Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1040 Is Jia Tianlong's second child a boy or a girl?

At the livestock market on the outskirts of Ma County, Li Long, along with Uncle Luo, Yang Laoliu, Tao Daqiang, and others, picked up cattle and sheep.

The cattle and sheep brokers here recognized these people, and seeing that they didn't intend to find a broker, they didn't come up to bother them.

Xie Yundong and Li Long both knew a little bit of minority languages, so they could communicate well with the ethnic herders and quickly reached an agreement on two herds of cattle and sheep.

With Li Long's authorization, Xie Yundong was very bold. This flock of more than two hundred sheep was bought in groups. A small portion were winter lambs, most of them were two or three years old, and some were more than three years old.

Although Li Long requested that the cattle and sheep he bought be small in size, that was difficult to achieve.

So we'll buy a batch today, and continue later.

The cattle and sheep that are bought back still need to be dewormed and bathed. Anyway, the sheep washing pool in the team is basically only used by Lao Ma's team now. Ma Jinbao's flock of sheep has been decreasing, so it is not used much.

A herdsman wearing a white hat approached Li Long, wanting to sell his cattle and sheep. He went straight to the point:

"My sheep are cheap! And there aren't many, but the owner is generous, so you can take them all!"

Li Long glanced at it and immediately shook his head, refusing to accept it.

“Take a look, let me tell you, look, fifty-one sheep, more than thirty of them are adult sheep, these sheep are much cheaper than other flocks... Look, most of them are winter lambs, these sheep of mine cost 1,300 yuan…”

It was quite cheap, but Li Long still shook his head.

The man continued to pester them, so Tao Daqiang pushed him aside.

Tao Daqiang's intimidation power was second only to Li Long's; he had actually raised his fist, meaning that if this person didn't leave, he would take action.

The person had no choice but to leave.

Uncle Luo's eyesight is poor, so he asked Li Long why he didn't buy that person's cattle and sheep, since they were quite cheap at the current prices.

“Several of those sheep have skin diseases,” Li Long said directly. “If we bought them to slaughter, it wouldn’t be a problem. But we need to keep them in flocks. If we buy them and mix them with the rest of the flock, all our cattle and sheep will be bare-backed!”

"Hey, that's unacceptable!" Uncle Luo hurriedly waved his hand.

There were nearly 500 sheep and less than 20 cattle that had already been purchased. Li Long told Uncle Luo and Yang Laoliu to drive them back first.

There aren't many cars on the road now, so it's quite easy to herd cattle and sheep back along the way—you can get to the north of the county town from the Lanzhou Bay intersection along the old ring road without having to enter the county town, and the impact is minimal.

Uncle Luo and Yang Laoliu took their sheep-driving whips, one by the Ma River and the other behind, and drove the cattle and sheep that had already joined the herd northward.

It was still early, and Li Long figured more herds of cattle and sheep would arrive eventually, so he decided to wait.

Sure enough, not long afterward, herds of cattle and sheep came over.

Some people had already spotted them and rushed over to ask about the price even before the herd of cattle and sheep arrived. Some of the brokers also went over to inquire.

Li Long and his group weren't in a hurry; they had plenty of time today.

However, soon a group of cattle and sheep that looked quite good came over, and Li Long changed his strategy and quickly walked over.

This herd of cattle and sheep numbered three or four hundred. Although they all looked rather thin, Li Long could tell that the animals were not very old. They had simply not gained enough weight during the winter, and now that the grass hadn't grown in the spring, they hadn't been able to replenish it.

After a few days of fattening, the appearance of these cattle and sheep will change rapidly.

Li Long could see it, and so could others; many people rushed forward.

Li Long spoke first:
"Are you selling them in bulk? How much is it for all sizes? If it's reasonable, I'll buy them all!"

His words immediately startled everyone else.

This group has already bought two flocks of sheep. In the eyes of others, the number of cattle and sheep they have bought is enough for a medium-sized herder. And now they want more?

