Chapter 470: You Owe Me Five Kilograms of Fritillaria!

When Li Zheng Tang dragged Li Zhengting to the wooden cabin, Li Long had just opened the door, preparing to go to the open-air toilet in the back to relieve himself.

He was stunned when he saw the two brothers. This perseverance was quite strong; they rushed back in one night?

"Boss Li, please help." Li Zheng Tang couldn't care about embarrassment anymore, supporting the weak Li Zhengting and shouting: "Please help."

"What's wrong?" Li Long looked at Li Zhengting's flushed face and asked: "Fever?"

"Mm, we slept in a stone crevice last night. The wind blew in the middle of the night, and he caught a cold. Zhengting's body itself is weak, and the root of his last illness hasn't been broken yet, so..."

"Come, come, come, come inside first." Li Long couldn't drive them away, so he said: "Come in and drink some hot water. I have medicine here."

"Thank you so much, thank you so much!" Li Zheng Tang was full of gratitude. "Boss Li, you are a great person!"

"Don't! This isn't free." Li Long didn't know what stimulated him. He helped support Li Zhengting to sit by the stove and said: "I'll give you a pack of medicine. One or two pills won't cure him. If you want to break the root, you have to take medicine for at least three days. This medicine has a price."

"How much money?" Li Zheng Tang regretted not buying medicine when he got the money yesterday. Now that Li Long said he wanted money, he opened his mouth without hesitation. "We still have some money on us..."

"Not expensive. This pack of medicine, you give me five kilograms of fritillaria."

"Are you robbing money?" Li Zhengting wasn't unconscious yet, just weak. Hearing Li Long say this, he couldn't help but open his mouth.

"That's fine, you don't have to take it. You can leave here now." Li Long mocked. "I didn't beg you to come over and ask me for medicine, did I?"

"Zhengting! Shut up!" Li Zheng Tang scolded his cousin. At this time, let alone five kilograms of fritillaria, he would pay fifty kilograms. If this cousin's body really had something wrong, he wouldn't have to go back to his hometown. Besides, were five kilograms of fritillaria much? Wasn't it just a day's amount! The other party saying this was clearly a reaction to the two of them running outside the mountains to sell fritillaria. If he didn't make a sound, he would be worried instead.

After scolding his cousin, Li Zheng Tang accompanied him with a smile and said to Li Long:

"Sorry, Boss Li. We all have the surname Li; maybe we were one family five hundred years ago. For the sake of the same surname, please trade this medicine to us. Five kilograms of fritillaria, no problem! I'll bring it to you tomorrow! Don't listen to Zhengting's words; he's confused by the fever, and what he says doesn't count... Please, please!"

"Fine, there's a bowl over there. You pour him boiling water, and I'll get the medicine." Li Long pointed to the bowl on the case to Li Zheng Tang and said: "Take this medicine twice a day. You give him two pills at a time; I see one pill won't suppress it. After eating, don't rush to leave. It's quite cold outside now. You wait until the sun comes out before leaving."

After Li Long finished instructing, he went to the small wooden cabin and took a board of medicine to Li Zheng Tang. This long board of aspirin had twenty pills, and the medicinal materials company sold it for more than one yuan. Li Long's price here was ten times higher, which was naturally carrying a bit of punishment in it.

If he hadn't seen it, that would be fine. Since he saw it, he naturally had to act.

One couldn't be too kind in the mountains, otherwise, one couldn't mix. After all, these drifters weren't all people who ran over from the interior to get rich like Sun Jia Qiang. No one dared to guarantee whether the face behind the next kind and honest face was a desperate person.

However, Li Long knew some details about the two Li Zheng Tang and Li Zhengting brothers. Their behavior determined that they weren't ruthless people, nor were they bad people.

Li Zheng Tang fed the medicine to his cousin and let him drink another bowl of water. At this time, Li Long had already put a grate on the stove, went to the case to cut the cold steamed buns into slices, and roasted them. After roasting, it was also pretty good to eat with red bean curd.

He roasted three steamed buns. After roasting, he handed a few slices to Li Zheng Tang and Li Zhengting each.

Li Zheng Tang hesitated whether to take it or not. Li Long said:

"Those five kilograms of fritillaria include the meal money."

The tone was flat, making people unable to feel gratitude, but it was real food given to them.

At this time, the stomachs of the two were already empty. One reason for Li Zhengting's illness was also because he hadn't eaten, his stomach was hungry, and his resistance was poor. Now that there was food, and thinking that those five kilograms of fritillaria offset part of the meal money, he took the steamed bun slices and ate them.

