Chapter 668

After eating, Li Jianguo chased Li Long away.

According to him, staying here was of no use, so it would be better to let him go back to the wooden cabin to do his own things.

By the way, he had to send Old Huang to Xiaobaiyanggou; there were people watching over there, and after Old Huang went over, he would swap people back.

Li Long sent Old Huang, along with the pot, to the Xiaobaiyanggou camp, and then drove the car toward the wooden cabin.

When Li Long arrived at the wooden cabin and handed an enamel basin of pilaf to Sun Jia Qiang, Sun Jia Qiang, who was washing and drying fritillaria, took the basin and sighed:

"They're going back soon, right? Once they go back, I'll have to cook for myself. This pilaf... to tell the truth, I really don't know how to make it."

After speaking, he went to find chopsticks, sat on the threshold, and started eating in large mouthfuls.

Old-school pilaf requires every grain of rice to be soaked in oil, but the rice must be distinct, not sticking together. It should be slightly hard, but not undercooked.

It also uses "yellow carrots" instead of "red carrots." That is, the yellow kind of carrot, or a mix of red and yellow; you can't just use the red ones, as that doesn't taste right.

Besides large chunks of bone, you also need enough oil, otherwise, the pilaf won't be fragrant.

Often when you finish eating such pilaf, there is oil left at the bottom of the bowl. In this era, those who know how to eat will mix it while eating, mixing the oil at the bottom of the bowl into the rice and eating it all together; it's fragrant.

In later generations, naturally, you wouldn't be able to eat it all, and it's very likely that a small half-bowl of oil would be left; some people would simply take the rice from the top, so there would be less oil.

Although Sun Jia Qiang had been in Northern Xinjiang for several years, if you really asked him to make pilaf, it probably wouldn't be easy.

Just as they were eating, someone walked over from afar.

Li Long felt a bit strange; this person was dejected, and he wasn't carrying anything in his hands, what was the meaning of this?

When that person walked closer, Li Long discovered that his clothes were torn, and he seemed to have injuries on his body as well.

After that person saw Li Long, there was a glimmer of light in his eyes, and he shouted in a low, hoarse voice:

"Can you give me something to eat?"

Li Long heard these words and glanced at Sun Jia Qiang.

Sun Jia Qiang didn't see him, as he was lowering his head to eat, and he hadn't heard the person's words either.

Li Long went into the room and got a steamed bun for that person.

That person snatched the bun and ate it in large mouthfuls there. After eating three or four mouthfuls, he choked. Li Long didn't give him water, so he ran over to the spring eye himself and drank water to swallow the things in his esophagus.

After he finished eating, this person felt he had strength, and then leaned against the counter and said to Li Long:

"Those two were also medicinal herb gatherers; they used the knives they traded from you to threaten me, saying that if I didn't give them my things, they would kill me."

Speaking to this point, that person paused and looked up at Li Long.

Li Long ignored him.

"You tell me, why did you trade for knives? This is so dangerous," that person should have had strength after eating the bun, and started lecturing Li Long. "If it weren't for them having knives, I could still have contended with those two people by myself..."

"What's the meaning of this? You couldn't beat them, so you're planning to come to us for compensation, right?" Li Long understood his words and asked back with a cold laugh.

"It's not that, I just feel that you guys have a little bit of responsibility..." That person had originally meant this, but after being looked at like that by Li Long, he was a bit scared, but still gathered his courage and said, "Look, I have nothing left; why don't you give me some things so I can get through this night, and tomorrow I'll be able to dig up some fritillaria and earn some money..."

"I think you'd better go dig for fritillaria right now; there's still a good while before dark. Even if you can dig up one kilogram of fritillaria by dark, I can trade you for some things."

If this person hadn't brought up compensation or anything, Li Long would have thought about giving him some assistance.

But after he ate the bun, he clearly pushed his luck, and Li Long wasn't happy.

Sun Jia Qiang finished eating, walked over with the enamel basin to wash it, and asked a question by the way:

"What's the situation?"

"He was robbed by someone with a knife, and he feels it's our responsibility, wanting us to subsidize him a bit," Li Long said, pointing and feeling a bit speechless.

"What?" Sun Jia Qiang couldn't believe his ears.

"The knife was sold from your place, so I was robbed, shouldn't you guys take some responsibility?" That person still felt he was quite justified.

Li Long heard some movement and turned his head to look toward the east.

Hearing Bolati and another young man were riding horses, one after the other, running toward this side.

"I think you can talk to them," Li Long said, pointing to Hearing Bolati. "They are forest rangers from the forestry team and are in charge of the public security in this area. You were robbed, so they should back you up. If they feel I need to compensate you, then that's definitely no problem."

When Li Long said this, his expression was very serious, just as if he really thought so.

That person was stunned for a moment, and then immediately shook his head:

"No, no, no, I don't want to meet them... I'm leaving, I'm leaving..."

After speaking, he turned his head and ran into the forest, his movements very fast, as if he were afraid that Li Long would immediately hand him over to Hearing Bolati.

"Hmph, I really want to beat him up!" Sun Jia Qiang washed the enamel basin clean and placed it on the counter, saying, "He's really shameless; he wasted a steamed bun."

