Chapter 672: Earned another car back?

Bolati actually didn't care how much money Li Long gave him now. After Li Long analyzed the situation for him just now, the stone that had been pressing on his heart was removed, and he felt this was worth more than anything.

He did nothing wrong, so he could sleep well from now on, without self-doubt.

Hey, Li Long was still amazing; he hit the point all at once, unlike those cadres in the team, who were useless!

"That's fine, let me tell you," Li Long saw Bolati was in a better mood and began to calculate the money. He didn't intend to swallow those fritillaria all by himself; Bolati took the risk and didn't report him, so he couldn't treat him poorly.

"I'll give you two thousand yuan first," Li Long said. "I only brought this much today; come over at lunch tomorrow, and I'll give you the rest..."

"What? So much?" Bolati waved his hand immediately upon hearing Li Long wanted to give so much. "That's enough, that's enough... two thousand yuan is fine..."

Li Long naturally didn't intend to only give Bolati two thousand yuan, but he truly didn't have that much on him right now.

Bolati took the two thousand yuan from Li Long's hand; such a thick stack, he was a bit dazed.

Just as he was about to put the money away, Bolati hesitated, handed half of it to Li Long, and counted out some of the rest to hand to Li Long:

"You hold it for me; I'll take three hundred first."

"Your money, why should I hold it for you?" Li Long hurriedly refused. "Keep it yourself."

"Li Long, let me tell you, you're a good friend, and I feel at ease putting the money with you.

I can't hold money; once I have money, I can't help but spend it. If I spend this money, won't I be exposed? People will definitely ask where so much money came from? Three or five hundred is fine, but if it's more, let alone others, if our team cadres suspect it, it won't be easy to explain."

Li Long thought it was also worrying. He pondered for a moment and asked:

"Then wouldn't it be fine to give the money to your family's Yangganzi?"

"No, no, women don't hold money," Bolati shook his head like a rattle. "They can't hold it. If women get money, they'll go out and spend it randomly; our women don't hold money..."

Li Long was a bit puzzled; he didn't know if this was Bolati's family rule or a consensus in their small circle, but since Bolati had said so, he said:

"Alright then, I'll keep the money for you first. Whenever you need money, come find me. After a while, my wife is going to give birth to a baby, so I'll be in the mountains less. If you have anything, you can also find me at the county supply and marketing cooperative."

"Okay, okay, okay, it's fine, you keep it first." Bolati happily put the three hundred yuan into the pocket on the left side of his chest, buttoned it, patted it, and said, "Don't worry, I'll remember. I'll find you when I need money later. I'm also thinking about buying a house in the county in a couple of years."

At current housing prices, Bolati's money could truly buy a courtyard in the county.

However, Li Long didn't make the decision for him; after all, ethnic customs were different, and this depended on people's own preferences.

With his worries resolved and money in hand, Bolati immediately became cheerful. He asked for a bottle of wine from Li Long, carried it, rode his horse, and left.

Although Li Long advised him to drink less, he waved his hand, indicating he would just drink a little bit, and then swayed away.

Well, Li Long truly had no way to stop this habit.

After Bolati left, Sun Jia Qiang came over to ask:

"Brother Long, I see this Bolati has an opinion about me. He looked very fierce just now; what were you chatting about?"

"He looked fierce at you because a few days ago, those two robbers wanted to rob his gun on the road and almost killed him," Li Long explained. "So he feels that none of the people digging for medicine are good people... it's fine, you don't need to worry about him."

"What? Those two people..." Sun Jia Qiang was also shocked and immediately understood Bolati's mood.

"Those two people might have been carrying cases on their backs and didn't want to be sent back, afraid that they would be exposed when interrogated," Li Long explained again. "It's fine, it has nothing to do with us."

Sun Jia Qiang finally felt relieved and continued to cook.

He was planning to make pilaf and wanted Li Long to guide him.

Li Long went over to teach him. To make pilaf delicious, you couldn't skimp on oil.

There was no shortage of oil here, and there was meat, and Li Long had also brought carrots, including onions.

So this pilaf was made quite well. When the two of them were eating at noon, someone came to exchange things and directly hoped to exchange for a bowl of pilaf.

