Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Originally they thought that the Fritillaria season was more than half over, and the number of Fritillaria collected every day had almost stabilized, so both Li Long and Gu Boyuan breathed a sigh of relief.

Unexpectedly, more and more people came here to sell Fritillaria. The busiest customer flow was even more than those two days. At the peak, we could receive nearly 500 kilograms of dried Fritillaria in a day!

Li Long and Gu Boyuan were both a little confused. What was going on?
The money went out like water, and the cleaned up Fritillaria were collected, packed into bags and pulled back to the yard.

Li Long found out the whole story when he ran into the tractor driver whom he had initially intercepted at the Happiness Purchasing Station.

"What did you say? The Happiness Purchasing Station was closed?" Li Long was surprised. "Why?"

"It was said that they were evading taxes and that the paperwork was incomplete. Anyway, I heard that they were being investigated for the past few days, and the boss didn't show up. Later, the boss showed up, but it was too late to use his connections."

The tractor driver's tone was obviously full of gloating. This Fritillaria season, he sold half of his Fritillaria to the Happiness Purchasing Station. To be honest, he didn't feel anything before, but after comparing it with Li Long's, he found that he actually made so much less money!

In just that half of the Fritillaria season, he lost nearly 20,000 yuan!

This is not just his business, everyone contributes together, but he pays the most and earns more, so if you do the math you should get at least 10,000 more.

Ten thousand yuan! One less ten thousand yuan earner in one Fritillaria season - although now in 1985, the value of a ten thousand yuan earner in northern Xinjiang is not as high, but it is still a ten thousand yuan earner - for ordinary people, if they can save more than a thousand yuan in a year, it is already very impressive, right?

Although workers' wages have been increasing year by year, skilled workers now only earn more than 80 yuan, less than 100 yuan.

"I heard that he offended someone he shouldn't have offended. Having his purchasing station closed down is a small matter. It seems that his big business, the business of selling things to the outside world, has been cut off. Now everyone is pushing him down. He has offended so many people in the past, and he deserves to be punished this time!"

After listening to the tractor driver's introduction, Li Long finally understood.

Hey, you will suffer the consequences if you do evil. At this time, he had not yet connected the matter of the Happiness Purchasing Station with his own situation.

After collecting more than one ton of Fritillaria for four consecutive days, the number of people coming to sell Fritillaria gradually decreased. But even if it was less, it was still much more than at the beginning. We could collect about 200 kilograms a day.

Of the people who come to the purchasing station to sell goods every day, 80% are from other places, and 20% are locals.

They not only sell Fritillaria, but also medicinal materials such as leather, licorice, Cynomorium songaricum, as well as copper and silver utensils, and even some come to sell bezoar - can you believe it?

If Gu Boyuan hadn't known a little about this, Li Long would have given the person away as a gift.

The people who came to sell the bezoars were not locals, but from the Nanshan Ranch in Hu County. The situation there was different from that in the pastoral team in Ma County. The cattle and sheep of the original ranch were directly sold to the herders at a discount, a bit like the production of the four teams after the household contract responsibility system was implemented.

The man selling bezoar was a Han Chinese named Wu Shuijun. He was one of those who came here to support the border areas (to escape famine) and settled there. His family used to raise cattle, so he was considered a suitable professional.

In the team of Nanshan Ranch, Wu Shuijun was the only Han, and the others were Kazakhs and Uyghurs. The others didn't know about bezoar. The cow that produced bezoar was not from Wu Shuijun's family, but from his neighbor, a Kazakh family. It was sick and dying, very thin, and then Wu Shuijun bought it.

The neighbor refused to sell it, saying that the cow was going to die and Wu Shuijun would lose money if he sold it. Wu Shuijun knew that his neighbor was honest, so he told his neighbor his idea, but the neighbor didn't quite believe him. Wu Shuijun led the cow over first, and after slaughtering it, he actually took out a piece of bezoar as big as a small egg.

Natural bezoar is not that expensive these days. He wanted to take it to the county medicinal materials company to sell it, but they refused to accept it. So someone directed him to have it sent here.

Li Long was not sure either, Gu Boyuan just felt that it was someone similar, so Li Long simply drove a jeep and took Wu Shuijun to find Liang Donglou.

Liang Donglou was growing vegetables in the vegetable garden. The tractor was not there, so Li Long guessed that Liang Wenyu must have driven it out to do some work.

