Chapter 784

It's not cold when it snows, but cold when the snow melts. The season for the snow to melt had arrived. When Li Long drove the jeep northward, even though the sunlight was much stronger than it had been a month ago, he knew the perceived temperature outside would be much lower.

He was dressed very warmly, but he still felt cold.

The further north he went, the sparser the population, the emptier the world, and the stronger that sense of vastness became.

The occasional horse-drawn carriage or tractor broke the silence. When Li Long passed them, he could see that most of the carriages were loaded with one or two Mongolian gazelles, and the drivers often carried guns.

Their faces wore smiles, a joy of harvest. Even though it was cold, they were happy.

Li Long didn't know if these people had spontaneously decided to go north to hunt gazelles or if they had received news from somewhere.

Of course, he certainly wasn't the only smart person. When he was hunting gazelles in the no-man's-land of the Wuyi Highway, Wang Mingjun and the others were already hunting in the sand dunes; this was perfectly normal.

When the jeep drove to the company, Big Old Chen hurried out of the company headquarters courtyard, smiling and waving at Li Long from afar.

By the time the jeep drove into the courtyard, Wang Mingjun also came out, draped in a military-green overcoat. He shook hands with Li Long as he got out of the car and said with a smile:

"Comrade Xiao Li, you've worked hard. How was your New Year? There was no need to be in such a rush; with your vehicle, it wouldn't have been a problem to come after the snow melted."

"That wouldn't do. Once the snow melts, the roads get muddy. If my car got stuck, it would be a real headache being miles from anywhere." Li Long knew Wang Mingjun was joking, so he explained before following the two into the company headquarters.

Big Old Chen thought to himself that the company commander had been anxious earlier. He had originally prepared to lead people to hunt another batch of gazelles after the fifth day of the New Year, but the commander hadn't let them go a second time, worried that if they hunted too many, the pelts would rot if no one bought them.

Now he was being all polite!

Wang Mingjun gestured for Li Long to sit down, poured him some water, and said:

"Comrade Xiao Li, never mind, let's call you Without Xiao Long. Without Xiao Long, let me tell you, there have been quite a few people coming here to hunt gazelles lately. Has a competitor appeared on your side? Is anyone else buying gazelle pelts privately like you?"

"I haven't heard of that yet, but even if there isn't one now, there certainly will be later," Li Long said with a smile. "It's a market economy now, and the state encourages private legal business. If a sales channel can be found for these pelts, someone will definitely buy them."

This kind of thing was certainly inevitable, and Li Long was mentally prepared for it.

"Then you can rest assured. As long as you're still buying pelts, our company's pelts will definitely be sold to you," Wang Mingjun's voice was very resonant. "With the relationship with the old supply officer, you handle things efficiently, and we trust you."

"Then I really have to thank the company commander and the supply officer. By the way, our company has an instructor, right?"

"Yes, the instructor went back to his hometown to visit relatives," Wang Mingjun said. "He won't be back for a few more days."

After chatting for a while to build rapport, they got down to business.

As Big Old Chen led Li Long to the warehouse, he mentioned in passing:

"Our commander is thinking that after selling these pelts, we'll buy a harvester. It will save a lot of trouble during the busy farming season."

"A harvester? A combine harvester? A 'Combine'?"

"How could that be? We can't afford that. It's a wheat harvester, a small one, the kind that attaches to the front of a small four-wheeled tractor. You should already be using them on your side, right?"

"Hey, isn't that a coincidence? I'm the agent for that thing in Maxian; it can only be bought through me. Since we're our own people, Brother Old Chen, I'll tell you the truth: I designed this harvester, and it's produced together with the Kuitun Agricultural Machinery Factory, so I'm the agent for sales in Maxian, and no one else can sell them."

"Really?" Big Old Chen was somewhat surprised. "Without Xiao Long, you can do this too?"

"Haha, just messing around," Li Long said, his face showing a hint of pride. "I just felt that cutting wheat was too miserable, so wouldn't it be easier to make a harvester? After I designed it, I found a few factories, and in the end, the one in Kuitun produced it. They said it even won some kind of award in the autonomous region."

"Hey, you're really something! How much is a harvester? Are you selling them in the county?"

