Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1172 Old Jia, do you want donkey hide?
Both Halimu and Yushanjiang liked the yard, so the next step was to transfer ownership and renovate it.

The next morning, Li Long brought Halimu and Yushanjiang to the housing management department and transferred the two courtyards to their names.

After getting the keys, Li Long drove the two of them to Halim's yard.

The courtyard was very clean, and the house was empty; everything had been moved out. The upper part of the house had white walls, while the lower half was painted green, a style that was quite popular at the time.

"What do you think about the renovation? Should we build wooden kang beds in both bedrooms, or just one? Should we put a desk in the child's bedroom? And also a bookshelf?"

Li Long asked Halimu for his opinion.

Halim was quite excited at this moment. He had never imagined he would live in such a beautiful courtyard in his entire life; it felt like a dream—was this really his?

If the family knew, especially Nathan and Sasken, they'd be ecstatic! When his wife comes and sees all this, won't she be jumping for joy?
There are only five people in the family: two children in one room, the husband and wife in one room, and the mother in one room. That's enough.

"Our room, my mother's room, will be a wooden kang (heated brick bed)." Harim wasn't annoyed with Li Long anymore; they'd already annoyed each other many times, so there was no need for formalities. "Nathan and Sasken's room, two single beds would be better."

One good thing about this courtyard is that it has its own small boiler and radiators. This area is not part of the residential area and has not yet been connected to central heating, but this family has already installed radiators in every room, which will make winters a bit more comfortable.

After talking about the wooden kang (heated brick bed), Halim felt he had nothing more to say.

Li Long smiled and said he understood. The furniture factory has all kinds of Kazakh-style furniture; he can buy some and decorate the room.

As for more detailed outfits, let them handle that themselves.

After locking the door, I took Yushanjiang, who was reluctant to leave and somewhat excited, to the large courtyard at the back.

The courtyard was relatively dilapidated, with a lot of clutter left behind, but Yushanjiang didn't mind; it was already much better than his own winter quarters.

"It's huge!" Yushanjiang said with a smile. "Me too, our room has a wooden kang (heated platform bed). Yerjiang and Ghana each have their own room, they don't need to install kangs, they'll just make beds out of wood. We won't have to go through all that trouble, we'll just bring our own things over and put them in."

Li Long thought that he needed to clear away the clutter and weeds in the yard first, otherwise it would look unpleasant.

Yushanjiang's request was relatively simple, but Li Long knew it was definitely not. On his return journey, he said to the two men:
"I'll have them plant vegetables in both yards. What kind of vegetables do you think would be best to plant?"

"Potatoes, you know," Halim said with a smile, "and some chili peppers too."

"Pipi," Yushanjiang added, "Pipi is a must."

“Okay, then I’ll plant some more cabbages, so when you come back in winter, you can take the cabbages here to your winter shelter.”

“Okay.” Halim nodded.

Before sending the two men into the mountains, Li Long treated them to a bowl of mixed noodles.

Although there are many ethnic minorities in Ma County, there are not many county towns, so there are no restaurants with ethnic characteristics in the county town at this time, so people can only eat common food.

After having dinner, Li Long took the two men to the mountains, then rushed back without stopping.

Seeing that he still had some time, he went to the furniture factory to order a batch of furniture.

Factory director He Changming was sunbathing in the yard, taking the opportunity to observe the people who had come to choose furniture.

He was somewhat surprised to see the GAZ truck come in. These days, more and more people own cars, but this was the first time he had ever seen one like it.

Seeing Li Long come down, He Changming paused for a moment before smiling and reaching out his hand:

"Oh, isn't this Comrade Li Long? What a rare guest!"

Li Longtou had ordered several batches of ethnic furniture for the herders in the mountains over the past two years and had dealt with furniture factories, so it was rare that Factory Director He still remembered him.

Of course, he also remembered the factory director, and smiled as he shook hands with He Changming, saying:

"Hello, Factory Director He. Business seems to be doing well."

There were some people in the furniture factory's yard, picking out furniture from the warehouse, which is why Li Long made that remark.

"People's lives have improved, and they all want to buy better furniture. The furniture from our factory is reliable in quality." He Changming smiled and asked, "You changed your vehicle?"

