Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1056 Captain Ellie Brings in New Relationships

It was already afternoon when Polati arrived at the cabin.

From a distance, the area around the wooden house looked no different. Mingming and Haohao were playing in the spring area, and when someone came to exchange fritillaria for something, the two of them ran into the house early.

A woman was running around beside Li Long. At first, Bolati thought she was Li Long's servant, but when he rode closer, he realized that the woman must have come from the mountains. Her hair was messy and hadn't been washed in a long time, and her clothes didn't fit her well.

Seeing Polati approach, Li Long greeted him, and after sending the people exchanging goods away, he pointed to the shed next to the wooden house and said:

“Two men who were digging for medicinal herbs in the mountains tried to rob me, but I knocked them down and tied them up. I suspect these two men might have committed a crime back in their hometown, so take them back and interrogate them.”

Tang Ling felt a little strange watching Li Long tell Polati about this matter as if he were instructing his subordinates.

He knew that Li Long must have some connection with the forestry team, but he didn't expect Li Long to talk to Bolati like that.

To these medicinal herb hunters, Polati, armed with a gun, was nothing short of a ferocious demon. If they discovered him, they would either confiscate his fritillaria bulbs or, in more serious cases, send him to a detention center.

But at this point, the way Polati and Li Long interacted seemed a bit strange.

"Who would dare rob you at a time like this?" Polati laughed as he dismounted, whip in hand, and went to the shed to check. "Did those two drop their spoons? Haven't they heard about your skills from other herb gatherers?"

"Who knows, maybe they think I'm easy to bully." Li Long poured the collected fritillaria bulbs into a large basin and began to wash them. Tang Ling hurriedly came over to help.

Tang Ling was the woman who was kidnapped by those two men. After taking the money given to her by Li Long, she went into the mountains, packed the three people's luggage into two large bags, carried one on her back and dragged the other, and managed to get them to the wooden house.

Li Long meant for her to grab her things and leave quickly, but Tang Ling refused to leave. She insisted on staying, saying she would wait for the forest ranger to come and explain before leaving. She ended up getting a free lunch from Li Long, though she didn't say she was freeloading; she even offered to help Li Long with his work.

Li Long couldn't hit or scold her, so he just let her stay there.

Now that Pollati has arrived, Li Long thinks it's time for this woman to leave.

After the two men were tied up, Li Long figured it wouldn't be convenient to leave them outside because people kept coming by to exchange fritillaria for goods or money. So he simply tore off their tattered clothes, stuffed them into their mouths, and then carried them to the shed next to the wooden house.

Tang Ling only decided to stay after seeing Li Long easily carry the two people. She knew Li Long was capable, but she didn't expect him to be so strong.

"These two are clearly no good." After observing the two men, Polati ignored them and went to his horse. After unloading the two bags of fritillaria from its back, he said to Li Long:
"Give me these two bags of fritillaria to exchange for money first. I'll rest for a while and then take these two bastards to the forestry team."

"Alright, alright, let me see how your fritillaria is."

Polati said with some pride:
"It's definitely going to be great. Recently, some people think that the fritillaria season is almost over, so they're going to take the dried fritillaria they've dug out to exchange for money."

They heard from somewhere that cleaning the fritillaria bulbs thoroughly and removing impurities would earn them more money, so they cleaned the fritillaria bulbs they collected very carefully.

"That information must have come from me," Li Long said with a smile as he inspected the fritillaria bulbs. "In other words, I charge for fritillaria bulbs based on their cleanliness."

For every person who comes to exchange fritillaria bulbs, if the bulbs are a little dirty, I tell them I've washed them clean and give them an extra two yuan.

So these people gradually learned to dig out the fritillaria bulbs, wash them clean, and then give them to me.

"That's really good of you, it saves us a lot of trouble. By the way, our team leader said you should go over there when you have some free time, our team has collected quite a few more fritillaria bulbs."

Oh, and he said there's something else important he wants to tell you.

“Okay, I’ll go there tomorrow. I’ll go to your team to collect the fritillaria tomorrow morning, and then I’ll come back here at noon.”

