Chapter 409

When Li Long turned his head to look, he discovered that the person calling him was Yusufu, that vendor who sold Hetian jade.

Yusufu didn't run over. He was setting up a stall on the side of the road over there, only walking a few steps toward this side, and from time to time he had to turn his head to look at the things on the stall.

Li Long then walked over. When he reached Yusufu, Li Long smiled, reached out his hand, and said:

"Hello, hello, Brother Yusufu, why are you setting up a stall here? Didn't you used to sell all your jade to the jade carving factory?"

Yusufu shook hands with Li Long, sighed, and said:

"People like us, we make a little money by reselling between the jade farmers and the factories. Recently, there's a state-run factory mining in Hetian, and the jade carving factory gets materials directly from the state-run mining area, so they take fewer materials from us. Besides, it's winter now, so fewer jade farmers are digging for jade. We can't collect jade, so we can only sell our inventory, and there are fewer people buying. Now, there's no other way; I plan to sell these jades on hand, and then go buy raisins to sell in the south..."

This made Li Long feel a bit absurd—no matter what, selling jade should be better than selling raisins, right?

However, he realized it immediately after.

It is now 1983, and the former richest man in the autonomous region started out by selling raisins. At this time, many people carried a sack of raisins and a bag of naan, took the train south to sell them, and then bought popular items from the south to sell here.

These people tossed back and forth; as long as they weren't caught, most of them quickly became the first batch of "ten-thousand-yuan households" here, and subsequently began to dabble in other industries, step by step becoming outstanding wealthy people in various prefectures and states.

Hetian jade at this time is really cheap. Let alone this time, even in the nineties, the Qinghai material that is quite expensive in later generations was sold for a few thousand yuan a truckload—in another ten or twenty years, a few thousand yuan will only be able to buy one piece.

On the side of the Bai Yu River, it is rumored that someone got a lot of first-grade white jade ore and sealed it in their basement with cement. I don't know if it's true or false—if it's true, then after twenty or thirty years, they would definitely be a billionaire.

Of course, it's just something to listen to; just like betting on jadeite and getting imperial green, they are all legends.

"Then let me take a look at your jade." Since he was here and had run into him, Li Long thought he would take a look. Anyway, after buying this thing and keeping it for a few years, it's guaranteed to appreciate, and it will continue to appreciate. After all, jade culture is carved into the bones of the Chinese people. Being the only one in the world to have created a jade culture era before the Bronze Age, this thing is already in the genes.

"Okay, okay." Yusufu calling Li Long over meant this as well. This young man is younger than him. When he first came over, he also sold jasper seed material. Although Yusufu wouldn't look down on Li Long, he still had a bit of a sense of superiority.

But in the interactions of meeting time and time again, he discovered that this young man is very capable, at least more capable than him, not only dealing in jade but also doing other things, and it seems he earns money faster and more than he does.

"Your eyesight is very good. You recognized me even from such a far place." Li Long said with a smile while looking at Yusufu's stall.

"There's no other way." Yusufu smiled, "People like us, doing business relies on eyesight. Setting up a stall here, if you want to sell things, you have to have a pair of good eyes; otherwise, you won't see the people who want to buy things, and you won't be able to sell much money in a day."

Li Long nodded, didn't speak again, and began to look at the jade on the stall.

Yusufu's stall is not large, using a blanket as a base. This blanket is about 1.2 meters long and 1 meter wide, with jade of all sizes placed on it. The front row is all small materials, some with skin and some without, but the smallest are the size of a fist, and the largest are the size of a soccer ball.

These jades are basically seed materials, including white jade, green jade, and ink jade, but mainly white jade. After all, the price of white jade is the highest these days.

Li Long took a fancy to a piece of white jade weighing two or three kilograms at a glance, with a piece of "sprinkled gold" skin on it. The image looks a bit like a person sitting cross-legged, which is very beautiful.

Li Long once suspected, wouldn't this skin be fake?

He picked up the jade and looked at it, feeling it was very delicate and a bit cool to the touch. The skin looked very complete, with no traces of having been tampered with.

He felt his own thoughts were also a bit ridiculous. At this time, Yusufu is anxious to sell and can't sell it, so how could he still be thinking of making fakes?

"How much for this piece?" Li Long raised his head and asked.

"For this piece, you take it for one hundred and twenty." Yusufu said, "I didn't give you a fake quote. This jade used to be sent to the jade carving factory, at least one hundred and sixty. However, now the jade carving factory only accepts large pieces of jade, and they don't look at such small materials."

