Chapter 862: Prey viewed as a bear, who is the hunter?

Li Long hadn't asked yet, when Gu Bo Yuan spoke up:

"Old brother, where did you dig these copper coins from? They don't look like they were stored, they look like they came out of the ground."

"Hey, boss, you have a good eye." The man who brought the copper coins was about fifty years old, showing a mouthful of yellow teeth, slightly hunched, and smiled at Gu Bo Yuan:

"I'm a shepherd, my home is in Letu Station. A while ago, when I was herding sheep, I found a stone slab washed out by a flood in the place where I often herd sheep. Under the stone slab were these copper coins. If they hadn't rotted, there would have been several sacks! I picked them up, and these are the ones that can be used."

Hey, it really is a money cellar!

Letu Station, also known as Camel Station, is a traditional post station with many years of history. Ancient celebrities, Lin Zexu, Zuo Zuo Zongtang, and other celebrities who have been to Northern Xinjiang have mentioned it in their travelogues and notes.

Where there is a post station, there are residents. This northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains in Northern Xinjiang is different from Southern Xinjiang. It is not at all the desert and Gobi everywhere that people from the pass think. Rivers flowing down from the northern slope of the Tianshan Mountains are all over the place, and it is relatively easy for people to live here.

The Corps mainly reclaimed the swamps and wasteland with long wild grass here at the beginning. Saline-alkali land was rarely touched even in the 1980s, because nothing could be planted.

After cotton came out, there was a change.

Letu Station was once known as the No. 1 township in the Northwest in the 1980s—according to the Beiting Daily, and recorded in the Maxian County Annals. Whether true or false, it can show its degree of wealth.

Of course, what it was like in ancient times is impossible to say. But having a money cellar is not surprising.

People queuing at the entrance also gathered to listen. Hearing the old man's statement, everyone envied his luck.

"Being able to dig out such a large cellar of money, it's really good luck!"

"It can't just be copper coins, right? There should be gold ingots inside, right?" Someone felt that it was impossible to have only a money cellar.

"I wish." The old man listened and said unhurriedly, "I pried open that stone, and it was all copper coins inside. There were also rotten ropes, but there was nothing else. Now there is still a pile of rotten copper coins in that place, but unfortunately they fell apart. If they hadn't rotted, just these copper coins would have sold for several hundred, right?"

This person spoke honestly, and although others had doubts, they didn't ask any more questions.

After all, you can't go and ask where that pit is, right? Even if you ask, even if there were gold ingots

The old man quite enjoyed the feeling of being the center of attention, showing his yellow teeth as he watched Sun Jia Qiang smashing the green-rusted copper coins there. Li Long simply joined in as well, personally breaking the columns of coins that many people in later generations would use to gamble on luck, which also gave him a sense of accomplishment.

Sun Jia Qiang was fast; after smashing them open, he put the unbroken coins on one side and the broken ones on the other—this was trash.

Li Long's movements were slower; he was still picking and choosing to see which era those copper coins were from.

Most were from the early Qing Dynasty and the Five Dynasties, with the most being from the Qianlong and Kangxi eras. Li Long picked out some that were in good condition and relatively thick to put on one side.

"Young man, what are you doing?" The old man didn't know Li Long's identity, and seeing him picking out some separately, he became a bit unwilling, thinking Li Long was taking advantage of him.

"This is my boss." Sun Jia Qiang explained, "Don't worry, these copper coins will definitely be counted for money for you too."

The old man then nodded: "Boss, then that's fine."

Li Long smiled and continued picking.

The old man had picked out a total of over forty-two kilograms of usable copper coins, which still needed to have impurities removed.

"You remove twenty percent for impurities? Okay, okay, better than that state-run waste acquisition station." The old man was satisfied, "They always say thirty percent for impurities, and they pick out even more than you do... really lost out big time."

Gu Bo Yuan asked and found out that this old man had gone to the state-run waste acquisition station yesterday to sell a sack of copper coins, felt he had lost money, and only then listened to someone's advice to come to Li Long's side.

He didn't expect to really sell them for quite a bit more money.

The old man finally took the money and left. Li Long helped Sun Jia Qiang sweep away the rotten copper coins on the ground, and while sweeping, he asked:

"Have any mushroom collectors come by in the last two days?"

"No, no one collecting, but quite a few selling." Sun Jia Qiang said, "There are five or six hundred kilograms of dried mushrooms in the warehouse, and that's only collecting the two or three types of wild dried mushrooms you mentioned. If we also collected straw mushrooms, there would be too many."