What are they planning to do? Are they setting up a livestock cooperative?
The Kazakh uncle who was herding cattle and sheep was delighted to hear this, and he immediately started chatting with Li Long.

Those who come here to sell cattle and sheep naturally want to sell them all at once, rather than letting people pick and choose, and then it's difficult to deal with the remaining culled sheep.

Their favorite buyers are also those like Li Long.

Li Long bought all 382 sheep at an average price of 25 yuan per sheep.

It cost a lot of money, but it was well worth it.

The sheep are very thin; on average, you're lucky if you can get about ten kilograms of meat from one sheep.

So the Kazakh uncle was quite happy, as he was able to sell his cattle and sheep all at once and almost became a millionaire. He could do many things with that money.

"Alright, that's enough for today." Li Long looked at the sky. It was already past noon, and he couldn't stay any longer. He needed to drive the cattle and sheep back now, and they could get home before dark. After all, cattle and sheep walk slower than people; covering three kilometers in an hour would be good enough, and they would probably need to rest at noon.

The task of herding the sheep was handed over to Xie Yundong and Tao Daqiang. Li Long drove the jeep with Liang Dacheng and Jia Weidong back first to have a meal, then Uncle Luo and Yang Laoliu would take over, and later Tao Daqiang and the others would take over as well.

We should split up and rush back separately so that people won't be so tired.

After all, there are still many things to do – although the sheepfold is ready, shearing the sheep, bathing them, and then feeding and fertilizing them in separate pens are all troublesome tasks.

Of course, with so many cattle and sheep bought this time, the supply of raw materials for dried meat is not so tight anymore.

The four groups took turns herding the cattle and sheep until they reached Lao Ma Hao just as the sun was setting. Both the people and the animals were quite tired. Fortunately, the journey was relatively smooth—although it was a combination of three groups, the cattle and sheep were relatively slow-witted, so the lead sheep would lead the way and the others would follow.

In addition, there were few cars on the road and people could get off on both sides, so there was no chaos and we arrived safely.

Once they got to the pen, it was alright; they were given grass, but the cattle and sheep were starving—because they had to hurry on their way, they hadn't eaten much of the grass by the roadside.

Fearing that the sheep might eat too much and become bloated, we didn't feed them on the first day, only gave them grass to keep them hanging.

According to Yang Laoliu, when dividing the animals into groups tomorrow, those that are not yet fat should be separated and placed in a separate circle. They should be given time to gain weight so that they can be fattened up.

Nothing happened that night, but the news spread quickly throughout the team the next day when the sheep were herded out of the pen into the wasteland.

Old Ma's ship suddenly had nearly a thousand more sheep. What was Li Long trying to do?

Many people know that Li Long makes dried meat, but no one knows how large-scale it is—they just assume it's like making snacks at home.

Who would have thought it could be built on such a large scale?
Li Long didn't explain in detail, since grazing cattle and sheep on wasteland wasn't illegal and nobody cared. Yang Laoliu was very proud; with the cattle and sheep already in the pen, he now had over a thousand "subordinates." However, Uncle Luo didn't agree with him and directly divided the cattle and sheep into two groups—according to him, he originally wanted to divide them into three groups, but Yang Laoliu firmly disagreed, so it could only be two groups.

Such a large herd of cattle and sheep being released into the wasteland—that's quite a lot!
After all, the wasteland in the team is not like the grassland in the mountains. It is divided into large and small plots by cultivated land. When a flock of five or six hundred sheep is released into the wasteland, it takes up a small plot of wasteland. The visual impact is still very strong.

Li Long didn't care about anything else. After explaining what needed to be done, he had other things to attend to.

Following Li Long's instructions, after dividing the sheep into groups and giving them a medicated bath, Uncle Luo used a loudspeaker to hire people, mainly women, to shear the sheep and collect their down.

At this point, the sheep's wool was basically unshorn, but some of the goat's wool had been plucked, which didn't matter; just pluck the wool that was still there.

Little by little, it adds up. Wool may be cheap, but its advantage lies in its quantity.

