Chapter 835: Some noticed something wrong, some thieves came to steal

Sun Jia Qiang was anxious, someone was even more anxious than him.

Two days ago, there were relatively few people at the Happiness Purchasing Station, and Qi Shuohui didn't pay much attention. After all, the business of the purchasing station was very casual, and it was normal for more people to come one day and fewer another.

But he didn't expect that yesterday there were also relatively few people; the people who came here to sell things were more than 60% less than usual!

During this period, the main item collected by each purchasing station was fritillaria, which was also the item that earned the most money in the purchasing station all summer.

In the past, the dried fritillaria that could be collected every day was at least over one hundred kilograms.

It was also normal to have three or four hundred kilograms at most. Now the market was enlivened, and everyone knew how to earn money from side businesses to subsidize their families and even get rich.

When it was the collective big pot before, the fritillaria dug out from the mountains was for the side business creation of each village. Now, as long as it wasn't caught, it was one's own.

One kilogram of fresh fritillaria could be sold for several yuan, digging fast could earn seven or eight kilograms a day, earning dozens of yuan, how good!

So now farming wasn't very busy, and quite a few people went into the mountains to dig fritillaria, so the fritillaria collected by this purchasing station was naturally a lot.

Who would have thought that the first day only collected less than fifty kilograms of dried fritillaria—he naturally didn't know that the largest batch of fritillaria had been intercepted by Li Long.

It was normal to have more or less, this was Qi Shuohui's thought yesterday—but the second day only collected forty kilograms, even less!

This wasn't right!

Qi Shuohui reacted quickly and went to find the boss that night to report the situation.

Qi Shuohui was an old slippery person. Being able to give up the iron rice bowl and come to work in this private purchasing station was, on one hand, because the boss gave a lot of money, and on the other hand, because he had seen too many wind and grass movements. He had done some not-so-good things in his original unit, and now that the new leader had taken office, if it was found out, he would really be in big trouble.

Resigning, then basically nothing would happen. After all, at this time, people also paid attention to leaving a line for people to meet again in the future, and it was unlikely to fight face-to-face and expose old roots again.

Having been in the unit for a long time, his observation was still very sharp. The wind started from the end of the duckweed; the fact that the people coming to sell fritillaria had become abnormally fewer for two consecutive days, he knew there was a situation.

Regardless of whether there was a situation or not, reporting it first was always a good thing—he was just a receiver of goods. Reporting this matter in advance could give the boss a good impression. The matter had nothing to do with him; after all, he was only responsible for receiving, and although the pricing had his factors, it was also agreed by the boss.

Old slippery people were most skilled at shirking responsibility and passing the buck.

The boss of this Happiness Purchasing Station, Jiang Chunlin, was busy himself and was very busy on weekdays. For him, this purchasing station belonged to the icing on the cake. Although it earned quite a bit every month, it wasn't the most important thing in his daily life.

However, this boss named Jiang Chunlin had already become accustomed to his purchasing station being the only one in Beiting. He also knew that there were some middlemen privately collecting materials and reselling them in Beiting City, and the prices would be higher than what he offered, which could attract some people. However, he basically turned a blind eye to it on weekdays, and only after those people grew big would Jiang Chunlin use the hands of relationships to investigate speculation and profiteering.

He had done such things more than once, and quite a few people wanted to open private purchasing stations in Beiting City, but why didn't they open? Because Jiang Chunlin was there. At this time, many people's commercial thinking was still relatively primitive, and Jiang Chunlin used such tricks to squeeze out quite a few people, making his business bigger and bigger, and his relationship network wider and wider.

After listening to Qi Shuohui's words, Jiang Chunlin immediately took out a cigarette and handed it to Qi Shuohui:

"Old Qi, not bad, reacted very quickly, reported very timely, take this back and smoke it. I know about this matter, I will handle it. Don't worry, in a day or two, the business of the purchasing station will return to normal."

Qi Shuohui left happily with the cigarette. This boss was generous, and this cigarette worth several yuan belonged to him.

After Qi Shuohui left, Jiang Chunlin immediately called people out and started investigating this matter. In his view, it must be some blind middleman who intercepted his business again. Although the business of the purchasing station wasn't the most important for him, he couldn't let go in this regard. If intercepted, he must retaliate.

Otherwise, those who were staring at him would treat this matter as the first piece of glass broken on an idle car, and next, many people would snatch his other businesses!

What made him puzzled was that after investigating a circle, he found that the middlemen in Beiting City had almost disappeared, and no one wanted to snatch this business from him. The news he got was that those people had all run to neighboring counties to collect goods and sell goods, as if they had abandoned the Beiting City market!