Although Chen Hongjun said that people also wanted dried straw mushrooms, Li Long didn't collect them here. Firstly, the collection price is too low and not worth it; secondly, there are really too many straw mushrooms locally, and if they were collected openly, two warehouses might not be enough to hold them.

At this time, not to mention anything else, there are really too many resources, and ordinary people don't know where to sell them even if they get them.

Since no one came, Li Long wasn't in a hurry. Chen Hongjun had already said so, so this matter definitely had hope, but in this era, information transmission is relatively slow. This is an era mainly relying on letters for contact; horses and carriages are very slow, and a letter takes more than half a month to go back and forth.

Li Long has been here for three or four years and has already adapted to the rhythm of this era, so no hurry, no hurry.

Returning to the big courtyard, he played with the children. Now Mingming and Haohao can already walk unsteadily; seeing Li Long, they wobbled over to ask for a hug.

A warm family scene.

The second day after the Li family bought the farm machinery.

Li Long didn't wait for the mushroom collector Chen Hongjun mentioned, but instead waited for Zhao Hui.

This time when Zhao Hui came, he brought a truck just like Jia Tianlong.

Having traveled through dust and wind, it happened to be noon, so Li Long invited the two to the Tuanfeng Building to eat and talk.

Zhao Hui and the others had just come from Yili. There were also quite a few hides there—if Zhao Hui didn't only collect high-end hides, their truck would probably be full by now.

After all, there are more herdsmen in Yili, and things like cowhide and sheepskin are much more abundant than here in Maxian.

The relationship with Zhao Hui is slightly worse than with Jia Tianlong, but a step further than the relationship between ordinary buyers and sellers, like deeper collaborators.

So he didn't keep them at home for a meal, but put them at the Tuanfeng Building. The Tuanfeng Building is considered the highest-grade restaurant in Maxian now, which is fine.

"You coming to our side makes things easier. To be honest, we've received quite a few hides during this period," Li Long said while eating, "The smell of those hides in the summer is really not very good."

"That's true, untreated hides have a very strong smell." The driver felt the same way, "Summer hides smell worse than winter ones."

"The price isn't good either." Li Long smiled, "For the same yellow sheepskin, summer ones are more than ten yuan cheaper than winter ones."

"There's no way around that." Zhao Hui shook his head, "Winter hides have down, summer ones don't, and the fur isn't good either, so the price is naturally different... but you should have a large quantity of hides here, right?"

"That's true. There must be over a hundred yellow sheepskins, over thirty red deer skins, over fifty roe deer skins, over fifty wolf skins, over thirty wild goat skins, over seventy water rat skins, over a hundred fox skins... oh right, there are also two bear skins and one lynx skin."

Opening an acquisition station has this benefit: the things received are far more than what one can hunt oneself. Although the profit per hide is only a few yuan or over ten yuan, it adds up, and the profit is very considerable.

"You have bear skins and lynx skins? That's great." Zhao Hui's eyes lit up, "Then let's eat quickly, and after eating, let's go take a look."

Zhao Hui went to Yili to collect hides, and he collected quite a few ordinary red deer skins, yellow sheepskins, and roe deer skins, so he wasn't really lacking those.

But special hides like bear skins and lynx skins were relatively rare. These hides themselves have high value, and coupled with the small quantity, the fur products made from them are also hot items.

Because there was business to discuss, they didn't drink alcohol at noon. After the meal, Li Long took Zhao Hui and the driver to the acquisition station first.

There were quite a few people still selling things at the acquisition station, so Li Long took Zhao Hui and the others around to the back. The truck was parked in the back courtyard, and Li Long took Zhao Hui and the others in through the back door to open the warehouse and get the hides.

"There are no bear skins or lynx skins here either?" Zhao Hui said with some disappointment as he looked at the hides in the warehouse.

"They're at my house; a portion of the hides was transported to my house. Let's collect the hides here first, and then go over." Li Long said, "My partner said that if we keep piling hides here, it'll soon be unlivable."

Although Sun Jia Qiang didn't say it explicitly, that was the meaning. The smell of untreated hides is indeed quite heavy.

Zhao Hui knew that since these hides had to be collected anyway, he might as well collect them.

Li Long brought out bundles of hides and placed them outside, and the driver and Zhao Hui also helped.

After all the hides were moved out, Li Long and Zhao Hui began to grade and price them one by one.

Li Long had a notebook, and so did Zhao Hui, going through them hide by hide—this couldn't be taken lightly.

Fortunately, Li Long and the others had already classified the hides, with each type divided into full hides and damaged hides. Zhao Hui only needed to make slight adjustments to give prices in batches.