Although cashmere is scarce, there are so many sheep... A kilogram of cashmere of mixed quality now costs over a hundred yuan, and pure cashmere even reaches two hundred yuan!

very expensive!
Li Long's purchasing station also buys cashmere, but not much; the people who come to sell it can only get a few hundred grams at most.

But when Li Long combined all these flocks of sheep, he caught several kilograms of cashmere!
That's considered a small profit.

Each shearing woman was paid two dollars for each sheep sheared—a pretty good way to earn money.

After all, someone had already tied up the sheep, so all you had to do was use a pair of scissors to cut them. Even if you didn't know how, as long as you didn't cut the meat, you could cut it as short as possible. The loudspeaker not only attracted people from your own team, but also people from the third team.

The ground temperature hasn't risen yet, so everyone is busy preparing agricultural supplies, which doesn't take much time, giving them plenty of time to earn some extra money.

Xu Haijun sighed at home:

"In the past, Li Long would have had to personally handle things like this and call people over. Now, it's much better; he just gave the money to Old Luo and let him do it, which means he no longer needs to do it himself... This is a big deal!"

"Maybe he just wants to be a hands-off manager?" the young man with him analyzed.

"You say he's lazy? Not necessarily. I think he has more important things to do and can't afford to worry about this."

Actually, Li Long had both. He needed to hurry back to inquire about the nearby courtyards and also send away a batch of dried meat he had made.

Huang Lei and Zhao Hui knew him well, so they trusted him completely. They would wire the money first and then have him send the dried meat.

Sending dried meat was second nature to Li Long, and finding a house wasn't as difficult as he had imagined—he didn't have to ask around at every place.

The county has a dedicated housing management office for public housing. He went directly to the housing management office to ask if there were any houses for sale near his home, and they pointed out three for him.

Li Long was a big shot in the county, so the housing management office naturally didn't need to make things difficult for him; on the contrary, they were quite polite.

Li Long approved one of the courtyards, which was close to the experimental station to the east, but he wanted to inspect the other two in person.

The housing management office trusted him quite a bit. Since they didn't have any extra staff and the two courtyards had been inspected when the houses were handed over, they simply handed him the keys to the courtyards and let him inspect them.

Li Long first went to see a place that was only two houses away from his own courtyard.

It's a fairly large courtyard, similar in age to Li Long's, but a bit smaller. It's a four-sided courtyard, but there's a wall in front and no outbuilding.

Like Li Long's courtyard, the path leads directly to the gate, except that half of this courtyard has been converted into vegetable gardens, leaving less open space.

The main buildings consist of four main rooms on the north side and five side rooms on the west side—used as a kitchen and storage room.

There is also a courtyard wall to the east, but no houses. Below the wall is a vegetable garden, and in the southeast corner is a dry toilet.

The house is neither new nor old, but it can be moved in after a little cleaning. The main thing is that there are quite a few rooms in the kitchen area, which can be renovated to make or dry meat.

Because the yard is quite large, the current price is 1,100 yuan.

Li Long felt it was worth discussing.

The other courtyard is smaller, but relatively newer.

Judging from the style of the brick house, it should have been built no more than ten years ago... or even in the year or two after the reform and opening up.

The materials used are very solid, and the style of the courtyard is the most ordinary, with four houses on the north side and no houses on the east, west, or south sides. The space in the courtyard is quite large, and it is possible to add to it, but it is not ready-made.

If we were to use it, we would have to use the main house on the north side as the kitchen, which would be a bit wasteful.

According to the housing management office, the family elders received a notice and had some money, so they moved back to the county from the countryside and built this house.

As a result, after less than two years, the elders in the family relocated to Wucheng, where they were given an apartment building, and the courtyard was left empty.

The housing management office took back the house and put it back on the market.

Li Long thought to himself, "This is pretty good too."

This courtyard is quite nice to live in, it looks new, and it's not expensive, only 800 yuan.

However, firstly, the area is too small; secondly, the distance is too far; and thirdly, it would require rebuilding. After thinking about it, Li Long decided to just take the older, larger courtyard.

