Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 971 Should we bring the jade back? Let's talk about it after the road is repaired!

When Li Long drove his jeep out of Hongshanzui, the sun had just set, and the west was ablaze with the glow of the evening sky.

"So beautiful! When I was little, I read the text 'Burning Clouds' and wondered what burning clouds were. Later I learned what they were like." Sitting in the back, Ma Xiaoyan leaned out the window to look out. "I won't be coming tomorrow..."

“We can still keep an eye on things even if you don’t come,” Li Long said as he drove. “We can see them from the county, right? After all, you work in the county and have so many things to do. How could you possibly keep an eye on things like we do every day? It’s already quite an achievement that you’ve been able to follow us for a few days now.”

This wasn't what Ma Xiaoyan wanted to hear, but Li Long was married and quite upright in this regard, so although she had some ulterior motives, she couldn't say anything.

Upon arriving in the county, Ma Xiaoyan asked Li Long to take her home, saying that there was nothing left for her to take from the county committee.

Ma Xiaoyan's home is in the south, near the urban-rural fringe area—or rather, apart from the very center of the county town, other areas are not much different from the nearby rural areas.

Her house is quite close to the courtyard where Sister Yang used to live, separated by three alleys. Sister Yang's house is near Wuyi Road, while Ma Xiaoyan's house is at the very end of the alley.

When Li Long drove his jeep to the alley entrance, Ma Xiaoyan told him to stop, saying that it was easy to go in but troublesome to get out, so he could just stop here.

Li Long was in a hurry to get home, so he didn't take her inside. After Ma Xiaoyan got out of the car, he said goodbye and turned to leave. Even after driving quite a distance, Li Long glanced at his rearview mirror and could still see Ma Xiaoyan standing there, watching them.

Is she waiting for someone? Or is there something she needs to do?

Li Long had only a fleeting thought before he quickened his pace and headed home again.

Knowing that Li Long had been working on the road these past few days and would be back for dinner each night, Gu Boyuan said today that he would wait and see if they could eat together when Li Long returned.

No one else had any objections, except Gu Xiaoxia who first fed Mingming and Haohao, and then played with the two children for a while.

The two children still need a lot of sleep. Although it doesn't get dark until almost 11 p.m., they are already sleepy and want to go to bed around 10 p.m.

When Li Long returned, the two children were still awake. As soon as the car stopped, they couldn't wait for Li Long to hold them.

After Li Long got out of the car, he picked up the two children, tickled them with his beard, and let them laugh and push his face. After playing for a while, Gu Xiaoxia told the two children to get down and urged Li Long to wash his hands and eat.

There was fish soup for dinner. Before Li Long could even ask, Sister Yang said:

"Minghaohao's grandpa brought these over this morning. He said he's been catching fish these past few days since he's had some free time, and he caught so many that he couldn't dry them all, so he's selling them. These are the ones that have been cleaned and are fresh enough to eat."

"The fish from Xiaohaizi are still delicious," Gu Boyuan remarked, then added with a sigh, "It's just that fewer people in the team are growing rice. Such good land, if we grew rice there, the rice would be so fragrant..."

“Dad, you know how troublesome it is to grow rice!” Gu Xiaoxia said. “Now that the household responsibility system is in place, everyone wants to grow something simple and easy to make money. Rice is not expensive and it’s troublesome, so naturally fewer people are growing it.”

That's the logic, and Gu Boyuan was just making a grumble, but he didn't expect to be scolded by his daughter. Not wanting to say anything at the dinner table, he turned to Li Long and asked:
"How's the road repair going?"

"We've built more than a kilometer ahead." Li Long recounted the day's events of blasting rocks and crossing the big willow tree. "Later, I thought we could do it this way: they would build from behind, and I would check from the front and remove any troublesome parts first."

If this happened in later generations, people would definitely say something about tinkering with explosives. But to be honest, quite a few families in the Fourth Squad have explosives now. A couple of years ago, some even used them as firecrackers for the New Year. So even Gu Boyuan and Gu Xiaoxia didn't care much.

"We found a piece of jade weighing several tons today!" Li Long finally couldn't keep this secret and revealed it at the dinner table. "The jade is of very good quality, but it's too big to move."

