Chapter 686: The Fragrance of Mushrooms

These days, the large courtyard was filled with the rich scent of wild mushrooms. Black tiger-paw mushrooms were large, had a rich mushroom flavor, and tasted good, otherwise, they couldn't have sold for such a high price.

Li Long could bring back dozens to a hundred kilograms of wild mushrooms every day, and this stuff was drying everywhere in the courtyard.

His footprints also covered the mountains within tens of kilometers around Nanshan.

With the jeep, every time he drove, he would choose a gully to enter and then walk inward along the gully. Some places he had walked before and was relatively familiar with; some places he hadn't walked, so he would walk them once.

Anyway, Li Long had abundant physical strength, and his five senses far exceeded ordinary people, so he was much better at finding mushrooms than ordinary people.

Not only finding mushrooms, but he also discovered quite a few Codonopsis plants with very large stalks.

It wasn't time to dig Codonopsis yet, so Li Long just noted down these places; if there was an opportunity in the future, he would come to dig these Codonopsis that obviously looked a bit huge back.

He wasn't worried about this thing going extinct; there were too many Codonopsis in the mountains, and they all grew in patches.

Although Codonopsis was called "ginseng," it was actually a Platycodon plant and not in the same category as ginseng, which was a plant of the Araliaceae family.

Moreover, this thing grew a lot and reproduced quickly, suitable for growing in wild fields where it grew in patches. Li Long could see an entire hillside covered with dense, pale purple Codonopsis flowers.

Too many.

Couldn't dig them all.

What's more, from now on, these Chinese herbal medicines in the mountains were under protection; in the future, whether it was Codonopsis, Fritillaria, or other more precious things like snow lotus, they were strictly prohibited from being dug and picked.

On the eighth day after entering the mountains, Li Long took dried black tiger-paw mushrooms to the purchasing station for sale for the first time.

He brought a full two sacks, more than seventy kilograms of mushrooms to sell.

The purchasing station itself wasn't large, and when Li Long arrived, there were seven or eight people lined up in the courtyard. The things in their hands were also varied, and Li Long smelled the scent of Fritillaria. He guessed that it was likely dug earlier and hadn't been brought over to sell until now.

There was also goat cashmere, which was estimated to have been kept for a period of time.

To be honest, in a small county town that wasn't a very ancient place and didn't have any special local products, there weren't many resources that ordinary people could sell to the purchasing station.

Of course, the main reason was that it was relatively far from Nanshan. At this time, even bicycles were considered luxury goods, so it wasn't easy to enter Nanshan once, and if you couldn't find valuable things after entering the mountains, the day would be wasted, so ordinary people likely wouldn't go into the mountains.

The information gap, plus the fact that Li Long had a car, meant he was destined to be rich.

Let alone at this time, even forty years later when every household had a car, entering Nanshan wasn't something you could just do whenever you wanted—or rather, you could actually go whenever you wanted, but the mindset had already fixed the people who remained in the village. Even if it was just a journey of over an hour, in their view, it was still very far, very far.

And those young people with ideas and drive had all gone to the cities to work, so it was even more impossible for them to enter the mountains.

They could only occasionally go around the vicinity of Highway 101 during holidays, and that wasn't even in the mountains yet.

On the contrary, those "farmers" who drove electric tricycles, put their land in cooperatives, waited for year-end dividends, and because mechanization was so widespread, had no work to do usually, had an increasingly large range of activities, and finally ran into Nanshan to start digging Fritillaria.

It counted as forty years of reincarnation.

So the people in line saw Li Long carrying two large sacks, and to be honest, it was quite shocking to the others.

They could also smell that this was the scent of mushrooms; they just didn't know if the purchasing station would accept mushrooms if Li Long brought them to sell.

The person in front of Li Long was holding a basket of copper coins, and it was unclear where they were dug out from.

Li Long estimated that the basket of copper coins could be seven or eight kilograms, some were rusted quite severely, and even the characters couldn't be seen, but most were still okay.

Seeing Li Long staring at the copper coins in their basket, that big brother asked:

"Brother, are those mushrooms you're carrying? Do they accept mushrooms here?"

"Yeah, they don't accept ordinary mushrooms, my mushrooms are different." Li Long took out a black tiger-paw mushroom from the sack to show him, "These mushrooms are from inside Nanshan, different from the ones dug out."

The ones dug out were reed mushrooms, similar to delicious mushrooms; of course, there were also delicious mushrooms, but they were all dug out from underground, so here they were all called "digging mushrooms."

That old brother took the mushroom, looked at it, looked at the front and back, and even smelled it, saying:

"It's really different, where did you get these mushrooms... Nanshan?"

Li Long nodded:

"Go deep into Nanshan, walk two or three layers of mountains, in the gullies, some places have them."

"Too far." That old brother shook his head, and when he was about to return the mushroom to Li Long, it was taken over and looked at by the uncle holding the goat cashmere bag beside him.

There were quite a few places where mushrooms grew on the southern edge of the basin, but the mushrooms that grew were mostly picked and eaten by people.

If these mushrooms could be sold for money, there would definitely be quite a few people wanting to get involved.

After all, in this day and age, money was really valuable.

That big brother smiled apologetically at Li Long. Li Long didn't care and pointed to the copper coins, asking:

"Where did you dig them? So many!"

"We're from Letuyie. When plowing the land, we didn't know which year's grave we plowed away. There were no bones in the grave, just a jar of copper coins. Some of the coins had rotted away, I picked some that looked like they hadn't finished rusting and brought them over to see if they would accept them."

