Chapter 661: The Woman Who Wanted a Knife

"Hello, are you Li Long?" A young man rode over. He was about the same age as Li Long. He rode his horse up to the jeep and asked while still in the saddle.

"I am. Are you... from the Forestry Team?" Seeing the young man carrying a rifle on his back, Li Long also asked from beside the jeep.

"Yes. I saw you last year when you drove a tractor to save our people." The young man smiled, dismounted, and said, "I heard from Bolati that you'd gotten a car. I didn't even dare to recognize you just now."

"Hello, hello!" Since he was from the Forestry Team, he counted as one of their own. Li Long smiled and took the initiative to reach out and shake his hand. "What's your name?"

"Aili, my name is Aili." The young man said, "Aren't you over at Red Mountain Mouth in the west? Why did you come over here?"

"I heard there's a Mantou Mountain around here, and it's said there's treasure hidden by people from the past, so I came to take a look."

Aili, having dismounted, laughed out loud upon hearing Li Long's words: "Treasure? We've lived in this area for several generations and have never heard of any treasure. It must be a lie... By the way, what were those three people doing just now?"

"I don't know. I saw them when I arrived. They wanted to pay me to lead the way, but I said I wasn't familiar with the area and didn't know the terrain here." Li Long said, "They probably saw I was carrying a gun too, so they left."

"They were carrying guns too, right?" Aili looked in that direction.

"Yeah, two sand-shot guns." Li Long said, "They don't look like hunters."

"I'll go take a look." Aili was just about to mount his horse when he suddenly remembered something. He took a bag off the horse's back and said:

"Just collected some fritillaria. Bolati said you're buying?"

"I am. Do you want to trade for goods or money?"

"Money." Aili was a bit excited. "How much money can this get me?"

Li Long estimated that the bag of fritillaria was likely over six kilograms but less than seven. He went over and weighed it by hand; it felt about that heavy, so he said:

"Twenty yuan."

"Deal." Aili carried the bag over and placed it by the jeep.

Li Long took the money out of his pocket, counted out two bills, and handed them to Aili.

His jacket had two inner pockets; the left one held several hundred yuan, and the right one held a few dozen. Every time he took money from the right pocket, it didn't look like much. Once the right side was empty, he would secretly replenish it from the left.

At the very least, he couldn't be too flashy with his wealth.

After Aili took the money, he happily waved at Li Long and got on his horse to go find those three people.

"Be careful, they're all carrying guns." Li Long couldn't help but remind him again.

"It's fine, I'm carrying a gun too." Aili walked forward a few steps, then pulled on the reins and said to Li Long:

"Go west from here, look at that mountain gully over there; a car can get in there. Drive in and continue west for about two or three kilometers, then turn south. You'll see a patch of trees on the side, and there's a round mountain peak there that looks like a Mantou Mountain."

"Then how do I get to the Little Bai Yang Gully in the west?" Li Long asked hurriedly.

"From that Mantou Mountain, go north to exit the Southern Mountains. Take that road on the north side of the Southern Mountains to the north side of Little Bai Yang Gully. You know it, right?"

"Got it." Li Long nodded. It seemed cars still couldn't travel through the mountains.

While Li Long was talking to Aili, those three people were watching from a distant mountain ridge.

"That driver is definitely lying. Look at how much he talked to that Kazakh on the horse; how could he not be familiar with this place? He's tricking us..."

"Should we ambush him later?"

The two holding guns were talking. The old man shook his head and said:

"How would you ambush him? Is someone who can drive a jeep an ordinary person? Do you want them to send troops into the mountains to hunt us down? It's fine for us to be in here with guns right now—hunting or whatever, no one cares. But if you hit this person, do you think they won't care?

Let me tell you both, if you really hit him, before the day is out, hundreds or thousands of people will definitely enter these mountains to search for us."

He turned his head to look at the two of them and said seriously:

"I'm telling you, we're here to get rich, not to invite disaster. Listen to me well: without my word, no one is allowed to shoot..."

Both men nodded seriously.

Aili rode his horse toward this side. The old man thought for a moment and said:

"Let's go, let's meet this young man and see if we can get some information out of him."

Li Long drove the jeep toward the location Aili had pointed out. He didn't drive fast and kept watching behind him.