The problem was, the middlemen were gone, and quite a few individual herb diggers who dug fritillaria had also disappeared, and the fritillaria market was directly emptied by half!

What kind of situation was this? Although Jiang Chunlin wasn't completely concerned about the purchasing station, he knew that now was the peak season for fritillaria. Normally, the dried fritillaria received every day was at least over one hundred kilograms.

According to Qi Shuohui's report, the purchasing volume of fritillaria every day now was only half or even less of the original, so where did these fritillaria go?

Jiang Chunlin's relationship network couldn't be popularized to places outside Beiting City, just knowing that those who dug fritillaria recently didn't appear in the city.

Previously, he and Qi Yanhui and the others looked down on those herb diggers and middlemen, and their attitude toward them was also high and mighty. In their view, it was those people who begged them to buy these things, and they could suppress the price however they wanted—the state-run purchasing station was gone, general medicinal materials companies didn't buy private things and scattered goods, and such purchasing stations of theirs became the only place where those who dug fritillaria could sell goods.

Jiang Chunlin used his relationships to ask about several surrounding counties and found that the situation was about the same; recently, fewer people came to sell fritillaria.

Was it because the forestry department was managing it strictly, catching people coming out of the mountains, and confiscating the fritillaria?

After the forestry team was established, the supervision of materials in the mountains was still quite strict.

Timber, wild animals and plants resources, were all objects of supervision by the forestry team's forest rangers.

It was stipulated by official documents, and others had no way to reason.

If the situation was caused by the control of the forestry department, then Jiang Chunlin had no way. His relationship network hadn't reached that step, but since several surrounding counties and cities were the same, he didn't care.

The day after returning from the meeting in Beiting City, Li Long's purchasing station collected over four hundred kilograms of dried fritillaria again.

He had to go to the bank to take money again, otherwise, there would be no money to buy goods later.

Today, the situation of collecting goods had new changes. Besides collecting quite a bit more fritillaria, there were also quite a few pelts from other counties. That person who wanted to bring snow lotus yesterday really brought two baskets of snow lotus. Those who purchased snow lotus in bulk were all experts. Before the snow lotus was dried, they used ropes to wrap the petals of the snow lotus and tie the stamens, so the stamens of the snow lotus wouldn't scatter and break.

When settling accounts in the large courtyard after dinner, Gu Bo Yuan sighed:

"I've finally experienced what it's like to spend money like flowing water. At this rate, even if we had a gold mountain, it would be spent very quickly."

"It's fine," Li Long said with a smile, "When Jia Tianlong comes, our money will come back."

"This sitting and collecting goods, things come fast." Gu Bo Yuan continued, "Compared to collecting goods in the mountains, the quantity is much more, this is also taking advantage of other counties..."

"Hehehe, I forgot the brothers in the mountains!" Li Long then remembered Sun Jia Qiang in the mountains, "These two days are the peak season for fritillaria, the materials in the mountains are consumed quickly, I guess the things there should all be exchanged! Tomorrow early, I have to send some things over first, and then come back to the purchasing station."

"That's right, now such liveliness will only be for a while." Gu Bo Yuan said, "The forestry team and the wooden house in the mountains are our basic plate.

Who knows how long these people from other counties can last?"

Li Long was much more optimistic than Gu Bo Yuan, he said:

"I think it will at least last until this fritillaria period ends. Unless those purchasing stations change their purchasing policies and raise the price, otherwise, next year we will still continue such a good momentum.

Uncle, have you noticed? These people come to our place to sell things, not only for our good price, but also for our service attitude.

We also came from bitter days, knowing that it's not easy for these people to dig fritillaria, this is also a bitter and tiring job, we can understand their difficulties and hardships.

Unlike the people in those few purchasing stations, nostrils to the sky, look at how these people who come to our place to sell fritillaria describe it, feeling like they are begging them."

"Sigh, just like what your eldest brother said, don't look at some of these people who were originally from poor backgrounds, but once they have status, become cadres or workers, they really think they are carp leaping over the dragon gate, different from us rural people.

In fact, how much difference can there be between people? A small county town can't produce a few dragon seeds, right? Who doesn't have a day to turn over?"

Gu Bo Yuan had also experienced several ups and downs and felt deeply.

"It's getting dark, Uncle, go, I'll send you back."

"Send what? I have a gun in that room." Gu Bo Yuan said with a smile, "This is the police station opposite, who dares to make trouble here?"

Tired enough, Li Long rested early.

After Gu Bo Yuan returned to the purchasing station, he locked the gate, entered the room, locked the front and back small doors, closed the windows and locked the latches, then returned to the room where he lived, and took a basin to wash up.