This request had to be satisfied; Sun Jia Qiang immediately put down his enamel basin and went over to serve food to the person.

It was mainly because he felt he had made this for the first time and was recognized, which made him quite happy. He specifically served the person a bit more and put two pieces of meat bones on top.

That person was also a bit surprised, looked at Sun Jia Qiang, and then immediately broke off two tree branches and ate it in large mouthfuls.

Heaven knew how long it had been since he had a proper meal.

Li Long even saw that when he was eating, his eyes were red.

No help for it; the hardship in the mountains is only known to those who have experienced it.

Many people in later generations who watch wilderness survival have thoughts of wanting to go for a trip, but if they truly went, it's estimated that not many people could hold out for even one night.

At least people at this time had more survival skills in the wild than people forty years later.

Of course, the high technology forty years later was also something that couldn't be matched now; each had its own strengths.

After finishing a basin of pilaf, that person directly put down over three kilograms of fritillaria and turned to leave.

Sun Jia Qiang hurriedly called the person back and asked clearly what they wanted to exchange for. He wasn't the type of person to take small advantages.

When that person left, he truly wanted to use these fritillaria to pay for the meal. He felt this pilaf was worth this price.

But since Sun Jia Qiang had called him back, his inner rationality took the upper hand; after all, he also lacked some things.

So he exchanged for some dried noodles, as well as matches, medicine, salt, and other sundries.

When this person left, his pace was quite firm, much better than when he came.

Li Long felt that his inner heart seemed to have become firmer about some things.

Should be a good thing, right?

A total of two people came to exchange fritillaria in the whole afternoon. Li Long took the initiative to ask, and these two people said they would be coming out of the mountains in two more days.

Li Long looked at Sun Jia Qiang. Sun Jia Qiang was also hesitating whether to stay and pick mushrooms or go out of the mountains to find a job.

"You can try picking for a while; if you feel it's not good, it won't be too late to go out," Li Long advised. "Heaven won't starve a blind sparrow; anyway, there's always food to eat wherever you go. If you don't want to stay, you can take the morels and find me, or sell them at the acquisition station; both can be exchanged for money."

"Good." With Li Long's guarantee, he felt relieved.

Li Long returned quite early today. After the Xiaobaiyang Gully matter was finished, Li Long had been waiting for Bolati, and today Bolati's matter was also resolved, so Li Long felt a big weight off his heart and returned early.

Although half of the year hadn't passed, Li Long's plan in the mountains had been mostly completed, and from now on, he would just go occasionally.

The three bags of fritillaria he had originally planned to hand over to Bolati were brought back by him again. Some of these fritillaria weren't completely dry, and when he returned to the large courtyard, Gu Xiaoxia still had over an hour before finishing work, so he moved those fritillaria down from the car and took them to the wing room to dry.

It was fortunate that there were many rooms in the house; otherwise, it would truly be difficult to dry so many fritillaria.

Sister Yang had already pushed her cart back. While drying the fritillaria, Li Long casually asked:

"Sister Yang, how is business these days? Are they building the houses in the market?"

"Not yet, anyway, I see people going over to measure from time to time, and I don't know how it's being planned. Business has been pretty good these two days, more people are coming to the market, and there are quite a few selling food, but I've been here for a long time, so there are quite a few regular customers."

Li Long asked about the progress from time to time, just thinking that when the chance came, he would buy a few shops in the market and just sit and collect rent. From now until thirty-plus years later, shop rent was the highest; by the time physical stores were depressed, the costs would have long been recovered.

After drying the fritillaria and putting away the dried ones ready to be sold tomorrow, Li Long drove to the Education Bureau to wait for Gu Xiaoxia. In two or three days it would be the end of the month, and Gu Xiaoxia wouldn't need to work; these two days were also just finishing up the work on hand and handing over some work to others.

There were relatively many female cadres in the Education Bureau, so such things happened from time to time, and everyone was used to it.

The jeep was parked at the entrance of the Education Bureau; at first, some people looked at it as a curiosity, but later they slowly got used to it.

Of course, some people still had to take a look when passing by; after all, it was quite rare to see a jeep in this day and age.

And Li Long, sitting in the car, was also taking stock.