Fortunately, he didn't hear any gunshots all the way until he reached the round mountain Aili had mentioned, so he set his mind at ease.

The Mantou Mountain Aili spoke of was actually hidden in the middle of a mountain range. If he hadn't specifically pointed out the location to Li Long, Li Long wouldn't have been able to tell even if he had driven there himself.

After all, looking from below, this round mountain was actually just a section of a mountain ridge that bulged out, just a bend in the road. Its top wasn't much higher than the other mountains; it just had a small distance from the other ridges, and the hillsides were connected, only separated for the few dozen meters near the summit.

Li Long got out of the car, and after confirming this was the Mantou Mountain Aili had mentioned, he carried his gun and climbed up.

The mountain wasn't very high, the slope was only about two or three hundred meters. After Li Long climbed up and stood at the top, he discovered it did indeed look a bit like a steamed bun (mantou); the summit looked quite round, and there were many shrubs on the slope.

The reason it couldn't be seen from below was mainly because it was too close to the nearby mountains; from a distance, it looked like one continuous piece, and up close, you could only see a bulge.

He stood at the summit and looked down the mountain, then discovered there were rocks on the southeast part, so he headed down there.

If there really was hidden treasure, it should at least be in a cave, right? Only where there are rocks can there be caves; that was Li Long's understanding.

Unfortunately, when he got down to that pile of rubble, other than the many thorny shrubs in the pile, there was nothing else.

Li Long circled the mountain again but didn't find any pig-iron stakes, nor did he find any caves.

It shouldn't be here, right?

He walked back to the jeep feeling a bit disappointed.

Sitting in the jeep, Li Long thought about it and laughed. Was he really counting on finding that treasure that he didn't even know existed? How did he get his expectations up?

Thinking this way, he felt relieved. He checked the time; it was about time to go to Little Bai Yang Gully for lunch.

When Li Long arrived at Little Bai Yang Gully, Old Huang hadn't finished making the meal yet. Seeing Li Long arrive, those people greeted him one after another.

The group Xu Haijun brought had crossed the mountain, and Liang Wenyu and those few people were walking over from the south.

The timing was about right.

Xu Haijun saw Li Long and asked half-jokingly:

"How much fritillaria did you collect today?"

"A few kilograms." Li Long said, "I went to the east side once, didn't collect much."

Xu Haijun actually quite envied Li Long's lifestyle. But he had his own pride, and he couldn't bring himself to go to Li Long and say what Sun Jia Qiang had said; he could only accept cooperation at most.

Just like now.

Working and putting in effort was fine, but being a lackey wouldn't do.

After lunch, Li Long brought some for Sun Jia Qiang and then went to the small wooden cabin.

Sun Jia Qiang was still washing the fritillaria. Right now, fritillaria was drying on the counter and the wooden floor; it looked like there was about ten kilograms or so.

Half the time had passed, and the amount of fritillaria Sun Jia Qiang collected every day was finally increasing a little.

Even so, there were still people coming to trade with Li Long in the afternoon.

Bolati also came by once to trade with Li Long for some meat—Li Long felt something was wrong these past two days; was Bolati bringing too much fritillaria every day?

"Sigh, those people of ours all entrusted me to trade for some meat." Bolati said, "They can't hit anything in the mountains. Usually, they're mainly patrolling the forest; riding horses, if they run into something, the animals hear them long ago, and once they hear them, they run away."

He pointed to the meat Li Long had packed and said:

"You've already slaughtered it, so it's good for us to eat. Otherwise, those things we shoot... hehe."

"Also, we've changed the rules recently. Some people complained that we were getting too many rewards—you don't know, before, some of our people would get fritillaria and not trade it with you, but hand it directly to the team. At first, they could get a few yuan a day, which wasn't bad.

Later, I don't know which bad egg said we were getting too much, so they changed it. Handing in one kilogram of fritillaria only rewards five mao—then why the hell would anyone hand it in? Damn it, it's better to come to you to trade for meat, goods, or money."

Li Long thought to himself, this is a god-tier teammate, a god-tier assist.

Actually, thinking about it, he could understand. It was likely that some people were greedy and wanted to obtain more benefits, which was why they lowered the price for handing in fritillaria.

He just didn't expect it to benefit Li Long.

Bolati brought over forty kilograms of fritillaria this time, most of which was traded for money.