"Several tons?" Gu Boyuan was startled. "That...jade? Even if jade isn't very valuable, something this heavy must be worth several thousand or tens of thousands of yuan, right?"

“That should be more than that,” Li Long said. “It’s just that it’s hard to transport it back. The terrain in the mountains is too complicated. That thing needs to be transported in by crane and truck together.”

"Wow, there really are some treasures in these mountains!" Gu Boyuan exclaimed. "Such a large jade stone..."

Although the Mahe River is known as the "Golden Plate Jade Bottom", jade stones are often found in the Mahe River. Now, jade collectors have also emerged one after another. Li Long even brought back a lot of jade pebbles from the mountains in the first few years.

However, this is still information that is not easily accessible to most ordinary people.

Information was quite limited at that time, and some "common sense" that is taken for granted in later generations is now valuable knowledge.

For example, there is a jade mountain in Nanshan, Ma County. There was official jade mining there during the Qing Dynasty. Even forty years later, probably not many people know about it. Although Ma County had already established the "China Jade Garden" and promoted jade culture, these things faded away because Nanshan was closed to the public.

“Someone must have found it before, but the news just didn’t spread,” Li Long said. “If I can overcome the difficulties of going into the mountains and bring the jade back now, many people in our county will know about it.”

"What you know, you know; what you don't know, you still don't know." Gu Xiaoxia shook her head. "News spreads within a certain range; it might be changed by the time it reaches the edge. By the way, what's the quality of that jade?"

Having seen many fine jade pebbles with Li Long over the past few years, Gu Xiaoxia has also developed some knowledge about jade. At first, she didn't really understand the jade bracelet that Li Long brought back, but one time when she wore it and a colleague saw it, the colleague exclaimed that the jade quality was exceptionally good.

Also, her younger sister, Gu Xiaoyu, would call her on weekends and occasionally talk about jade, mentioning that the jade bracelet she gave her amazed her colleagues.

Gradually, Gu Xiaoxia realized that the jade artifacts and those stone eggs that Li Long brought back were all very valuable items.

She was even discussing with her sister, Gu Xiaoyu, whether to ship jade from here to Gu Xiaoxia and profit from the price difference. Gu Xiaoyu's colleague wanted her to help buy a bracelet of similar quality, asking for at least eight hundred!
Although Gu Xiaoxia didn't know how much Li Long had paid for the bracelet she gave her sister, she was certain it wouldn't have cost more than five hundred yuan!

Isn't it great to make money from this price difference?
So when Li Longyi mentioned jade, Gu Xiaoxia paid close attention.

“The jade quality is good, not the ordinary kind with black spots,” Li Long recalled the evaluation of the jade given to him by the two factory directors and section chiefs when he first went to Wucheng Jade Factory. “The whole piece of jade, the parts I can see are basically all grade one or above.”

"If we consider jade prices in 1982, even if only half of this piece of jade was of this quality, it would still be worth tens of thousands..."

Of course, in reality, it's much more than that. After all, the bigger it is, the more valuable it becomes. It doesn't increase exponentially, but it's not quite geometric.

"Then you'd better keep this a secret, Uncle." Sister Yang had been listening the whole time. "Such a big treasure, we can't let anyone else get it..."

"Yes, I've hidden it well. Nobody knows about that place," Li Long said with a smile. "It's deep in the mountains and forests, few people go there, and even fewer know about it."

"That is not bad."

After dinner, Gu Boyuan walked back to the purchasing station with his hands behind his back, Li Long took Mingming and Haohao to bed, and Gu Xiaoxia helped Sister Yang clean up the kitchen.

When Gu Xiaoxia returned to the room, Mingming and Haohao were already asleep. Li Long was watching TV.

Gu Xiaoxia brought water for Li Long to soak his feet. While she was sitting next to Li Long watching TV, she told him about Gu Xiaoyu asking for the jade bracelet.

"The price difference is quite significant." Li Long hadn't expected the jade to be priced so high over there. It might actually be a good opportunity for the two sisters to try their hand at this as a side job.

"Do we have any suitable ones at home?" Li Long asked. "I'll take a look after I finish soaking my feet. If they're suitable, I'll send them over. I'll go to Wucheng to buy some more when I have time in a few days."