Polati's two bags of fritillaria weighed over 70 kilograms and were about 60-70% dry. Li Long paid him 50 yuan per kilogram, totaling 3,600 yuan.

The money was quite a large bag. Polati happily put the bag in the horse's saddlebag, then went over and lifted up the two people who were tied up and looked like they were on the verge of death.

Li Long came over to help, carrying the heavier middle-aged man and placing him on Polati's horse. Polati hurriedly said:
“You can’t do that. How can my horse hold two people? You loosen the ropes on their legs, and I’ll find a long rope, tie their hands together, and then attach it to my saddle.”

That way, I can ride ahead on horseback, and they can follow behind.

"What if they can't keep up?" Tang Ling, who hadn't spoken until now, couldn't help but ask.

“Don’t worry, they’ll catch up,” Polati said with a strange smile. “If they can’t keep up, they’ll lose their faces.”

While Tang Ling was still pondering why her face disappeared when she couldn't keep up, Li Long pointed to the pile of luggage that Tang Ling had separated and said:
“Polati, these are the two men’s belongings. They kidnapped this woman, and I rescued her. She then went into the mountains to retrieve their luggage. Do you want to take these belongings with you?”

"Taking a woman hostage?" Polati's face changed, and he lashed out with his whip, giving each of the two men a lash. "You beasts! I'll teach them a lesson when we get back! There are a few guys in our team who hate this kind of thing the most. I'll hand these two over to them when we get back. Don't worry, they won't get away with it!"

"Then put these things on the horse's back and bring them over quickly, I haven't seen them yet."

"Never mind him, he probably doesn't have anything valuable. Hey, girl, come with me, you'll have to be a witness when we interrogate him."

Tang Ling was somewhat reluctant and glanced at Li Long.

“You’d better come with me,” Li Long said. “Don’t you hate these two? Maybe they really did commit other crimes. You can watch them get into jail.”

Polati nodded. Regarding the kidnapping of women in the mountains, given the current situation, these two people will most likely be sentenced to more than five years.

Although the forestry team members are responsible for protecting the forests and mountains, they do not actually object to people digging for medicinal herbs in the mountains.

To put it bluntly, if no one were digging for medicinal herbs in the mountains, they wouldn't be able to earn extra money.

They were somewhat interdependent. So what bothered the forestry team the most was unstable factors like these two people in the mountains. They would affect the security environment in the mountains and make some herb gatherers afraid to go into the mountains.

Being able to take down and sentence such people is also a good thing for the forestry team.

Tang Ling hesitated for a moment, but ultimately decided to go with Polati. Polati put her luggage on his horse, and she had no choice but to go with him.

Fortunately, those who can dig for medicinal herbs in the mountains can walk 20 to 30 kilometers a day without any problem.

After Polati left with Tang Ling and the two guys, Li Long also prepared to leave. He hadn't received as many fritillaria bulbs as yesterday, but the two guys had gotten them for free, making him a few thousand yuan out of thin air—it was a good thing.

After loading all the fritillaria bulbs into the car and having Mingming and Haohao sit down as well, Li Long glanced at the luggage bags left behind by Tang Ling and, somewhat curious, went over and opened them.

Worn-out bedding, messy clothes, and a jumble of personal belongings.

These things were negligible, but two small packages rolled up in the bedding caught Li Long's attention.

The bag was hand-sewn from cloth, slightly larger than a textbook for children in the 1980s, and was stuffed full.

Li Long unbuttoned the bag and emptied out the contents. There were rolls of loose change, the largest denomination being ten yuan and the smallest one-cent coin, totaling several tens of yuan.

Then there were a dozen or so silver dollars with some patina, and two jade thumb rings. They were made of nephrite, but the jade was of good quality, without any black spots, and quite green and translucent.

The other was a bag made of artificial leather, about the same size as the cloth bag. When Li Long opened it, he found a bunch of miscellaneous items inside.

