Chapter 84

The one who called out to stop Li Long was the old gatekeeper.

"Little comrade, wait a moment."

Li Long stopped in his tracks, turned his head to look at the old man and Li Xiangqian; he wanted to hear what the other party had to say.

If not for the business of selling sheep at the Shicheng Sugar Factory yesterday, Li Long wouldn't have been so firm. After all, ten sheep were not as easy to sell as fish.

But having made that trip yesterday, he believed that even if the County Supply and Marketing Cooperative didn't want these ten sheep, he could still go to Shicheng to sell them; it was said the Wool Textile Factory didn't have sheep yet, and Shicheng also had a Supply and Marketing Cooperative.

This was an era of extreme imbalance between supply and demand; in fact, whoever controlled the source of goods held the initiative. Those people in later generations had long since analyzed this clearly.

It was just that those who controlled the sources of goods in modern times didn't have the guts to challenge the public sector, and their actions themselves even skirted the edge of the law.

But Li Long was different; he wasn't afraid.

He knew that after the New Year, the market would open up, and even if Li Xiangqian used his connections to pressure him hard now, it would only be for the duration of the Spring Festival.

He wasn't short on that little bit of time.

Seeing Li Long stop, the old man smiled and said, "Young man, don't be so impatient. Doing business is about give and take; if the price isn't right, we can talk."

He turned his head again and said to Li Xiangqian, "You really are something, a veteran purchaser, how can you be so rigid about the price? People brought the sheep all the way from the mountains with great difficulty, you can't give them the same price you get when you go into the mountains to collect them, right?" As he spoke, he gestured for Li Xiangqian to talk to Li Long properly.

Seeing Li Long wouldn't come over, Li Xiangqian cursed the little fox under his breath, walked forward a few steps, and said:

"Young man, don't be unconvinced. When I go into the mountains to collect sheep in the summer, do you know how much I pay for live sheep by weight? A sheep of fifteen or sixteen kilograms is bought for just five or six yuan! Giving you a price of sixty cents now is already considered quite good."

"That was summer." Li Long only replied with one sentence. In the dead of winter, surely he wouldn't be denied earning a bit of hard-earned money? Besides, he was still thinking of calculating the price for Ha Ha Li Mu and the others at eighty cents.

"Then what price are you asking for?"

"Ninety cents." Li Long said, "At the sugar factory yesterday, at a price of ninety-five cents, I sold twenty-two sheep, and the wool textile factory still wanted more, but I thought I had promised you, so I brought them over today. If you don't want them, then I'll take them to the Shicheng Wool Textile Factory."

Some people gathered around the entrance, including employees of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative and members of the public outside. Hearing Li Long mention a meat price of ninety cents, they all began to discuss it.

"Ninety cents? That's quite cheap! The butcher shop still charges one yuan and ten cents, and you need coupons too!"

"The meat this person is selling surely doesn't require coupons, right? This meat looks quite fresh."

"Didn't you hear what people said? The sheep were slaughtered just yesterday—it must be fresh."

"If our Supply and Marketing Cooperative buys this, does that mean we might be able to get some distributed to us before the New Year?"

Listening to these words, Li Xiangqian really wanted to curse this time. If he bought these ten sheep at ninety cents, the Supply and Marketing Cooperative really wouldn't be able to make as much money as before. As the purchasing section chief, suppressing prices to buy and selling at high prices had become a habit; not achieving this made him feel like he was losing out.

But today it looked a bit difficult; after all, with so many people watching, the price had already been announced, but he still tried to lower the price further:

"Ninety cents won't do, how about this, eighty-five cents..."

"Ninety cents." Li Long could already see that Li Xiangqian was bluffing. He didn't want to lose out; in fact, ninety cents was already a bit of a loss.

If given some time, he had the confidence to slowly sell these ten sheep in the various residential compounds.

"Young man, we are all from the same county after all." Li Xiangqian walked forward a few more steps, his voice softening, "There will be plenty of time to deal with each other in the future, you have to give me, this purchasing section chief, some face..." Saying this, he raised his voice:

"Eighty-eight cents, no higher!"

"Fine, deal." Li Long nodded, "That's the price then."

