Chapter 822: The harvest supply and marketing cooperative, the excited Li Xiangqian

In the compound, the fritillaria was loaded, the money was paid, and Jia Tianlong was ready to leave.

Li Long definitely wouldn't let him go. The smell of stewed fish was already floating in the yard, the steam of the rice pot was also rising, Sister Yang had already started to remove the fire, the sound of stir-frying oil was non-stop, Li Long let Jia Tianlong sit and rest well, anyway, he had to finish eating before leaving.

"Brother Li Long, I don't know how to eat fish." Jia Tianlong exposed his shortcomings. At this time, he was already calling Li Long brother, he said

"It's okay, if we don't eat fish, we have other things." Li Long said with a smile, "You're already in my courtyard, and it's mealtime now. If you're in such a hurry to leave, aren't you slapping me in the face? Our Sister Yang's cooking skills are good enough to open a restaurant; today there will definitely be more than just stewed fish, you'll have a good taste later."

Li Long was so enthusiastic that Jia Tianlong didn't insist anymore. The transaction was complete, and the rest was just casual conversation. Li Long pulled the bed-cart with Mingming and Haohao to his side, teasing the children while chatting with Jia Tianlong.

To be honest, although Jia Tianlong's wife was already pregnant, looking at the liveliness of Mingming and Haohao, the envy in his eyes was hard to hide.

These two children weren't afraid of people; looking at Li Long and Jia Tianlong, they would giggle from time to time, making Jia Tianlong's heart ache, wishing he could just take one away.

"Hey, Old Jia, you find them rare now. Let me tell you, after yours is born, you'll have plenty to cherish, wishing you could hold it in your arms every day."

"I'm just thinking that when my wife gives birth, I won't do anything for at least half a year, just serving my wife and child every day." Jia said this sincerely, and Li Long believed it was his true thought.

But it was eight out of ten that he wouldn't be able to do it. In their place, Jia Tianlong himself said the tradition was to value boys over girls, and taking care of children, cooking, and cleaning the house were all done by women.

Not to mention that he could earn money; even some men who couldn't earn money wouldn't do these chores.

Of course, every place had the preference for boys over girls, and every place had people who cherished their wives and children; this couldn't be generalized.

Not long after they chatted, Gu Bo Yuan came over on his bicycle.

When he pushed the gate open and came in, seeing the large truck in the courtyard, Gu Bo Yuan immediately realized that someone had come to collect medicinal herbs.

Li Long also introduced him to Gu Bo Yuan in time:

"Uncle, this is Boss Jia who came to collect our fritillaria. Old Jia, this is my father-in-law, you can just call him Gu Shu."

"Hello Gu Shu, I am Jia Tianlong, you can just call me Little Jia." Facing his elder, Jia Tianlong said very politely, "My relationship with Little Li is good; if it weren't for him, my wife at home wouldn't have been able to conceive."

Gu Bo Yuan was stunned when he heard this; what was this situation?

Li Long was also anxious when he heard this:

"Old Jia, Old Jia, you can't say it like that, it's easy to misunderstand!"

"Hahahaha!" Jia Tianlong laughed loudly; he did it on purpose, and he didn't explain after Li Long spoke.

"Hey!" Gu Bo Yuan listened to the tone and realized Jia Tianlong was joking. He remembered what Li Long had said about this person's situation before, saying that after worshipping that piece of jade, he went back and his wife conceived.

After reacting, Gu Bo Yuan propped up his bicycle and shook hands with Jia Tianlong with a smile:

"Hello Little Jia. Have you finished loading the fritillaria today? How is it? Is the quality of our fritillaria okay?"

"Very good, very good! I've been collecting fritillaria for many years, and this year here is the best quality I've collected in bulk." Gu Bo Yuan asked formally, and Jia Tianlong answered formally, "If all the medicinal herbs were like this, then we herb collectors would be worry-free."

"Hmm, it's not that I'm bragging about my own family, but Li Long is first-class in controlling quality, even the autonomous region leaders have praised him." Gu Bo Yuan said proudly, "You'll definitely come back later, right? Don't worry, the quality of the herbs later will definitely be up to this standard."

"Then I will definitely come, not only this year, but every year in the future." Jia Tianlong said with a smile.

The gate was pushed open again, this time Gu Xiaoxia and Han Fang came in together.

Li Long asked with some surprise:

"How did you two bump into each other?"

Gu Xiaoxia said while propping up her bicycle:

"When I turned from Tuanjie Road, I saw Little Fang also just turned back from the east, so I just rode over, picked her up, and we came here."

Han Fang also had a bicycle, but sometimes she rode it, and sometimes she didn't.

