Chapter 801: Solving Sun Jia Qiang

That afternoon, Lu Yingming and Tao Jian gathered at Li Jianguo's house to discuss their departure early the next morning.

Li Jianguo felt that since they were going, they should leave early, get there early, clear out the winter shelters, and dig pits to cut willow branches. Perhaps by nightfall tomorrow, they could weave two or three carrying baskets.

"I'll drive Xiao Long's tractor. After we eat early tomorrow morning, Old Lu, you bring your luggage over, then we'll go to your place, Old Tao, to load up your things, and stop by the county seat to buy some supplies."

They had been there many times, so the procedure was second nature.

"Alright, we'll go pack our things now." Lu Yingming and Tao Jian were just there to get the word. They had actually been hoping Li Jianguo would provide the tractor, as it would be more convenient.

Why did the Li family have such influence? It wasn't just because Li Long could bring money-making work to the production team, nor just because Li Jianguo was a founding member of the village. A very important reason was that they weren't stingy; whenever something came up, they were always willing to contribute their own tools and supplies.

After the two left, Li Jianguo began to pack. He knew exactly what to bring, and Liang Yumei knew too. They were only going for ten days or so, so there was no sentimentality. Li Qing Xia said in the courtyard:

"Go, go, go. I'm still here for the farm work. Don't look at my age; I can still hoe weeds and such without any problems."

"I know you're capable," Du Chunfang muttered. "Then stop catching fish. While you're here, just do the farm work properly... I'm going too."

"Then what are you going for? Don't you have to cook at home?" Li Qing Xia said. "... Fine, you can go too. We'll come back early to cook then."

Li Qing Xia realized what Du Chunfang meant; they needed to avoid suspicion.

By the time Li Jianguo's things were packed, Li Long had already rushed back from Qingshuihe. After picking up Li Jianguo, they headed to the county seat.

Gu Xiaoxia hadn't finished work yet. Li Jianguo looked at Mingming and Haohao, then frowned as he looked at the four small deer, two small goats, the dog Xiao Hei, and the few small hedgehogs sneaking around the courtyard wall, saying:

"You could open a zoo with this. Does this affect Mingming and Haohao?"

"They're very happy," Li Long said with a smile. "Having small animals to play with is even more fun for them than being with us."

"Well... alright then." Li Jianguo thought about it and agreed. Mingming and Haohao weren't in the countryside anymore; they didn't have many children to play with here, so they must be lonely. Having small animals to keep them company was fine.

He drove the tractor back to the team, and after arriving home, he loaded the things on.

Hearing the commotion, Lu Yingming came out and saw Li Jianguo had driven the tractor back, so he loaded his own packed luggage onto it as well.

"It's really good that your family has two tractors," Lu Yingming said, truly envious. "You can go wherever you want."

"Hehe." Li Jianguo smiled. The first twenty years had been hard, especially the years he spent bringing Li Long along.

Li Long had been sent over by his father when he was eleven or twelve, just at the age when he had a huge appetite. A growing boy could eat his parents into poverty. The home village didn't have much grain, otherwise, they wouldn't have sent Li Long away.

But this was a production team, and it was the era of the Great Collective. The grain distributed to each family at the end of the year was enough to eat, but only if they mixed coarse and fine grains.

As the older brother, Li Jianguo wanted to take care of his younger brother, so he gave Li Long the same fine grain he gave Li Juan and Li Qiang. What to do if there wasn't enough fine grain at home? He used coarse grain to trade with others.

What if the coarse grain wasn't enough either? Then he had no choice but to engage in some side businesses within a reasonable scope.

Don't look at Li Long setting up a stall in Shicheng like he was a natural; when Li Jianguo was setting up stalls, Li Long was still enjoying life at home. Since they didn't have money to buy seasonings, oil, salt, soy sauce, or vinegar, Li Jianguo would pick celery and cilantro from his own vegetable patch, wash them clean, tie them into small bundles, and run to the residential compounds in Shicheng to set up a stall before dawn.

Five cents a bundle, earning some hard-earned money.

He and Gu Bo Yuan had also done the same thing, catching fish to sell. During the slack season, they would get a large burlap sack, find a canal that hadn't dried up, block both ends, and splash the water out with basins; then they would just pick up the fish inside.

