Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1106 Zhao Chengfeng and Li Long: This is what you call professional!
In early October, it started snowing in Satoyama. When you went into the mountains, you could see from a high point that some mountains on the other side of Satoyama were already covered in snow.

Although large swathes of pine forests are still green, many more mountains have turned the colors of late autumn, their vitality gone.

Li Long drove the jeep with Zhao Chengfeng into the mountains.

Meng Hai and his group have already gone inside. Not only have they gone inside, but he also drove his tractor there a day in advance and hauled cement and other supplies over.

Zhao Chengfeng looked out the window curiously.

After joining the construction and installation company, he basically spent all his time in the city. Although Kuitun is not big, it is still a city, and the scenery there is completely different from that in the mountains.

As the car drove further into the mountains, Zhao Chengfeng, feeling the bumpy ride, asked:

"Mr. Li, did you build this road?"

"Yes, I organized people to fix it."

"It must have cost a lot of money to repair this road, right?" Zhao Chengfeng already knew Li Long's identity and also knew from Li Anguo that he had paid for the road repairs himself.

"It's alright. Actually, most of the money for road repairs comes from the herders themselves. They bring out local specialties from the mountains, and I sell those things to use the money for road repairs—if it's not enough, I'll add some more, and that's about it."

"What kinds of local specialties are there in the mountains?" Zhao Chengfeng asked with interest. He thought that since he had come all this way, it would be good to bring back some local specialties.

"Leather, deer antlers, snow lotus, and if we're lucky, we might find jade," Li Long said as he drove. "As for medicinal herbs, we have codonopsis now, but we can't see any we don't recognize. The codonopsis plants are withered now, just bare stalks."

Zhao Chengfeng wanted all these things, but unfortunately, he was a good boy from the city and didn't know anything about them.

Even if you see a piece of raw jade by the water, you wouldn't recognize it.

As for Codonopsis pilosula plants, let alone bare stalks, even if he saw Codonopsis pilosula flowers in the summer, he wouldn't recognize them.

So, like a curious child, she asked Li Long about the characteristics and uses of these things in the mountains.

"If you're interested, I can take you to dig up a couple of Codonopsis pilosula roots during a break from work later," Li Long said with a smile. "The Codonopsis pilosula roots here are especially big, as thick as a child's arm."

"So big?" Zhao Chengfeng was also quite surprised.

As they chatted, they arrived at the bridge construction site. By then, Meng Hai and his team were already mixing concrete and clearing the foundation for the bridge.

Zhao Chengfeng was very dedicated; as soon as he got out of the car, he started instructing Meng Hai and the others on how to work.

This time, Li Long didn't run around aimlessly. He followed Zhao Chengfeng and watched how he guided Meng Hai and the others with the blueprints, from the initial concrete ratio to the later bridge foundation excavation, and so on, without missing a single detail.

This person is truly skilled.

Even though Li Long was an outsider, he could tell from watching him that this person had received systematic training in bridge construction.

Li Long was like that, and Meng Hai and the others were even more so. The moment they spoke, their understanding of the blueprints was on a completely different level from theirs.

Li Long thought that if Yang Bo were here, he might get along very well with Zhao Chengfeng.

Building a bridge isn't as simple as digging a hole, pouring concrete in, building the bridge foundation, and then piling up materials.

Zhao Chengfeng observed the river's flow direction and hydrological data along the banks to determine the flow rate. He then made slight adjustments based on the blueprints, guiding Meng Hai and his team step by step.

Li Long would occasionally join in; he was strong and meticulous in his work, doing exactly what Zhao Chengfeng told him to do.

The entire afternoon was spent laying the foundation, including blocking the river to allow the water to flow away from the other side of the riverbank, thus clearing the area for bridge construction.

Knowing that time was tight, Meng Hai and Li Long asked Zhao Chengfeng to give them more guidance on how to proceed, including the construction of the bridge deck.

Zhao Chengfeng knew that they needed to use tractors, which had high load-bearing requirements, so he gave Li Long and the others several suggestions to choose from, and even analyzed which one was the easiest and which one was the safest.

Li Long naturally preferred the safest option. It wouldn't be good if the bridge were repaired but then malfunctioned and people, equipment, or livestock fell off.

In early October, it got dark early, so Li Long drove the jeep back around 6 p.m., telling Meng Hai and the others who were working to also return early.

After all, it gets dark before nine o'clock, and this nearly forty-kilometer journey would take even a small four-wheeled tractor two hours to complete.