“Yes, they’re all on,” Li Long said. “Recently, I’ve been bringing in some used cars from the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic to sell. My old car didn’t have much cargo, so I drive this one from time to time.”

"A used car? Is it insured?" Factory Director He asked, showing considerable interest in the GAZ vehicle.

"It's alright," Li Long said. "It was delivered after it was inspected over there."

"How much does this car cost?" He Changming asked after walking around the car for a while.

"Twenty thousand," Li Long said. "The paperwork is complete."

"Twenty thousand..." He Changming wondered whether he should get one. If he did, should he do it in the factory's name or in his personal name?

“If the factory manager wants them, he can visit my purchasing station when he has time. There are three left there right now,” Li Long said. “There will be Volga, Lada, and other cars coming later.”

"You also have cars? What's the price of a car?" He Changming was indeed tempted.

It's an imported car! Although it's not as impressive as European or American cars, it's still pretty good.

"It depends on the condition of the car. The Volga will be more expensive. A car in good condition will cost less than 100,000 yuan, while a car in poor condition will cost 50,000 to 60,000 yuan. The Lada is cheaper. A nearly new car will cost 40,000 to 50,000 yuan, while a car in poor condition will cost 20,000 to 30,000 yuan."

"Of course the car is fine; it was inspected before it was brought in. When I say the car's condition, I'm really referring to how many years it's been driven."

After Li Long finished introducing his business, he asked about the important matter:
"Director He, do you have any furniture made for ethnic minorities? Also, I'd like to install a wooden kang (heated platform bed) in the room. Do you take on that kind of work?"

"Furniture is definitely available. We've continued this business since you placed your order last time, and things have been going quite well for the past two years."

After he finished speaking, he shouted:
"Old Qi! Qi Xinzhi!"

A person responded and quickly walked over. Li Long smiled when he saw him; it was an old acquaintance.

"Old Qi, do you still remember Comrade Li Long?"

"I remember, I remember, how could I forget?" Qi Xinzhi smiled and shook hands with Li Long. "Hello, Comrade Li Long. Are you here to buy furniture?"

"Comrade Li Long is here to buy furniture and also wants someone to build a wooden kang (a traditional heated platform bed) in the ethnic style. Luckily, the ethnic craftsmen we hired at our factory know how to make these. Let them do it, and we'll give you a 20% discount!"

"Alright, alright," Qi Xinzhi smiled and said, "Comrade Li Long, let's go take a look at the furniture?"

“Okay.” Li Long and He Changming nodded and went to look at the furniture.

He Changming returned to his office, sat down, drank some water, and wondered if he should buy one.
The furniture factory has been doing very well in the past two years. Some young newlyweds, whether in the city or the countryside, are no longer satisfied with the furniture made by carpenters in their own villages and towns, but want to buy "formal" products made in the factory.

Therefore, the furniture factory's profits have been rising, and both managers and employees have received substantial bonuses.

Is it a bit inappropriate for the factory manager to still be riding a bicycle?
While he was pondering this, Qi Xinzhi led Li Long to the warehouse and began selecting furniture.

Li Long did the math and decided to equip each of their rooms with a wardrobe of varying heights for storing clothes. Then he'd buy four large trunks with ethnic patterns and four small tables for each family, and that would be about right.

"Comrade Qi, I need to leave these things in the county town. Can you deliver them to my door?"

"Yes, we can. Aren't you going to hire someone to build a wooden kang (heated brick bed)?" Qi Xinzhi said with a smile. "We'll send the furniture and materials over together, and our people will go with us."

"Okay, okay." Li Long nodded. The service was indeed good; they could deliver to the door, which was quite good for a state-owned enterprise.

The furniture maker was a Mongolian man named Angge, who was working with a young apprentice. Qi Xinzhi's idea was that if Li Long wasn't in a hurry, the two of them could finish a wooden kang (heated brick bed) in three to five days.

Li Long naturally had no objections.

And so the deal was settled. Li Long paid a deposit of three hundred yuan, took the receipt, and, along with Angge who had come along, went to see the two courtyards and specified the room with the wooden kang (heated brick bed).