The money for the carrying poles had been settled; four thousand carrying poles, he had delivered four thousand and fifty or sixty to the supply and marketing cooperative; those fifty or sixty counted as gifts, he didn't want money, he wanted the money for the full four thousand.

It was mainly because when the carrying poles were pulled to the prefecture, they would be pressed, and Li Long was afraid there would be broken ones, so the extra ones counted as a margin.

Having a little margin was better than missing a few.

Four thousand carrying poles, earning four yuan each was sixteen thousand yuan. However, Li Long had to pay for the fifty or sixty extra, and also had to give Big Brother and Liang Wenyu the full price, and in the middle, he had to deduct the transport costs for the car.

Calculating this way, the net money in hand was over fourteen thousand yuan.

(No errors in the content, read on!)

As for the fritillaria, it hadn't been completely sold yet, but the money earned was already over twenty thousand, equivalent to being able to buy a Dafa car when the Dafa van came out in two years.

A bit exaggerated.

No help for it; a monopoly business is just this profitable!

Li Long was already quite calm; right now, the most important thing was Gu Xiaoxia giving birth to the baby, and everything else could be pushed back.

Fortunately, everything was normal right now.

That day, Liang Donglou drove the tractor to take the people in his village back, sent them back one by one, and finally took Liang Wenyu back to the courtyard.

After unloading the luggage, Chen Xiuzhu looked at her son and actually found that besides being a bit darker, Liang Wenyu had actually gained some weight.

"I could eat meat every day, and I did a lot of work, so I ate a lot. The food portions were sufficient, so how could I not gain weight?" Liang Wenyu also had quite a lot of pressure going out this time; after all, he was leading a few people, counting as a group. He was also worried that he couldn't manage the people or that the quality of the carrying poles woven wouldn't be good and he would be compared unfavorably.

Fortunately, at first he was trembling with fear, but later it basically got on the right track, and he didn't need to emphasize much.

Just occasionally mentioning details, and others were obedient—it was truly rare to find such work; this time everyone earned four or five hundred yuan, so how could they not be obedient?

The village had never had such a thing before!

"Old Dad, look at this fritillaria, I dug it!" Liang Wenyu showed the fritillaria he dug to Liang Donglou like a treasure.

"Hey, not bad," looking at the fritillaria that was washed clean and like pearls, Liang Donglou was also a bit surprised. "How did you learn to dig fritillaria?"

"The last two days, Xiao Long called us to help someone dig a sheep pond, saying it was for wages. We didn't want it, so he said he would talk to the forest ranger and let us dig fritillaria for a day as wages.

The forest ranger in the mountains digging fritillaria has a good relationship with Xiao Long, so he didn't care. I dug... this must be two or three kilograms, right?"

"How did you learn to dig?" Looking at the plump fritillaria, Liang Donglou grabbed a handful and looked at it in his hand, quite happy.

To say a traditional Chinese medicine practitioner would be very happy after curing a patient, and then be very happy to see good medicinal materials.

"I learned from Big Brother-in-law," Liang Wenyu said with a smile. "My Big Brother-in-law digs very fast; he dug seven or eight kilograms in one day..."

"That's truly amazing!" Liang Donglou nodded. "I couldn't dig that fast when I was young... then what do you plan to do with these?"

"Keep them at home for backup; isn't this for curing coughs?" Liang Wenyu said. "I see Xiao Long can collect dozens or hundreds of kilograms every day, saying this is very expensive... it's just that ordinary people aren't allowed to dig."

"Then why can it be collected if it's not allowed to be dug?" Chen Xiuzhu was a bit puzzled.

"He has a good relationship with the forest ranger, and he collects from those who dig for medicine. Those people exchange fritillaria for his grain, clothes, and the forest ranger doesn't care." Liang Wenyu was actually only half-understanding; he wasn't good at asking Li Long, so he asked Li Jianguo, or heard others say it when eating.

"Hey, that's not bad." Liang Donglou actually also knew Li Long had quite a few ways; he had originally thought about letting him lead his son, and it could be seen that Liang Wenyu had already opened his mind.

The next day, several people in the village who went to weave carrying poles came to the Liang family, and two even came on bicycles.

"Yo, you bought a new car already?" Liang Wenyu teased.

