Chapter 666: Using a Knife Led to a Bloody Murder Case

"Look, see this fritillaria plant? It's best to take a small shovel, dig a little bit outward, dig, lift the plant, and this round lump below is the fritillaria."

Li Jianguo was teaching Liang Wenyu and a few other young people in a nearby gully how to dig fritillaria.

There were a few who didn't even know what a fritillaria plant looked like. They stayed purely because they heard fritillaria was valuable, and those who were good could dig seven or eight kilograms a day. If they sold it at Li Long's price, they could earn thirty or forty yuan a day.

Although Liang Wenyu knew what fritillaria looked like—after all, there were some at home—he didn't know what the fritillaria plant looked like, nor did he know how to dig fritillaria.

So he sought help from his older brother-in-law.

Li Jianguo hadn't found any prey in the salt cave on the east side, only some fresh feces. He knew these things might have appeared only this morning, so he came back.

He planned to come back early tomorrow morning to take another look. If he caught something, he caught it; if not, he would eat and go dig the sheep pool.

As for digging fritillaria the day after tomorrow, he really planned to dig for a day.

Anyway, there was nothing at home, and it was about the same to return a day early or a day late.

This time he made more than one hundred and thirty qualified carrying poles. Among these people, only he knew that the regular price for one carrying pole was eight yuan. Last year, Li Long gave him the full price, and this year he estimated it was about the same.

Li Jianguo was very content.

He believed that Li Long might finally give Liang Wenyu the full price too.

However, these were all matters for later. Right now, it was to properly finish these last two or three days.

"I'll try." Liang Wenyu took the iron shovel and quickly found a place where fritillaria grew, dug down with one shovel, and lifted the fritillaria plant.

There were quite a few fritillaria plants in this gully. At this time, even if hundreds of medicinal herb diggers came into the mountains, once scattered into the mountains, it wouldn't be visible.

There were hundreds of gullies near Little White Poplar Gully, not to mention other places.

The Tianshan Mountains were six hundred kilometers wide and thousands of kilometers long. From the east all the way to the Ili River Valley in the west, fritillaria grew in the mountains, so this thing was really abundant in the early years.

As soon as Liang Wenyu saw it was dug out, he immediately reached out to pull the fritillaria plant. Li Jianguo only had time to remind him, "Be gentle, use a bit of strength," and Liang Wenyu had already snapped the plant.

He smiled embarrassedly, then lowered his head to rummage through the soil he had dug out.

"Don't rummage." Li Jianguo walked over and said, "To dig fritillaria fast, dig down with one shovel, lift the plant to look; if there is, hold it, if not, change to another place. If this plant snaps, don't worry about it, go to the next place to dig. Definitely don't look for it; if you look, you waste time. With that time, you could have dug out the next one or two."

Liang Wenyu felt the fritillaria in his older brother-in-law's hand was white and easy to find, so he was a bit unconvinced, rummaging while saying:

"I can find it immediately."

As a result, he didn't find it after rummaging for several minutes.

"That fritillaria is wrapped in a layer of black clothes, the same color as the soil," after all, it was his brother-in-law, so Li Jianguo explained patiently, "The light in this gully is dim, if you don't rummage well, you won't be able to see it, then you'll miss it, which is not as good as not looking."

Liang Wenyu suddenly realized; it turned out this was the reason.

They knew the reason, and Li Jianguo prepared to climb up the mountain ridge to take a look; he wanted to find a gully with more fritillaria so it would be easy to dig.

After all, even if it was a good digger, if there wasn't much fritillaria in the gully, they wouldn't be able to dig much.

When they returned to the camp, the big pot was already on the stove, and meat was boiling inside. At this time, Li Long was unloading the wolf meat. The red deer meat could boil several pots, but it definitely couldn't be boiled right now. He planned to take some to the wooden cabin and take some back.

As for the wolf meat, it was the same. Anyway, these two kinds of meat, if left at the wooden cabin, there would definitely be people hoping to trade for them.

It wouldn't be wasted.

"Little Long, you caught a deer? Where did you catch it?" Li Jianguo was very interested in this. He hadn't caught any prey in the salt cave, so he was quite regretful, thinking about going to try his luck early tomorrow morning.

Therefore, he was quite envious when he saw a deer skin and a wolf skin spread out on the grass beside Li Long.

"Walked inside, must be five." Li Long pointed in the direction, "There are several mountains connected together inside, I ran into a few wolves chasing two red deer, so I shot."

