Chapter 29: Forgot Something Important!

Li Qiang came to call two people for dinner, and only then did Li Long and Tao Daqiang finish dressing and head to the west room.

Seeing the plate of grass carp on the table, Li Long was delighted. As expected, Li Qiang's revenge knew no delay; he had brought the grass carp home and stewed it for dinner that very night.

In addition to the grass carp, there was fish soup simmered with small crucian carp, served with steaming cornmeal pancakes. The aroma was wonderful.

Li Juan was on the heated kang, tidying up some *bishí* (stone tools/stones), likely having just finished playing.

Once everyone was seated at the table, Li Jianguo picked up his chopsticks, and they began to eat together.

Tao Daqiang continued to keep his head down, eating slowly. If Li Long hadn't occasionally prompted him, he wouldn't have even picked up much fish, merely using the fish soup to soak his cornmeal pancakes.

"Eat more fish meat," Li Long said with a smile. "This is Qiangqiang's enemy; let's finish it off together."

"Mm," Tao Daqiang responded.

Li Qiang had said he wanted revenge, but in reality, he only took one bite of the grass carp before turning his attention to the crucian carp beside it. The grass carp meat was thick, but even though Liang Yuemei had scored the spine while stewing it, most of the meat still tasted a bit bland.

Furthermore, it lacked oil.

Li Long was thinking that after selling the fish tomorrow, he should check the black market to see if anyone was selling vegetable oil. These days, everything required coupons; while they had some grain coupons at home, they didn't have many of the other kinds.

"Big brother, give me some grain coupons tomorrow. I'll sell the fish and buy some grain back," Li Long said, watching Li Juan and Li Qiang struggle intensely with their cornmeal pancakes.

"We still have quite a lot of cornmeal at home," Liang Yuemei said.

"Buy some fine grains," Li Long insisted. "If we only eat coarse grains, look at how Juan and Qiangqiang aren't growing properly."

Liang Yuemei fell silent. How could she not want her children to eat more fine grains? But the rations allocated by the production team were meager to begin with, and she had already given Li Long extra fine grains back then.

Fortunately, her brother-in-law had changed for the better and had become capable.

"Alright," Li Jianguo said, chewing on a cornmeal pancake, which tasted exceptionally sweet.

In truth, Li Long knew that once they got through this next half-year, things would improve. When the land was redistributed next year, even if everyone only had two *mu* of subsistence farmland, once they actually farmed it, the harvest—after paying the state grain quota—would be enough for everyone to eat.

The good days were coming!

After dinner, Li Long gave Tao Daqiang some instructions, telling him to come early tomorrow morning. Tao Daqiang gave an affirmative nod and left.

"Daqiang is a very honest boy," Liang Yuemei said while clearing the dishes. "We mustn't let him down."

"Mm." Li Jianguo rolled a cigarette, telling stories to the two children as he rolled.

Under the light of the kerosene lamp, the two children listened with rapt attention.

"...In our area, over a hundred years ago, it was known as 'Golden Bottom and Jade Base.' Why was it called that? Because back then, the Ma River had gold mines in its bed and jade mines at its source. Many of the wealthy families back then lived in what is now the ruined city..."

Li Long, who had intended to go to sleep, suddenly slapped his thigh and said with frustration

"How could I be so stupid? How did I forget about this?"

"What?" His slap was so loud that Liang Yuemei heard it from the kitchen and hurried over to ask, "Did you remember something?"

"Jade!" Li Long slapped his own head. "There are jade mines in our Nanshan mountains! In the dry riverbeds of the upper Ma River, there are riverbed pebbles! The herders even asked me to keep an eye out for something, and I completely forgot!"

The Ma River green jade had produced national treasures; jade mines had been opened here during the Qing Dynasty. Although the quality wasn't as good as Hetian green jade—most pieces contained black spots like fly droppings—high-quality pebble jade was still extremely rare.

Li Long remembered from his previous life, when his eldest brother was still alive, Li Juan had come home from school one day and told a story. A classmate's father had once bought a piece of green jade pebble weighing over ten kilograms from a herder in the 1970s for about a dozen yuan, and by 1985, it had sold for over two thousand yuan.

In those days, two thousand yuan was a massive fortune!

The Halimu people had lived in the mountains for generations; they would certainly know where the green jade was.

In his previous life, when Li Long was in his thirties, the Ma River green jade had just become famous, and he had gone into the mountains to collect jade. At that time, many herders no longer had pebbles and were instead using explosives to extract mountain stone from the jade mountains privately.

Being an amateur, Li Long had once bought a piece of mountain stone. It looked like regular rock on the surface, and while it did turn out to be jade when polished, the interior was riddled with cracks from the explosions, making it useless.

In his previous life, from 1985 until the time of his death, whenever the Ma River riverbeds dried up after a flood, many people would go there with plastic water bottles to scavenge for jade.

When they saw a stone that looked like jade, they would use a water bottle cap with a hole drilled in it to sprinkle some water on the stone to see if it was indeed jade.

At the turn of the century, people were discovering massive chunks of green jade in the riverbeds every year, weighing anywhere from dozens of kilograms to several tons.

"We can just go and ask when we have time," Li Jianguo smiled. "It's not like the stuff is going to run away. Nowadays, jade isn't necessarily more precious than grain."

By "precious," he meant "important."

Li Long thought it made sense.

"Uncle, you're not stupid at all!" Li Qiang shouted. "Uncle is the smartest! You can even catch *guaguaji* (water chickens/birds) and trade them for *bishí*—no one else has that skill!"

"Haha, Qiangqiang is the best boy," Li Long laughed.

Returning to the east room, Li Long thought about the *guaguaji* Li Qiang had mentioned.

Since he was selling fish tomorrow, shouldn't he also see if he could find some *guaguaji*? Catching a few to sell wouldn't be a bad idea.

Acting on the thought, he extinguished the stove, grabbed his flashlight, put on his gloves and hat, and headed east, taking a landing net and a urea bag with him.

After walking several hundred meters, Li Long realized he might be going on a wasted trip.

There were footprints following his own path. Clearly, he wasn't the only one trying to catch *guaguaji* or who knew where they were.

Fortunately, Li Long knew more than one place where *guaguaji* liked to hide. He carried his flashlight to the location where he had caught them last time, but as expected, there wasn't a single one.

Time to try somewhere else.

Turning south, he trudged through the snow. Li Long was breathing heavily; he was starting to regret it—it was too difficult to walk.

But since he was already here and had come this far, he might as well finish the remaining few hundred meters.

Suddenly, a dark shape darted out from the side. Li Long was startled and shone his light, catching a glimpse of a grey shadow and half a white backside.

A wild rabbit!

There were so many good things in the wild!

Li Long watched the rabbit disappear into the snow before turning off his flashlight.

To be honest, the rabbit didn't run particularly fast, but because it hadn't just started snowing and the snow had packed down over time, the rabbit could manage.

He planned to come back and hunt rabbits the next time it snowed and set some rabbit snares.

The meat from those was more plentiful than *guaguaji*.

Soon, Li Long approached the second hiding spot for the *guaguaji*.

He slowed his pace and crept forward cautiously.