The price of raw jade has started to rise, but not too quickly. Li Long always manages to get more than two master-level jade bracelets from Master Liu, and he has accumulated quite a few over the years.

"There should be. Xiaoyu told me the size of the bra they want, so we'll measure it together." Gu Xiaoxia said with a smile after hearing Li Long's agreement, "Xiaoyu has another side job, which will make her life a little better."

Ever since learning about her sister's situation, Gu Xiaoxia had been thinking about how to help her sister earn some money. While a university teaching assistant job sounded prestigious, it wasn't likely to be very lucrative. Her own life was so good; although the overall environment wasn't as good as in Beijing, she wasn't short of money, had no worries about food or clothing, and had a husband who could earn a living. Gu Xiaoxia naturally wanted to help her if she could—of course, she had no intention of helping Fan Wenli.

“Yes, I can do things like buying things for others.” Li Long himself didn’t care about the money, but he knew that it was a lot for Gu Xiaoyu.

Although the couple could give Gu Xiaoyu some money from time to time, this kind of money could only help in an emergency and not solve long-term problems. If there wasn't a proper way to make money, this method of directly giving money couldn't last.

If Gu Xiaoyu could act as an intermediary between Yanjing and Beijiang, facilitating communication between the two regions regarding their local specialties, that would be a good approach.

Of course, it's just a side job to earn some pocket money. My sister-in-law's main job is still a university professor. Although her salary isn't high now, her future prospects are bright, far surpassing what she could earn as a real estate agent.

Li Long explained this to his wife, Gu Xiaoxia, who naturally understood and said she would tell her sister.

Li Long went to the east room and brought back a package of jade artifacts. Gu Xiaoxia measured them with a soft measuring tape and picked out one piece.

Li Long smiled and said, "This one is made by an apprentice, so people might not like it. Why don't you find another one with a similar size? Take a look at these few."

"I think they're pretty much the same." Gu Xiaoxia felt that the apprentice's work was not much different from the master's work she was wearing.

“There are still some differences,” Li Long said, having handled so many items before he could get a feel for it. “Take this one for example. The price they offered wasn’t low, so we can’t give them ordinary goods. If they can tell the difference, it will be more difficult for Xiaoyu to do business with them.”

"Yes, yes, yes." Gu Xiaoxia nodded repeatedly, "Then let's take this one, it really feels comfortable."

“It’s made of mutton fat jade, of course.” Li Long smiled.

It's not like we're missing out on this one piece; there's still plenty of material available at this time, so it's easy to find.

Meng Hai drove his tractor to bring people back to the village. After distributing money to everyone in his yard, he prepared to eat, only to find that two people had stayed behind.

"Is there anything else?" Meng Hai asked from the courtyard. "Want to eat together? We can talk while we eat?"

"No, no, Lao Meng, we know you are familiar with Comrade Li Long, so we just wanted to see if you had any suggestions."

"You guys say it."

“Look, we’ve been working all day, it’s really tiring. We have to leave early every day, and working in the mountains isn’t easy. The food we bring from home for lunch isn’t very good either. Do you think you could talk to Comrade Li Long and ask him to just give us all naan bread? That would save us a lot of trouble…”

"Making naan?" Meng Hai looked at the two men, feeling a surge of anger rising within him. He said coldly, "You two are really pushing your luck! Eight yuan a day! These days, a skilled worker only earns three or four yuan a day. Our work is indeed tiring, but it shouldn't be more than that, right? Besides, we've only been working for a few days, how many wild boars have we eaten? You've become too spoiled, haven't you? If you want to work, then work; if you don't want to work, there are plenty of other people who do!"

Upon hearing Meng Hai's words, the two hurriedly waved their hands and said, "We want to do it, we want to do it. Someone told us to come and talk to them... It's okay, it's okay, we'll definitely do it. It wasn't our idea anyway—you eat, we'll come early tomorrow..."

After saying that, the two of them ran away.

Meng Hai knew that someone must have encouraged these two people to come and talk to him, since they had a good relationship with him and could speak to him.

But the more he did this, the angrier he became. Li Long had offered such good terms, and these people were really ungrateful.