He flicked the blood off the knife and said with a smile:

"Actually, I wanted to hunt argali and ibex on the high mountains, but I hadn't climbed over when I ran into them."

"Ibex is also good stuff, those horns grow really majestically!" Li Jianguo had seen them, but hadn't hunted or eaten them.

Li Long had brought back ibex heads before, all of the seven or eight-year-old sheep, and the horns grew two sections a year, all seventeen or eighteen-section horns.

Ibex were considered rare or even endangered in other places at this time, but they could still be seen frequently on the mountain peaks in the inner Tianshan Mountains, sometimes even in groups, with ten or twenty in a group.

Later, there was the Wildlife Protection Law, and this was designated as a national first-class protected animal. In his previous life, when Li Long traveled to Ili, he heard that someone there had hunted two ibex and was fined 220,000 and sentenced to five years in prison.

It was said that there was a wildlife black market in a certain place there, and for a period of time, you could buy yellow sheep meat, ibex meat, wild goat meat, roe deer meat, red deer meat, etc.

Why was that person caught? It was because he climbed to the high mountain to hunt, and after coming down, in order to prove to the buyer that what he hunted was an ibex, he left a piece of skin on the skinned sheep.

Actually, the sheep head and the remaining sheep skin were thrown away. If it weren't for the sharp eyes of the people from the Reclamation Area Public Security Bureau, that person would have said it was a domestic goat and fooled them.

Why are ibex so expensive? Because it's also called a hanging sheep.

But Li Long felt that this thing, at this time, really wasn't that hard to hunt.

Wait until Gu Xiaoxia gives birth, and one day he will climb to the mountain top above to see if he can catch one and bring it back.

Isn't it said that the blood and meat of that thing are good?

Just right to make up for her.

One after another, people returned. Li Long saw the sun setting in the west. At this time, the venison was almost boiled. Li Long washed his hands, took a basin, and fished out a piece to prepare to eat.

Roasted meat tastes good, but to really eat meat in big mouthfuls, it has to be boiled meat.

Hand-grabbed meat is so fragrant, that bite down is a mouthful of meat.

This is like people saying how to eat shabu-shabu to be refreshing. Some food critics say to shabu it piece by piece, and eat other things in between to relieve greasiness. Wait until everyone is rich, and then study the lives of the rich, only then do they know that shabu-shabu must be poured into the pot all at once, what piece by piece, it must be eaten in big mouthfuls with chopsticks.

Why was it piece by piece before? Because they were poor and couldn't afford to eat it.

Others also started to fish out meat. Everyone didn't grab, just in order.

Li Long gnawed two pieces of meat, drank a bowl of soup, felt full, and carried two bags of meat as he left.

Today's harvest also included those two gold rings and a gold statue.

He planned to put the statue in the car first and not put it in the room. He didn't know who was worshiping it, so he was afraid it wouldn't be good to put it in the room.

Gu Bo Yuan felt he could see fresh things every day and said with a smile:

"There really are many good things in the mountains."

"Exactly." Li Long took out the two gold rings, washed them, and showed them to everyone:

"There was a piece of stone-built houses in the mountains, all without roofs, don't know how many years ago, I found this."

Gu Bo Yuan was quite interested in this and asked Li Long to tell it well while eating.

They ate noodle slices for dinner, and tomato sauce was added to the soup, which was sour and spicy, very good.

Li Long told the story while eating

Not one of these people voluntarily asked to go back, which made him quite happy.

Whether it was because they were worried that if they asked to go back they wouldn't be able to come next year, or because they genuinely wanted to stay and help Li Long with this favor, the matter was settled just like that.

It was quite good.

Driving the jeep, Li Long accelerated toward the wooden cabin; he wanted to get the meat to the wooden cabin as soon as possible for Sun Jia Qiang to process, and then drive home.

Although the meat from this one red deer and one wolf wouldn't be much to take home, it still needed to be processed.

Driving west against the sunlight, Li Long suddenly spotted two figures in front of him pulling at each other. He drove forward a bit and saw that the one in front was the woman who had first bought a knife from him, and the one behind her seemed to be a medicinal herb gatherer he had encountered before.

They had never spoken.

The two were arguing; the man was pulling at the woman, and the woman, carrying a bag, wanted to break free from him. The man wouldn't let go, so the woman had no choice but to put down the bag and start fighting with the man.

Li Long couldn't help but honk the horn. The man and woman over there heard it and turned their heads to look. The woman reacted quickly and took the opportunity to break away from the man, but the man stepped forward to pester her again. The woman waved her hand, and something in it glinted; Li Long guessed it must be that knife.