Li Zheng Tang still thanked him. Li Long took chopsticks and clamped two pieces of red bean curd to share one piece with each person. The two of them also accepted it silently.

Li Zhengting ate two slices of roasted steamed bun, relaxed, felt a bit of strength, and then continued to eat. At this time, voices came from outside.

"Is Boss Li in?"

Li Long recognized it; this was Wu Benzhong's voice.

"Yes, Old Wu?" Li Long shouted, "Come in and eat something."

Wu Benzhong walked in carrying a bag of fritillaria and was stunned when he saw Li Zheng Tang and Li Zhengting. He had seen these two people in the mountains, but he didn't expect them to be eating with Li Long here. He knew Sun Jia Qiang and Li Long had a good relationship, but were these two also?

"Come, eat something together." Li Long was a bit warmer to Wu Benzhong, "Roasted steamed buns, do you want them?"

"Of course I want them." Wu Benzhong didn't stand on ceremony, took the steamed bun, and ate it.

Li Long cut two more steamed buns and roasted them. While roasting, he asked:

"Is this fritillaria for two days?"

"Mm, fritillaria have grown out in these two days, they grow fast, so they must be dug as soon as possible, otherwise they will be empty after flowering."

"I see there are fourteen or fifteen kilograms. Your skill has grown!"

"No way, the front was taken away by many, now I have to find it back. You look and give it, I have to go back to dig after eating. I was terrified when I came over just now, fearing I would run into that kid."

Li Long knew he was talking about Hamiti. That kid was really dark, and he specialized in collecting fritillaria. Li Long even suspected that some people might have come to his place to trade things, but were intercepted halfway by him.

Li Zheng Tang and Li Zhengting felt really uncomfortable looking at the fritillaria Wu Benzhong dug. If they hadn't gone down the mountain, would there be more fritillaria in their dugout shelter?

Regretting it, it was too late to say anything. They wouldn't do such a stupid thing again in the future.

Wu Benzhong didn't eat anymore after eating half a roasted steamed bun. He stood up and let Li Long settle the account for him.

"Let's weigh it." Li Long said, "Otherwise, how to calculate?" He took the scale from the small room and weighed these fritillaria.

"Fifteen kilograms is still a bit high, how about forty-six yuan for you?"

Li Long weighed the fritillaria and poured it into a large basin. The fritillaria was very fresh, with mud and leaves, but not much. There were large and small ones.

"Fine." Wu Benzhong naturally had no opinion, "I just thought about coming over once every two days, this is pretty good, no need to carry it to the county seat and suffer."

He said this, and Li Zheng Tang and Li Zhengting felt even worse. How did they think of such a stupid idea before?

Li Long took out money from his inner pocket, counted out four large bills, one steel worker and one female tractor driver, fanned the new bills, and handed them to Wu Benzhong.

Wu Benzhong took the money, smelled it in front of his nose, and said with a smile:

"New money smells good! I'm reluctant to fold this money. Alright, Boss Li, I'm leaving. I'll come over after digging for two more days."

After Wu Benzhong left, Li Zheng Tang and Li Zhengting also had no intention of eating.

Li Long didn't care about them either, gathered the roasted steamed bun slices into the bun plate, took a slice, smeared some red bean curd, covered it with another slice, and ate it like a meat-stuffed bun, eating nearly half in one bite.

After eating the steamed buns, Li Long didn't ask if the two people wanted to eat anymore and began to clean up. Li Zheng Tang hurriedly helped clean up. He took the enamel basin to the spring eye to wash it, washed it several times before returning. On this side, Li Zhengting looked at the outside of the door in a daze, not knowing what he was thinking.

After a while, the sun came out, and the temperature outside the house rose a bit. Li Zheng Tang looked at Li Zhengting. Li Zhengting stood up, walked two steps, felt it was okay, and nodded to him.

"Boss Li, then we're leaving. I'll bring the five kilograms of fritillaria I owe you tonight or tomorrow morning." Li Zheng Tang said sincerely.

"Fine." Li Long nodded.

Actually, he was just saying it, letting the other party know that the first time he gave medicine for free, but later, if he really wanted to say he collected a return, it could be considered as offsetting on both sides. This time he proposed to want fritillaria, which was also to tell the other party that it was impossible for him to give medicine for nothing.

If these two brothers didn't appear in the future, Li Long wouldn't do anything to them. After all, the mountains were so big, and if they hid inside, Li Long really couldn't find them.

