Chapter 34: Border Trade Market

Seeing Li Jiaci's eyes reddened, everyone present was moved.

If we say, during the day they still couldn't fully grasp Li Jiaci's thoughts.

Then after experiencing this, how could they still not understand Li Jiaci's painstaking efforts?

"Brother!"

Li Yihu said: "We'll listen to you, we'll listen to you, we won't get involved anymore."

"Right!"

"We guarantee we won't touch this circle anymore, guarantee."

And Liu Jiang and the others also spoke up at this moment to promise Li Jiaci.

Feeling that this time they were making a heartfelt promise to him.

The stone that had been weighing on Li Jiaci's heart finally came to rest.

"Brother trusts you."

Li Jiaci patted their shoulders and then said: "Alright, it's getting late, go back to sleep; tomorrow we still have a lot to do."

……

The next morning.

Li Jiaci and the others first went to the factory to help Liu Jiang for a while.

In the afternoon, they took Zhang Chuqiang, Li Yihu, and Zhao Chen in the car and headed for the border city of Jiangcheng, which adjoins Bei Bang.

Pingzhou is not close to Jiangcheng; it's nearly three hundred kilometers away.

Even though the highway to Jiangcheng is now open, it still takes at least five or six hours to drive.

Fortunately, everyone who came together can drive, so they don't have to rely on one person to drive the whole way.

When they got off the highway.

It was already past 1 a. m.

Li Jiaci directed the driver, Li Yihu, to find a nearby small inn.

But because they arrived late, the inn had only one room left, so the four of them had to make do sharing it for the night.

The lights were turned off.

The four of them squeezed onto the same bed.

"Hehe!"

Zhao Chen chuckled and said: "It's still most comfortable sleeping beside the eldest brother."

"Hey! Second brother!"

"Do you still remember the night the orphanage just closed down?"

Zhao Chen turned his head toward Li Yihu and said: "That night the eldest brother brought us to sleep under the bridge; I was using him as a pillow, and you were always there coaxing the sixth brother to sleep?"

"Of course I remember."

Li Yihu said: "That kid, the sixth brother, cried as if his own father had died."

"But you little brat seem no different from the sixth brother, huh?"

"I remember that night you cried even louder than the sixth brother!"

"Hahahaha……"

Hearing him say that, everyone present couldn't help but laugh, and Li Jiaci laughed too.

But after laughing, scenes from his previous life unconsciously surfaced in his mind.

Back then.

He also lay on the small inn's bed just like now, but his state of mind was completely different.

Back then.

Only Li Yihu and Zhang Chuqiang remained by his side.

Having just experienced a huge upheaval, they had no mood to chat, each feeling heavy-hearted.

He also clearly remembered Zhang Chuqiang crying and asking him: "Brother, do you think we can smoothly cross the border? Can we still survive? Are we supposed to go reunite with Fourth Brother and the sixth brother and the others?"

Li Jiaci also felt lost about the future back then, not knowing if he could survive.

He only said: "With me here, I'll definitely make sure you all survive!"

As for whether he himself would die, he had no idea, but he swore he would definitely protect his brothers.

But……

He couldn't fulfill what he said.

His two remaining brothers still left him.

Thinking of this.

Li Jiaci unconsciously reached out and lightly patted Zhao Chen's shoulder.

"What's up, brother?"

"Nothing!"

Li Jiaci twitched the corner of his mouth: "I just remembered you when you were little."

Zhao Chen gave an "oh."

Li Jiaci looked up at the ceiling, exhaled a long breath, and silently swore in his heart: "Brother will definitely bring you all to live like proper people, and will definitely make up for all the suffering you've endured over the past decade or so."

……

They all slept until past eight in the morning.

After asking the innkeeper about the location of the Free Trade Zone, they went downstairs and drove to their destination.

Strictly speaking.

The Free Trade Zone in Jiangcheng cannot really be called a Free Trade Zone.

Even the definition given by the government is merely a large border‑resident mutual market area, or in other words, a barter area.

Therefore, compared with the several Free Trade Zones in the south, the Jiangcheng Free Trade Zone is not well known; even domestically, few people are aware that such a Free Trade Zone exists.

Moreover, because of the special national conditions, the living conditions of the Bei Bang people are not good.

When they come to the Free Trade Zone, they mostly spend their time selling some mountain produce and buying grain, cloth, and the like.

This also gives the Free Trade Zone a great limitation; apart from grain merchants, cloth merchants, and some traders who come to collect mountain goods, basically no one can survive here.

And everything is mutual.

Few merchants mean the government naturally collects little tax revenue.

When the government receives little tax revenue, it naturally is not very willing to invest money in these places.

Nowadays, the only difference between this Free Trade Zone, which provides mutual trade and barter for the peoples of the two countries, and a rural market is that it may be somewhat larger than a rural market, its roads somewhat wider, and there are also tax officials on the side levying taxes on some large‑value goods.

Several people walked through it.

What they heard nearby were the cries of vendors in various languages.

Several people, including Li Jiaci, were coming here for the first time.

Seeing the Bei Bang people dressed and adorned just like domestic folks of several decades ago, everyone couldn't help but feel it was novel.

The merchants of Huaguo and Bei Bang were one in the east, one in the west, clearly separated.

Several people followed the area where the Huaguo merchants were located and arrived at the area where the Bei Bang merchants were located.

"Hey bosses, take a look at these wild mushrooms and wild mountain ginseng—just dug up from the mountains!"

Just as they came over, they could hear a stall vendor at the very edge, speaking broken Chinese, shouting for them to look at his goods.

Li Jiaci lowered his head, thought for a moment, and stepped forward.

"Not bad, this mountain ginseng."

Li Jiaci glanced at the mountain ginseng laid out on the stall and said, "They must have grown in the ground for several decades, right?"

"Boss, you have great eyesight!"

That vendor was a woman in her thirties.

Because she had long been doing farm work, her skin was dark, making her look older than her actual age.

Seeing Li Jiaci praise her mountain ginseng, she immediately replied, "These mountain ginseng were dug up from a recently opened area; no one had ever been there before, and each root is at least thirty‑odd years old."

"Boss, if you want a lot, I can give you a discount!"

The merchants here on the Bei Bang side are basically agents sent by the Bei Bang side.

Before entering Huaguo, the government had already given them unified training, teaching them the Huaguo language and the conditions of Huaguo.

If it weren't for their slightly awkward accent, one would probably think they were native Huaguo people.

Looking at the woman in front of him who was beaming with a full‑face smile.

Li Jiaci curled the corner of his mouth and casually asked, "How much of a discount can you give?"

"Uh..."

The woman thought for a moment and said, "The current market price is one hundred yuan per root; if you, boss, buy more than a hundred roots, I can charge you eighty yuan each."