"Xiaolong is here?" Chen Xiuzhu, who was picking celery in the yard, stood up and greeted with a smile, "What's the matter?"

Because there was a stranger in the jeep, Chen Xiuzhu asked and then went to pour water.

Liang Donglou came out of the vegetable garden with a hoe in his hand and washed his hands with the pumped well - this pumped well was dug by Li Long and his team. The production team here was actually more advanced than the fourth team, because a pumped well had been dug at the entrance of the village, and the villagers could drink the pumped well water.

But you have to fetch water from a well. How can it be as convenient as the pressurized well in your yard?

"Uncle, I have something to trouble you with." Wu Shuijun was in a hurry and had to rush back to Hu County today, so Li Long didn't bother to be polite and went straight to the point. He motioned Wu Shuijun to take out the things and then continued:

"This comrade came to our purchasing station to sell bezoar. I don't know what it is and I don't know its quality."

In front of Wu Shuijun, he couldn't say whether he didn't know whether it was true or not, but that was what he meant anyway.

"Bezoar? Come, let me take a look." Although he rarely treats patients now, the family tradition is still there. Liang Donglou had seen bezoar before when he was in his hometown and knew that this thing was very valuable. This fresh one was the first time he had seen it.

Wu Shuijun was not sure at this time. The popularity of barefoot doctors made ordinary people know what gallstones are. This thing was taken from the gallbladder, and the medicinal materials company would not buy it. It couldn't be a large gallstone, right?
To be honest, Wu Shuijun was just trying hard. When he came here, he boasted to his neighbor and joked that if he sold the courage, he would buy a bicycle for his neighbor.

My neighbors are settled herdsmen with their own pastures. They usually ride horses, but now they can’t afford a tractor, and their children want a bicycle for school.

That's why Wu Shuijun dared to say that.

Liang Donglou held the piece of bezoar in his hand and turned it over and over again, and Wu Shuijun's heart fluctuated accordingly.

"Yes, it is bezoar, and it is bile yellow. Not bad. It is rare to see such a big one."

"Really? That's great." Before Li Long could say anything, Wu Shuijun called out, "Then, uncle, how much is this bezoar worth?"

"How much money do you want?" Liang Donglou looked at him and asked.

"Can I have 500 yuan?" Like most ordinary people, Wu Shuijun knew that bezoar was precious, but he didn't know the specific price of this thing.

"Ox gall, dog treasure, and pig treasure are all good things, but the prices of these things vary from place to place." Liang Donglou returned the things to Wu Shuijun, then turned around and asked Li Long:

"Do you really want to collect it?"

"If it's real, I'll definitely take it." Li Long was not stupid. This thing would be very good whether he took it away and gave it to Jia Tianlong to sell, or kept it for his own use.

"You give him two thousand yuan..." Liang Donglou thought for a moment and said, "This bezoar weighs more than 100 grams, which is quite heavy. After cleaning, the pure bezoar will weigh more than 100 grams."

Liang Donglou was not very clear about the price of bezoar at that time, but he remembered that when he was in the hospital, the pharmacy sold it by gram.

"Two thousand?" Wu Shuijun opened his mouth wide and couldn't close it.

He thought it would be great if he could get the money from selling a cow, but he actually offered two thousand?
"Well, it's worth it. Two thousand, will you sell it?"

"Sell it? Why not? I won't sell it!" Wu Shuijun suddenly yelled and stuffed the bezoar directly into Li Long's hand with red eyes.

Li Long didn't know how he had caused this man to be sad, but since the other party was selling it, he went to the jeep, took out the money from his bag, and counted it out to Wu Shuijun one by one.

Wu Shuijun took the money and held it in his arms, then suddenly turned around and started crying at the entrance of the vegetable garden.

"I'm reminded of something sad." Liang Donglou sighed, then said to Li Long:
"This is a good thing, keep it. Don't go to the herbal medicine company. Some people in state-owned enterprises may not understand this. Don't you have a partner who buys Fritillaria? Ask him."

With Wu Shuijun present, Liang Donglou didn't say much, but Li Long understood his meaning very well.

It’s a treasure.

Li Long sent Wu Shuijun to the bus station. The man thanked Li Long profusely and said goodbye, then walked into the bus station carrying his cloth bag.