However, even though a small portion was traded for meat, Li Long felt that this meat supply had suddenly decreased quite a bit again.

He had to go hunting again.

After telling Sun Jia Qiang, Li Long carried his gun and drove to Hot Spring Gully.

He always felt that there should still be things there.

Sun Jia Qiang had already gotten used to his daily work of washing and drying fritillaria.

Although it was very monotonous, he was very satisfied to be able to bask in the sun without having to search everywhere in the mountain ridges and encounter so many dangers.

Therefore, when Li Long left, he reminded him to pay attention to safety.

The water flow in Hot Spring Gully was a bit larger. Li Long drove the jeep to the point where it couldn't go any further, got out, and carried his gun as he walked inside. The flowing water was slightly turbid. Li Long felt a sense of joy in his heart; it seemed there must be something bathing upstream, otherwise, the water should be clear.

The smell of sulfur became stronger and stronger. Li Long no longer followed the stream; he entered the forest.

With the cover of trees, he could better hide his figure. As for the smell, there was no need to worry; with such a strong sulfur smell, no matter how sharp those things' sense of smell was, they wouldn't be able to sniff him out.

Very soon, he heard grunting—wild boars.

A group of wild boars.

Li Long looked through the gaps in the trees. This group of wild boars, big and small, had at least twenty or so. Not only had they occupied all the hot spring pools, but they were also crowded upstream and downstream.

They weren't afraid of the heat either—the water temperature upstream of the hot spring pools must have been forty or fifty degrees by now.

Li Long approached slowly, looking for a suitable target.

The prey he had been hunting recently was mainly wild goats, roe deer, and red deer. He hadn't hunted wild boars for a while, and Li Long was a bit picky about the meat of this creature.

Hunt the small ones, the females. It's best not to hunt the big, male ones; not only is the meat not tasty, but they are also troublesome to process.

Read every line and every clause!

Finding a suitable position more than thirty meters away from the hot spring pool, Li Long half-squatted and slowly raised his gun.

Five or six wild boars were crowded together in the water, rooting for something. These wild boars were mostly around forty or fifty kilograms; not very big.

The biggest one was soaking in the hot spring pool, rooting around from time to time; the pool had already been ruined by its rooting.

He could vaguely see the two tusks exposed outside like small knives in the water. Li Long felt that if he let this guy root him, he'd be sent flying two meters high, wouldn't he?

But of course, he didn't plan to tangle with this guy. In all likelihood, once the gun went off later, this group of wild boars would all run to the opposite side together.

He had to seize the opportunity to hunt a couple more.

After planning it out, Li Long aimed at the back of the ear of the furthest wild boar in his target. When the other party lowered its head into the water to pull out a grass root, he pulled the trigger!

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

"Bang!"

Four shots in a row, and three wild boars fell to the ground on the spot. It was mainly because the first wild boar had blocked the path of the others. Once the gun went off, the wild boars panicked, but the path in the direction away from the danger was blocked, so the boars were in chaos, which was just right for Li Long to continue shooting.

It was just that the fourth wild boar reacted differently than Li Long had imagined when the first shot rang out. It suddenly darted toward Li Long's direction. Once it entered the forest, the trees blocked Li Long's view. The wild boar didn't charge at Li Long, but turned south in the pine forest, grunting as it ran far away.

As for the other wild boars, they had long been scared out of their wits by this huge commotion. Like water splashing when a stone is thrown into a pool, they scattered and fled, soon disappearing into the forest.

When Li Long carried his gun down, the stream water had already been dyed red with blood. Li Long stepped forward and poked them with his bayonet; the three wild boars were dead through and through.

These few wild boars were bigger than wild goats, but fortunately, Li Long was strong now, and the jeep was close by.

Carrying the gun on his back, he grabbed one wild boar in each hand and headed downstream.

Anyway, his shoes were already wet, so he wasn't afraid of wading through the water again.

Li Long put the three wild boars in the trunk of the jeep. The supplies originally in the trunk had to be moved to the back seat of the car.

Then he drove toward the wooden cabin.

Although big households like Bolati's didn't eat wild boar meat, other people trading fritillaria should eat it, right?

So Li Long planned to leave one wild boar's worth of meat here and take the remaining two home. After all, they couldn't consume that much here.