Carrying half a sack of fish to the county seat alone—it was too heavy, so they couldn't go to Shicheng, and would just walk the streets to sell the fish. People were poor back then, so it was impossible to earn dozens of yuan at once like Li Long did selling fish—earning three to five yuan in a day was already a very happy thing.

In the seventies, three to five yuan was a lot.

Then there was digging licorice, following the side-business team to dig fritillaria; they had truly suffered every kind of hardship.

Looking at Li Long's expression later on, Li Jianguo had once felt he might have done something wrong, spoiling his younger brother too much, leading him to be a bit unable to distinguish between inside and outside.

Now it seemed that Li Long had repaid what was given before tenfold. Wasn't a significant part of the good life he had now due to this younger brother of his?

Before the luggage was even loaded, Xie Yun Dong rode over on a bicycle.

"Uncle Li, we plan to leave early tomorrow morning. I heard you all have a tractor; do you want to go together?"

"You're leaving early tomorrow morning too?" Li Jianguo was a bit surprised.

"Yeah, we plan to go early, get the winter shelters and such ready, so we can cut willow branches in the afternoon."

Li Jianguo smiled; it seemed Xie Yun Dong had the same idea as him.

"Alright, let's go together then. After breakfast tomorrow, we'll set off. We happen to need to buy some things in the county seat anyway."

"Right, right, right. I told Old Huang, we do need to buy some things. I'll pay for it first, and we can split it later."

They needed someone to cook over there, and it was Old Huang, which was quite good.

After Xie Yun Dong finished discussing it, he rode his bicycle home. Passing by the Old Horse Station, he happened to see Xu Haijun pushing his bicycle out from inside. When Xu Haijun saw Xie Yun Dong, he hurriedly called out.

Xie Yun Dong rode up to Xu Haijun, stopped, and asked with a smile:

"What, is the business finished?"

Xu Haijun was helping out here; many people had actually seen what was on his mind, and some people would just hang around the horse station during the day to watch the fun.

"Not yet. I talked to Professor Luo today; I won't be coming tomorrow. Tomorrow I have to go into the mountains to weave carrying baskets."

"Then over here... that college student... no progress?" Xie Yun Dong asked vaguely, but Xu Haijun understood. He blushed, then said:

"What progress could there be? But I calculated it; after the carrying baskets are woven, they'll still be here, so I'll come back then."

Xu Haijun was very decisive; in just half a day, he had made his choice.

Chasing the college student was a very important matter, but making money was an even more important matter.

Otherwise, with his current family assets, even if he really did win over He Lijuan, her family wouldn't agree—and she couldn't live in the countryside with him either.

So he had to have a certain level of economic strength—he had figured it out now, and it was no wonder that whether it was these college students or Cadre Jiang, they were all asking about Li Long.

If he had Li Long's family assets and strength, chasing the college student probably wouldn't be so difficult.

A jeep could make these college students ignore the gap between a farmer and a college student—don't underestimate this 212; it wasn't much worse than the Mercedes-Benz or Rolls-Royce of later generations.

"Then how are you all going?" Xie Yun Dong asked. "We're driving two tractors over tomorrow."

"I'm going back to find the team leader now to borrow his tractor," Xu Haijun said. "When we get there and drop off the things, he can drive the tractor back."

He was confident about this—hunting that Mongolian gazelle in the winter had made Xu Haijun the most promising young man in Xu Chengjun's eyes within the clan.

Having brains, knowing how to plan, and being decisive—such a young man would certainly not be bad in the future.

"Alright then, let's go together," Xie Yun Dong said. "Gather at the Old Horse Station tomorrow morning."

"Good."

After Xu Haijun responded, he rode his bike toward Xu Chengjun's house.

"Have you thought it through?" After hearing Xu Haijun's plan, Xu Chengjun asked. "If you've thought it through, I'll switch someone else to supply things to the horse station. When you come back, I won't be able to switch it back to you."

"I've thought it through," Xu Haijun gritted his teeth and said. "Whether I can win her over is hard to say, but this work of weaving carrying baskets to make money only happens once a year, and I don't want to lose it."

"Alright then, come over to drive the car early tomorrow morning—don't you need to go tell Dejun and the others?"