Collecting bezoars is just an episode. Generally speaking, the purchasing station is becoming more and more famous, and people come to sell all kinds of things. Anyway, Li Long has seen a lot of strange and weird things recently.

Later, he learned that in the 1980s, bezoar was priced by gram, and good quality bezoar was priced at about 100 yuan per gram. Of course, artificial bezoar was later produced, and the price of natural bezoar was not driven up to the sky, but decades later, it is still around 100 to 200 yuan per gram.

It’s not cheap. I made a lot of money.

Someone also came over with a big-bellied porcelain jar, saying it was an antique he wanted to sell, and the price he offered was not low, two hundred yuan for one jar. Gu Boyuan cursed back - saying that this thing was originally used to hold bones, and was an ancient version of an urn. How could he dare to accept it?

Li Long finally opened his eyes.

Five days later, Jia Tianlong came to Li Long again. Because he had stored more Fritillaria, this time Jia Tianlong did not bring enough money - he did not expect that Li Long's business would rebound and he received nearly two tons of Fritillaria in a few days.

And he only brought enough money to buy more than a ton of Fritillaria.

Because of this incident, Li Long forgot about the bezoar.

The money was almost gone, so Li Long deposited half of it and used the rest as working capital.

After clearing out the inventory and with the customer flow dropping, Li Long finally had the chance to go to the forestry team to collect Fritillaria.

Ali was really a little anxious. Li Long had "borrowed" a large truck from the transport company. When he saw the truck arrive, he stopped talking to a ranger and waved to let the ranger leave. He ran to the side of the truck and waited for Li Long to get off. Then he slapped Li Long on the shoulder:
"Adasi, if you don't come, I will sell these Fritillaria to someone else..."

Li Long has a profound relationship with the forestry team and is also a non-staff forest ranger. In addition, the price he paid for the Fritillaria in the first few times was not low. Therefore, although Ali and his team encountered other middlemen, they mainly wanted to sell the Fritillaria to Li Long.

But we waited for ten days and the warehouse was almost full!
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Li Long apologized hastily, "We've been very busy lately. There are too many people selling Fritillaria, and we can't handle it all by ourselves."

"Will you still buy our Fritillaria in the future?" Hearing this, Ali was a little nervous. He was worried that Li Long's purchasing station would buy more and no one would come here.

"Yes, I will take whatever you have!" Li Long promised. "Don't worry, I won't take others', but I will take yours. We are friends after all!"

"Okay, okay." Ali felt comfortable after hearing Li Long's loyal words. "Come on, come on, do you want to drink some mare's milk first? Or look at the Fritillaria first? Someone just sent me a cage of mare's milk..."

Sour mare's milk is a good thing, but unfortunately not everyone can get used to it. But Li Long can still drink it.

However, he still pointed to the warehouse and said:

"Let's get down to business first. After we finish with the Fritillaria, you gave me the mare's milk in the cage. How about I take it back and drink it?"

"No problem, no problem!" Ali smiled and opened the door of the warehouse, then shouted to a young man in the distance:
"Aizkar, call a few people to help!"

Soon, seven or eight young men came running over with smiles on their faces. Those who knew Li Long greeted him, while those who didn't also looked at him curiously.

Li Long came here driving a tractor two years ago. Many people here know about this non-staff forest ranger. He saved a young man here, and the forest rangers are all grateful to him.

The sale of Fritillaria is an open matter in the forestry team. Every time Li Long collects Fritillaria, the forest rangers can share some of the money. They are naturally very happy.

Although ten days had passed, at least a hundred kilograms of Fritillaria in the warehouse had become moldy and could not be used.

Li Long had a gloomy face, but Ali didn't think much of it. There were too many such things in previous years. Was there any year when hundreds of kilograms of fresh Fritillaria collected by the forestry team didn't go bad?

These fritillaria were poured into the ditch beside the warehouse.

Li Long felt bad, but there was nothing he could do. He was so busy in the past few days that he hadn't been to the supply and marketing cooperative until now. Not only was he busy during this period, but Gu Boyuan was also busy. They had lunch at the purchasing station every day, and Sister Yang or Gu Xiaoxia brought them lunch.

Those who come to the purchasing station to sell things are attracted by the professionalism of Li Long and his colleagues - first, their warm service, and second, their professionalism. Unlike other purchasing stations, which are like state-owned ones, they go off work at a certain time and don't care where those who come to sell things come from or how long it takes to get home.