The sun had already set when the jeep drove out of the mountains. Yang Chengfeng had lunch with Li Long and the others in the mountains. When Li Long went to pick him up, they had gotten some lamb offal and naan bread from a shop in Keyumu, passing through Shicheng; the meal was quite simple.

On their way back, they passed through Shicheng, and Li Long treated Zhao Chengfeng to a meal in the old street.

"I'm sorry, Technician Zhao, we were short on time this time and didn't get to help you dig up any Codonopsis pilosula. Maybe next time, I'll definitely get some next time," Li Long said.

"I'm the one who should feel embarrassed," Zhao Chengfeng swallowed the bits of food in his mouth. Hot food tastes better than cold food. Once he had no more food in his mouth, he said, "I've taken so much money and only worked for you guys for half a day... How about this, I'll go back today, and tomorrow morning I'll ask my boss for leave and then come back."

"Okay." Li Long thought this was an honest person, but he felt hot-tempered taking the money, mainly because he felt he hadn't done enough work.

That's good.

"Will your salary be deducted if you take leave? If so, I'll make it up to you," Li Long said. "I can't let you suffer a loss."

"No need, no need, it won't happen." Zhao Chengfeng hurriedly waved his hand. "I don't usually ask for leave, but if I do ask for leave occasionally, my supervisor will approve it."

"Okay, then I'll take you back tonight. I'll stay in Kuitun. You can get your leave early tomorrow morning, right? I'll wait for you at your company entrance."

When Li Long finished eating and left, he packed up most of the remaining cooked offal from Ru Xianguli's place, dividing it into two parts. One part was for Zhao Chengfeng to take, and the other part was for his second brother's family.

The Mid-Autumn Festival is coming soon, and I don't know if my second brother will be able to go back. He's going to Kuitun this time, so I should bring some things with me.

The car drove out of Shicheng, and it was completely dark before they even reached Shawan. Li Long wasn't afraid of driving in the dark; it just meant driving slower and occasionally encountering oncoming cars.

Of course, you might occasionally see green eyes on the road or roadside, but you don't know what kind of wild animal it is.

Li Long hadn't given up on hunting yet. Although his gun was in the car, he thought it best to stop for a while. If he were alone, he might still go for a shot.

When the car arrived in Kuitun, it was not even 11 o'clock yet, and the TV show was still going on.

After dropping Zhao Chengfeng off at home, Li Long drove to his second brother's house. Li Anguo heard the car and the knocking, and cautiously asked from inside the door. He only opened the door with a smile after learning it was Li Long.

"Why are you back at this hour? Come in quickly, drive the car in too. Come inside and have some water. Have you eaten? Should I ask your sister-in-law to make you something to eat?"

"I'm not hungry, I've already eaten." Li Long knew that there were still rooms available in his second brother's yard, but he didn't plan to stay there. He said, "I brought Zhao Chengfeng from your company. He did a good job with us today."

He said he'd see if he could take a day off tomorrow to continue repairing the bridge for us. I'll stay in the city today and wait. Here's some cooked lamb offal I bought today; take it.

Chen Lirong had already come out. She heard Li Long's voice and came over to greet him. Her two nieces, Xueping and Xueqin, also came out.

Li Long had no choice but to go inside and have some tea first.

"Second sister-in-law, Qianjin did a good job. In September, he even helped my eldest brother with the work of making big brooms. When he and Junxian left, they each received eight hundred, which is quite a lot."

"That's a lot, almost as much as my salary!" Li Anguo exclaimed. "They've only been here for six months, and if you calculate it monthly, it's more than my salary!"

The two young men were indeed good at their work and earned so much. One of them worked hard while harvesting wheat with Li Jianguo, and the other helped Li Anguo by ensuring quality when collecting brooms for the whole village.

Li Junfeng received more; he and his wife together received one thousand yuan. His wife was about to give birth, so he couldn't leave. In fact, he planned to see if he could stay.

Of course it's not easy; it's getting harder and harder to settle in the fourth team.

Li Long didn't ask any questions about these things, and Li Junfeng didn't bother him either. He was quite sensible and just worked hard.

When Li Long brought up Chen Qianjin, Chen Lirong laughed and said, "He's not that capable. You guys just spoil him."

That being said, Chen Qianjin is indeed very capable, and he made it clear when he left that he would come back next year.

Li Long thought to himself, "Next year will really be tough. Growing cotton, at this stage, is truly hard work."