However, he believed Li Zheng Tang wouldn't do such a stupid thing.

Watching the two people leave, Li Long took the fritillaria Wu Benzhong brought to the spring eye to wash, and after washing, spread it on the case outside to dry.

Then he parked the tractor on the west side of the wooden cabin, swept the wooden floor in front of the house clean with a large broom, took the fritillaria collected yesterday from the small wooden cabin, poured it on the wooden floor, and began to dry it.

After drying the fritillaria, he took the bedding in the bedroom, hung it on the tractor outside, and prepared to dry it well to kill bacteria and disinfect.

After all these were done, Li Long still planned to take out the wild boar meat to continue drying, but horse hoof sounds rang out, and Bolati rode his horse from afar.

"You have another harvest?" Li Long was a bit surprised, "Whose fritillaria is this collecting?"

"Not collecting, not collecting." Bolati waved his hand and said, "This was given to me by the leader of our small group in the forestry team, asking me to find you to trade for some rice and flour, trade for some wine, trade for some salt, brick tea, and granulated sugar."

He took the bag from the saddle and handed it to Li Long.

This bag was quite heavy. Li Long weighed it and felt it was about ten kilograms, but when he opened the bag, he found that it was too dirty inside. Li Long held the bag open, frowned, and said to Bolati:

"You see for yourself, this is too dirty."

"It's okay, you can give a lower price if it's dirty." Bolati didn't side with his leader at all, "I know you, you're fair. You just give the price, and we'll trade things."

Li Long took a large basin and poured these fritillaria into it, feeling that there must be at least one and a half kilograms of impurities in ten kilograms of fritillaria.

"These fritillaria, calculated as twenty-five yuan." Li Long said, "How much rice and flour do you want?"

"Is it okay to have a bag of each?"

"Fine, I'll give you a bag of each." One bag was twenty-five kilograms, and the calculation was about twelve yuan.

"Is it okay to have a cage of loose wine, the five-kilogram kind?"

"Fine."

"You look at the rest and give it. It doesn't matter if there is any." With the most important few things, Bolati didn't have any opinions.

"Fine, rice and flour, wine, and I'll give you five brick teas and five salts."

!.

This was about it. Li Long finally added a strip of granulated sugar, which made Bolati happy. Li Long moved things, and he put them on the horse, and he even used a large cloth to wrap the rest, not afraid of breaking it.

After getting on the horse, Bolati pointed to Li Zheng Tang and Li Zhengting who were still walking in the distance and asked:

"Are those two your friends? Do you want me to take care of them in the future?"

"No need, no need." Li Long waved his hand, "They are also here to trade things. You handle it." By the way, where is Hamiti?"

"He was beaten by someone." Bolati waved his hand, "This young man is too ruthless. He watched a few people every day, waiting for them to finish digging fritillaria and then went over to confiscate them. As a result, people joined forces and beat him up. Fortunately, those people didn't want to cause trouble and didn't beat him to death. One leg was broken, and it's estimated he won't be able to come for a few months."

Bolati shook his head and left.

Li Long was really a bit surprised, and then a bit puzzled.

They had guns in the forestry team, so how could they be beaten by others? Was this a trap?

Or were there other reasons?

It seems that one really can't be too kind in this mountain, otherwise, it's easy to be beaten!

Li Long waited until Bolati went far away before taking out the air-dried wild boar meat and hanging it on the rope outside to dry. This meat wasn't very dry yet, and if it wasn't dried, there would be some problems with preservation. Drying it made it easy to preserve and easy to trade.

After hanging the air-dried meat, Li Long locked the door, carried his gun, and took his machete to walk into the forest in front. He planned to cut some tree branches back to build the toilet.

Although the road was relatively short, because of this incident with Hamiti, he felt it was better to carry the gun. No one dared to say whether there was danger in the vicinity.

When Li Long was carrying an armful of tree branches and walking toward the wooden cabin, Li Zheng Tang and Li Zhengting also entered the forest.

"Brother, put me down. Let's go to the stone crevice and take our things back now, otherwise, if they are left for a long time, I'm worried that those things will be damaged by wild beasts." Li Zhengting said.

He was still relatively weak. He felt it wasn't quite right after walking less than ten meters from Li Long's house, but since he had already walked out, it wasn't good to go back, so Li Zheng Tang had to support him and walk forward.

After walking less than a kilometer, his head was already full of weak sweat, and he couldn't persist anymore.