Of course, the most important thing is that the price here is high.

Ali was still the same, letting Li Long do the rating, pricing, and weighing. This time, Li Long pulled out a scale, ending his previous estimates.

Although Li Long's estimate was quite accurate, it was not as intuitive as a scale.

In the final settlement, there are more than 700 kilograms of fresh Fritillaria here, which is equivalent to 3,000 yuan, more than 500 kilograms of semi-dry and semi-wet Fritillaria, which is equivalent to 8,000 yuan, and more than 300 kilograms of dried Fritillaria, which is equivalent to 8,000 yuan.

The price Li Long offered was not high, the total of the three items was less than 20,000.

But Airy was happy—already high.

The reason for not offering a high price is that these Fritillaria were dug directly from the herbalists, and they had too many impurities and were not cleaned. Li Long had to process them again after taking them back.

"Come on, drink the mare's milk, and you can take away the rest!" Ali said excitedly after counting the money.

If ordinary people want to drink sour mare's milk, it is best to add sugar, otherwise they will not be able to drink it.

Ali poured him a porcelain bowl, added sugar, and when he was about to pour for the driver, the driver hurriedly waved his hand, indicating that a bowl of plain tea would be fine, as he was not used to the smelly stuff.

Li Long was drinking the sour mare's milk while stirring it with a spoon. When he had time, he asked Ali:
"Ally, there's still a week left. The Fritillaria in this mountain will almost bloom, right?"

"Some of them are in bloom now, and there are fewer people. You can come once more at most. I won't worry this time. You can come in ten days or half a month." Anyway, I won't be able to collect so many Fritillarias anymore.

"I have to come early too. What if more Fritillaria rot? " Li Long shook his head and savored the sweet and sour taste of the mare's milk.

Although this stuff is a bit cold, it is said to be good for the stomach. It is fermented and has a slight smell of alcohol - if it is kept in a damp environment for half a month, it will become kumis.

The flavor is very fragrant and tastes different.

In northern Xinjiang, if you are a newcomer, you can always drink something you have never tasted before - such as the high-alcohol Da Wusu, which is very famous in later generations, and Beer Wo - which even some locals don't know about, such as kavas, sour mare's milk, and freshly squeezed pomegranate juice, which will also ferment and have a wine taste after being left at room temperature for three days.

Of course, there are such specialties in various places. Some specialties cannot go beyond the local area, but are deeply loved by tourists who come here to travel.

After drinking and taking, Li Long took the truck back, unloaded the Fritillaria into the yard, and then went back to the purchasing station. While Sister Yang was watching the two children, she also started to wash the Fritillaria.

Someone who can't sit still - Li Long has now paid Sister Yang 80 yuan, but Sister Yang feels that what she does doesn't support the salary, so she tries to do more.

Although she has been living like a family with Li Long and Gu Xiaoxia, they give her a lot, and Sister Yang, who is a simple person, feels guilty for not doing more.

This lasted for another four or five days, and the Fritillaria season gradually faded. Not so many people came, and we collected about two hundred kilograms of dried Fritillaria every day, but the skins increased.

Fortunately, the order is much better now. Even if Guo Tiebing and others did not come, Gu Boyuan on Li Long's side could maintain it alone. Especially those local middlemen would even take the initiative to maintain order when there were many people.

Usually at this time, Li Long would get a big bucket, hang a metal ladle on the side of the bucket, put a square stool next to it, and put a large enamel bowl on the stool.

The bucket was filled with reddish-brown tea - made from brick tea. Anyone who came here could scoop it out and drink it if they were thirsty.

This was considered a very common action in later generations, and it attracted a lot of admiration - to be honest, even if a bucket of cold water was put down at that time, those people would be happy. At the end of May, the summer heat had begun to gather, and the weather was getting hot. Although there were trees on the edge of the yard of the purchasing station, they were not enough to completely cover it. It was hot when queuing!

These small details gradually make those who come here to sell goods feel that this purchasing station is doing a good job.

Subconsciously, when I sell things in the future, I would rather sell them farther away and come here.

After he had some free time, Li Long went to the supply and marketing cooperative and learned the whole story from Li Xiangqian.

"You mean, it's like I indirectly destroyed the Happiness Purchasing Station?"

"That's about right." Li Xiangqian looked at Li Long with a smile, and his expression almost said, "How do you want to thank us?" (End of this chapter)