Chapter 662: Dust-Covered Past Brought Up by Treasure Legends

Li Long loaded the two butchered wild boars, along with some fat and internal organs, into separate bags and put them into the jeep. Then, he and Sun Jia Qiang loaded the fritillaria into the car.

In the afternoon, while Li Long was skinning the wild boars and Sun Jia Qiang was helping, there were a few scattered people who came to trade fritillaria for goods. Since Li Long couldn't spare his hands, he let Sun Jia Qiang handle the trades.

"You did quite well today, about twenty yuan." Li Long calculated the money for Sun Jia Qiang, settled the day's accounts, and said:

"At night, boil whatever meat you can, and just let the internal organs simmer in the pot in the room; take them out tomorrow once they've cooled."

"Don't worry, Li Long, I'll definitely handle it properly." Sun Jia Qiang smiled as he counted the money and happily tucked it away.

It was the first time he had earned so much in a single day, so naturally, he was happy.

Having meat to eat every day, work that wasn't tiring, and a good place to live—he was truly very content.

Li Long's jeep was also full. The meat of two wild boars, along with the internal organs, basically filled the trunk to capacity.

The fritillaria could only be placed in the back seat and the passenger seat. Today, they had collected over a hundred kilograms of fritillaria, quite a bit more than the same period last year.

Li Long also knew that many more people had entered the mountains this year; otherwise, the forest rangers wouldn't have been able to collect so much fritillaria to send over.

Just before getting into the car, he reminded Sun Jia Qiang again:

"Although I threw the wild boar skins far away, the smell of blood will definitely attract wolves. At night, make sure the door is latched, and don't come out no matter what happens."

"I know, I have more experience in this regard than you do. Last year and the year before, I lived in a dugout in the mountains, and the wolves really did root right up to the front." Sun Jia Qiang waved his hand, telling Li Long not to worry.

Li Long drove the car back. When passing Qingshui River, he could see from afar that the fire at the threshing ground hadn't been extinguished yet, and several piles of carrying poles had already been stacked up.

It seemed that in the next two days, he would have to inspect and have a batch of these carrying poles taken away.

When the jeep returned to the large courtyard, Gu Xiaoxia had already finished work and returned home, sitting in the courtyard.

Seeing Li Long return, she smiled and stood up.

Sister Yang poked her head out from the kitchen, and seeing Li Long get out of the car, she said:

"Uncle, the meal will take a while..."

"Don't worry about me, I have to go out again in a while." Li Long responded, and without waiting for Gu Xiaoxia to ask, he explained to her:

"I hunted a few wild boars today. We can't fit all this meat here, so I'll leave a portion for Sister Yang to process later, and I'll send some of the rest to Uncle Liang's side and some to Dad and Mom's side. After I finish delivering, I'll come back—I might not eat tonight, just make do with a meal wherever."

"Okay." Gu Xiaoxia naturally had no objections. Her husband was generous in his dealings, they didn't have to worry about food or clothing at home, and she herself had experienced the warmth and coldness of human relationships in the Fourth Team, so she supported Li Long in this regard.

People who know how to be grateful are always easier to get along with than those who are cold-hearted.

Li Long carried a bag of processed meat, internal organs, and leaf fat to the kitchen, then went to unload the fritillaria and spread it out in the side room.

When he came out of the side room, Gu Bo Yuan had just arrived, so Li Long explained it again.

"Hey, caught something again?" Gu Bo Yuan smiled. "Amazing, it makes me want to go into the mountains to take a look."

"Dad, you'd better just keep a good eye on your shop." Gu Xiaoxia advised.

Gu Bo Yuan smiled and didn't pick up the thread.

Most scholars like to carry swords and yearn for the world of martial arts, but after the Tang Dynasty, or after someone like Xin in the Song Dynasty, most scholars only yearned for it. The further down the line, the weaker they became; although they looked down on martial artists, they didn't have the skills of a martial artist.

Pointing out the country, everyone can talk about it, but when it comes to doing it, they're all useless.

Although Gu Bo Yuan wasn't of this type and had at least experienced things, if he were really left alone in the mountains, he asked himself if he didn't have Li Long's ability.

Li Long drove the jeep to Uncle Liang Donglou's house first, sending Uncle Liang a wild boar leg, a pig lung, and a pig heart—Old Liang liked to eat these.

"Why are you sending meat again?" Liang Donglou, who was wiping the tractor in the courtyard, complained. Chen Xiuzhu hurriedly helped carry the wild boar leg into the house and then busied herself pouring water for Li Long.