The man let out a miserable cry and sat on the ground, clutching his arm.

The woman took the opportunity to grab the bag and run north.

When Li Long's jeep pulled up to the man, he discovered the man's entire arm was covered in blood; he didn't know if a blood vessel had been cut.

Li Long turned off the engine and got out of the car. The man looked at him with some fear.

"What's wrong? What are you two doing? Do you need to go to the hospital?" Li Long didn't actually want to take him to the hospital; he was just asking out of habit.

"No, no, no." The man shook his head immediately. "Then do you want to call the police?" Li Long asked again.

"No, no, no... I'm fine..." Upon hearing that Li Long wanted to call the police, the man stood up, clutching his injured arm, turned around, and ran into the woods.

Very quickly, he disappeared from sight.

Li Long looked at the man's retreating back, a bit dumbfounded.

But thinking back on the situation just now, he could roughly guess what was going on.

It was likely that this herb gatherer had discovered the woman's identity and was perhaps conflicted or perhaps threatening her.

The woman wasn't willing and wanted to leave this place; the bag she was carrying most likely contained the fritillaria she had dug up over these past few days.

This man had chased after her to pester her, not expecting to be caught in the act by Li Long, and then to be slashed by the woman.

That knife... it really had come in handy.

Half a bag of things was left at the scene. Li Long went over to take a look; sure enough, it was fritillaria.

The man hadn't taken anything when he left, and the woman had taken a bag of fritillaria when she left; Li Long didn't know who this belonged to now.

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He waited on the spot for a while, intending to see who would come back.

As it turned out, by the time the sun was about to set, no one had returned.

Li Long stopped waiting, loaded the bag of fritillaria onto the car, and drove it to the wooden cabin.

Sun Jia Qiang was still washing the fritillaria. The sun was already about to set; when Li Long arrived, he hurriedly stood up.

"You've collected quite a lot today," Li Long said with a smile.

"It's alright." Sun Jia Qiang was also quite satisfied. "There are still many people trading for knives."

Li Long and Sun Jia Qiang collected the drying fritillaria together. Li Long followed the usual practice of giving Sun Jia Qiang the money for the portion he had collected, then put down the meat for him to process himself, while Li Long drove back with the fritillaria.

By the time the jeep reached Qingshuihe, the sun had completely set.

The western sky was red, and some scattered clouds were illuminated as if by fire; it was very beautiful.

They weren't weaving carrying poles here anymore, and without the smell of burning strips, Li Long felt slightly unaccustomed to it.

Driving back to the county, the Education Bureau had already finished work, so Li Long drove the car directly back to the large courtyard.

What he brought back included not only deer meat, deer hide, and wolf hide, but also a deer head.

When the velvet antlers on the deer head were to be cut off, they would carry deer antler blood; this stuff was also good, and Li Long couldn't bear to waste it.

Watching Li Long take out one thing after another from the jeep, Gu Xiaoxia didn't have any taboos; she just stood a bit further away to watch.

Although she couldn't stand the smell of blood, she wasn't afraid or repulsed by seeing these things.

In this day and age, there weren't that many scruples.

Li Long put everything into the side room. He left the half bag of fritillaria he had gotten last unwashed, and he found a large basin to pour the fritillaria into.

Gu Bo Yuan felt he could see something fresh every day and said with a smile:

"There really are a lot of good things in these mountains."

"That's right." Li Long took out the two gold rings, washed them, and showed them to everyone:

"There's a cluster of stone-built houses in the mountains, they don't have roofs anymore; I don't know how many years old they are, but I found these."

Gu Bo Yuan was quite interested in this and asked Li Long to tell him all about it while they were eating.

They were eating hand-torn noodles for dinner, with tomato sauce added to the soup; it was sour and spicy, which was excellent.

Li Long ate while he talked, which was just right; otherwise, if he had just slurped his food down, he definitely would have broken a sweat.

After listening to Li Long's account, Gu Bo Yuan thought for a moment and said:

"This really doesn't look like the residential habits of our Han people; it should be the ruins of some ethnic minorities from the Western Regions in the past, who moved away or went extinct for some reason."

For small tribes like this in the long river of history, moving or going extinct was truly too easy. In the past, productivity was extremely low, and having enough to eat and wear was a problem that hadn't been solved for thousands of years. Their resistance to crises was too poor; sometimes, a single epidemic could make a small tribe disappear completely.

Disappearing without even a splash.

Those listening all sighed with emotion.

