Chapter 768

The two tables eating in the south courtyard were basically all young people. Xie Yun Dong, Tao Daqiang, and the others were all there, and some hoped to clink glasses with Li Long, but Li Long waved his hand:

"No, no, I'm driving later. If I have a drink with each of you, I won't be able to drive. Xiaoxia has to go to work tomorrow, and we have to rush back tonight. We didn't bring the kids' milk bottles or anything, it's not convenient."

After he gave such a list of reasons, everyone stopped asking him to drink and turned to others instead.

The young people were also playing finger-guessing games, but they weren't as imposing as the table with Li Jianguo and the others. Over there, as they played, those with short tempers would stand up, one foot on the stool, as if it weren't enough to show the pressure of the numbers they were shouting.

Li Long's side was a bit more "civilized," basically sticking to shouting numbers. Some young people were just starting to learn, and when they shouted, they still had to calculate, and might even shout the wrong number due to nervousness, which would trigger a burst of laughter from the group.

The table with Gu Xiaoxia and Sister Yang was relatively quieter. As the only state cadre present, Gu Xiaoxia was the one asked the most questions. From the weight of Mingming and Haohao to her salary, these were all questions everyone cared about and were easy to gossip about.

Of course, the news that Li Long was going to reopen the purchasing station also spread among the women. They also wanted to know how much money it would take to open one, what items this station would purchase, and whether it would be the same as before.

Don't underestimate the women of this time; sometimes women are even better than men at side businesses.

For example, digging for licorice root; in this day and age, digging for licorice roots in the production team is mainly done by women. When the tractors were clearing the wasteland, some women had already found out, and after getting the news, they would hitch up their donkey carts and head to the wasteland to follow the tractors and start picking up licorice roots.

Licorice grows in large patches, and because it's a perennial, the roots underneath get thicker and thicker. More importantly, this stuff basically doesn't need to be harvested by season. Stuff like Codonopsis pilosula must be harvested in the autumn, otherwise, once the harvested ginseng dries out, it shrivels up.

Licorice isn't like that; whatever season you dig it up in, it's solid and substantial.

They pick the licorice roots out of the overturned soil, take them home to wash them clean, then cut them into half-meter-long segments, and then take them to the purchasing station to sell.

Women are hardworking and patient when doing such things; men are mostly annoyed by such tasks, as they are more excited about jobs that require strength and yield results quickly.

Like trapping a rabbit, catching a fish, or hunting a fox, or digging up mushrooms and the like.

Gu Xiaoxia said what she could, and she wouldn't say much about what she couldn't.

Sister Yang was also a target for questions. Fortunately, she was well-traveled and knowledgeable, and after adapting, she handled it with ease, which made many women secretly admire her.

Han Fang soon hit it off with the children here. Because Li Juan had good grades and her family was well-off, she had prestige among the girls in this area. Everyone gave her friends some face, so Han Fang soon had a group of playmates.

Although it was only for one day, Han Fang felt this was probably the happiest day of her winter break. After all, with so many children playing together, no one would ask what your dad does, where your dad is, or care if your family has money or which unit your parents work for.

They would only admire that you were so good at arithmetic, dressed so nicely, spoke Mandarin so "fashionably," and even had little leather shoes!

Li Qiang and the others finished eating early and then went to the snow to kick a pig bladder. A group of children with runny noses shouted and yelled excitedly in the open space south of the south courtyard, as if they were having a carnival.

When Li Long finished eating and was preparing to leave, Li Jianguo, who had drunk a bit too much, moved a quarter of a pig onto his car.

"Take it back to eat, come back and get more if it's not enough!" Li Jianguo had the air of a big brother at this moment. "I'll boil that pig's head after I finish cleaning it up here, then you can take it back. Oh right, and the offal, I'll braise it all, and when you come over before the New Year, you can take it to the county."

Liang Yuemei also hurried over, carrying two pig livers in her hand. She put the pig livers in the car and said to Li Long:

"Mingming and Haohao are still small, boil this, mash it up, and feed them a little at a time; it's good for replenishing blood. Remember, this can't be frozen; if it freezes, it'll go bad."

After saying this, she hurried back to the kitchen. When she came out again, she was carrying an enamel basin with a lid, tied tight with a cloth, and put it into the car as well.

"This is some clean pickled cabbage stir-fried with pork that wasn't served. Take it back and eat it. It's best to freeze it and cut it into pieces; when you eat it, take a piece out and heat it up. The more you heat this dish, the more fragrant it gets..."

Gu Xiaoxia felt a wave of emotion hearing this; at this moment, it felt like a mother giving instructions to her daughter.