After measuring the room with a ruler and his apprentice, Ang went back to prepare the materials.

Back home, Li Long had accomplished something significant. After dinner, he continued practicing driving with Gu Xiaoxia, repeating the actions of upshifting and downshifting.

She has now corrected her habit of looking down when shifting gears, but sometimes she forgets to adjust the accelerator when shifting gears, and she slammed the gas pedal twice.

Li Long had prepared himself mentally beforehand, unlike some coaches in later generations who would start cursing and swearing at students when they made mistakes.

At this point, encouragement should be the main approach, and its effect is quite noticeable.

After a few practice sessions, Gu Xiaoxia's driving skills improved noticeably, which pleased Li Long. On the way back, Gu Xiaoxia looked at Li Long's profile and suddenly said:

“My colleagues were chatting in the office, and a few of the older women asked us if we had ever argued. I thought about it, and it seems like we’ve never argued.”

"What, you want to argue again?" Li Long asked while driving. "The fact that we haven't argued means we have a good relationship."

“That’s what I thought too. It’s so nice that we’ve never argued. I’ve seen my colleague lose her temper. Her husband has bad habits; he lost money gambling and came to her workplace demanding money back. My colleague was almost driven to the brink of collapse, making a huge scene…”

Li Long shook his head slightly. He had seen and heard of such scenes in movies and TV shows, but he had never seen them in person.

But unless absolutely necessary, nobody wants to lose their temper at this time, right?
"I just think I'm so lucky," Gu Xiaoxia sighed. "My colleagues are all so envious of me. They say that since I married you, I don't have to worry about food or clothing, no one will take care of me, my child will be taken care of, and my family is well-off... Hehe... Have I been a little lazy lately?"

"Hehe, you're quite self-aware," Li Long said with a smile. "You've become too complacent and a bit lazy. Sister Yang will move out sooner or later. I'll cook when I have time recently, so you should practice more so that Mingming and Haohao don't say they rarely eat your cooking."

"Okay, I'll try to get up early every day to make breakfast, and I'll cook on Sundays." Gu Xiaoxia set a goal for herself. "Although it may not taste as good as what you guys make, I'll improve with practice, just like my driving skills."

Li Long thought to himself, "I really need to practice my driving skills more."

Back in the yard, Mingming and Haohao saw their parents return and rushed towards them as soon as they got out of the car, shouting loudly:

"Mom and Dad are back from their date!"

"Hey, you've even started dating now?" Li Long picked up Mingming and saw that Haohao was leaning against Gu Xiaoxia. As soon as he saw his father pick up his brother, he immediately came over and reached out to let Li Long hold him too.

When Li Long picked Hao Hao up, Han Fang was already blushing and trying to explain:
"I didn't tell them..."

"I heard it from my classmates in kindergarten," Mingming said loudly. "When boys and girls go out to play together, it's like they're dating."

"Yes, we went on a date," Li Long bravely admitted. "Alright, were you two good students at kindergarten?"

"We were very good! The teacher praised us! My brother and I have the most little red flags!" Hao Hao said obediently.

The little red flag is similar to the little red flower of later generations. Kindergarten also had homework. If the homework was done well, in addition to the 100%, the teacher would draw a small red flag on the homework with a red pen.

There are also charts at the back of the kindergarten classrooms, so you can see at a glance how many red flags each student has earned.

"So how many red flags do you two have?" Li Long hugged the two little ones for a moment, then put them down and asked, noticing they were a bit chubby.

"I have seventeen, and my brother has sixteen!" Hao Hao said loudly, puffing out his chest, a little proud.

"Good, good, keep it up, but don't get complacent. This Sunday, your mom will cook you a meal as a reward."

"Mom's cooking?" Mingming asked softly, sounding a little reluctant. "Is this a reward?"

Li Long burst into laughter.

Gu Xiaoxia, who had already gone inside, didn't hear Mingming's words and came out to ask, "What are you laughing at? Why are you so happy?"

"It's nothing, it's nothing." Li Long shook his head, looking at Mingming's nervous expression, and then whispered to Mingming and Haohao, "Don't let your mother know this secret. But your mother will try her best to cook good meals, and we should encourage her, okay?"