"If I sell them, yes," Li Long said with a smile. "That is to say, five hundred yuan, and I'll sell it to you. I have ten of them in the large courtyard in the county right now; if you want them, find a truck to haul them."

"Good, good, good, that's really great!" Big Old Chen thought to himself that this solved a major problem.

The warehouse was opened, and a fishy, foul smell wafted out. Li Long could see that there seemed to be even more pelts in the room than the last time he had hauled them away.

It might not be that the quantity was higher, but they were all new pelts, which were thicker than the old ones.

"Come, let's count them. Fifty-two whole pelts, twenty-one damaged ones—we know whole pelts are valuable, so during the last hunt, we specifically aimed for the heads of the gazelles and red deer. To say nothing else, our militia's marksmanship is beyond doubt."

The militia in the townships trained every winter, but later on, fewer and fewer people touched guns.

The militia training in the Production and Construction Corps was much stricter, and there were many more opportunities to handle guns, so the overall level of marksmanship was naturally better.

"Impressive, impressive," Li Long praised. "Let's take a look."

As Big Old Chen said this, he took the pelts down in stacks and showed them to Li Long one by one. He had stated the number of whole and damaged pelts, but that didn't mean he wanted Li Long to skip the inspection.

Friendship is one thing, and business is another. When talking about friendship, one might give a horse as a gift, but when talking about business, one says that business doesn't spare a needle—each has its own way of doing things.

Li Long inspected them one by one. He clearly felt that the skinning technique this time was also better.

Among the fifty-two whole pelts, there were seventeen red deer pelts and thirty-five gazelle pelts.

Among the twenty-one damaged pelts, there were nine red deer pelts and twelve gazelle pelts.

Li Long didn't calculate too much and kept the same prices as last time: fifty for whole pelts, thirty for damaged ones.

"That's three thousand two hundred and thirty yuan in total." Li Long went to the jeep, used his key to open the car door to get his money bag, counted out the money in stacks, and handed it to Big Old Chen. "Brother Old Chen, should I call someone to help move the pelts?"

"Good, good, good." Big Old Chen took the money, counted it, and called people to move the pelts, while he went to record the account and report to Wang Mingjun.

"What? He said he sells harvesters? Hey, what a coincidence..." Wang Mingjun hadn't expected things to be so coincidental. "Then tell him that our company wants to buy one."

"I told him, I told him, I said we'd buy one. He said he has ten in his large courtyard in the county right now, and we can just go haul them when we want to buy. He sells them to others for six hundred each, but he'll sell them to us for five hundred."

"Without Xiao Long is truly one of our own. This price... fine, fine, fine. By the way, Old Chen, after you load the pelts later, load one gazelle and one red deer from what's left in the warehouse for him, and also load two boxes of fruit. He's been decent to us, so we shouldn't be stingy with him. You handle this. I'll come over for lunch later; right now I'm going to find our tractor driver to ask about the situation."

The matter was settled just like that. After the pelts, gazelles, and red deer were loaded onto the truck, Li Long was taken by Big Old Chen to the canteen.

It wasn't as sumptuous as that day, but it was substantial. On the dining table sat two large basins: one of braised red deer meat and one of stir-fried gazelle tripe.

Li Long thought to himself that Big Old Chen was truly attentive. When they ate last time, there was sheep offal on the table, and he had remembered that Li Long had eaten a few extra bites of tripe.

The staple food was rice.

"Without Xiao Long, you have to drive today, so we won't drink. When you have time later, bring your wife over, and stay here for a day or two; we'll have a good drink then!" Wang Mingjun came over and said with a smile, "We're all our own people, so don't be a stranger."

The company didn't produce rice, so eating noodles was the norm; rice was used to treat guests, unlike the fourth squad that grew rice.

The rice was fragrant, and with the stir-fried tripe and braised deer meat, it felt warm and very satisfying in his stomach.

After the meal, when Li Long was about to leave, Big Old Chen had people move two boxes of fruit onto the car:

"Take these back for the old folks and kids. When you come over again, we'll load more for you. In a couple of days, we'll bring people over to find you... is it the location of the old purchasing station?"

"Yes, yes, yes, the old purchasing station is mine now, and I'll be there these days."