"Alright, big brother, sister-in-law, we're leaving." Li Long sat in the driver's seat and said, "You guys hurry inside, it's cold out, and big brother, you've had some wine, don't catch a cold."

His father and mother had already said their goodbyes in the front courtyard. After Li Long finished speaking, he reversed the car out of the courtyard, turned, and drove away.

Even after turning out of the residential area, Han Fang was still leaning against the car window looking back, wanting to see Li Juan and Li Qiang.

Once she couldn't see anyone at all, Han Fang turned her head to look at Sister Yang, who was holding Haohao in the back, then turned back and whispered to Li Long:

"Uncle Li, when can I come back to play again?"

"Want to come over? Actually, if you want, you could stay here for a while." Li Long said with a smile, "It's just that I'm afraid your mom won't agree."

Han Fang immediately pouted; her mother definitely wouldn't agree.

Sister Yang also heard the conversation between the two in the front. She didn't answer, obviously knowing that Han Fang understood what she meant. She didn't want to cause trouble for others.

After returning to the big courtyard, the fire in the stove hadn't gone out yet. Gu Xiaoxia and Sister Yang carried Mingming and Haohao, who had fallen fast asleep in the car, to the bedroom. After tucking them in, Sister Yang returned to her own room.

Everyone was exhausted today, including Mingming and Haohao. The two children had seen too many people today, and there had been people teasing and praising them the whole time. The two children were also very excited and hadn't slept at all in the front courtyard, so now they were finally getting a good rest.

Li Long first added coal to the stove in the room, poked it to get the fire going, then went out to move the front leg with the ribs into the storage room. He used a cleaver to break it down into strips of meat and removed the bones. Right now, the meat was slightly frozen, not completely solid, so it was easy to break down. If he waited until tomorrow when the meat was frozen solid, it would be hard to handle.

They would eat this meat slowly throughout the winter, and by the time spring was about to arrive, they would braise it, put it in a large enamel basin, cover it, and keep it in the cool room to consume slowly.

Then he put the pot on in the kitchen and added water, preparing to boil the pig liver.

As for the pickled cabbage stir-fried with pork, he put it in the storage room first, waiting until it froze before doing anything else.

After Sister Yang got the fire going in the stove in the east room, she came to the kitchen. Seeing Li Long boiling the pig liver, she told him to go back to the room and leave this to her.

Li Long didn't argue and went back to the room to continue discussing the matter of setting up the purchasing station with Gu Xiaoxia.

"Still, we can't be in a rush. I think we should secure the sales channels first." Gu Xiaoxia still held a cautious attitude; if they couldn't find sales channels for some items, they couldn't decide whether to purchase them or not.

"Alright, I'll find time tomorrow to go to the leather factory and ask." Li Long said, "Let's solve the issue with the skins first, then talk about licorice and the like."

Jia Tianlong collected fritillaria and licorice, and the medicinal herb company collected them too, but they couldn't collect such large quantities. If Li Long opened up the purchasing of fritillaria in the spring, it was estimated that even several tons wouldn't be enough, and the medicinal herb company couldn't handle such a large volume.

"The seven thousand yuan you gave me earlier is still in the bank; here is the passbook." Gu Xiaoxia said, "I'll withdraw the money and put it with you. If we open a purchasing station later, we'll definitely need to put down a lot of money as a deposit."

"No need, no need, I have some here." Li Long smiled, "You keep that money; spend it if you need to buy anything, don't be reluctant. I've earned quite a bit of money in the last two years, I'm not short of those few thousand."

When Li Long said this, Gu Xiaoxia laughed:

"I didn't expect you, this money-raker, to really be living up to the name. Your speed of making money is much stronger than those 'ten-thousand-yuan households' promoted in the newspapers."

"Hehe, just good luck." Li Long also said with a smile, "Just messing around, anyway, it can make our family's life better and better."

Gu Xiaoxia believed this point.

In the evening, Sister Yang cooked some porridge. Everyone had eaten a bit too much during the day, so in the evening, except for Li Long, the others only ate a symbolic amount.

Although he had just eaten at noon, Li Long still sliced a bun, toasted it, and heated up a plate of pickled cabbage stir-fried with pork. Not only did he finish the vegetables and meat, but he also used the bun pieces to dip into the vegetable juices and ate it all, finally drinking a bowl of porridge before he felt full.

Now that his digestion was good and there was no issue with indigestion, Li Long felt everything was very satisfying.

The next day, Gu Xiaoxia went to work. After Sister Yang finished cleaning up the kitchen and came over to watch the children, Li Long took his tools and went to the purchasing station.

There was no one outside the purchasing station courtyard at this moment. After Li Long opened the big gate, he entered the room and placed a bag of coal by the stove.