Li Long felt one hundred and twenty was also fine. After all, even if he is a semi-layman, he can see that this is real mutton-fat jade. Even if it's not top-tier, it's very, very good.

"I'll take it. But you have to give me some small materials. You don't need to use the ones on your stall; the small ones in your bag are fine." Li Long knew that Yusufu must have those small materials in the sack placed by the side of the stall. Such small materials are not accepted by the factory, and jade farmers usually don't cherish them much when they dig them out, and second-hand dealers will also include some when they collect jade.

"Okay, okay. You take another look, see if you want anything else; I have many good things here." Having completed one transaction, Yusufu was very happy.

Li Long picked a few more seed materials weighing less than one kilogram. They all looked good, but the size wasn't large, and the price Yusufu gave was also cheap, adding up to two hundred yuan in total.

Of course, there were plenty of "extras." Yusufu took out large handfuls of small seed materials the size of fingertips, quail eggs, and even pigeon eggs from the bag and stuffed them into Li Long's bag.

"I can sell you one such business a day, and that's enough." Yusufu took the money handed over by Li Long and said happily, "Sigh, business is too hard to do now. This jade, the factory doesn't want it, and ordinary people don't really buy it; it's too hard."

Li Long has a use for the money, otherwise he could have bought out all the seed materials here from Yusufu.

But the fact is it's not very easy. He estimated that all the jade added together would cost at least one or two thousand yuan. Firstly, he doesn't have that much cash on hand, and secondly, he is not a jade reseller; having some on hand is enough.

"Adashi, what are you doing in Wucheng this time? You're not selling jade, are you?" Yusufu carefully put the money into his inner jacket pocket, patted it lightly, and asked Li Long.

"No, I'm not selling jade, and I haven't found any good jade recently." Li Long packed up those jades and then said to him:

"I'm going to the seed company; I want to ask if there are any oil-seed watermelon seeds."

"Oil-seed watermelon? I don't know. Which seed company are you going to?" Yusufu is in a very good mood now and asked proactively.

"Which one? Are there several?"

"The big ones, there are two. The Corps Seed Company and the Autonomous Region Seed Company." Yusufu is still very knowledgeable about Wucheng, at least more knowledgeable than Li Long. Although Li Long had worked as an apprentice here before, he visited few places, and they were basically places where goods were sold.

"I want to go see both." Li Long thought for a moment and said.

"Then the Corps one is in the Tianshan District, and the Autonomous Region one is in the Sha District. If you want to go, you have to take different buses." Yusufu pointed out for him, "If you want to go, go early. There is still some distance between the two places. If you go slowly, you won't be able to return to your county today."

Yusufu told Li Long how to take the bus, which made Li Long very grateful.

"No need, no need, you bought my jade, so I'm very grateful." Yusufu said with a smile, "Adashi, we should help each other. Alright, go do your business quickly."

Li Long waved at him and left carrying his bag. Just then, a bus came over, and Li Long ran over and sat on the bus. When the bus bypassed Yusufu's jade stall, he even waved at Li Long in the bus.

According to Yusufu's guidance, Li Long easily found the Corps Seed Company.

This is a two-story building. There is a shop on the first floor, and the windows on the second floor are open. Li Long guessed it should be an office. After Li Long took a look at the wooden sign of the Corps Seed Company, he pushed the door and walked in.

It was still an old-fashioned wooden counter, and a female comrade in her fifties was organizing various seeds inside one by one behind the counter.

"Comrade, hello, I'd like to ask if you have any oil-seed watermelon seeds here." Li Long asked proactively.

"Oil-seed watermelon?" That auntie took a look at Li Long and then asked:

"You want to plant oil-seed watermelons? Not many people ask about this, and even fewer know about it."

"Yes." Seeing the curious expression on this auntie's face, Li Long explained, "Our village started contracting production to households last year, and this year we might carry out land contracting. Planting ordinary grain doesn't make much money, so I want to try planting oil-seed watermelons."

"That's a good idea, but do you know how to plant oil-seed watermelons? The soil, fertilizer, sowing method, field management, including water use, are all different from ordinary grain crops."

"I remember, it should be sandy land, right?" At this moment, Li Long was a bit like a primary school student being questioned. The key is that this auntie's temperament was really like a professor or lecturer or something. Although it was just a normal question, Li Long subconsciously stuttered and started speaking in the posture of a student:

"Sandy land is correct." The auntie gave an appreciative feedback.

