Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

The sun rose and the air temperature increased slightly. After Li Long finished his work, he straightened up and looked around. There were still not many people around.

The first group of people who bought fish were quite satisfied with the fish. After all, they were specially picked out, with large sizes and relatively uniform distribution, without any small ones, and they looked beautiful.

But the number of people was still a little small, and after more than half an hour of selling a bag of fish, there were still a few left.

Li Long knew that he was a little greedy. After all, he used to bring two bags of fresh fish to sell. At that time, the fish were lively and it was pleasing to the eye. Now it is frozen fish, which looks pretty, but it is definitely not as good as fresh fish.

Besides, most of the bag was sold, which was a small profit. However, at this rate, these ten bags of fish might not be sold out in one day.

I feel a little sad. It’s not quite what I imagined.

Did I come too early? Should I come back later?
He took another bag of fish from the cart and poured it onto the plastic sheet, separated the frozen fish, arranged them neatly, and continued to shout.

No. 76 felt the shaking of the carriage, raised his head which was eating grass, turned his head to look at Li Long, then turned his head back and continued to eat grass.

Li Long took a rest, and when a long-distance bus came, he immediately started shouting loudly again after the passengers got off.

This shout attracted many people. They gathered around the stall to look at the fish, pointing and choosing. Anyway, the fish was already frozen, so Li Long was not afraid that they would find any problems. He would weigh whatever he wanted. The fish was cheap, and these people were very happy. One bag of fish was not enough, so Li Long quickly took another bag of fish and poured it on the stall for the customers to choose.

In this way, more than half an hour passed, and by the time the people had basically dispersed, one and a half bags of fish had been sold, and the speed had obviously increased a lot.

Some people had closed their stalls and came to Li Long with their stall cloths and baskets. They had made money and wanted to buy a fish to stew for their families.

"This fish is really good, but it has a lot of bones." A man bought a five-striped black fish and said as he put it into his basket.

"Then I'll bring some pork over in a couple of days to sell." Li Long joked, "I don't think there are many people selling meat in this market."

"If you can bring meat, there will definitely be a lot of buyers." The stall owner was about to leave with the basket, but then he stopped. "Two days ago, someone came to sell pork, also frozen meat, and it was sold out in less than an hour. In this winter, most people have a little money in their hands, and there are many people who want to buy meat. If you can bring a pig, it will sell very quickly!"

"That's right, do you have a pig at home? If you do, just slaughter it in the next two days. It won't gain weight if you keep it in winter, so it would be a waste to eat it." Another person also chimed in.

"Okay, I'll slaughter the pig and bring it over in the next two days." Li Long said with a smile, "I have several pigs at home."

"That's fine. I'll be waiting."

After everyone left, two market managers came over and collected one yuan in management fees from Li Long.

Li Long did not argue with the seller. His stall was big, taking up the space of two or three stalls, so it was reasonable for him to charge more.

Right now, I have sold nearly three bags of fish and made nearly 100 yuan. Excluding the money for collecting the fish, not counting my own labor and horsepower, the net profit is about 60 to 70 yuan, which is very good.

After that, whenever a bus came to unload passengers, Li Long would shout a few times to attract people. Usually, a group of people would come and buy half a bag or a whole bag of fish.

As the sun rose in the morning, it became much warmer and the market became more crowded. I could see many local old men and women who did not need to work, and some housewives walking around and buying what they wanted.

At this time, Li Long didn't need to shout, as there was a constant stream of people coming to the stall. By almost one o'clock in the afternoon, the last few fish were bought up by a man who claimed to be the owner of a small restaurant.

Li Long was a little puzzled. Are private restaurants allowed to open now?

The man smiled and said, actually it’s not really open, I just cook at home, there are many houses in the yard, and I have regular people coming over to eat, so it’s fine.

Li Long was relieved. This restaurant is different from that milk tea restaurant. After all, there are ethnic policies here, and the rigid needs of ethnic minorities such as making naan and selling milk tea are still understood.

But at that time, most restaurants that people ate out were state-owned, and there were still few private restaurants, or they were just starting out.

It will slowly open up.

After selling all the fish, Li Long breathed a sigh of relief and closed his stall. At this time, he felt hungry and cold.

He drove the carriage to the milk tea shop, and the Uyghur boy Keyum poked his head out from inside with a smile:
"My fellow villager, I've seen you a long time ago. You've made a big deal this time! You're driving a horse-drawn cart and selling fish. You must have made a lot of money today, right?"

"It's OK, it's OK." Every time Li Long heard Keyum's eastern Henan accent, coupled with his pure Uyghur face, he felt really happy and wanted to laugh.

After tying up the horse and carrying a bag of things on a scale into the milk tea shop, Li Long said:

"A bowl of milk tea, a naan, some honey, do you have any jam?"

"Yes, yes. They are newly harvested this year. My friend from the mountains brought them here. He said that the wild fruits in the mountains are very good this year—"

Keyum quickly brought Li Long naan and milk tea, and poured honey, jam, ghee and other things into several small plates.