"Yeah, I'm going to tell them now." Xu Haijun also needed to gather the group of people he was prepared to pull in.

The things he planned to do later would still need the assistance of these people in the team; there is strength in numbers—this wasn't just empty talk.

The next day after breakfast, the three tractors from the Fourth Team gathered and drove toward the county seat, making quite a commotion.

Li Long also went to the department store after breakfast. He bought some common supplies, went to the grain store to buy rice, flour, and oil, and finally ran to the ethnic minority lad who made naan, bought out the twenty naans by the naan pit, loaded them into the car, and only then drove the jeep toward the mountains.

Since they were going to weave carrying baskets, the exchange point at the wooden house and the engineering team at Qingshuihe all had to be prepared.

Of course, the first two items were the priority. After getting the exchange point set up and seeing that the basket weaving at Xiaobaiyang Valley was going well, he would have to go find Li Xiangqian to discuss going into the mountains to renovate houses for the herdsmen.

When the jeep passed by Qingshuihe Village, Li Long didn't stop, but he had already seen that behind the threshing floor at Qingshuihe from last year, blue smoke was already rising.

Clearly, Qingshuihe Village was very efficient and had already started burning the willow branches.

Hmm, that was very good.

After the jeep drove into the mountains, it turned toward the direction of the wooden house. Li Long planned to drop off the things at the wooden house, fix the stove, and air out the bedding inside. Whether he stayed there or not, the preparations had to be done.

The grass on the ground wasn't growing very high, and occasionally one could see mushrooms in the grass. Some shrubs were blooming with small yellow flowers, and on the hillsides, wild garlic—which was wild tulips—was blooming in patches.

The scenery was beautiful, and his mood was also very good.

When the jeep drove up to the wooden house, Li Long was surprised to find that this place had already been cleaned.

After hunting the bear last time, Li Long had come over and cleaned the place up. Many days had passed, so no matter what, it should have gathered some dust and grass leaves.

But now it seemed the wooden floor in front of the wooden house was clean, and the mud plastered on some parts of the walls that had fallen off had been repaired. The two stoves that originally had some defects had also been patched up by now.

He hurriedly got out of the car to look and found that the locks on the doors of the two rooms were fine and hadn't been damaged.

What was going on?

Li Long's gaze turned to the wooden shed on the east side of the wooden house, and then he saw a bedding roll and a bag of things placed there. There was grass under the bedding roll, clearly someone lived here regularly.

Was it Sun Jia Qiang? Li Long guessed.

To be able to maintain the wooden house so actively and proactively, it was probably him.

Li Long had been wondering how to set up this exchange point, and didn't he have a ready-made person right here?

He used the key to open the door of the wooden house, took out the bedding inside to air, then put the things from the car into the small wooden house, arranging them neatly by category.

He had originally planned to go straight to Xiaobaiyang Valley after finishing up here, but now he changed his plan, intending to wait here until Sun Jia Qiang returned to explain the situation clearly before going over.

While waiting, Li Long went to pick some mushrooms and pull some wild onions and wild garlic. This time when he came, he had brought some rice, flour, oil, and dried meat, ensuring he would have meat to eat before hunting any game.

He went to the spring to wash the mushrooms, wild onions, and wild garlic, cut them on the large table, added some dried meat, took out a pot from the large house, washed it, and started stir-frying.

With naan and freshly stir-fried dishes, this lunch wasn't meager at all.

Li Long had just finished stir-frying the first mushroom and meat dish, and the second wild garlic sprout and meat dish hadn't even hit the pan yet, when Sun Jia Qiang emerged from the forest carrying a bag. When he saw the jeep, he cheered and ran over.

Hearing the commotion and seeing Sun Jia Qiang, Li Long also smiled.

The two of them could be considered to have built a friendship through their mountain adventures; although their relationship wasn't as deep as the one with Tao Daqiang, it was already very good compared to ordinary people.

"Hey, Boss Li, I was just thinking you should be coming these few days," Sun Jia Qiang said with a grin. "I've been guarding here for two days, just thinking I'd definitely be able to wait for you!"

"Go wash your hands, we can eat right away. You haven't had a proper meal these few days, have you?"

"Yeah, I bought some dry rations before entering the mountains, and they were eaten long ago. These two days I've just been making do. I was thinking if you didn't come, I might have to go out of the mountains—come look, this is the fritillaria I dug."