"Don't walk first. If I leave and you run into something here, what if you get eaten?" Li Zheng Tang glared at him, "Human life is the most important, others are secondary. If you can't walk, let me carry you."

Li Zheng Tang was older than Li Zhengting, but his foundation was solid, and he hadn't been sick much, so carrying someone to walk was no problem.

Li Zhengting wasn't happy, but Li Zheng Tang didn't want to delay time here anymore. After carrying Li Zhengting, he quickly walked toward their dugout shelter.

After resting four times in the middle, he finally reached their dugout shelter, and Li Zheng Tang was also exhausted. He supported Li Zhengting into the dugout shelter, covered him with a quilt to let him rest, and he himself reluctantly went to get some firewood to light the stove piled with three stones. He filled a steel pot with water and boiled it. He also used a broken towel to pad the steel pot and put it down, found two enamel basins with half broken porcelain, poured boiling water into them, and then went to the stream to fetch water and put it on the stove, and added some firewood under the stove, only then did he drill into the dugout shelter to rest, waiting until the fire under the stove was about to go out and the water in the steel pot was about to boil dry, only then did Li Zheng Tang climb up, use a broken towel to pad the pot and put it down, find some corn flour from the dugout shelter, and prepare to make some paste to drink.

The purchased supplies weren't there, so he had to make do. Although Li Zhengting had reached the dugout shelter and was temporarily safe, Li Zheng Tang didn't plan to get the things now. He was worried that if he went now and ran into that young man from the forestry team on the way back, his things would definitely be confiscated. That young man was unreasonable and wouldn't ask how these things came about. He had a gun in his hand, and his words were big.

He didn't know that Hamiti had been beaten and wouldn't be in contact with them for a while.

Li Zhengting had already fallen into a deep sleep, and the fever had subsided a bit, but Li Zheng Tang knew that it was estimated that he would have a fever in the afternoon. The most important thing now was to survive this day.

Of course, he had to have something to eat to survive. Now he regretted a bit not buying some food at Li Long's place. Although they still had some stock here, there wasn't much nutritious stuff.

If he had known, he would have traded for some meat.

On Li Long's side, after tying the toilet with tree branches, he felt it looked like something and patted his hands with satisfaction.

Originally, he also planned to hang a sign on it, with "occupied" on one side and "vacant" on the other, but thinking about it, he didn't bother to toss and turn like that again.

After finishing the toilet, the morning was almost over, and he had to prepare lunch.

He had been making do last night and this morning, so Li Long planned to cook a good meal at noon.

He steamed rice in the room, got some wild onions and wild mushrooms, added meat, and stir-fried two dishes. Because the case was occupied by fritillaria, he simply filled a large enamel basin with rice, covered it with thick vegetables, and sat on the door frame to mix and eat.

Very beautiful!

After eating, Li Long habitually moved the stool to the door, basking in the sun, dozing off while listening to the radio, how comfortable it was.

And then he was interrupted.

Two strange drifters carrying bags walked over.

Li Long reached out and picked up the gun from the side of the door.

He narrowed his eyes and looked at them. He was very sure that these two people were the first time he had seen them.

"Boss, I heard that fritillaria can be traded for money and things here?" The thinner one of the two opened his mouth in a Northwest dialect, similar to the Hui-Xinjiang dialect.

"Mm." Li Long nodded, "What do you want to trade?"

"I want to trade for money."

"I want to trade for things. Do you have rice and flour? Do you have matches?"

"Trade for money, three yuan per kilogram of fritillaria." Li Long said, "Trade for things, trade according to this price."

"Three yuan? A bit less, right?" The one who wanted to trade for money was a bit dissatisfied, "This fritillaria of mine is half-dried..."

"Open the bag, let me see." Li Long was still quite vigilant. Someone had beaten Hamiti, could it be these two people?

"Fine." The two people put down the bags and took two steps back.

Very sensible.

Li Long stepped forward, grabbed a handful of fritillaria, and looked at it.

It was indeed half-dried, about forty percent dry, and it was estimated that it would be dried after drying for a few more days.

It was also equally dirty inside, with dry stones and rocks.

"Mm, this one of yours, I'll collect it for ten yuan." Li Long said, "There are a bit too many impurities."

"Fine, ten yuan, okay!"

"Then what about mine?" The other person asked.

Li Long also grabbed a handful of the other party's fritillaria and looked at it. This one was much cleaner, but the dryness wasn't as good as that one, so he said:

"Trade for things at eleven yuan."

"Alright!" Both of them were very happy.

Li Long was also very happy. (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 471 =====