"Ah, you still know how to eat it. This butter tastes really good, but most Han people can't get used to it. I see you are eating it with great relish."

"That's right. I have friends in the mountains too." Li Long said with a smile, "Butter, mare's milk, these things I can get used to."

"You can get used to mare's milk? That's really unusual!" Keyum looked at Li Long in surprise, "Most people are not used to it." "It's sour and a little bitter. Sometimes you need to add some sugar, but it's good for the stomach." Li Long tore off a piece of naan, dipped it in some honey and said while eating.

"I think the market is pretty quiet lately." Li Long glanced outside. He was looking at the market as he was looking at the carriage. "No one is causing any trouble."

"Eh! You don't know." Seeing that there were no other customers, Keyum moved a stool and sat next to Li Long and whispered, "It's not that simple. We caught a group of them a few days ago. Those little hooligans are so annoying. They collect money and cause trouble at every stall when the management staff is not around. Many stall owners dare not come.

It was better when the management came and arrested some of them. But I heard that they would not be detained for many days, and would be released after ten days or so. "

Li Long thought that if this was the case, he would have to ask his second brother and brother-in-law to come along, and they had to bring their weapons with them. Otherwise, if only one or two people came, they would just be giving money away.

Is it better to bring a gun or some cold weapons?
Isn't it a bit illegal to use a gun here?

Forget it, it should be enough to get some sticks or something. Four young and strong men should be able to resist even if they encounter seven or eight thugs.

It seems that I should come less often.

After eating, Li Long paid the bill, said hello to Keyum, went out, put the bag on the carriage, untied the rope, led the carriage to go out of the market. Then he stopped.

He saw a pile of horse manure behind the carriage. It must have been pulled by No. 76.

Feeling a little embarrassed, he turned around to tie the reins again and went into the milk tea shop.

When Keyum saw Li Long coming back, he thought he had left something behind, so he looked over at where he was sitting. Li Long hurriedly said:
"Please use your broom, my horse has pooped outside your store..."

“Hahahaha, don’t worry about it. I’ll go clean it up when I’m free.” Keyum waved his hand. “You should leave now. It will take another two hours to get back. Don’t worry about it. I’ll clean it up myself.”

Li Long didn't see the broom, so he had to apologize awkwardly and turned away. It seems that next time he wants to bring a horse carriage, he will have to bring a broom or something to clean up the horse manure. If it was on the road outside, it would be fine, but in the market, Li Long still felt a little embarrassed.

After exiting the old street and turning north for a few hundred meters, you will reach the main road. From time to time, some cars will pass by on the Wuyi Highway. The roadbed is a double lane, but the area left by the passing cars is only one and a half car widths. Li Long occasionally has to pull the carriage into the snow and wait for the large trucks to pass before going back to the main road.

When they were almost at the Ma River Bridge, there was a man bending over with a bag on his back, slowly moving forward. When Li Long's carriage approached, he saw from the side that it was an old man. Li Long stopped the carriage and said to the man:

"Where are you going, fellow?"

"To Liangzhou Hu." The man stopped and turned around. He was an old man in his sixties with a dark face and a not-too-thick cotton hat on his head. The hat tip and his beard were all covered with white hair, which was formed by the frozen breath.

Liangzhouhu is another township name in the county, not far from the county seat.

"Then get in the car." Li Long pointed to the back of his carriage, "I'll give you a ride. I can take you to the intersection of Liangzhouhu."

"That's great." The old man smiled, "Thank you, fellow."

"Thank you, come on in the car."

Li Long waited for the old man to get on the carriage and continued to drive the carriage forward. The old man asked:

"Are you going to the old street to sell things? So the cart is carrying fish?"

"Yes, I brought some fish to sell."

"You sold quite a lot, are you... over there in Hongqi?" The old man looked frail but his mind was very sharp. He asked, "Some time ago, they said that a reservoir over there was drained and there were so many fish in it. Are you..."

"Yes, that place." Li Long didn't expect that the news of fish appearing in the sea would spread so far in this era.

"There is a girl from our village who married over there," the old man explained with a smile, "and when she returned to her parents' home, she brought a bag of fish with her, but we thought they were so fresh that they spoiled the taste."

Li Long remembered that Liangzhou households later vigorously developed fruit planting and there were many peach orchards. Later, some people from Wucheng drove here to buy peaches.

There is relatively little land here, so the specialty planting is quite good.

A journey with two people is always more lively than one alone, and they arrived at the county while chatting.

Li Long put the old man down at the intersection, then drove away with the carriage. When he returned to the yard and unloaded the carriage, he discovered that there were a few sweet potatoes on the carriage.

This should be put there by the old man. Li Long quickly took it back to the house, not knowing whether it was frozen or not. Based on his experience in two lives, sweet potatoes are still very afraid of freezing.

If it wasn't frozen, Li Long thought of keeping one until spring so he could grow some seedlings to plant sweet potatoes. Although Li Jianguo was hurt by the food and didn't like eating it anymore, other people liked to eat it.

Such as myself.

In the afternoon, Li Long returned to the village - business was more important. (End of this chapter)