"And then, spot sowing, right," Li Long thought again and said, "It should be about the same as watermelon planting. In addition, it's best to build ridges so that when watering, it won't soak the melons..."

That's all he could remember.

"Not bad, you know a little, but it's not comprehensive." The auntie nodded, then shook her head and said:

"Planting oil-seed watermelons, it is indeed sandy soil, mature land with little saline-alkali, spot sowing, three to five seeds per hole, one mu of land needs one and a half to two kilograms of seeds, frequently weeding and cultivating, so that weeds don't compete with the oil-seed watermelon seedlings for fertilizer. Before planting, the seeds should be sun-dried, and after drying, they should be soaked in water for a day, which makes them easier to germinate..."

This female comrade explained to Li Long sentence by sentence. Li Long now only regrets that he didn't bring a pen and paper to write these down.

"... Hmm, that's about it. To tell you the truth, not many people in the whole Xinjiang plant these oil-seed watermelons, but the price of the seeds is quite high. You being able to think of it shows you have unique vision. We have some seeds here, not many, twenty-plus kilograms... take a look..."

"I want them, I want them!" Li Long said hurriedly. "You didn't even ask how much money it is before wanting them." That auntie said with a smile, "It's not cheap. However, if you plant them well, you can earn it back in one mu of land. We also purchase seeds here, of course, the quality must be good."

"Okay, okay, okay, then may I ask how much one kilogram costs?" Li Long started taking out money.

"Seven yuan and fifty cents." The female comrade said, "How many kilograms do you want? Let's be clear first, we won't purchase them at such a high price, at most three yuan."

"Understood, I'll take them all." Li Long said excitedly, "Can I come to you for advice when I have time?"

"Haha, I wouldn't dare to say 'advice,' but I should probably stay here for a while." This auntie said with a smile, "Of course, it's not certain how long, maybe a year, maybe shorter."

"Then you... where are you going?" Li Long hesitated for a moment and asked. Clearly, the person in front of him should be a great talent, and staying in this small seed company is indeed a waste of talent.

"I was originally from the August First Agricultural College, and later, I might go back there." The auntie said with emotion.

As expected, she is a powerful person!

Li Long felt that his luck today was quite good.

"How do you plan to sow the oil-seed watermelons?" That person asked while weighing the seeds for Li Long.

!.

"Spot sowing." Li Long said, "I plan to go to the farm machinery factory to find someone to make a spot-sowing tool, which is the kind where the middle is a tube, there is a mechanism on top, there are seeds inside, and underneath is a pointed mouth opening controlled by the mechanism above. When you poke it into the ground and press the mechanism with your hand, the pointed mouth opening can spit out a few seeds, and then when you release it, the pointed mouth opening closes. This will be more convenient for planting..."

This is a tool Li Long bought from the old street when he was planting cotton and corn in later generations. Similar ones include hand-pushed wheel-type spot seeders. You don't need a machine; you just push it manually and walk, which is even more convenient, fast, and efficient than the spot seeder just mentioned. At that time, buying this was to replant seedlings. After all, the strong winds every spring would cause quite a loss of seedlings during sowing, and the cost of replanting was too high. It was not easy to control the machine for supplementary sowing, so he did it manually.

If this thing is created, it will be very useful at a time when mechanization has not yet been popularized, and the principle is very simple. Li Long believes this thing should be very useful.

"What you said is really... did you think of it yourself?" That auntie understood after a little thought, and she asked with some surprise, "This is really a good thing! Have you worked in a farm machinery factory?"

Li Long was ashamed, but anyway, since the real inventor hasn't appeared yet, he'll just claim it first. He nodded and said:

"No, I'm just a farmer, thinking about it blindly. After all, manual spot sowing is fine for one or two mu, but for more than ten mu, it's too troublesome to plant, so I thought of such a thing, but I haven't practiced it yet."

"It can definitely be used." That person nodded, "Actually, you can cooperate with the farm machinery factory. You teach them the method, let them manufacture it for you, and they can also share the money with you after they sell it. After all, you invented it..."

It is already 1983, and people's discussion of money is no longer as obscure as before. The country encourages everyone to get rich, so earning money by one's own ability is upright and honorable.

Li Long really hadn't thought that much, but thinking about it now, he felt this was indeed a good path.

