the tire out, and Li Qing Xia was still there casting nets.

"Little Long, that fish is actually quite delicious when roasted. Can this carp and 'five-stripe black' be roasted?"

"They can be roasted." Li Long said with a smile, "Just add more seasonings. When roasting, use a knife to score the thick parts of the meat so the flavor can get into the meat, and that will be fine."

"That works, cast a few more nets, and we'll roast more tonight." Li Qing Xia said with a smile.

After returning, Li Long had a bit more work. He gutted the fish, kept the bladders and roe, and fed the remaining stomachs and intestines to the chickens.

Li Long simply rubbed the fish with scallions and ginger, scored the thick parts of the meat a few times, sprinkled on salt and chili powder, then wrapped them in several layers of oil sunflower leaves prepared beforehand, and stuffed them under the stove where there were still hot ashes.

"Dad, Mom, be careful of the fine bones when you eat." Li Long reminded them while carrying two gutted fish, then went to the Old Horse Station.

Tao Daqiang had already returned beforehand carrying a few fish; he also wanted to try the eating method Li Long mentioned. After all, there was nothing to do for the rest of the night, and although there was electricity and a radio, it still felt idle, so having some snacks was not bad.

After all, eating too much salted dried fish wasn't good, and this roasted fish was clearly much better than salted dried fish.

The next day, when Li Long returned after selling the fish, Tao Dayong had already brought a sack of Cistanche to the Li family's doorstep.

"Dayong, let me say the ugly words first." Li Long said, "If there are damaged or dirty ones, I won't buy them."

"Don't worry!" Tao Dayong was very confident, "Daqiang told me everything, I know how to dig!"

"Then come with me to the Old Horse Station; this Cistanche is only easy to dry over there." Li Long hung the scale from his house on the handlebars of his bike, then headed toward the Old Horse Station.

The Old Horse Station had many houses and a ladder to get up to the roof, so drying them up there was better. The Li family's house wasn't that big, and the roof wasn't as sturdy as the one built at the Horse Station, so Li Long planned to process the Cistanche at the Horse Station, and there were many empty houses there, making it easy to store.

When Tao Dayong carried the sack and arrived at the Horse Station with Li Long, and poured out those Cistanche, Li Long took a rough look, and it wasn't bad; basically, they were all complete.

Li Long picked out about five or six kilograms of damaged goods, and he put these things aside.

Tao Dayong was a bit embarrassed; he explained with a red face:

"Little Long, this... this is mostly from bumping..."

"Mm, I know." Li Long said, "But no matter what, I certainly can't buy these; even if I bought them, I couldn't sell them."

"Fine." Seeing that Li Long bought the rest, Tao Dayong set his heart at ease. He had estimated that this sack should be over fifty kilograms, and even subtracting these five or six kilograms, he could still get over two yuan.

Li Long and Tao Dayong worked together to put the rest back into the sack and weighed them separately.

"It's fifty-one kilograms in total, two yuan and fifty-five cents; that five cents is for the weight of the sack." Li Long said, "How about it?"

"Good, good." Tao Dayong was naturally willing.

Li Long took out the money, counted out two one-yuan notes, two twenty-cent notes, and one ten-cent note, handed them to him, and said:

"You can also dig with your wife, and use your dad's donkey cart to transport them. If you carry them on your back yourself, won't your body be all stained?"

Tao Dayong was exactly like that now; there was a purple-red patch on the clothes on his back. The sack was stained even redder.

"Hey, hey, I know." Tao Dayong actually had this idea too, but he was worried that he wouldn't see the money here, so this sack was considered a trial sale.

Holding the money, Tao Dayong happily carried the sack and walked quickly toward home. When he walked back home, Ma Chunhong was serving food. Seeing him return, she immediately asked:

"Did you sell it?"

"Sold it, two yuan!"

Two yuan was not a small amount in this day and age. The tuition and miscellaneous fees for the children in the family to go to school were less than two yuan.

"Two yuan for just this morning?" Ma Chunhong became excited all of a sudden, "Then I'll go follow you to dig this afternoon! This money is just like it came for free!"