With that settled, Li Long drove the jeep away from the company and headed back.

On the way back, he could still faintly hear people firing guns in the sand dunes to the north.

The gazelles and red deer in the Gurbantünggüt Desert had really suffered this year; a large number of them must have been lost.

Driving back to the county, Li Long felt that the temperature here was clearly higher than in the north. There were more people on the streets, and some who were resistant to the cold had already taken off their heavy cotton-padded clothes and changed into fleece or sweaters.

Although the main color palette of people's clothing was still dark tones like blue and black, one could occasionally see people walking on the street wearing slightly brighter clothes.

Usually, at such times, they would attract the gaze of most people.

When the jeep drove back to the large courtyard, Li Long opened the small gate himself, then went in and opened the main gate from the inside.

Han Fang had said in the morning that the school was having a big cleanup today, and she had taken tools to school; she probably hadn't finished cleaning yet.

School was starting one after another, and Gu Xiaoxia and the others would be busy too. As Li Long unloaded the pelts, he thought that he would just stay in the purchasing station for these days. Since it was early spring, he figured some people would want to buy agricultural supplies, and if they didn't have money, they might take some of their household inventory to sell.

The pelts had a strong smell, and when Sister Yang came out to help, Li Long told her to go back; it was better to keep an eye on Mingming and Haohao.

He moved the pelts to another side room, spread them out to air, then moved the two boxes of fruit to the storage room, and finally the gazelle and red deer.

It hadn't thawed yet, so these two were frozen solid and could be kept for a while. Li Long wasn't in a hurry and planned to use this free time to slowly process the meat in the storage room.

It was mainly to be cut into pieces, air-dried or cured, and eaten slowly.

He wondered if he should find time to go to Wucheng to buy a refrigerator. At this time, there were already refrigerators for sale in Wucheng, though they weren't big and couldn't store much.

But it was better than nothing—in the middle of summer, meat that had been cured wasn't as tasty as meat that had been thawed. In this day and age, it wouldn't be like thirty or forty years later, where you could fill a freezer with meat and not finish it even after two or three days.

The era was different, and the situation was different.

By the time Li Long finished tidying these things up, washed the gamey smell off his body, changed his clothes, and went to see Mingming and Haohao, Sister Yang had finally found time to make dinner. Fortunately, dinner was simple: porridge, pickles, and steamed buns—done.

The next day, Li Long went to the purchasing station, and when he did, he brought a gazelle with him. Li Long thought that if no one came, he would just butcher the gazelle there.

Of course, first arriving at the purchasing station, what Li Long needed to do was set up the stove. Having left from time to time these days, the fire in the purchasing station's stove was sometimes lit and sometimes not. After the door was opened, a wave of cold air rushed in, which was quite uncomfortable.

After the stove was set up, Li Long simply cleaned the place up. He felt that the large wooden counter was quite suitable for butchering the gazelle, but then thought better of it; if someone really came to sell things, it wouldn't be very appropriate.

Li Long spread two burlap sacks on the floor by the stove, then placed the frozen-hard gazelle on them to slowly thaw.

The axe and machete he had brought along were placed to the side for use.

After tidying up the room and getting the stove fire going, Li Long took off his coat. Seeing the gazelle was slightly soft, he began to hack at it with the axe.

This gazelle wasn't very big, weighing about thirty kilograms or so. Its belly was cleaned very cleanly, and it could be roughly seen that it was a doe, not very old, and the meat was very tender.

Li Long cut the gazelle in half, and just as he switched to the machete to prepare to remove the legs, there were footsteps outside.

Li Long stood up with the machete in hand and watched two young men walk to the door.

The one in front was clutching a black briefcase, and the one behind was empty-handed. One had a center-parted hairstyle, and the other had a slicked-back hairstyle; they looked quite imposing.

Two bicycles were parked in the purchasing station's courtyard outside, leaning against the jeep.

"Hello, may I ask if you are Comrade Li Long?" the one clutching the briefcase asked with a smile.

"That's me." Li Long placed the machete on the counter, nodded, and said, "And you two are..."

"Hello, hello." The one with the briefcase switched it to his left hand and took the initiative to reach out to shake Li Long's hand. "My name is Huang Quansheng, and I've come to discuss something with you."