Then I bought it.

After completing the formalities and returning to his own courtyard, Li Long planned to send the remaining dried meat in two or three days. He then told Sister Yang about going there to make dried meat.

Sister Yang has now made this her career, so she is naturally happy to have a dedicated courtyard to do it.

Li Long shared the same idea. After all, once the food hygiene license was issued, there would inevitably be a designated place to display it, and he would have to go and make and hang up the sign.

The courtyard needed some renovations, so Li Long went to the job market and found a few bricklayers, who were then handed over to Sister Yang to work on.

On the west side of the county town, at the three-way intersection just before leaving the town, there's a job market—actually a gathering place for odd jobs. Many of the people there come from outside the town; they simply carry a bag with tools and wait to be hired.

Now it's just odd jobs, but in a few years, this place will become a hub for cotton picking and other short-term work.

After Li Long picked up the people, he thought that if Li Junshan saw these people, he would probably have more feelings.
After finishing all those things, he thought about going into the mountains, but he still couldn't make it.

Li Long felt that it was best not to make any plans at the moment, since he knew that he would never be able to accomplish anything if he did plan.

For example, right now, they were already preparing to go into the mountains, and the jeep was already loaded with supplies to take into the mountains, but he couldn't leave—Jia Tianlong had arrived.

Not only did he come, but he also brought his wife—who was heavily pregnant and had a child with her.

Jia Tianlong wasn't afraid of fines, so even if there were policies in place, he didn't need to wait six years to have another child—he simply paid the fine, and then, when the time was right, his wife got pregnant.

This time, I came here while my wife wasn't showing too much of a pregnancy, to pay my respects to that jade stone.

Li Long watched from the side. The couple was really devout—the child had a nanny to hold him and was quite well-behaved. At this moment, his big, dark eyes looked around and then fixed on Mingming and Haohao.

Even though Li Long had told Hao Hao not to talk at this time, the two kids were quite well-behaved and didn't say anything.

After setting out the offerings and finishing the prayers, Jia Tianlong and his wife got up and began exchanging pleasantries with Li Long.

As for Jia Tianlong's wife and nanny, they were strolling around the yard with the child, chatting with Sister Yang.

Jia Tianlong then brought up the matter of Sun Benchuan.

"Hey, I really didn't realize he wasn't one of us." Jia Tianlong said a little embarrassedly, "I've done business with him for so long, and I never thought he was Japanese! He's such a good actor, he seems no different from us!"

At this point, when it comes to the friendship between the two countries, Jia Tianlong originally had no problem with Sun Benchuan, but after learning from Li Long that this guy wanted to steal the jade, he was really unhappy.

This trip wasn't just about praying for a son; it was also about apologizing to the jade stone—the offerings were all kinds of fine things, and the plates on display were antiques—according to Jia Tianlong, if he made a mistake, he had to correct it.

He needed to let this spiritual jade see his sincerity—he didn't mention what Li Long would do with the plate behind it.

Li Long naturally wouldn't cheat him out of his food—he had plenty of similar stuff himself.

"Nobody can see back in the first place..." Li Long tried to console Jia Tianlong, "Anyway, as long as you make money, that's all that matters. If he doesn't come after you, he'll come after someone else. This medicinal herb business isn't something you do alone. By the way, when are you going to give birth?"

“It’s been four months now, it’s almost autumn,” Jia Tianlong said. “I just don’t know if it will be a boy or a girl. I’m hoping for a son this time. My wife isn’t young either. If it’s a son, I won’t bother with any more trouble.”

Li Long thought to himself, "Can this jade really determine whether a child is a boy or a girl?"

Never mind, they meant well, so I won't think about it too much.

Jia Tianlong not only expressed his sincerity to Yu Shi, but also to Li Long:
Two old ginseng roots, a piece of rhinoceros horn, two boxes of precious prepared medicines, and two bottles of medicinal wine.

It's all good stuff.

That shows a lot of sincerity!
Li Long was a little embarrassed; it was difficult to return the favor!

(End of this chapter)