"Alright, if you run into a dog that's starving to death, you have to give it something to eat, right?" Li Long smiled, signaling for him not to mind it.

After Hearing Bolati and the other person came over, they directly took the bags off their horses. The two people placed four bags in front of Li Long.

"Trade for meat, trade for money," Hearing Bolati said with a smile. "People have been coming out of the mountains every day these past few days; it looks like they're planning to leave."

"Then you guys are checking them; haven't they worked for nothing for a month?" Li Long looked at the few bags in front of him, all of them full.

"Don't worry, we won't do anything too extreme; we'll leave them one bag each. There's no help for it; we can only say they were too unlucky." Hearing Bolati wouldn't care about that much; he felt that leaving them one bag was already doing his best.

"There's meat, and there's money." Li Long weighed the bags; one bag was about thirty or forty kilograms. He opened the bag to take a look; inside were semi-dried fritillaria.

"As for the money, I'll give you a bit more; this fritillaria has been dried a bit." Li Long even explained.

"Good, good, you decide how much to give. We know you're a good person and won't let us suffer a loss!" Hearing Bolati said, and he said to the person next to him:

"Look, I told you, Li Long won't let us suffer a loss; he even pointed out that this fritillaria is semi-dried."

That young man was a bit shy and didn't speak, just smiled.

"By the way, Hearing Bolati, my eldest brother and the others are digging for fritillaria in the mountain gully near Xiaobaiyanggou for one day tomorrow, just one day, do you think that's alright?"

Read the content without errors!

"One day? No problem. I'm in charge of that area, so this matter is definitely no problem." Hearing Bolati laughed when he heard this. "I'll go over tomorrow to take a look. Tell them to dig as much as they want; if there's anything, just find me. If they run into our people, reporting my name is also fine."

Li Long smiled; this matter was indeed easy to solve.

Next was settling the accounts for these fritillaria.

He calculated it at six yuan per kilogram, double the original price. Hearing Bolati and that young man each took over three hundred yuan, a few bottles of wine, and some meat, and left happily.

Over two hundred yuan, a huge sum!

Li Long looked at the fritillaria that had been washed very clean and had also been dried for a period of time, and in his heart, he mourned for those unlucky ones who had been checked.

Who told them to run into the muzzle of a gun?

Thinking about it, because people had died, the intensity of the patrols by the forestry team's forest rangers was also increasing.

"These fritillaria must be at least over a hundred kilograms, right?" Sun Jia Qiang leaned over and said with great envy, "And they're semi-dried."

"Yeah." Li Long smiled and moved these fritillaria bag by bag onto the car.

He was equivalent to harvesting the gains of those people who had worked hard to dig for medicinal herbs in the mountains.

However, he wouldn't have any guilt; the actions of those herb gatherers were already considered illegal, and he was equivalent to transferring some of the gains.

In any case, even if Hearing Bolati didn't bring them here, they would be handed over, and at that time, it would be equivalent to giving a portion of the gains to someone else.

As for who it would be, Li Long didn't know.

When the sun was about to set, Li Long loaded all the fritillaria from here onto the car, told Sun Jia Qiang it would be best not to work anymore, to close the wooden cabin door and lock it, and he drove the jeep toward Halimu's place.

When Li Long arrived, Li Jianguo and the others had already returned to Xiaobaiyanggou.

Li Long was happy to see that the sheep-washing pool had already been dug, and its shape was a bit like an ancient character where the horizontal line in the middle was short and wide.

The vertical line above was the entrance, the short, thick horizontal line in the middle was the pool for washing sheep, and the mouth below was the sheep pen to avoid the sheep running away after being washed.

The wall built at the opening was Y-shaped, which made it easy to drive the sheep in. And there was also an opening at the sheep pen behind; the sheep pen wasn't particularly large, but in any case, there was plenty of space nearby to settle these sheep.

There was also a channel in the middle of the sheep-washing pool to release water downward; after washing the sheep, you only needed to dig away the soil blocking the channel, and the water would be released.

Currently, there was no water in it, because the location of the sheep-washing pool was five meters below and twenty meters to the right of the water pipe outlet. Li Jianguo and the others had also thoughtfully led a channel from the water outlet over there. Currently, the channel was also blocked, and you only needed to dig it open when using it.

Halimu's winter shelter had also been repaired.

The grass and mud on the top had almost all been replaced, and the walls had been plastered again, looking as if they were new.

The fences of those sheep pens had also been reinforced and re-nailed, much neater than before.

They even found some flat stones and paved a path from the winter shelter to the water pipe, which made Li Long feel it was quite good.

Actually, he could also do something like this at the wooden cabin.

Thinking about it, next year he could actually do this for Yushanjiang's winter shelter as well.

This year, it wasn't good to delay time anymore; otherwise, it would also be good to find someone to come over and do it when he was free.

For example, after harvesting the wheat?

Of course, that was a matter for later.

Li Long didn't go to Xiaobaiyanggou again and drove the jeep directly back to the county.

There were so many fritillaria on the car, and he planned to unload these things first.

After all, it was all money. (End of chapter)