There was a jade cigarette holder, a jade belt hook, a gold ring with a ruby, a rather intricate gold necklace, more than twenty rusty Yuan Shikai silver dollars, and a small, blackened silver ingot. Whether these people had dug up treasure in the mountains or robbed someone, Li Long put all these miscellaneous items back in their original state.

He simply threw other bedding and clothing under the shed, so that they could be used if someone came to stay.

Li Long left the two packages in the car. If Polati and his group wanted them later, Li Long would return them; they might even be used as evidence.

When Li Long drove back to the backyard of the county's purchasing station, he told Sun Jiaqiang that most of the fritillaria bulbs had been washed by him and were not yet dry, so they had to be poured out and laid out to dry.

To prevent it from getting moldy.

Sun Jiaqiang happily agreed.

Before it was time to leave work, Li Long used the phone number from the recycling station to call the transportation company and said he needed to rent a car for the next day.

They were quite lucky; the transportation company said there was only one truck left, so they booked it for Li Long.

After hanging up the phone, Li Long chatted with Gu Boyuan for a few minutes, asking about the acquisition situation that day.

"There are plenty of fritillaria bulbs, wild mushrooms, and deer antlers too," Gu Boyuan said. "I don't know what's going on, but we've been collecting dozens of kilograms of deer antlers every day these past two days. Have the red deer in the mountains shed their antlers on a large scale?"

"Maybe." Li Long didn't know the specifics either.

"It's a good thing overall. The more we collect, the more money we make." Gu Boyuan had a good attitude and didn't think too much about it.

Li Long was naturally unaware that this was actually the butterfly effect he had caused.

In his previous life, his purchasing station didn't even exist. After the state-run purchasing stations were shut down, for a considerable period of time, privately acquired goods couldn't be sold within the county and had to be transported to Shicheng or Beiting.

Since the journey was quite long, people naturally weren't very enthusiastic. In those days, the county's medicinal herb company only purchased a little over one ton of fritillaria bulbs a year.

The difference between then and now might seem unbelievable to some, but that's the reality. The pharmaceutical company was state-owned, and while it had certain mandatory procurement targets, they weren't many.

Actively purchasing these medicinal herbs would not bring them any additional personal income, so they have little incentive to do so.

Although nearly ten years have passed since the reform and opening up, the service awareness of state-owned enterprises is still very weak. This has resulted in ordinary people being able to obtain these things, but having poor channels to sell them. In addition, the poor service attitude of state-owned enterprises has discouraged ordinary people from actively digging up medicinal herbs to sell.

In this life, Li Long opened a purchasing station, continuing the business of the original state-owned purchasing station. In addition, his good service attitude and fair prices motivated the people.

Originally, people only ventured into the outer few layers of mountains to dig for medicinal herbs. Now that they know they can make a lot of money by getting fritillaria bulbs, more and more people know about it, and the outer few layers of mountains can no longer meet their needs, so naturally they will run into the inner mountains.

Satoyama was originally a sparsely populated area, and apart from the occasional herder grazing herds, it was basically a paradise for wild animals.

Now, the herb gatherers enter the inner mountains as if they've entered a treasure trove. Resources that haven't been touched for hundreds or even thousands of years are being transported out one after another, and Li Long's purchasing station has become the main receiving point.

They wouldn't even consider this. In short, the more goods they buy, the better. With sufficient working capital, they can generally earn a profit of over 30% on the goods they buy, so they're definitely buying without hesitation.

This is the advantage of having sufficient capital. It also confirms the saying that it's not easy to earn one dollar with one dollar of capital, but it's relatively easier to earn ten thousand dollars with ten thousand dollars of capital.

That's true to some extent.

The next day, after breakfast, Mingming and Haohao stayed at home with Sister Yang. Li Long drove his jeep to the transportation company to pick up the truck, then went to the food company to buy two cases of wine, and to the grain station to buy some rice and flour. He then drove to the forestry team.

Captain Airi received Polati's report and was already waiting at the team's location.

“Comrade Li Long, we have to have a drink this time no matter what. Polati said you have a good capacity for alcohol, so you can’t just drink in the mountains, we should drink together here too. You brought some wine with you, and I’ve cooked some meat and chopped some onions.”