"So Mom is bad at cooking?" Hao Hao, who has a strong understanding, said, "Then we should encourage her."

After the father and his two sons finished their private conversation, they went inside to watch TV.

The next day, Li Long went to the fourth team. He planned to see if his older brother had any free people. If so, he would find a few to tidy up the courtyard in Yushanjiang.

If not, go to the job market to find odd jobs. The yard needs to be cleaned up before you can rearrange it.

Before he even reached his elder brother's house, as he passed by the old horse stable, Li Long saw several donkeys tied up outside the stable's yard. Curious, he turned inside.

Uncle Luo was talking to someone in the yard. The other person was Old Zhao from the team. His two sons were in their prime, and his daughter was in school.

Li Long got out of the car to greet them, and then asked about the donkey.

"You mean this?" Uncle Luo said with a smile. "Old Zhao said he bought a tractor, so he won't keep the donkey anymore. But it's not a good time to kill the donkey right now, so he came over and asked me if I wanted to buy one."

Oh, by the way, someone said the other day that I bought two... and the money came from my account.

Old Ma's shop has a lot of cattle, sheep, deer, roe deer, and the like. If someone wants to buy them, Li Long will let Uncle Luo handle it, and the money will be put in the account first.

The same applies to harvesting deer antlers, which is why there's money in the accounts. Li Long gives Uncle Luo a lot of freedom, and Uncle Luo keeps a very clear record of the accounts every time, even having Yang Laoliu supervise him.

"How many donkeys are there now?" Li Long asked, a thought suddenly occurring to him.

"Seven heads, six big ones and one small one. They were all bought for about three or four hundred yuan each."

Donkeys are relatively easier to raise than cattle and sheep, and even easier than horses. They generally don't need to be fed; the reeds along the canal are their favorite food.

Donkeys are also not prone to illness, so they were the main source of livestock in northern and southern Xinjiang five or six years ago.

However, with the rise of tractors, donkeys were phased out of being used as production tools and gradually became a source of meat. Of course, their hides were also very expensive.

Li Long thought that since Old Horse Ship already had enough space, raising another herd of donkeys wouldn't be a problem. Dragon meat in the sky, donkey meat on the ground—these things are delicious, especially donkey intestines.

In addition, donkey hides can also be sold for money, so raising a herd should be quite profitable.

“Then let’s raise them. We’ll buy any donkeys from the team, or even from other teams, that come to sell,” Li Long said. “We’ll gradually cull the older donkeys and raise them into herds. By the way, do we have enough sugar residue?”

"That's enough, more than enough." Uncle Luo said with a smile when talking about this. "Before, one truckload a week was enough, and there was still some left over. Now, two truckloads a week is more than enough, we can't even use it all."

“If we don’t use it all, we’ll dry it and keep it as feed in the winter. Anyway, we still need to raise donkeys, so if we produce more now, we can harvest less hay in the winter.”

Li Long is no longer thinking about whether it will affect the price of beef and mutton in northern Xinjiang, but he does have plans to raise more cattle and sheep.

Anyway, according to group theory, a hundred is a group, and a thousand is also a group, right?

I was thinking of going back and promoting it to the purchasing station to see if I could get some donkey hides.

Nowadays, those middlemen mainly collect the hides of wild animals to sell, and Li Long thinks that donkey hides are actually quite good as well.

Donkey hides are relatively cheap now, much cheaper than sheep hides, but I don't know if Lao Jia's place will buy them.

He planned to call Jia Tianlong when he had some free time to ask about it, since it would be a waste to sell this thing just as leather.

If it's sold as medicine, then the price can go up.

After chatting with Uncle Luo for a few minutes, I went back to my older brother's place.

There was no one in the yard, not even his mother. Li Long went to the front yard and saw that the tractor was gone, assuming everyone had gone to work.

Since he wasn't there, Li Long drove back to the county town and went to the odd jobs market to look for someone.

First, they found four people to do the work, and then they specifically asked if anyone in the group knew how to grow vegetables.

Immediately, four or five people raised their hands. Li Long pointed to two who looked a little older and pulled them into the car.

Off to work.

(End of this chapter)