People in the countryside aren't afraid of hard work, they're only afraid of working in vain. Not to mention now, even thirty or forty years later, when most of the land in the team had joined the cooperative, people who were idle heard that bitter beans and Achnatherum splendens could be sold for money, and they would ride electric tricycles all over the Gobi to dig, not afraid of the sun that scorched their skin.

"Alright." Tao Dayong also meant this, "Little Long also said, if my dad is free, let us call him, and use the donkey cart to pull them directly, that way the loss is small—the ones I dug today, five or six kilograms were rotten, and Little Long didn't buy them. If that stuff is transported by donkey cart, it will certainly be better."

"That's right." Ma Chunhong also nodded. If a husband and wife dug them and carried them back, that would be more than just ordinarily tiring. Moreover, she also knew that stuff stained, and was hard to wash. She only had those few pieces of clothes; if they were stained, how would she wear them later? It didn't matter for a man, but as a woman, she should still be careful.

She suddenly thought of one thing and whispered to Tao Dayong:

"His dad, you say Li Long buys them like this, is he going to earn money in the middle? If we dry this stuff ourselves and go sell it, can we sell it for more money?"

"Forget it!" Tao Dayong directly denied his wife's statement, "Last time when selling fish, you said the same thing, and what happened in the end? I got locked up!

I have seen it clearly; people have a fixed amount of money they can earn. We don't have this path, so don't think about those fancy tricks! Earn the money we should earn steadily... don't end up not earning money, and lose the little family foundation we managed to save with such difficulty!"

Ma Chunhong also thought of that incident and immediately said:

"Right, right, right, I was pig-fat-blinded."

The matter of the three people from the Tao family going to the alkaline beach to dig for Cistanche soon spread throughout the whole village.

There was no way to hide this stuff. When someone asked, Tao Dayong also generously said that Li Long would buy them there; after all, even if they didn't ask, others could find out by following. This alkaline beach had at least several thousand acres of land, and no one could say for sure how much Cistanche it could produce; it was impossible for one person to finish digging it all, so Tao Dayong didn't hide it.

Li Long, on his side, after seeing Tao Dayong off, seeing that he didn't take those damaged ones away, directly found an iron shovel, shoveled them up, and threw them into the pig pen and the roe deer pen.

He remembered seeing on a short video platform before that when some farmers in neighboring provinces dug this stuff and couldn't sell it for a good price, they would rather not sell it and take it to feed sheep and pigs, claiming it was health-preserving meat, and as a result, many people bought the meat.

This was like mountain flower honey; if the food fed was good, wouldn't the meat quality change? This was also why everyone pursued wild ones; after all, the food they ate was mixed.

In the afternoon, when Li Long returned from setting the nets and arrived at the Old Horse Station, Tao Jian She and Tao Dayong were driving a horse cart and brought a large and a small sack of Cistanche.

The small one was dug by Tao Jian She, and the large one was dug by Tao Dayong. Li Long picked out the damaged ones from them as usual, and then weighed them.

"Uncle Tao, this sack of yours is forty-eight kilograms, two yuan and forty cents." This time Li Long didn't subtract the weight of the sack; after all, it was Daqiang's dad, and this face had to be given.

"Good, good!" Tao Jian She was a bit embarrassed, and Li Long stuffed the money into his hand.

"Dayong, yours is eighty-six kilograms, four yuan and thirty cents, here is your money." Li Long said, "Are you going to pull these remaining damaged ones back, or what are you going to do?"

"If you don't want them, I'll pull them back." Tao Dayong naturally couldn't leave trash for Li Long in front of his old dad.

!.

"I'll feed them to the pigs." Li Long said.

"Then you keep them." Tao Dayong said very generously.

The damaged ones were no more than ten kilograms, and Tao Dayong could make this decision.

This time it was over four yuan, which was not a small amount! In one day, it was more than what Daqiang earned, and this time he could hold his head high!

"Dayong, help me out, lift these Cistanche up to the roof—don't break them."

"Alright!" Exerting some strength was nothing, and Tao Dayong agreed readily.