"Auntie, don't pour any, I'm leaving right away." Li Long said to Chen Xiuzhu first, then smiled at Liang Donglou. "Uncle Liang, I hunted it, caught a lot, so shouldn't we eat some? Wenyu and the others can eat meat every meal over there too. My older brother has a sand-shot gun over there, and he can catch things from time to time too."

"But you can't send it over every now and then; how much can the two of us eat?" Liang Donglou took up the thread. "There are many people on your older brother's side, why not leave more over there?"

"There is, there is, I caught three this time." Li Long said proudly, "Enough for everyone to eat."

"That's good then." Liang Donglou smiled.

Li Long was in a hurry to go to the Fourth Team, and Liang Donglou didn't keep him.

After the jeep left, Old Man Shen from next door came over, stood at the door, and asked:

"Old Liang, your son-in-law's younger brother came over again?"

"Yeah, came to send a pig leg. I told him not to send it, not to send it, how much meat can the two of us eat? The child is sincere and generous, sending it over every now and then, heh!" Liang Donglou complained feignedly, but his tone was full of pride and arrogance.

"Your Yue Mei married into a good family." Old Man Shen knew Old Liang's thoughts. "Being able to eat meat every day, ten or twenty years ago, how could you dare to imagine that?"

"Who's to say otherwise?" Old Liang said while wiping the tractor. "Back then, how could we dare to imagine that our own family could have a tractor like this? Heh, this child is truly not bad..."

Chen Xiuzhu was tidying up the pig leg in the kitchen, trimming the meat. She had originally thought about calling her old man in to help, but hearing the voices outside, she smiled and decided to do it herself.

When Li Long drove the car to his older brother's courtyard, Liang Yuemei was tidying up the bowls and chopsticks. Usually, they had two meals, but tonight, for the sake of the children, she had made fish soup, which they had just finished drinking.

Hearing the sound of the jeep, Li Juan and Li Qiang were the first to run out. By the time the jeep entered the courtyard and Li Long got out, the two children had already surrounded him.

"No good food today." Li Long smiled. "But I caught wild boars, you have to help your mom process this meat."

He had brought back two wild boars, one whole one left at his older brother's place, and for the remaining one, one leg was left at the Liang family, and Li Long planned to leave the other leg at Old Uncle Luo's place, with the rest already placed at his own large courtyard in the county.

Li Qing Xia wasn't there, and Du Chunfang was tidying up the vegetable garden in Li Long's courtyard to the south. Hearing the jeep, she hurried back with her small feet.

"What did you catch?" Liang Yuemei asked as she watched Li Long take things down. "Haven't eaten yet, right? Should I cook you some noodles?"

"No, no." Li Long put down the bag and hurriedly waved his hand. "Sister-in-law, you'll be busy with this meat and the offal, don't worry about me. By the way, these are three wild boar stomachs; I didn't take them to the side where they're making the carrying poles. You process them until cooked and air-dry them, and when my older brother comes back, make them for him to eat; it's good for the stomach."

"Okay." Liang Yuemei nodded and went to process the meat.

With meat and fat, then render it. It was hot, and the bones couldn't be kept, so they had to be boiled.

When Du Chunfang entered the courtyard, Li Long had already closed the jeep door; he was preparing to leave.

"You came to send meat?" Du Chunfang asked, having heard a word or two.

"Yeah, I caught a few wild boars in the mountains and sent one over. You all eat more meat; you suffered enough before, now you have to make up for it."

"Old, old, what's there to make up for?" Du Chunfang smiled. "In the mountains... is it okay?"

She had originally thought her youngest son was having a hard time in the mountains, but it was obvious he had grown taller and stronger, so the word "hard" really wasn't easy to say.

Obviously, Li Long wasn't as tanned as Liang Yuemei, so he hadn't been exposed to the sun much, right?

"It's okay, it's okay." Li Long smiled. "Can earn quite a bit of money this year."

"Money, more or less, as long as the person is good. How is your older brother in the mountains?" Du Chunfang asked. "Is it hard?"

"Hard, definitely hard, making carrying poles, after all. But he can eat meat every meal," Li Long said, "and in half a month, it'll be about done."

Hearing her mother-in-law care about her husband's situation, Liang Yuemei, who was sorting meat in the kitchen, had a smile on her face.

"Mom, I won't say anymore, I'm going to send the other leg to Old Uncle Luo's side."

"Go, go, you're busy. Your dad and Old Tao went to cast nets and haven't returned yet; when they return, I'll tell them."

"Good."

Li Long responded, greeted his sister-in-law, started the jeep, and left for the Old Horse Corral.

When he arrived at the Old Horse Corral, Li Long stopped halfway into the courtyard.

He couldn't drive in; Old Uncle Luo and another old man from the village had a small low table set up between them, with a plate of cold-dressed cabbage and a plate of scrambled eggs on the table, and they were drinking.