He was also exhausted today. After washing up, he returned to the room, buckled the door, took the double-barreled hunting gun and placed it by the bed, loaded the bullets, turned on the safety, pulled the quilt, turned off the light, and slept.

Around two o'clock in the middle of the night, two black shadows sneaked to the wall of the purchasing station.

They looked around and didn't find any movement, then both hands climbed the wall and were about to rush up.

"Ouch!" One of them screamed in a low voice, fell from the wall, covered his hand, and kept shaking it there.

"What are you calling? Pricked by a thorn?" The other person asked in a low voice.

"Damn it, there's glass on this wall, it cut my hand!" The person shaking his hand said fiercely, "Couldn't see it during the day, thought there was nothing on the wall. The person who did this is really damn sneaky!"

This wall was renovated by Li Long at the beginning of spring this year. He re-plastered the mud on it and inserted glass fragments. The fragments only showed a little, not easy to see from the outside on weekdays, but when climbing up at night, it easily cut hands and feet.

"Can you still enter?" The other person asked, "Or you stand guard outside, and I go in to find money?"

If I stand guard, do I know how much money you touch inside?

The person whose hand was cut thought secretly, he hurriedly shook his head:

"It's fine, not a big problem. That person inside, I'm afraid you can't hold him down alone."

"What can't be held down, just an old man."

"I don't think it's an old man, it's a half-shell." The person whose hand was cut whispered, "When I stepped on the spot today, I found that he didn't use little strength to move things. I'll wrap my clothes on my hand, let's go, let's enter."

Both were very careful, wrapped their clothes on their hands, climbed over the wall, and touched the door.

Pushing the door, they found the door was locked from the inside and couldn't be pushed open.

These two were also habitual offenders. If the door couldn't be opened, they went to the window. The windows now were all locked from the inside. The person with the good hand took a thin wire from his pocket, penetrated the wire through the window crack, and slowly adjusted the direction to hook the latch open.

When he pushed the window, he felt some resistance, but the resistance wasn't large, so he continued to push inward.

"Bang!"

Just as the window was pushed open halfway, a very crisp sound came out, and these two guys were startled!

It turned out that Old Gu had placed a glass bottle behind the window. When the window was pushed open, the glass bottle on the windowsill would roll to the ground and shatter. Old Gu, who was sleeping, heard this sound and woke up immediately, reaching for the gun as soon as he opened his eyes.

Someone came to steal things!

He didn't care about putting on clothes, wearing a vest and big shorts, holding the hunting gun, and touched the door.

The two thieves outside were startled by this movement. The one whose hand was cut turned and wanted to run, and then was pulled by his accomplice.

"Don't worry, listen first to see if there is any movement!" This person was bolder, and thinking of the money that flowed out of the counter of this purchasing station during the day, he didn't know how much money was in the drawer under the counter, and his heart was burning.

The courtyard of the purchasing station was independent, and there were no other families on both sides, so after this sound, it didn't cause any other movement outside.

The two thieves soon calmed down. After hearing that there was no movement inside the purchasing station, the one whose hand was cut laughed softly:

"Didn't expect this half-shell to sleep so dead."

"That's just right for our action. It's best if we can take the money without alarming him."

"What if there's no money?"

"Then we can carry a few bags of fritillaria away! This thing is also quite valuable! Change to another bag tomorrow and bring it over to sell, it's still money for us!"

The two climbed in through the window one after another. Inside the window was the counter of the purchasing station. The two were overjoyed and ran to the counter to rummage.

In the drawer under the counter, there were only two empty account books at the moment, not a dime.

The two thieves looked at each other, very disappointed.

"Or should we get that half-shell up and ask him where the money is?" The one whose hand was cut was unwilling. He didn't want to carry fritillaria away; taking money was so convenient, he could spend it as soon as he got it.

"That... fine. Let's cover our faces first..."

The two were talking, the light suddenly turned on. Gu Bo Yuan didn't know when he had touched the door, holding the hunting gun and shouting at the two:

"None of you are allowed to move! Whoever moves, I'll kill whoever!"

The person whose hand was cut was timid. Gu Bo Yuan shouted like this, and he knelt down at that time.

The other one was bold, knowing that if he was caught, it would be trouble. He flashed to the windowsill, pressed both hands on the windowsill, stood on the window, and prepared to jump out!

"Bang!" The gun fired!

In the quiet night sky, this sound spread very far, and many people were startled. (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 836 =====

In the quiet night sky, this sound traveled very far, and many people were startled. (End of chapter)