"Don't be angry, we can just find someone else," his wife said, placing the food on the small table. "Someone even came to me today saying they wanted to join the road construction team."

"We won't add any more for now." Meng Hai shook his head. "The main reason is that there's still work to be done in the fields, and we can't pull too many people out. It's better to use people who are good at the job. We can't have another incident like what happened to Su Qiangqiang... How is Su Qiangqiang?"

"He's still coughing. The fever has gone down, but the doctor said he'll need to rest for a while; he inhaled something into his lungs, so recovery will be slow."

“We can’t hire someone like him, who almost drowned Li Long in the flood over a shovel. So let’s just keep him doing this for now, and when the crops are harvested in the fall, we can get dozens more people to join the team.”

"Can I go then?" Meng Hai's wife naturally wanted to earn that money too. "You're the boss, but you don't make much money. I'm thinking of earning more too."

"Yes, you can go. You can go whenever you want." Meng Hai thought to himself that he still had this privilege.

The next day, Li Long went to the supply and marketing cooperative and told Li Xiangqian about the explosives.

“No problem, I’ll bring you a few more boxes—we can’t go alone, but we’ll definitely have plenty of supplies.” Li Xiangqian knew that Li Long was continuing to repair the road, so he said, “You probably know we’ve been busy here lately. We originally planned to go once a week, but we might have to change it to once a month.”

By the way, how's the road repair going?

"We've pushed more than a kilometer into the mountains. It's a simple road, so it'll be built quickly. We just need to widen the roadbed so that a small four-wheeled tractor can fit in. I'm thinking of opening up the road first, and then paving it with gravel later."

“Yes, the plan is fine.” Li Xiangqian nodded and said, “That’s it. First, solve the problem of whether it exists, and then solve the problem of whether it’s good or bad. Comrade Li Long, you’ve learned dialectics very well.”

“I don’t understand dialectics; this is something that comes from practice,” Li Long replied. “Director, I won’t chat with you any longer. We need to grab the explosives and head into the mountains.”

"Alright, alright, I won't keep you any longer. By the way, I saw the newspaper article about you rescuing people in the flood; it was really dangerous! We're on the same side, so let me tell you privately, you should be more careful in the future if you encounter something like this!"
You have a wife and children. What if you fall into the water and can't get out? Although you look young, we've known each other for four or five years. You're twenty-five this year, right? You're the breadwinner of your family; you can't act impulsively again..."

Upon hearing this, Li Long smiled wryly and said:

"I acted impulsively at the time, thinking that I was the one who brought the person out to repair the road. If I didn't bring the person back, how could I explain it to their family? Actually, I was scared after getting ashore. I definitely won't go into the water again if I encounter a similar situation in the future."

We reflected on this and realized the problem was the lack of a safety officer and their inexperience. If we had had a safety officer who could have observed the floodwaters in advance and given warnings, none of this would have happened.

"Yes, it's good to learn from this experience. All sorts of accidents are bound to happen during road construction, so we still need to be careful." Li Xiangqian added, "This explosives issue is no small matter either, so we need to be cautious."

Li Long repeatedly assured him that Li Xiangqian had asked him to collect the explosives and had also given him a metal box full of bullets, which surprised and delighted Li Long.

He actually wanted some grenades, but the security chief said there weren't many in stock and he didn't get any.

He told Li Long that there were actually many at the militia warehouse, and if Li Long could establish connections there, getting a few boxes wouldn't be a problem.

Li Long thought about it and decided against it. His only connection over there was Jiang Zhiyu; he wasn't familiar with the others and it wouldn't be easy to get them.

Carrying explosives and bullets, and buying some naan bread, Li Long drove his jeep into the mountains.

Meng Hai has already started working with his men, and the road construction is progressing rapidly; they can already see the large rock.

Li Long's task for today was to continue clearing away the major obstacles, but he kept an eye on the river, wondering if he could find one or two more pieces of jade.

After all, if there's such a big piece, there must be quite a few smaller ones too, right?
Because of this situation, he didn't hunt at noon, and everyone just ate dry rations.

Li Long had initially thought that the villagers would complain about not getting anything to eat today after eating meat for two days, but he found that no one complained and everyone was happy.

Weird.

(End of this chapter)