After explaining, Gu Xiaoxia said to Jia:

"Hello Manager Jia, have you come to collect medicinal herbs?"

"Yes, yes." Jia Tianlong had met Gu Xiaoxia, so he hurriedly said, "Is this off work? It's quite hard work."

"It's okay." Gu Xiaoxia smiled and then went to hold Mingming and Haohao.

When the two children saw their mother, they both crawled over, leaned against the railing of the bed-cart, and stretched out their hands for their mother to hold them.

Gu Xiaoxia was also used to it, reaching out and holding both children up, one in each arm.

"Hey, with two children, your strength has been trained." Jia Tianlong said in a low voice, "It's not easy."

It is indeed not easy, Li Long also followed up.

He knew in his heart that compared to ordinary families, his side was already much better. With Sister Yang helping to look after the children, both he and Gu Xiaoxia saved a lot of worry.

Casual conversation, although it didn't take long, brought Li Long and Jia Tianlong's relationship closer. The original business dealings, because of that jade and the pregnancy of Jia Tianlong's wife, were already closer than the relationship between Zhao Hui and Li Long.

Now that they had chatted at home for a while and had contact with the people in the Li family, Jia Tianlong felt more and more that doing business with someone like Li Long was impeccable—the family members were all reasonable, so this person must be right. Being good oneself is one thing, but if the whole family is good, then they really know how to coordinate and handle relationships and maintain family harmony. Seeing the big from the small, this person is very capable.

Sister Yang poked her head out of the kitchen to invite everyone to eat, and Han Fang was already helping to serve dishes and set bowls in the dining room. They steamed rice for lunch, stewed a fish, stir-fried some air-dried meat, and stir-fried leeks with eggs.

The portion of the dishes was very large, and Jia Tianlong praised them endlessly. Although the driver didn't speak, the way he buried his head in eating clearly showed that the food was very much to his taste.

After eating, they rested in the courtyard for a while, and Jia Tianlong and the others left by car. After they left, Li Long told Gu Bo Yuan and Gu Xiaoxia the bottom line.

"After our fritillaria is cleaned, it's calculated as special grade, sixty-five yuan per kilogram."

"The price is so high?" Gu Bo Yuan was surprised.

"Hmm, now the pharmaceutical factories in the interior are expanding production. Although the fritillaria in our Northern Xinjiang is not as famous as Chuanbei, the medicinal effect is quite good, so the demand is very large, and the price rises every year. We wash it clean and remove the impurities, so the price offered is high."

"Okay, okay, then we've caught the fritillaria season this year." Gu Bo Yuan said happily.

Gu Bo Yuan didn't know exactly how much fritillaria Li Long collected from the mountains and the forestry team. But the fritillaria he collected at the purchasing station, added up over these few days, must be at least two or three hundred kilograms as dry goods.

According to the price given by Jia Tianlong, selling these two or three hundred kilograms of fritillaria would be ten or twenty thousand yuan. The profit at the purchasing station is slightly lower, of course, compared to the other two sides.

Even with this slightly lower profit, it was still over fifty percent. That is to say, just the fritillaria collected at the purchasing station alone could net a profit of seven or eight thousand or more in these few days.

The speed of making money was really a bit exaggerated.

While pleasantly surprised, Gu Bo Yuan was even a bit afraid.

Calculating back five years ago, he took Gu Xiaoxia and the whole family to work in the production team all year round. By the end of the year, besides the distributed grain, it would be very good if there were ten yuan left over.

Later, following Li Long to weave baskets and cook for others, he could earn dozens or a hundred yuan, which made him very happy.

Later on, there were jobs like tying brooms and reed bundles, which could earn a few hundred yuan a year. Besides daily expenses, it was enough to buy a bicycle, and the standard of living changed from poverty to a middle-class family above the township average.

It was visibly getting better.

Later, after becoming in-laws with the Li family, Li Long's address for him also changed from brother to uncle. He set up an agricultural supplies store for himself. Although the annual income couldn't compare to Li Long creating several ten-thousand-yuan households a year, working for more than half a year in this agricultural supplies store could still earn a few thousand yuan.

And it was much easier than farming.

Although he had made up his mind to take root in Maxian, Gu Bo Yuan was still a scholar at heart. He could do rural farming, harvesting grain, and working, and was quite skilled at it, but to be honest, by comparison, Gu Bo Yuan preferred reading books in the agricultural supplies store when he had nothing to do and chatting with the old man next door about international situations.

Later, it was said that the business of the purchasing station was more challenging, but in fact, he also felt that he was too idle in the agricultural supplies store. Although Gu Bo Yuan also wanted to be comfortable, he understood the principle that people shouldn't be too comfortable; being too comfortable makes one prone to decadence.