Li Long felt even more that this gold ring and that statue shouldn't be kept in the main room, so he planned to tidy up and put them in the side room where the tiger bones were kept.

That place was locked year-round, and no one went in.

Gu Bo Yuan went back after eating. Gu Xiaoxia sat in the courtyard; it wasn't dark yet, and she didn't want to go into the room alone to watch TV.

Li Long was washing the fritillaria, and Han Fang went over to help, but Li Long didn't let her.

This little bit of work would be finished very quickly.

After hanging up the washed fritillaria to dry, Li Long collected the fritillaria that had dried in the other side room, planning to buy a batch at the purchasing station tomorrow.

During this period, he had to sell a batch of fritillaria every day. The fritillaria season wasn't over yet, but Li Long had already collected more fritillaria than last year.

He had already sold over five hundred kilograms of dried goods, and there was still enough fritillaria stored at home to dry out another seventy or eighty kilograms.

He estimated that more could still be collected in the mountains. This year, there were many people entering the mountains to dig for fritillaria, and the mountains were producing a lot as well.

He just didn't know if the fritillaria yield would decrease next year.

But thinking about it, that seemed unlikely. The Tianshan Mountains were too vast; currently, these people were all digging for fritillaria near the mountains, at most going less than ten kilometers into the inner mountains, perhaps not even seven or eight kilometers.

And Li Long knew that even further in, let alone ten kilometers, there was fritillaria in the deep mountains twenty kilometers away. Currently, apart from herdsmen like Halimu, very few people entered the inner mountains.

There was no worry about not being able to find any.

Of course, those who entered the mountains to dig for fritillaria in the coming years would probably have to work a bit harder.

Sometimes Li Long even wondered if there were hundred-year-old codonopsis roots in the mountains.

After all, very few people dug for traditional Chinese medicine here.

He didn't think it was likely, though the chance of encountering them was quite low.

Very low.

He packed the fritillaria to be sold tomorrow into bags, then took the velvet antlers off the red deer head, and took advantage of the fact that it wasn't dark yet to process them and leave them to dry in the shade.

He currently had a few more velvet antlers in the side room that hadn't been sold. He planned to keep them for now; what if he needed them?

In any case, he could get them every year; once he had fresh ones, he would just sell the old ones.

By the time he finished processing everything, it had already turned dark. Gu Xiaoxia and Han Fang had already gone into the room to watch TV. Sister Yang was still in the kitchen processing the meat.

Li Long went over to take a look, but Sister Yang shooed him out. Li Long then went into the room, changed his clothes in the eastern inner room, and then went to the western master bedroom.

Seeing Li Long come over, Han Fang stood up to greet him and was about to leave. Gu Xiaoxia told her to finish watching this half-episode of TV before leaving.

"Go ahead and watch, it's rare to watch TV for a while," Li Long said, then turned and went to the living room to pour himself a glass of water.

The next day, after selling over thirty kilograms of dried fritillaria at the purchasing station, Li Long went to the department store to buy some things, and then went into the mountains.

Since his eldest brother Li Jianguo had said there was no need to rush to Xiaobaiyanggou, Li Long went to the wooden cabin, intending to drop off his things.

At the wooden cabin, Bolati and Sun Jia Qiang were both there.

Seeing Li Long come over, Bolati's expression was a bit serious as he came over to tell Li Long something:

"This morning, when some of our people were patrolling the forest over there, they found a corpse."

"Where was it found?" Li Long was a bit surprised; he immediately thought of the man whose arm had been slashed yesterday.

"In Yushugou, west of Xiaobaiyanggou. The corpse had been bitten by wolves until it was unrecognizable—this person was a medicinal herb gatherer; there was still some fritillaria in his dugout, and his things were in a mess. The person had been dragged outside the dugout by wolves to be gnawed on, otherwise, he wouldn't have been discovered."

Li Long understood immediately.

It was highly likely the person he had encountered yesterday. His arm was injured, he hadn't treated it well, there was the smell of blood, and when he fell asleep at night, he was discovered by wolves. Several wolves attacked together, and the man was bitten to death.

This was the first time he had encountered such a situation in the mountains, and Li Long's mood was a bit complicated.

"I came over just to give you a reminder. You're fine, you have a car and a gun. Those people in your team are also fine, at least there are so many of them; here, though, you need to be careful."

He glanced at Sun Jia Qiang, clearly having already reminded him.

Li Long knew that, in fact, among the herb gatherers, there must have been those bitten by wolves over the years; it was just that they might not have been discovered.

They were truly risking their lives to earn money.

(End of chapter)