Xueping and Xueqin greeted Li Long, tasted a few bites of the offal, and then were told by Li Anguo to go to bed.

Chen Lirong offered to make a bed for Li Long in the empty room, but Li Long refused. To be honest, he was used to being pampered. In state-run hotels, he could easily find things like water rooms and showers even if he paid, but he couldn't make demands here with his second brother.

So forget it. Knowing he was going to stay at a hotel and would be leaving with Zhao Chengfeng first thing tomorrow morning, Li Anguo said:

"Your second sister-in-law and I are taking the baby back for the Mid-Autumn Festival in a couple of days, but it's not convenient to bring anything. Since you're here, I bought a box of apples and a box of pears for you to take. Your parents like apples, and your older brother likes pears. These are the only fruits I can buy here."

Li Long laughed and said:
"it is good."

The two brothers loaded the fruit into the car, and Li Long said goodbye to his second brother and sister-in-law before heading to the hotel.

The inn was indeed more convenient. Li Long took a comfortable shower and slept soundly. This state-run inn had a courtyard, so there was no fear of his car being broken into.

The next day, after paying the bill, I asked the waiter and found a nice breakfast shop. After having breakfast, I checked the time and leisurely went to Jian'an Company to wait for Zhao Chengfeng.

Zhao Chengfeng came out with Li Anguo. When Li Anguo saw Li Long, he said with a smile, "I'm also benefiting from Lao Zhao's help this time. Is Xiao Long going to send him back today? That's perfect. Tomorrow is the Mid-Autumn Festival. When you come back, take us to Big Brother's place."

“Okay.” Li Long actually had the same idea.

They sped all the way to get Zhao Chengfeng into the mountains, while Meng Hai and his team had already started working.

Seeing Zhao Chengfeng come over again, Meng Hai was quite happy. He was still a little worried about Zhao Chengfeng leading the team himself.

That's great, now that the technicians are here, we don't have to be so careful anymore.

They worked until the afternoon, and the bridge foundation and other parts were all done. According to Zhao Chengfeng's idea, he might need to ask for another day off.

"Tomorrow is the Reunion Festival, so let's not invite you yet. Let's stabilize the bridge foundation first. I'll come pick you up this weekend," Li Long said. "Come on, I'll take you to the mountains to dig up some Codonopsis pilosula. It's easy to find and dig up, so you won't have to make a wasted trip."

Once inside the mountains, Zhao Chengfeng was dumbfounded; he didn't recognize anything.

Looking at Li Long, who was holding an iron shovel and pointing at a thin, long grass stalk that was over a meter tall, he said:

“There should be a large Codonopsis pilosula under here. There are several in this area. We chose this one because there are no rocks or big trees around, and there shouldn’t be any large tree roots underneath, making it easy to dig.”

As he spoke, Li Long started digging.

Zhao Chengfeng was genuinely skeptical; was there really Codonopsis pilosula underneath this thing?
"Look, there's a section at the bottom of the stem that's the root tip of the ginseng, it's thin, and further down, that's the head of the codonopsis."

Zhao Chengfeng watched curiously, and it wasn't until Li Long dug down the thick ginseng body from the thin reed tendrils that he truly understood what it was like.

It's really getting bigger and bigger down there!

This ginseng wasn't as big as Li Long had imagined. It was a little over half a meter long and about five or six centimeters in diameter. About one-third of the way down from the bottom, it forked, like two legs. However, the two legs were different thicknesses and looked disproportionate.

Even so, Zhao Chengfeng was overjoyed.

He understands now. He's a professional at building bridges. Li Long is a professional at finding these local specialties in the mountains; they each have their own strengths.

“Let’s take it back and let it air dry. But this ginseng is big enough,” Li Long handed the ginseng to Zhao Chengfeng. “It will definitely crack when it’s air-dried. It’s okay. It’s because it has absorbed enough nutrients, so it’s bursting. It’s normal.”

Zhao Chengfeng now has something to brag about.

The construction of the bridge will be more technically demanding. Li Long instructed Meng Hai and the others to take care of the bridge piers and, incidentally, to push sand and gravel around the bridge foundation to create a transition. This serves two purposes: firstly, to connect it to the road, and secondly, to protect the bridge foundation so that it cannot be directly impacted by floods.

We'll have to wait until Zhao Chengfeng comes over again this weekend to give us guidance on the bridge construction.

Zhao Chengfeng has already prepared everything that needs to be prepared, so construction can begin immediately when he comes next time. In other words, the bridge will be completed by mid-October.