Since the captain had spoken, Li Long had nothing to say, so he decided to have a drink.

The effect of drinking was obvious. Because Li Long had a high alcohol tolerance, he received unanimous praise from the cadres accompanying him. As a result, Captain Ai Li rounded down the amount of the more than two tons of fritillaria in the warehouse to two tons, allowing Li Long to purchase it.

Just that one sentence startled Li Long himself. Could the effect of a single drinking session be so exaggerated?
He wanted to make a concession, but Captain Ellie, who was under the influence of alcohol, said that doing so would be disrespectful to his friend.

Li Long decided to leave it at that for now and deal with it after he sobered up. Otherwise, things might get complicated regarding their future relationship.

Because the quantity involved is not small, this "more than two tons" actually consists of more than three hundred kilograms, worth two or three thousand yuan.

So Li Long wasn't in a hurry to leave. He rested at the forestry team's place at noon, wondering why Ai Li had sobered up by then.

Around 5 PM, Ellie came to find him. Li Long thought he should recalculate the money issue first, but the captain was talking about something else entirely.

"Comrade Li Long, thank goodness you didn't leave. Drinking can lead to trouble! I have something important to tell you..."

"It's about the remaining fritillaria bulbs, right?" Li Long chuckled and said, "It's just drunken talk, let's not take it seriously. The remaining three hundred-odd kilograms, I'll charge you two thousand five hundred yuan..."

"No, no! Comrade Li Long, we already agreed on this, why are you bringing it up again? Even though they drank, they keep their word. If they said two tons, then it's two tons!"
Every time you come over and bring us things, I never charge you. We're friends, after all. I told you the extra fritillaria bulbs were a gift, so please don't bring it up again!
I'm talking about something else. You know what I mean?

Li Long thought to himself, "What do I know? You didn't say anything, what could I possibly know?"
So he waited patiently for Ellie to speak.

“There is also a forestry team in the neighboring Hu County. They, like us, also collect a lot of fritillaria when they patrol the mountains and protect the forests.”

It turns out they also had buyers they had good relationships with who would take away their fritillaria bulbs.

We two have a pretty good relationship; we even chatted when we had a meeting in Beiting together. A couple of days ago, he called me to ask how the fritillaria sales were going here, and I told him.

As a result, this person got really angry. He said that the price they sold their fritillaria bulbs to others was much lower than ours, and that the dealer who bought his fritillaria bulbs ripped him off, charging him 20, 30, or 40 yuan per kilogram.

He still thinks about his friends, but what kind of friend is this who forces people to be so demanding?
So I was thinking of having you buy their fritillaria bulbs. You're a fair-seller, honest, and reliable person. We like friends like you!

Li Long really didn't expect that Ai Li would introduce him to a big client.

"No problem! We're friends, so this is helping me out. Don't worry, your friend is my friend," Li Long said with a smile. "Captain, you tell me, how do I go over and collect it?"

"Haha, I knew you were smart! Just buy it at my price. You guys are experts on fritillaria. He not only has fritillaria, but also deer antler skin, and all sorts of other things. Take whatever you can think of."

"Okay, okay, no problem. Give me an address, my friend will contact me, and then I'll come over to collect it!"

"Okay, okay, let's go make a call together." The county had set up a telephone line for the forestry team. Li Long didn't know the number before, but he took advantage of the time to make the call and wrote it down.

He also gave Captain Ellie his acquisition station's number, telling him to call directly there if anything came up, saving Polati the trouble of relaying messages back and forth.

After the call connected, Li Long realized that the captain on the other end spoke even less fluent Mandarin than Ai Li, barely comprehensible to him. The two captains also spoke Uyghur, but fortunately, Li Long understood some of it and was able to understand it.

When Captain Ellie said that Li Long could help pack up the other miscellaneous items in the warehouse, Li Long could sense the captain's delighted tone.

He wondered if they were about to collect junk again.

(End of this chapter)