Originally, he thought about going directly to the township farm machinery repair factory to find someone to order one. But now it seems that the township farm machinery repair factory is a bit small. At least an enterprise like the Shicheng Dongfanghong Tractor Factory would be needed, and Wucheng's wouldn't be bad either. After all, ordinary wheat and corn sowing can be mechanized, and there are special seeders. But the sowing of some economic crops is not easy to use with such seeders.

For example, cotton, and the spot seeders and drill seeders that came out later, etc.

This kind of thing is a supplement to mechanization, and the market is very broad.

"Come, it's weighed for you." The auntie weighed the bag of twenty-plus kilograms of oil-seed watermelon seeds on the scale, "Twenty-one and a half kilograms, enough to plant ten mu of land. I'll write you a receipt."

Li Long took the receipt and paid the money, looking at the bag and then at the bag he brought, it seemed it couldn't hold it. He didn't expect to be able to buy it directly, and the black bag he brought was a bit small, mainly because he came over to ask.

"You take the bag directly; anyway, there's only this much goods in total." The auntie finished counting the money, pulled open the drawer and put it in, and said with a smile:

"If you have any questions, you can come and ask. By the way, if I'm not here in the future, you can go to the August First Agricultural College to find me. My name is Wu Shuyi."

"My name is Li Long, thank you! Goodbye!" Li Long remembered this name, carried the bag, turned around and walked out the door. When he reached the door, he suddenly stopped again, took something out of his bag, turned around, put it on the counter, and said with some embarrassment:

"Comrade, this is for you, thank you!"

After finishing, he carried the bag and hurried out the door.

Wu Shuyi was stunned for a moment, and then looked at the thing Li Long put on the counter.

It was a piece of Hetian jade seed material, slightly smaller than a fist, with date-red skin, looking quite beautiful.

"This young man is quite interesting, huh." Wu Shuyi picked up the piece of seed material and looked at it carefully. She didn't think this jade was worth much money, she just felt that Li Long was really different from the customers she had met before.

Subsequently, she put the jade into her pocket and continued to organize the seeds in the counter.

Do one day's work and be responsible for one day.

Li Long went out the door, a little nervous, and even looked back, fearing that the auntie would chase him out the door, and then he laughed.

Alright, today's itinerary ends here. There's no need to go to the other seed company. With these twenty kilograms of seeds, it should be enough for a trial planting.

After all, you can't do too much at the beginning.

Let's go back.

Li Long carried the bag of seeds on his back and went to the bus station.

While waiting for the bus, he smelled a fragrance of food, and Li Long remembered that it was almost afternoon since he came over, and he hadn't eaten lunch yet.

Hungry.

He followed the smell, turned his head and saw a canteen not far away. Seeing that there was no sign of the bus coming yet, he turned toward the canteen.

There were not many people in the canteen. At this time, it was no longer mealtime, and two or three people were eating. There were both soup noodles and mixed noodles.

Li Long saw garlic on the table, so he ordered mixed noodles with oil-fried meat, paid the money and tickets, sat at the table and started peeling garlic.

When the noodles were served, Li Long subconsciously wanted to compare them with those in Maxian and Shicheng.

The noodles here were pulled a bit thinner, and the mutton smell of the meat was slightly heavier, but it was also acceptable.

"Two extra servings of noodles." Li Long gestured with his hand, "One noodle soup."

Then he put the peeled garlic into the noodle bowl, poured the vegetables on top, mixed it with chopsticks, and started eating in big mouthfuls.

In less than a minute, the two extra servings of noodles were served. Li Long poured the two small bowls of noodles into the noodle bowl together, mixed them a few times and continued eating.

Wolfing down food, nothing more than this.

Noodles shouldn't be eaten continuously; eating them together is fragrant. The second bowl is never as fragrant as the first, so just keep eating the first bowl.

After a large bowl of noodles, and drinking some soup to relieve the greasiness, Li Long felt that life's satisfaction was nothing more than this.

He didn't want to move anymore.

After a good while, he stood up somewhat reluctantly, wiped his mouth, carried the black bag in his left hand, and the bag containing the watermelon seeds in his right hand, and walked out.

Just as he went out the door, he saw a bus stopped at the bus stop sign, which was exactly the one he wanted to take. He immediately quickened his pace and hurried over. The bus driver had already started the engine, saw Li Long, and stepped on the brake to stop again.

Li Long was happy; he was really lucky today! (End of chapter)