Li Long glanced at it and said with a smile:

"Not bad, it seems the fritillaria is growing quite well this year."

"Yeah, in those trenches dug last year, quite a lot of fritillaria has grown again. When I entered the mountains, I found that quite a lot of people had entered the mountains too. Now the forest patrol team has also started taking action."

"Then what do you plan to do? Are you interested in continuing to help me guard this place?"

"Sure," Sun Jia Qiang didn't hide his thoughts at all. "That's definitely fine. I was just waiting for you to say that, Boss—don't worry, I don't have high demands, and I'm not like last year's commission; just pay me a decent amount at the end. You treated me well last year, Boss, I'm not greedy."

Hearing him say this, Li Long looked at this person with new respect.

The price of fritillaria kept rising; it was impossible for Sun Jia Qiang not to know this. If he had bargained with him at this time to raise his pay, Li Long would have agreed after considering it.

He didn't expect Sun Jia Qiang to do the opposite, proactively asking to lower his compensation; he had his own ideas.

"Is there something you need my help with?" Li Long served the dishes, took out chopsticks from the house and handed them to Sun Jia Qiang, then broke off a piece of naan for him and asked: "We've had a two-year friendship at least; if there's anything, just say it straight. If I can help, I definitely will."

The implication was that if the request was too excessive, then he couldn't do it, and he shouldn't make things difficult for him.

"... I actually wanted to wait until I finished this season to say it." Sun Jia Qiang didn't expect Li Long to guess his purpose from just those two sentences, but since Li Long had guessed it, he wouldn't hide it anymore, saying:

"Actually... I want to settle down here in Northern Xinjiang. I know you have great ability and capability; can you help me... even if I don't want money for working this season, that's fine!"

Hey, this was actually beyond Li Long's expectations.

"Come, eat first, tell me about your situation first." He didn't rashly agree, but wanted to hear about Sun Jia Qiang's situation first.

To tell the truth, if it was just settling down, Li Long could find Li Xiangqian and get Sun Jia Qiang settled over at Nanyuanzi; anyway, he didn't need land, so that shouldn't be much of a problem.

Li Long was mainly cautious, feeling it was necessary to understand the situation clearly before making a decision, so as not to bury a landmine for himself.

Of course, he could only listen to Sun Jia Qiang's one-sided story, and there was no way to verify it.

"Sigh, to tell the truth, if the conditions at home were good, who would want to leave their hometown and run here to make a living?" Sun Jia Qiang sighed. "My family conditions aren't good. Every year I earn some money, and after taking it back, it's all used to buy things for the family.

My family thinks I can earn money, so they want me to just keep earning money here in Northern Xinjiang. I wanted to bring my family over to work together, but they said they couldn't do it themselves.

Last year I told you I had relatives here. These few years after digging fritillaria, I've been working for that relative. That relative of mine has also been telling me to work hard, and they would help me settle down later, but these few years it's all been verbal talk without any actual action, and the money they gave me for working wasn't much.

This year when I came over, I went to ask them about settling down. My idea was that at worst, I'd pay some money. But they told me that if I wanted to settle down, I had to pay three thousand yuan, and there was no land... I felt they were fooling me, so I came over."

Li Long also didn't expect this; this was also a poor kid.

He said:

"I can solve the settling down matter for you, but I have to see your performance," Li Long said. "I helped an older sister settle down last year; she's helping me take care of my children at home now, and I even got her a shop. If you work well, I can help you settle down—there's no land, but I can find you a job with a salary."

"Really?" Sun Jia Qiang's face was full of joy. "If you can really help me settle down, for this fritillaria season, as long as I can eat my fill, I don't want any money; you tell me how to work, and I'll do it!"

He had inquired beforehand; settling down now was really not as easy as it had been the previous two years. It really required paying money—although it wasn't as exaggerated as three thousand, it wouldn't be a small amount either.

And one had to have connections—otherwise, even if you carried a pig's head, you wouldn't find the temple door.

Therefore, if Li Long could help him settle down, not wanting money for this fritillaria season was worth it!

Besides, Li Long also promised to find him a job, so wasn't that a long-term meal ticket? (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 802 =====