lcionline Chapter 170 Li Changqing is going south to do business
Chapter 170 Li Changqing is going south to do business
The half-meter-long animal, with its brown fur interspersed with white guard hairs, is none other than a sable!
Sable is also called "big skin," "big leaf," or "purple rat." Locals call it all these names. Big skin is sent to the county town where merchants buy it. First-class big skin can sell for a thousand yuan or so, while second-class skin sells for five or six hundred yuan.
The sable had been dead for several days; its body was stiff and rigid, but its fur remained soft and smooth. Li Ju'an blew on the fluffy fur, and the swirling hairs were incredibly beautiful.
Song Desheng laughed heartily, his mouth widening as wide as Lu Zhiqiang's.
"Big Pi! He's really big Pi!"
"We've struck it rich! We've really struck it rich this time! It's a big piece of meat! What incredible luck! It didn't even take long for it to be caught."
Many experienced hunters specialize in trapping large sables, tracking their tracks deep in the mountains. They set countless traps throughout the year, and catching even two is considered incredibly lucky.
Song Desheng carefully took the large pelt, examining its soft, smooth fur closely, his heart filled with joy. He also wondered, "Tiger pelts aren't bad either, so why is this one so expensive? This pelt is good, but it's too small."
A large tiger skin costs around a thousand yuan, and some are big enough to be used as a blanket. But even the largest skin of that size is only half a meter long, just enough to wrap around the neck, which is far from the size of a tiger skin.
Suddenly, Li Ju'an picked up a sable fur, took out a small tuft of it, and brought it close to Song Desheng's face.
Song Desheng blinked, not quite understanding what was happening, but before he could finish speaking, he angrily shouted, "What the hell? Why are you so close?"
Li Ju'an and Lu Zhiqiang laughed: "Did you sense anything?"
"What? What were you two doing just now?"
Song Desheng still found it strange, but when he saw Li Ju'an also using sable fur to prick Lu Zhiqiang, he suddenly slapped his thigh and realized: "No matter how long or short the fur is, how come it doesn't prick the eyeball?"
The two laughed and said, "Now you know why big leather is such a good thing. There's a reason why it's expensive."
The sable fur didn't prick his eyes, but the fur of other animals, whether greyhounds or tigerskin, would prick his eyes and hurt. Only then was Song Desheng satisfied. He wrapped the fur around his neck and shouted happily, "What are we waiting for? We'll go to the county town with the cart later and get a good price."
The three checked the second trap, along with the other seven or eight traps they had set in the snowdrift, but found nothing.
Perhaps hunting a sable had exhausted their luck.
Lu Zhiqiang was still somewhat discouraged, but Li Ju'an was in a good mood. He slung his gun over his shoulder and said, "We've already made a thousand or so yuan. That's much better than those scoundrels, those half-baked fools. Don't be ungrateful."
Lu Zhiqiang thought this made sense and grinned.
……
The three of them took a transport truck from the ranch to the county town. Before leaving, Chen Xiangqian reluctantly left his phone number, telling Li Ju'an to call him whenever he had time to go into the mountains.
Li Ju'an knew exactly what Chen Xiangqian was thinking. His son was simply tired of staying on the ranch and wanted to go into the mountains for some fun, to see what the mountain hunters were like, and to witness the exciting hunting. But hunting was hard work, not a game. He had to politely decline.
He said, "Okay, okay, I'll do it when I have time."
"Brother Li! You absolutely have to invite us next time, we'll bring you APS Stechkin."
Chen Xiangqian mysteriously rummaged in his cloth pocket and actually pulled out a submachine pistol. It had a black metallic body, a wooden case that could also be used as a stock in combat. Its design was strikingly similar to that of the Mauser pistol from World War II.
When he pulled out the APS Stechkin, Li Ju'an almost stumbled, his eyes widening as he suddenly became wide awake.
"Where are you going to get your hands on APS Stechkin? It's not easy to get this stuff."
The APS submachine pistol, also known as the Stechkin automatic pistol, is Russia's first fully automatic pistol. It uses 9x18mm Makarov pistol cartridges and is equipped with a 20-round double-stack magazine. In fully automatic mode, its theoretical rate of fire can reach 800 rounds per minute, and it can also be switched to semi-automatic mode.
This can serve as a personal self-defense weapon, capable of both offense and defense. Even if you encounter a bear or wild animal at close range, you won't need to draw your knife to fight; the APS submachine gun is far more effective than a knife.
Chen Xiangqian chuckled smugly, "Now you know we're useful, right? This kind of little thing is a piece of cake!"
Li Ju'an felt as if he were being scratched by a kitten's claws. An APS Stechkin submachine gun—you couldn't buy it even if you had money; you needed connections to get your hands on one. He carefully stroked the gun, genuinely liking it.
Seeing his fascination with guns, Chen Xiangqian grinned and approached him, saying, "Brother Li, take me with you next time you go into the mountains. We won't split the profits or ask for money; I'll even pay you out of my own pocket. This submachine gun is yours to keep."
Li Ju'an chuckled: "You're so cunning and sly, you're trying to trick me into going into the mountains. The division commander will smash my head in later."
"Absolutely, Brother Li likes it very much too."
After the two argued for a while, Pang Duo called the ranch's duty room.
Li Ju'an had just used the ranch's duty room phone to call Pang Duolai's landline, and his assistant answered. Now Pang Duolai was calling back, and upon hearing that Li Ju'an had a tiger skin, he immediately became restless.
The two contacted each other and agreed to meet in the county town that afternoon. Pang Duolai couldn't wait for the fresh tiger skin to be made into raw hide, which would take another week. The two agreed to meet in the afternoon.
Then Li Ju'an waited for Lu Zhiqiang and Song Desheng, who, along with their hunting dogs and a large harvest, boarded the ranch's transport truck.
……
At this time, the old man and his family in the county town were worrying about the matter of dividing the land among individual households.
The old lady complained to the old man about her son Li Changqing's job problem: "What's wrong with our son? He was just introduced to the commune, and after only two days, he said it was boring. This was all thanks to his father-in-law, Lao Jiang."
The old man raised his voice and called out, "Changqing!"
Li Changqing had been hiding in his room, and only came out reluctantly when he was called, knowing in his heart that he couldn't avoid this matter.
"Changqing, what's wrong with you? Your mother used her old classmate's connections to get you a job in the commune. Why did you run away after only two days?"
Li Changqing straightened his back, somewhat afraid of his father, but still mustered his courage and shouted, "I want to go south."
"What? Say that again, you brat?"
Li Changqing puffed out his chest even more and shouted in a strong voice, "I said I'm going south! I'm going to follow Brother Zhang south to do business and make a name for myself."
The Zhang brother he mentioned is Zhang Yingnian, the local who brought Pang Duo to Northeast China.
When the old man heard the name Zhang Yingnian, he felt it sounded familiar, but he still thought it was unreliable for his son to go south to do business.
"Did you hear that from Li Ju'an? That kid hangs out with Zhang Yingnian all the time, his ideas are up and down. You'd better learn to behave yourself and find a proper job. Don't make us worry about you, and stop thinking about going out and seeing the world."
After being reprimanded like this, Li Changqing, with his rebellious nature, immediately sprang up and shouted, "I know what I'm doing. What good jobs can you come up with? Going to the commune is just about grading cotton, what's the point? And you only get such a small temporary worker's wage, I feel like I'm being ripped off."
When he retorted, the old man's eyes widened in anger, his face turned red and his neck bulged, and he raised his hand to slap him.
The old lady quickly advised, "Alright, alright, let's eat first. We can talk about anything after we've eaten."