Seeing the jeep enter the courtyard, Old Uncle Luo hurriedly stood up, and the other old man moved the small low table inside with both hands, making room.

Old Uncle Luo took a small stool, and only then did Li Long's jeep drive in.

After getting out of the car, Li Long recognized that old man; he was a Five-Guarantee household in the team, known as Yang Laoliu.

This also counted as a mysterious figure; it was said his legs were extremely fast, and even at sixty or seventy years old, young people sometimes couldn't keep up with him.

"Heh, Little Long is back... brought something, huh? Your car smells like blood." Yang Laoliu smiled.

"Yeah, caught a wild boar in the mountains today, brought a leg over for Old Uncle Luo." Li Long took the wild boar leg down. "My meat here isn't finished yet." Old Uncle Luo and the other old men all had the same excuse; of course, their faces were equally proud.

Also a Five-Guarantee household, he had someone sending him meat, while Yang Laoliu didn't.

Yang Laoliu didn't hide the jealousy on his face at all:

"Old Luo, you've found a good job. And you've met a good person."

"Then I'm lucky." Old Uncle Luo smiled, then said to Li Long, "Coming over so late, haven't eaten yet, right? Come, sit, I'll go fix you something to eat."

Li Long hurriedly declined, but Yang Laoliu pointed to the stool and said: "If he tells you to sit, then sit. You must be exhausted from the day, right?"

Perhaps because all the meat had been delivered, Li Long felt he was indeed a bit tired.

"Come, have a drink." Yang Laoliu rinsed Old Luo's cup with wine and poured a cup for Li Long. "You're driving, don't drink too much, just have one cup to get the blood flowing."

"Drink what, let the child eat something first." Old Luo said at the door.

"Fine, then you have to get a pair of chopsticks, right?" Yang Laoliu didn't forget to bicker with Old Luo.

Without waiting for Li Long to move, Old Uncle Luo had already brought the chopsticks over, along with two pieces of guokui (flatbread):

Read every line and every clause!

"This was brought to me by the Old Chai family in the team; you eat this first."

"Good, Old Luo, you have good things and hide them without letting me eat them." Yang Laoliu was full of dissatisfaction. "When I come, you just give me dry steamed buns to eat..."

"Then can you be the same as Little Long?" Old Uncle Luo wasn't polite at all, choking Yang Laoliu with a big mouthful.

Li Long ate and laughed; watching the two old men bicker here was also quite interesting.

Old Uncle Luo quickly stir-fried some celery with meat and brought over a few pickled salted eggs, the boiled kind.

Yang Laoliu was unhappy again, and Old Uncle Luo started arguing with him again. After arguing, he didn't forget to say to Li Long:

"Don't look at him being all honest now; he wasn't a good person before. Back then, on Sheng Sheng Shi Cai's side, he was a colonel-rank staff officer in the Fifth Section of the Second Division of the Northern Xinjiang Public Security Management Office. The Second Division, ah, could that be a good person?"

"What's wrong with the Second Division?" Li Long was a bit surprised; he really didn't understand.

"Back then, anyone who touched the 'two' in this regard was related to spies." Old Uncle Luo explained, "At that time, did he count as being on the side of the Military Statistics Bureau?"

"What's wrong with the Military Statistics Bureau? I'm even a Whampoa graduate!"

"Whampoa Military Academy?" Li Long was startled. This person was both a colonel and Whampoa; he wouldn't be some hidden boss, would he?

"Of course." Yang Laoliu was full of pride.

"Get out of here." Old Uncle Luo didn't care about him at all. "Don't you know how much water is in that Whampoa of yours? A branch school, right? Urumqi Infantry School, run by Old Jin, how good could it be?"

Only then did Li Long understand. However, he had heard that there were many branch schools of Whampoa at that time; in the Northwest, Xi'an and Dihua at the time both had them.

"Hehe, Yang died, Jin broke, and Old Sheng came to supervise..." Old Uncle Luo recited a doggerel. "This Old Yang, he was Sheng Sheng Shi Cai's lackey—it's just that he stopped doing it early; otherwise, he would have been gone during the suppression of counter-revolutionaries."

Listening to these contemporaries talk about their historical experiences at that time, Li Long felt it was quite good. While eating, he asked casually:

"Uncle Yang, what were you all doing at that time?"

"Staring at people, of course." Yang Laoliu poured himself a cup of wine, took a sip, and said, "Staring at people every day, it was annoying. I once stared at a person surnamed Zhou, and I stared for half a year..."

"Surnamed Zhou? Zhou what? What year?"