Although he had money in his hands now, had houses in the village and the county, his daughter was married, and he had a grandson, and life was getting better and better, Gu Bo Yuan felt that he was still young and could continue to struggle for decades.

But his struggle was a down-to-earth struggle; he had never thought of a speed like this, earning half a ten-thousand-yuan household in half a month!

It was impossible not to have panic in his heart.

He was different from Li Long. Before his rebirth, Li Long had witnessed the reality of how this country went from backward infrastructure and low living standards to a huge economic entity, relying on the solid industrial and farmland water conservancy foundation laid by the broad masses of workers and peasants led by Chairman Mao, the reform and opening-up policy implemented by the chief designer, the realistic attitude, and the efforts of the country's leaders and all the people, and was about to revive to the height that this country should have.

The common people had unprecedented confidence.

So Li Long was not afraid.

Gu Bo Yuan was different. He could be said to have reached his peak as soon as he started; the gold content of college students in that era was truly high.

From then on, he went downhill all the way, experienced the separation of his wife and children, almost lost his family, and finally turned from a proud son of heaven into an ordinary farmer. He himself also knew clearly that if it weren't for Li Long, he would still be digging for food in the fields of the Fourth Team now.

To say whether he could have the same insight as Li Long, he certainly could. Could he discover the opportunity for resurgence? He certainly could too.

But could he grasp it? It was very difficult.

Because Gu Bo Yuan was hesitant about the future, even pessimistic. Even if he encountered an opportunity, he might not dare to grasp it.

Even the development along the way to now was almost entirely pushed by Li Long. Of course, the purchasing station could be considered an active grasp of an opportunity.

Because he had experienced major social turmoil, Gu Bo Yuan was worried that the policy would change again, and he was certainly worried about Li Long earning so much at once. What if he was cut?

"It's okay." Li Long said with a smile, "Uncle, actually I should order a newspaper for you. I mean the kind like the People's Daily. The development pace over there is much faster than ours, and the newspaper will publish a lot of such things. We are just playing around here; it might look quite impressive here, but compared to those people over there, we are really small-fry, whether it's ideological concepts or development pace, we are lagging behind."

"Then how do you know? Is it all from reading the newspaper?" Gu Bo Yuan asked.

"Some are from reading the newspaper, some are from chatting with the director of the supply and marketing cooperative, like Old Jia just now, and chatting with these people." Li Long said half-truthfully, "The country now encourages everyone to use legal opportunities to get rich, let the rich lead the poor, this is the basic national policy.

Haven't you often heard on the news broadcast, take economic construction as the center. Doesn't economic construction mean getting rich and prosperous for us common people?"

Gu Bo Yuan nodded thoughtfully.

"No need to order a newspaper," Gu Xiaoxia said while teasing Mingming and Haohao, "Our unit ordered many copies. After reading, the newspaper is collected. Some colleagues take it home to start a fire or use it as toilet paper. I will collect one of each kind and bring it back. Dad, you can flip through it when you have nothing to do. Although it's a bit outdated, there is no problem in looking at the major political guidelines and policies inside."

"Okay." Gu Bo Yuan agreed with this point. Save money where you can; anyway, even if his family doesn't take this newspaper, it will be taken by others in the end. Plucking some such unit wool is not much.

The chat ended here. Gu Bo Yuan and Gu Xiaoxia both went to work, and Han Fang went to school. Li Long watched Mingming and Haohao. After they fell asleep, he pulled the bed-cart under the shade of a tree and surrounded it with cloth curtains on all sides, so it wouldn't be blown by the wind.

After Sister Yang finished cleaning the kitchen, she came over to look after the children, and Li Long rode his bicycle to the supply and marketing cooperative.

Li Xiangqian behind the desk looked at the two newspapers and one official letter in front of him, his eyes almost narrowed into slits with joy.

The two newspapers were the Autonomous Region Daily and the Prefecture Daily respectively. Ma Xiao Yan was smarter this time; she wrote this news draft from two angles and submitted them to two newspapers respectively.

The autonomous region side focused on the supply and marketing cooperative, mainly writing about how the supply and marketing cooperative, under the leadership of the current director, formed a pair with the herdsmen in the mountains to help them renovate the winter shelters and improve living conditions, and incidentally mentioned the water pipe construction that Director Wei and the others did last year, as well as Li Long, this former advanced individual of ethnic unity in the autonomous region, who had continuously helped the herdsmen in the mountain area for several years without interruption.