"They should accept them." Li Long remembered that when he was chatting with Chen Hongjun, Chen Hongjun had said they accepted these copper coins. "If they accept them, that's good." That old brother said with a smile, "Our family's wheat hasn't been harvested yet. Sell them for a few yuan, take them back, and let the harvester on our side harvest it. That harvester is really fast at harvesting wheat..."

Once the topic of harvesters came up, the people who were originally a bit silent started talking all at once. Some said it was fast, some said two yuan per mu was a bit expensive, some said there wasn't a single harvester in their township, and they had a lot of wheat planted at home and were preparing to hire someone.

Li Long felt quite touched listening to this; after all, this matter could be considered as him advancing history by a small step, changing the lives of some people.

He didn't know how those few people who were currently harvesting separately were doing.

When that black tiger-paw mushroom returned to Li Long's hand, the topic changed to "how much can these mushrooms sell for per kilogram."

Li Long said more than twenty yuan, which startled these people!

"My copper coins are said to be only a few yuan, and your mushrooms are twenty-something yuan?" The old brother's eyes went straight listening, "What kind of mushrooms are so expensive?"

"Dried mushrooms." Li Long smiled and explained, "Seven or eight kilograms of fresh mushrooms are dried into one kilogram of dried mushrooms, and you have to go deep into Nanshan. If you can't come back on the same day, there are wolves in the mountains..."

Li Long took out the wolf fangs he had put in his pocket earlier and hadn't put at home yet.

Seeing those wolf fangs, the others stopped talking.

They were all locals and knew that wolves were rare in the plains these past two years; after all, there were more people and more machinery.

But everyone knew there were wolves in the mountains. A lone wolf in the plains would at most steal a chicken or something, but a pack of wolves in the mountains could really eat people.

No errors in the content, take a look!

So those who thought it was expensive stopped talking.

"Little brother, do these mushrooms only grow inside Nanshan?" That old brother asked, still a bit unwilling.

His basket of copper coins might not even be worth a kilogram of the other person's mushrooms.

There were so many mushrooms... how much money would that be!

But thinking about the mountains, then looking at the wolf fangs, that danger... that money was meant for that person to earn.

Hearing the movement outside, Chen Hongjun came out with his hands behind his back, smiled after seeing Li Long, and came over to say to Li Long:

"Comrade Little Li, you've had quite a harvest this time... How are things in the mountains?"

"Not bad, hit two wolves." Li Long weighed the wolf fangs in his hand and said, "And bears, but didn't hit any."

He wasn't trying to scare these people so others wouldn't pick mushrooms. He mainly wanted these people to take it seriously, not just see that these mushrooms were expensive and valuable and think about going into the mountains.

He magnified the danger in the mountains to make these people understand that there were things worth picking in the mountains, but they had to be fully prepared, otherwise, entering the mountains was just courting death.

Chen Hongjun led Li Long into his office; after all, they were old acquaintances, so he personally went to accept these mushrooms for Li Long.

Taking out a handful of black tiger-paw mushrooms, Chen Hongjun finished looking at them one by one, nodded, and said with emotion:

"Little Li, look at these mushrooms you picked, the quality is as good as ever."

No mushroom roots with soil, no fine dregs, no passing off inferior goods as superior; basically, every black tiger-paw mushroom was complete.

Moreover, there were many large ones, and the appearance was very good.

"First grade, first grade." Chen Hongjun decided for Li Long just like that, "Wait a moment, I'll push a scale over to weigh it for you."

Two sacks of black tiger-paw mushrooms sold for more than a thousand yuan. This was because Chen Hongjun had specially cleared a "VIP" channel for Li Long; otherwise, if people knew that these two sacks of dried mushrooms sold for more than a thousand yuan, even with wolves and bears, it was estimated that those few people outside would be thinking about how to go into the mountains to pick mushrooms.

Li Long took the money, carried the sacks, left the purchasing station, and returned to the large courtyard. He didn't plan to go into the mountains today and would stay with his family for a while.

Gu Xiaoxia still had some time before going to work, and Li Long was thinking about whether to take her into the mountains to soak in the hot springs or something to relax.

However, the two children were really too young, and there were no child seats in this day and age, and the road was not good when the car went into the mountains, so he thought about it and decided to forget it.

Just as Li Long was selling mushrooms, Tao Daqiang drove a tractor and had just come out of a wheat field.

The landowner looked at the wheat field that had been harvested cleanly, and although they felt a bit pained, they still smiled and handed the twelve yuan to Tao Daqiang.

Six mu of land; usually, the couple would have to finish harvesting in a day or two, but now the tractor came, and after a few rounds, it was harvested in just over ten minutes.

Although there was still bundling and pulling to be done, the heaviest work was already gone.

Tao Daqiang took the slice of melon handed over by the hostess, ate while thanking them, finished it in a few bites, wiped his mouth, and drove the tractor to the next house.

This money, the money earned was satisfying!

Almost at the same time, Li Jianguo, Liang Dacheng, Xie Yun Dong, including Liang Wenyu, felt about the same.

From harvesting wheat until now, they had basically determined that if they kept doing this, in one wheat season, earning the money for a tractor would be no problem!

Although Xie Yun Dong and Liang Dacheng had to split half the money with Li Long, even so, this year's income would far exceed previous years.

With this tractor and the harvester it carried, becoming a ten-thousand-yuan household was really not an unreachable dream.

PS: Took the children to see the Demon Child, previously thought about Taiyi speaking dialect, so going to Kunlun, shouldn't they also speak Xinjiang Mandarin? Sure enough, it had a bit of that flavor, not very strong, count it as Northwest dialect... (End of chapter)