Two cents, which came to a total price of three yuan, wasn't much. His own purpose was to help Ha Ha Li Mu and the others sell the sheep, not to make money; this price was acceptable. The horse-drawn cart was led into the courtyard of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative. Li Xiangqian called for someone to bring a scale, and the ten sheep were weighed one by one: one hundred and sixty-six kilograms, totaling one hundred and forty-four yuan and eight cents.

"Young man, you have a future." Li Xiangqian settled the bill with Li Long and said with a smile, "In the future, if you have good things, come find me again, and I'll definitely give you a good price then."

"Sure." Li Long agreed very sincerely; as for what he was thinking in his heart, he knew that himself.

Leading the horse-drawn cart out of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative, Li Long went to buy some hot food, and he and Tao Daqiang hurried into the mountains.

He still had to take those offal back.

When Li Long and Tao Daqiang arrived at Ha Ha Li Mu's winter camp, they found his whole family, including the couple from Yushanjiang's family, were out in the snow, washing those offal.

Li Long hurriedly told Tao Daqiang to lead the cart, and he ran to the front of the winter camp, looking at Ha Ha Li Mu and the others' hands, which were frozen red, and said guiltily:

"You don't need to wash them like this, I'll take them back to wash; using water there is more convenient than here."

In fact, using water at the production team wasn't very convenient either, but at least it was better than here.

"Almost done." Ha Ha Li Mu said with a smile, "We can't let you take dirty things back; for things to be eaten, it's better to be cleaner!"

The old grandmother was using snow to scrub the inside of the stomach, and Li Long went over to help her up and said:

"Stop washing, just load them onto the cart for me directly; it's more convenient for me to handle them when I take them back. Ha Ha Li Mu, call everyone into the house to warm up, it's too cold outside."

"We're used to it, there isn't much left." Yushanjiang waved his hand, "We just did a rough cleaning, you still need to clean the rest carefully. There are less than five or six sets left, we'll be done immediately."

!.

Li Long couldn't dissuade them, so he suggested the old lady go cook milk tea, the children go back into the house to rest, and the adults do the work.

Ha Ha Li Mu and the others agreed. The old grandmother stood up slowly and took the children into the house. With Li Long and Tao Daqiang joining in, the cleaning speed was much faster, and it was all finished in less than an hour.

They loaded the sets of offal onto the horse-drawn cart. These were not like mutton; they were soft and piled in heaps, but fortunately, they were all frozen after being cleaned, forming lumps, which were heavy but didn't take up much space.

More than thirty sets of offal, plus two large sheep that Ha Ha Li Mu and Yushanjiang specially gave to Li Long for the New Year, piled the entire cart full.

Li Long knew that saying more was useless, so he took out the money and said:

"For the ten sheep sold today, I'll still calculate it for you at the price of eighty cents, one hundred and twenty-eight yuan; how many sheep each of you had, calculate it yourselves."

He handed the one hundred and twenty-eight yuan to Ha Ha Li Mu.

Ha Ha Li Mu also knew Li Long's temper, so he didn't say much, and after taking the money, he went to split it with Yushanjiang.

"Li Long, I know there is a herd of Mongolian gazelles active by the mountainside, do you want to hunt them?" Yushanjiang took the money, happily put it away, patted the pocket where the money was, and asked:

"That herd has seven or eight of them, big and small."

"Mongolian gazelles?" Li Long thought for a moment and asked: "Where are they located?"

"Do you know Hongshanzui?" Yushanjiang asked.

"I know it." Li Long knew the place Yushanjiang mentioned; it was another mountain pass about five or six kilometers west of here. Because the earthen mountain at the pass was red, it was called Red Mountain Mouth.

That place was actually the road into the mountains in the usual sense; previously, those people from the team who wanted to go into the mountains to haul wood took that route.

"Walk two kilometers from here towards Red Mountain Mouth, there is a flat slope there, and there are some shrubs on the Gobi; the Mongolian gazelles are active in that area, eating the branches of the shrubs."

"Not today, I'll come over in a couple of days." Li Long thought for a moment and said.

Mongolian gazelles are not sheep, they are a type of antelope, and those horns...

(End of chapter)