This draft was on the front page of the Autonomous Region Daily. Although it wasn't the headline, it was accompanied by an eye-catching photo. In the photo, Li Xiangqian and Li Long were working, showing Li Xiangqian's face and Li Long's profile, with the winter shelter in the background, as well as Meng Hai and the others on the roof of the winter shelter. Although the clarity of the printed newspaper wasn't high, Li Xiangqian's face was still easy to recognize.

The draft in the Autonomous Prefecture's newspaper was on the special page for ethnic unity, told from Li Long's perspective. Li Long started by simple material exchange and trade with Halimu and the others. Now that Li Long was wealthy, he didn't forget his friends in the mountains, and with the help of the supply and marketing cooperative leaders, he renovated the winter shelters for his friends in the mountains and improved the living environment. The photo accompanying the text was a comparison of the old and new winter shelters, which was also clear at a glance. Although the main subject was Li Long, it also mentioned Li Xiangqian, the director of the supply and marketing cooperative, several times, which could be considered as showing his face in the Prefecture Daily.

This morning, several people had already called Li Xiangqian to congratulate him, including Ma Aihong from Kuitun. Some people congratulated him sincerely, and some people had that sour jealousy in their words. Anyway, these words made Li Xiangqian feel beautiful inside.

Even Director Qian called, his tone very gratified, saying that he had found another way to engage from the perspective of ethnic unity, with little investment but particularly good results. Just this one point could allow him to stand firm in his current position and make everyone convinced.

Li Xiangqian didn't take credit for himself either, directly saying that this was Li Long's idea, and he just joined in and took a big advantage.

Director Qian was also very emotional, saying that Li Long was truly their lucky star. Just for this point, Li Xiangqian should also take good care of Li Long.

Li Xiangqian naturally agreed fully; this was a must.

There was also an official letter, which was a letter of assistance and thanks sent by the Public Security Bureau of a prefecture-level city in a province in the interior.

It turned out that after the forestry team received the group of people sent by Li Long and the others, they interrogated them and found that two of them were fugitives, and one was a felon who committed robbery and murder. They immediately contacted the relevant units in the interior.

The forestry team didn't take the credit alone either, and incidentally dragged the supply and marketing cooperative along, saying that they caught these two criminals together.

The campaign in 1983 had just ended not long ago, and this vicious case occurred in this province in the interior, which had a great negative impact, so the superiors required strict investigation and handling. It was just unexpected that the person who committed the crime ran very fast. At this time, there was no Skynet system, and even identity card information and such things had not been popularized, and introduction letters were relatively easy to forge, so the criminal had escaped early.

Just when the Public Security Bureau here was at a loss, Northern Xinjiang sent news that the person had been caught, which was a surprise.

After confirming that it was the criminal suspect they wanted, they immediately sent people by plane to pick up the person. Before the person even returned there, the letter of thanks had already been sent over.

One copy was sent to the forestry department, and one copy was sent to the supply and marketing cooperative.

The people over there were also very transparent in doing things. The official letter was sent to the county supply and marketing cooperative, but they also gave the notice to the Prefecture Supply and Marketing Cooperative, which was Li Xiangqian and the others' superior unit.

Li Xiangqian was very happy. If you do a good deed, you must let everyone know. You must also know how to talk about your achievements, otherwise how would the leaders know?

Now there was no need for him to say it himself; others helped to say it out. While Li Xiangqian was modest, he was secretly happy.

The units in the interior were very thoughtful in doing things; he had to learn from them in the future.

When Li Long came over, looking at these colleagues in the supply and marketing cooperative, each of them looking at him as if looking at a rare object, he didn't know what the situation was.

Everyone, including the old comrades, took the initiative to greet him, which made Li Long a bit surprised. What happened?

"Little Long is here, come, come, come, sit, sit, sit!" Seeing Li Long come in, Li Xiangqian stood up and greeted him to sit. Zhou Yuan, who followed, took the initiative to pour water for Li Long. Li Long hurriedly took it:

"Hey, Section Chief Zhou, you make me flattered. I'd better do it myself. Director, what happened? Why do I feel that the eyes of the people in our cooperative looking at me are not right?"

"That's because everyone thinks you are a lucky star. Communicating with you more can bring some good luck." Li Xiangqian smiled and handed the two newspapers and the official letter to Li Long:

"See for yourself, hey, this Clerk Ma is efficient in doing things. Old Zhou, buy something in two days and go see... forget it, let Little Long go, they are familiar."

After Li Long read the newspaper and the official letter, he understood. Everyone felt that he had brought this good thing to the cooperative and the director, and it wasn't just one incident in these two years, so that's why they looked at him like this. (End of chapter)