That same night, Tao Dayong appeared at the team's retail department and generously bought thirty cents worth of loose liquor.

Once the liquor was finished, when others asked, he couldn't help but publicize the matter of selling Cistanche, and he also stated the conditions Li Long mentioned.

Now everyone knew that digging Cistanche could earn money.

After drinking the liquor and returning home, Tao Dayong went to sleep, and when he got up early the next day and thought of this matter, he felt a bit regretful.

But it had already been said, so there was no help for it.

When the three of them sat on the donkey cart and went to the nearby alkaline beach, they discovered that there were at least a dozen people on the alkaline beach digging for Cistanche!

Ma Chunhong and Tao Jian She didn't know why, but Tao Dayong knew it was ruined.

"Let's change places." Tao Jian She had a firm idea, "The alkaline beach over at the East Big Ditch is even bigger, and there's more Cistanche. We have a donkey cart, we're not afraid of the road being far, and there shouldn't be anyone there."

"Right, right, right," Tao Dayong hurriedly agreed, and then the three of them sat on the donkey cart and went to a further alkaline beach.

In the following few days, Li Long could receive several hundred kilograms of Cistanche every day.

And with the current big sun, in three days, the Cistanche could be dried to eighty percent, and then Li Long would have them collected in sacks.

That same afternoon, he took a sack of Cistanche and went to the medicinal herb company, and found the director.

"The quality is not bad, I'll take these, and if it's like this later, I'll still take them." The director's attitude was very gentle. After Li Long showed that certificate, he no longer regarded Li Long as a herb digger. This person was definitely a middleman, but it didn't matter; as long as he could receive good things, it was fine.

A sack of dried Cistanche wasn't heavy; to ensure quality, Li Long didn't pack too many, the weight was sixty-two kilograms, and Li Long received thirty-one yuan.

Although it wasn't as good as selling fish, it was light and easy!

Now there were still five or six sacks of dried ones in the Horse Station warehouse. On the roof, there were also patches. These were all money!

Of course, this stuff was originally supposed to be dug a few months earlier to be in season, but now it was also fine. Li Long planned to start next year? Start collecting when it was in season, and the quality would be better then.

Some people in the team saw Li Long collecting Cistanche, so naturally, they knew this stuff could be sold for money, and some people had ideas.

Why could Li Long sell it for money? There were only a few collection points in the county; he could sell it, and others could naturally sell it too.

Qian Zhongxin thought exactly this way.

Qian Zhongxin had only come to the team two years ago, the whole family came together, relying on relatives, and it wasn't difficult to settle down at that time. After settling down, with the help of relatives, he built a mud-brick house, and this year he was allocated land, so at least he could eat his fill.

But people's hearts are never satisfied. The lessons of Tao Dayong and Gu Ermao, in Qian Zhongxin's view, were just being too stupid.

If you see the situation is not right, just run, how could you let yourself be caught? How can things be more important than people?

Of course, this time there wasn't so much trouble with this Cistanche, as long as you found the right place.

He first sold over forty kilograms of Cistanche to Li Long, of which over five kilograms were picked out, and Qian Zhongxin took those five-plus kilograms back.

The next day, he dried the ones he dug himself, including those damaged ones.

He felt that Li Long picking out these damaged ones was just looking for trouble and taking advantage. It was the same as medicinal herbs; what if they were damaged? Did it mean they had no effect? At most, the appearance wasn't good, and the selling price was a bit lower, but that was also money.

Then he carried the Cistanche he had dried himself and went to the collection station.

And then he was politely turned away by Chen Hongjun.

"We don't take them."

Qian Zhongxin wasn't discouraged either; anyway, he would just try them one by one.

The supply and marketing cooperative naturally didn't take them either.

So he found the medicinal herb company; after all, this Cistanche was a medicinal herb.

But he didn't even see the director before he was "invited" out. Mainly because he was holding that handful of Cistanche, and an insider could tell at a glance that the processing was amateurish, and there were damaged goods.

These people also knew the director's meaning. Now that there was bulk acquisition, don't take loose goods; it was too troublesome! (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 266 =====