Once upon a time, it was good enough just to have meat to eat.

Right now, Li Long was starting to be picky. It really is easy to go from frugality to luxury, but hard to go from luxury to frugality.

When the jeep drove back to the wooden cabin, Sun Jia Qiang was explaining something to a person carrying fritillaria. However, that person seemed unmoved by Sun Jia Qiang's explanation, standing there without moving at all.

Only when Li Long got out of the car did he realize, wasn't this the woman who was pretending to be a man?

Sun Jia Qiang saw Li Long had returned, so he came over resentfully and said:

"He insists on finding you to trade fritillaria."

Li Long smiled, patted Sun Jia Qiang on the shoulder, and said:

"There's wild boar in the trunk; we'll process it later."

"You're amazing." Sun Jia Qiang praised him and went to move the wild boars.

"Trade for what?" Li Long went over and asked that person.

"Do you have a knife?" The woman still asked in a hoarse, suppressed voice. "Also, trade for money."

"A knife..." Li Long thought for a moment and said, "I have one."

He went to look in the jeep and found a sharpened knife about twenty centimeters long from handle to tip.

"Will this work?" The knife still had a leather sheath.

In the 1990s, at the free markets and some intersections in Ma County, there would be some ethnic minority comrades setting up slanted racks, with four or five rows of those small knives and daggers with very beautiful handles.

The price wasn't expensive either; when they started setting up in the 80s, it was a few yuan each, and in the 90s, it was ten or twenty yuan each.

The knives at that time were basically truly handmade, and they were good for trimming meat and such.

Some young people would also buy these when they got into fights. Of course, they basically wouldn't really stab anyone; it was just to intimidate people.

Li Long had seen them for sale when he passed the market a couple of days ago and bought one on a whim.

This knife wasn't as good as the one his older brother Li Jianguo had someone make for him using artillery shell casing, but it looked quite beautiful.

He didn't expect someone to trade for it at this time.

That person drew the knife, looked at it, and asked:

"How to trade?"

"Two kilograms of fritillaria."

"Deal." The other party didn't haggle and continued, "Trade the rest for money."

The fritillaria the woman brought this time was nearly ten kilograms. Li Long gave her sixteen yuan.

The woman left with the empty bag. By this time, Sun Jia Qiang had managed to get all three wild boars down, but he didn't have the strength to get them to the spring eye.

Watching that person leave, Sun Jia Qiang came over and asked:

"Li Long, was that knife only six yuan?"

"About that." Li Long had bought it in the city for five yuan; trading it for fritillaria meant earning one yuan, which wasn't much.

"Then can you bring me one?" Sun Jia Qiang said with a smile, "I think that knife is quite beautiful, and it seems to be sharpened too. I want to get one for self-defense."

Li Long smiled:

"Sure, I'll bring you one tomorrow."

As soon as he chatted with Sun Jia Qiang, he remembered he had forgotten about the morel mushrooms again.

Forget it, tomorrow then.

Li Long carried the wild boars one by one to the spring eye, drew his own knife, and started skinning them.

"Li Long, I think your knife isn't as beautiful as the one you traded to that person just now. Why don't you use a knife like that?" Sun Jia Qiang asked when he brought a basin over to help.

"My older brother had this knife made for me; I'm used to it." Li Long used the knife to slice open the wild boar's skin, pulling the skin with one hand while holding the knife to slice the fat layer with the other, peeling the skin off bit by bit. "Once you're used to it, you don't want to change."

Sun Jia Qiang nodded thoughtfully.

Three wild boars; Li Long planned to leave one here to air-dry and trade for fritillaria, and take two back to distribute among the families.

He planned to thoroughly change his family's eating habits. Although it had been two years and they often ate meat, everyone was still quite frugal. After all, other families were only just reaching the point of having enough to eat.

What he wanted wasn't just having enough to eat, but true moderate prosperity.

Other things couldn't be solved; after all, right now, neither logistics nor produce could be that abundant or convenient, but when it came to eating meat, he still had that ability.

Li Long skinned and butchered the meat, while Sun Jia Qiang processed the internal organs; the two of them worked quite well together.

They worked until the sun was about to set in the afternoon before the three wild boars were finally processed.

It was time for Li Long to return. (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 662 =====