"Go ahead," Li Long shook his hand and nodded, "What is it?"

Although this person was very polite, Li Long felt that what he had to say wasn't anything good.

"It's like this. I actually had my eye on this purchasing station courtyard. It's just that I was delayed by things in the winter, and when I finally found time to come and prepare to rent the courtyard, I discovered that you had already taken the first step and finished the business."

Huang Quansheng's words made Li Long understand that this was the idea this person had as well.

In this day and age, there shouldn't be many people in this small county with business acumen who saw the prospects of the purchasing station—or rather, not many who saw the long-term benefits of replacing the purchasing station so quickly.

"So I came to discuss it with you. See if this works: I'll refund the full rent you paid for this courtyard, and I'll give you another hundred yuan to make up for your losses. How about you sublet the courtyard to me?"

Only a hundred yuan? Was he dreaming?

Li Long thought with disdain, but he didn't show it on his face. He shook his head and said:

"Sorry, no subletting."

He knew this person must have some connections; otherwise, it would have been impossible to find out that it was he who had rented this courtyard.

But didn't he have connections too? So he wasn't afraid.

If the other party's influence was too great and they took the courtyard away directly, then he really wouldn't have any way to stop them.

However, if the other party didn't have that kind of strength, then they could only blame themselves for being too slow and not being able to beat Li Long to it.

The purchasing station was indeed a profitable point, but for Li Long, this point was just one of many he had for making money, belonging to the category of "icing on the cake." Whether he had it or not didn't actually have much of an impact.

"One hundred yuan is the salary of a mid-level worker for two months; that's already a lot," the young man with the slicked-back hair behind him said in a muffled voice. "You've only cleaned this courtyard for a few days and have already earned quite a bit; don't be insatiable."

"Since you already know I'm making money in this courtyard, how could I be satisfied?" Li Long simply put his cards on the table. "You can completely find another place, or just open a purchasing station next door. I got this courtyard, and in less than a month, I've earned two hundred yuan. Do you think I would give up the courtyard for a hundred yuan?"

"Then you still don't see it clearly." The smile on the young man with the briefcase disappeared. "We came to talk to you because we felt some things could be discussed and resolved. But, if you think we're easy to talk to, then I'm afraid you're mistaken. You know the phrase 'courtesy before force,' right?"

"If you want to threaten me, then you're mistaken too," Li Long smiled. "In the mountains, I used a gun to take down two fugitives who were murderers, and on the way to Shicheng, I single-handedly took down five robbery gangs, one of whom is already dead. If I were easily scared, I wouldn't be opening a purchasing station here. You two, please leave!"

Li Long's words made the two young men pause. They had thought Li Long was a businessman and hadn't expected the other party to have such a history!

Then, watching Li Long pick up the machete and hack fiercely at the half-gazelle, the gazelle's bone snapping in response to the blow, the two knew they had run into a tough nut to crack.

This guy's strength was not ordinary!

The two didn't say anything more and turned to leave.

They were very clear that the purchasing station was a profitable project.

They had originally thought Li Long was just an off-the-books employee of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative, and that a little intimidation might make him soften.

They hadn't expected that instead of scaring the other party, they were the ones who were scared.

They were considered second-generation youths in the county, and although they had "iron rice bowls," they also wanted to make some extra money.

The two had thought it through clearly: take over this purchasing station, find a suitable person to stay here, and resell whatever was collected; the net profit wouldn't be low.

By borrowing the name of the original purchasing station, the money would definitely flow in like water.

They hadn't expected Li Long to be so stubborn! Moreover, Li Long's momentum in holding the machete, as well as what he had said, made the two hesitate.

Porcelain shouldn't collide with earthenware; should they wade into these muddy waters?

PS: My body is still recovering. I'm planning to resume two chapters a day after the Qingming Festival; I don't know if it will work out.

Thanks to book friend 20250329195321195 for the ten-thousand-point reward. Many numbered friends may have already changed their names. Thank you all for your tips, subscriptions, recommendation votes, and monthly tickets. The monthly tickets have finally reached one hundred. It's not very stable, so I'm asking for more. (End of chapter)