The coal ash in the stove hadn't even been cleaned out; these people were really a bit sloppy in their work. Didn't they know they should clean the house when handing it over?

Li Long complained while cleaning, clearing out the coal ash. When he went out to dump the ash, he found some dry firewood in the back. After dragging it back, he found some newspapers in the office and took two sheets to use as kindling.

He put the newspapers, dry grass, and broken thin branches into the stove chamber layer by layer, then spread some broken coal chunks on top. After covering the stove lid, he opened the front stove door, took out a lighter, and lit the newspaper. After seeing the newspaper ignite the dry grass, he closed the front stove door and then went to the other rooms.

Because the stove hadn't been lit for a while, the room was quite damp, including the chimney. So after the stove was lit, the smoke wouldn't completely follow the flue at first; he had to wait for the temperature to rise and form a convection effect before the chimney could draw smoke smoothly. Therefore, at this time, the smoke in the stove would drift all over the room; there was no way around it, he just had to wait.

Just as Li Long was organizing and cleaning the room, someone came over carrying a bag.

"Selling things!" That person saw the door of the purchasing station was open and smoke was drifting out, so he ran to the door excitedly and shouted, "Comrade, comrade, I'm selling things, skins, take a look!"

The counter hadn't been removed, so he spread the skins directly on the counter, waiting for someone to come out.

Li Long came out with a sorghum stalk broom, looked at him with some confusion, and asked:

"Didn't you see the notice? We don't open until spring."

"Didn't see it..." That person scratched his head with a silly smile and said, "I'm illiterate... Are you not buying? The skins are really good, wolf skins hunted a few days ago! Not damaged at all, good skins!"

Wolf skins?

Li Long was a bit curious, so he pointed to the counter and said, "Lay them out and let me see, *cough*..."

There was some coal smoke drifting in the upper part of the room, which was a bit choking.

"Your technique for setting the fire isn't good." This person looked to be under thirty and spoke a bit simply, "The flue isn't set up right, is it?"

"This purchasing station hasn't been open for two months, it's only just reopened now. Today is the first day setting the stove, can it not have smoke?" Li Long retorted, then examined the wolf skins he was looking at.

This person wasn't annoyed and said with a silly smile:

"I heard that too, heard it wasn't going to open anymore. I didn't quite believe it, so I thought I'd come up and see. Didn't expect it to be open."

"The price I give won't be high. Listen, if you want to sell, sell; if you don't want to sell, then go somewhere else." Li Long wasn't a state unit, and there was no unified purchase price right now. If he wanted to make money, he had to suppress the price.

"You name it, I'm listening."

Li Long looked at this wolf skin; it was indeed a winter skin and quite large. After checking and seeing there were indeed no bullet holes or knife cuts, he said:

"This wolf skin is fifty yuan."

This person didn't just bring wolf skins; there was also a Mongolian gazelle skin and a badger skin.

There were two bullet holes in the Mongolian gazelle skin, looks like it went straight through. The badger skin was intact, but you could tell it was an autumn skin.

"Mongolian gazelle skin thirty, it's damaged. Badger skin twenty yuan, this one isn't big."

One hundred yuan for the three skins.

"This... alright then." This person also knew this price was a bit lower than the original purchasing station, but he didn't want to run around anymore, and he didn't know where else to sell them.

"That's fine." Li Long looked at the skins again, then took money out of his pocket. While taking out the money, he asked:

"Did you hunt all these things yourself?"

"Yeah, by the sand dunes on the north side. There are quite a few things running over here in the winter now. I have nothing to do at home, so I just thought I'd hunt a bit when I'm free. I can always hunt something in a month."

"Not bad, not bad." Li Long nodded. This person could be considered a part-time hunter; this side income was pretty good.

However, such people were relatively rare in Maxian; everyone was a traditional farmer, and very few people did this line of work.

He counted out ten "big tens" (ten-yuan bills) and handed them to the other party. This part-time hunter took them, counted them carefully once, smoothed out the folded corner of one of the bills, then folded them in half and put them into the inner pocket of his clothes. He patted it and said to Li Long with a smile:

"If I hunt more later, I'll bring them to you again."

"Alright." Li Long also smiled. He should be able to make twenty or thirty from these three skins.

During the time he spent cleaning for the whole morning, seven groups of people came to sell things.

It was the same in the afternoon. Even though it was the dead of winter, it wasn't exactly an endless stream of people, but basically, someone would come in every half hour.

Li Long's purchasing station hadn't even fully opened yet, but it had already become popular.

He guessed it was probably because some people were worried it would close again, so they were in a hurry to bring their things over to sell. (End of chapter)