After giving the prices, he just needed to check the classification, which saved a lot of time.

Zhao Hui was very professional, inspecting each hide one by one, but he was also very moved. Li Long's classification of hides here was also done very well, much better than the feeling he had when collecting hides elsewhere before.

After the hides at the supply and marketing cooperative were checked and calculated, they were loaded onto the truck and then they went to the big courtyard.

Those who came to sell things watched the large and small vehicles come and go in a hurry, and were all very curious.

Sun Jia Qiang watched the vehicles leave and said to Gu Bo Yuan with a smile:

"Uncle Gu, I can sleep well tonight. Once these hides are taken away, the smell of the whole acquisition station will be better."

"That's right. Even if those hides are locked in the warehouse, the smell is very strong... it's good that they're taken away, it's good."

There weren't many hides at the big courtyard, but they were all good ones. Apart from the bear skins and lynx skins, the other red deer skins and wolf skins were all full hides, which made Zhao Hui very satisfied.

Li Long collected the bear skin for one thousand; it had two bullet holes, but was relatively complete overall. This was a brown bear skin, quite large in size, but unfortunately, there was no bear gallbladder.

The person who sold the hide was also a second-hand dealer, who said that when he collected it, the gallbladder had already been kept by someone else.

The price Zhao Hui offered for this hide was one thousand eight hundred. Li Long bargained, and they settled on a round number of two thousand.

The lynx skin was a bit damaged; besides having three bullet holes, a hole was also torn when it was being skinned. Fortunately, it was all on the edges, so the impact wasn't too great.

"For this lynx skin, I'll offer you one thousand two hundred..." Zhao Hui sighed and said, "If it were a complete hide, I could offer two thousand five hundred now..."

"Such a high price?" Li Long was a bit surprised, "Are lynx skins so expensive now?"

"They're rare, and rarity makes things expensive." Zhao Hui said, "Now, the rarer the hide, the more expensive it is. This thing is rare here to begin with, and those that can be hunted are even fewer. Since the reform and opening up, there are gradually more rich people, and fur itself is a symbol of wealth for those people. If you had a tiger skin, I could offer you ten thousand!

The snow leopard skin you sold last year could also sell for three or four thousand now—the price of hides, it's rising!"

Li Long hadn't felt this point. At the leather factory, sheepskin seemed to have only risen by one yuan. In fact, he also collected quite a lot of sheepskin, all of which were gathered and sold to the leather factory.

Gu Bo Yuan had collected this lynx skin for three hundred yuan—mainly because the hide was damaged.

He didn't expect the profit to have doubled.

All the hides added up to nearly seven hundred. Except for these two more precious ones, the prices of the others were between twenty and seventy.

In the end, Zhao Hui settled the account with Li Long for thirty-three thousand six hundred and fifty-two yuan, and Li Long roughly calculated that out of these thirty-odd thousand yuan, he could earn over fifteen thousand yuan.

The profit from full hides wasn't much, as the price was relatively transparent; the money was mainly earned from those damaged hides—everyone who sells hides knows that winter hides are more expensive than summer hides, and the value of damaged hides is often halved.

But now hides are in short supply, especially the price of good hides is rising. Although there is a difference between the price of damaged hides and full hides, it is not as big as imagined.

Having another sum of money coming in, Li Long was still quite happy.

After sending Zhao Hui and the others away, Li Long went to the bank again. Now, collecting things every day, the cash outflow is basically around three thousand to five thousand, and the daily profit is basically around one thousand to two thousand.

Placed in this era, it's also quite frightening.

For Li Long, with this acquisition station, he had already left ninety-nine percent of the people in the county behind.

Although a large sum of money was spent on buying the tractor, the money could be earned back in less than a month.

The fourth day after the Li family bought the tractor.

The mushroom collector Chen Hongjun mentioned finally came. He went to the acquisition station to find someone, and Sun Jia Qiang ran to the big courtyard to call Li Long over.

Meanwhile, deep in the Tianshan Mountains, Yushanjiang and Halimu were looking at the "crime scene" in the woods with heavy expressions.

The prey had been gnawed, the internal organs had been eaten, there were many claw marks nearby, and blood had stained the grass leaves.

This prey was a brown bear!

If this brown bear stood up, it would be as tall as a person, but at this moment, it lay miserably on the ground, dead with eyes wide open.

What kind of thing could eat a bear?

Both of them were very worried: besides a tiger, who else could kill and gnaw on a ferocious bear?

Had that injured tiger come back? Did it come back to take revenge?

This place is less than a kilometer away from the two families' pastures, which means that big guy's range of activity is nearby! (End of chapter)