The main reason is that this bridge is too important for road construction; otherwise, Li Long wouldn't have followed it all the way.

He still has many things to take care of.

For example, the car paperwork, the matter of harvesting melon seeds, and Liu Gaolou should be arriving soon.

But the bridge is more important.

They drove a beaming Zhao Chengfeng back to Kuitun. From the moment he got on the bus until he got off, Zhao Chengfeng held onto that ginseng root in his hands; he even felt that the fifty yuan wasn't as sweet as that ginseng root.

Although Zhao Chengfeng learned from Li Long that there is a difference between Codonopsis pilosula and ginseng, it is still a two-legged ginseng, no matter what.

After being taken home, Li Long went to stay at a state-run hotel. The next day, he went to Li An's house, picked up his second brother's family, and went back home.

Li Long hadn't had time to bring the apples and pears back, so this trip was perfect. Li Anguo also bought some mooncakes, and new clothes for Xueping and Xueqin. They were the most excited at this moment, looking forward to seeing their older brother and sister as soon as possible.

Li Long didn't stop in the county. He took his second brother's family directly to the fourth team, met with his parents, eldest brother, and sister-in-law, and then drove back to the county.

Although it's called a reunion festival, married daughters and sons-in-law actually go to the wife's parents' house, so Li Long ate lunch in the courtyard with Gu Boyuan.

"Someone else is selling melon seeds," Gu Boyuan said.

Last year, watermelon seeds and fritillaria bulbs were Li Long's two main sources of income. This year, many people are growing watermelons, but not a single person has come to buy them.

When Li Long had free time, he would call Bai Xiuming, Qiao Xing, and others, but they said that there were currently enough raw materials nearby and they had no plans to come and purchase them for the time being.

It's not that the raw materials are plentiful, but rather that Nian Guangjiu's "Silly Sunflower Seeds," a benchmark in the sunflower seed industry, has run into trouble. The current issue is still chaotic management, and Nian Guangjiu will soon be placed under investigation.

At present, private enterprises are very cautious about survival and development, so those enterprises mentioned above, especially those with a large number of employees, really dare not expand on a large scale.

They scaled back production, so naturally they didn't need as many melon seed raw materials.

Now those who grow melon seeds are really in a bind.

With no one to take over, Li Long naturally couldn't accept the offer.

Every day, people drive tractors to the purchasing station, begging them to buy their melon seeds. The asking price has increased from two yuan to one and a half yuan, one and a half yuan, or even one yuan or eight mao.

Some people have really staked their money on this. Li Long had warned them about the risks last year and the year before, but they found that the seeds could be sold, so they decided to plant them.

Anyway, this stuff is expensive. Even if it's discounted to 50 cents a kilogram, it's still more profitable than growing wheat.

They consciously omitted labor costs, considering their own labor as free.

"If you can buy some, then buy some," Gu Boyuan advised Li Long. "Anyway, this can be stored for a year or two without any problem. Do you really think it will be impossible to sell it later?"

“Not necessarily. Maybe we can sell them next year,” Li Long said. “But if we open up the market for purchasing, even if it’s only 80 cents a kilogram, we could probably get dozens or even hundreds of tons. Our warehouses will definitely be taken up by a large portion of that.”

Currently, medicinal herbs are taking up part of the warehouse, and then watermelon seeds will take up another part. When we receive large quantities of goods later, the warehouse will face difficulties.

It's mainly a few small storage rooms that hold odds and ends and have never been cleaned up.

"Clearing out some clutter in the warehouse will free up some space," Gu Boyuan said. "Many of them are old customers who have been begging me for help, and I really can't bear to do that."

Li Long laughed. His father-in-law's personality really wasn't suited for big business.

But it has a human touch.

"Alright, let's buy it, but we can't buy it at a high price. It's best to buy it flat, otherwise we'll have to go through another round of transactions, and we don't have the time."

They were talking about harvesting melon seeds, but the eldest and second eldest sons of the Li family were talking about cars.

Knowing that his older brother would be getting a car, Li Anguo was extremely curious.

The news came from Du Chunfang; she couldn't keep her mouth shut.

Li Anguo was thinking at the time, if only he had one—but forget it, he didn't have the money.

PS: I heard some news today that made me both angry and amused. The social security department issued a document requiring a certain unit in our area to pay back the salary that had been suspended for a retired employee who held dual citizenship and moved to a neighboring country.

They've abandoned the country, and now they're issuing a document demanding back pay?

(End of this chapter)