"That's for sure. The money is earned by ourselves; half is handed over to the family, and we spend the rest ourselves, so we have to buy a car first... Wenyu, look if there's any work this year?" The one who spoke was the one who wove the most carrying poles in their group this year, and earned the most.

Of course, he didn't know Liang Wenyu got eight yuan for one carrying pole, and Liang Wenyu wouldn't say this. After Liang Donglou knew about this, he told Liang Wenyu to keep his mouth shut; otherwise, there would definitely be no such work next year.

"No more. Even if there were, we couldn't do it," Liang Wenyu said. "In autumn, there's tying large brooms, and tying reed brooms. We don't have reeds or grass here, so we can't do anything."

"Sigh, fine." The two who came together on bicycles were actually just asking and didn't hold much hope.

Liang Wenyu still had work harvesting wheat, but this work wasn't easy to take people. Even if he took someone, at most he would take one. With these two people here, it was hard to say who to take and who not to take, so he simply didn't mention this matter.

After all, this work took a long time, and he still planned to earn this money and go pay back Li Long's tractor money.

Even if he followed someone, it was highly likely his Old Dad would follow him.

It was just unexpected that Second Brother-in-law Du Haihua came looking for him in the afternoon.

"Wenyu, this matter... Old Dad, you don't even talk about him, he'd rather take outsiders to earn money than take me," Du Haihua complained seriously.

"Not really, how do I remember that Wenyu looked for you first at the time, and you said you weren't willing to go?" Liang Donglou said unhurriedly. "This is what he told me when he was looking for people at the time."

"That..." Du Haihua was a bit embarrassed. "At the time, I didn't feel this matter was reliable... who would have thought this money was earned so easily."

"You're his brother-in-law; if you don't believe him, don't blame him for taking others to earn money." Liang Donglou shook his head.

Du Haihua had originally been considered someone with high eyes and low hands, but right now he had to bow his head; watching others earn money, while he was clearly Liang Wenyu's brother-in-law and hadn't earned a cent, it was truly unjustifiable.

Liang Donglou thought that after all, he was his second son-in-law, so he thought for a moment and said:

"In a while, the wheat harvest season will arrive. At that time, Wenyu and I will use the harvester to harvest wheat for the team. Let's do it this way. You go to other teams, find those who are willing to use the harvester to harvest wheat, and we'll go over to harvest. For every mu of land you find, you'll get... five mao. The more you find, the more you earn."

"Really?" Du Haihua stood up all at once, then immediately became suspicious. "That harvester... is that thing reliable?"

"Li Long harvested thousands of mu of land last year without any problems; you say if it's reliable?" Liang Donglou was quite angry at Du Haihua's habit of looking forward and backward. "If you don't want to earn this money, then pretend I didn't say anything!"

"Earn, earn, earn! I definitely want to earn! Then is it that however many mu I find, I can collect that much money?" Du Haihua gritted his teeth. "If I find two hundred mu in a day, that's one hundred yuan?"

"That also has to be harvested before you get the money." Liang Donglou was actually dividing the money of the two father and son. But letting Du Haihua be the lobbyist also saved the two of them from showing their faces, which was also a good thing.

"Okay, okay, okay." Du Haihua calculated in his heart; not to mention the village, he would go find those in other villages of the commune, and every family had a few mu of wheat planted. He had a few families he was familiar with; as long as he persuaded those few families, and then entrusted acquaintances to introduce them, getting twenty or thirty mu a day, ten or so yuan would be in hand.

It was also a good thing!

Du Haihua had this firm word and didn't even have time to drink water, hurriedly walking out.

"Don't be in a hurry, keep a gate on your mouth, don't ruin a good thing!" Liang Donglou shouted, reminding him.

After Liang Wenyu returned, Liang Donglou told him about this matter.

"Hmm, that's fine." Liang Wenyu also agreed. After all, he was his brother-in-law, so it was right to take care of him.

On Li Long's side, by the end of May, the fritillaria season was considered completely over. He went to the wooden cabin to leave some things for Sun Jia Qiang, and explicitly said that from now on he would only come once every week or half a month, letting Sun Jia Qiang look after himself. Either pick mushrooms or go down the mountain; when going down the mountain, just lock the wooden cabin door.

Sun Jia Qiang agreed; he planned to pick mushrooms for a while first.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 673 =====