"Around the forties, around 1940?" Yang Laoliu thought for a moment and said, "It seems it was that time, called Zhou... Zhou Bin?"

"Pfft!" Li Long sprayed out what he had just eaten. He pointed at Yang Laoliu with his chopsticks and said:

"Who did you say you were staring at?"

"Zhou Bin!" Yang Laoliu looked puzzled. "What's wrong?"

Old Uncle Luo also asked Li Long:

"What's wrong?"

Li Long thought to himself, people really don't know at this time!

He thought, both in Urumqi, same name, it shouldn't be wrong, right?

He put down his chopsticks and said seriously:

"Do you know who Zhou Bin is?"

"That's Zhou Bin, who else could it be?"

"You were in the Military Statistics Bureau, don't you know that people's names can be changed?" Li Long laughed in anger. "You really don't know his true identity?"

"Don't know. The superiors told me to stare at him, so I stared at him."

"Little Long, who exactly is that?" Old Uncle Luo knew that if Li Long said it like this, the matter really wasn't simple.

"Zhou Bin is an alias; his true identity is the younger brother of the Elder, Zemin." Li Long's voice wasn't loud, but to Old Uncle Luo and Yang Laoliu, it was no less than a thunderbolt!

Yang Laoliu couldn't even hold his chopsticks; the two chopsticks fell to the ground one by one, and he didn't even know it.

Li Long didn't expect that listening to the two of them bicker would actually lead to such a world-shaking event.

If this Yang Laoliu was related to the sacrifice of this revolutionary martyr, shouldn't he report it?

"Uncle Yang, do you remember what year you were staring at him?" Li Long asked again.

"Around 1940..."

"Can you remember specifically?" Li Long vaguely remembered that the martyr was sacrificed in 1943.

"1940, I left the Public Security Management Office in 1941." Yang Laoliu answered mechanically.

"Why?"

"What else could it be? Gambling, of course." Old Uncle Luo had also recovered and spoke for him. "This guy has a pile of bad habits: gambling, misappropriating public funds. Could he have stayed in that place? His wife even ran away..."

"1941 is okay." Li Long vaguely remembered that he was arrested in 1942 and sacrificed in 1943.

Slowly, Yang Laoliu also recovered, just drinking cup after cup of wine, and then started talking about things at that time.

Only then did Li Long know that in Northern Xinjiang in that era, Yang Zengxin promoted Jin Shuren, Jin Shuren invited Sheng Sheng Shi Cai, but the result was that he couldn't control him. Sheng Sheng Shi Cai drove away Jin Shuren and became the Northern Xinjiang supervisor himself.

"Then when Sheng Sheng Shi Cai left, did he leave any treasure?" Li Long remembered what Old Uncle Luo and the others had said.

That was the matter of the Mantou Mountain treasure.

"Hard to say, anyway, it's true that Sheng Sheng Shi Cai left in a hurry." Yang Laoliu said, "It was Jin Shuren who embezzled the gold used by the Northern Xinjiang finance department to buy cars from the White Russians. Chiang Kai-shek even sentenced him to six years..."

"What about that gold?"

"Don't know, some people say it was hidden, some people say it was robbed by someone, who can say clearly?"

Yang Laoliu said quite a bit, and it wasn't until it was completely dark that he went back.

Li Long wanted to send him off, but Yang Laoliu didn't let him, and Old Uncle Luo didn't let him either.

"Don't look at him having drunk quite a bit; he's actually fine. Look at how nimbly he walks; we all call him 'Funeral-Announcing Legs', all practiced at that time... Sigh, this person... can't be said."

Li Long didn't know which aspect couldn't be said, but the matter of the treasure not only wasn't clarified, but instead added some doubts to himself.

As for Yang Laoliu's matter, because it didn't directly lead to those results, he couldn't say whether it was good or bad anymore.

After all, who can explain history clearly?

Li Long vaguely remembered that in his previous life, this Yang Laoliu finally lived to be over eighty in a nursing home, which could be considered a good end.

It was dark, and Old Uncle Luo's intention was for Li Long to stay here for one night before returning. Li Long smiled and pointed to the jeep and said:

"With this, I'll be home in half an hour. I have headlights, not afraid."

He was truly not afraid; he had only drunk one cup, and now it had basically dissipated. Seeing that it was already past eleven, almost twelve, he said goodbye to Old Uncle Luo and drove the jeep toward the west.

There would be many things to do tomorrow.

Day after day, he couldn't stay idle.

However, listening to such exciting things during this meal at night could be considered worth it.

By the time the jeep entered the large courtyard, it was already twelve o'clock.

Everyone in the courtyard hadn't slept; they were all waiting for him. (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 663 =====