Chapter 51: Making Money is the Top Priority

After a long time, everyone who participated in the Li family's "Wild Boar Feast" couldn't stop praising it. In the past, when other families held pig-slaughtering feasts, the meat slicing was standard, but there was usually more vegetables than meat—mostly dried vegetables, and the meat provided was mostly lean.

In this Li family wild boar feast, there were many large slices of fatty meat. Every participant left with oil glistening on their lips. The two steaming baskets of cornmeal buns were eaten clean, and when they left, many people even carried leftovers—these days, no one would look down on taking leftovers home; instead, they would be very happy.

After all, there was plenty of grease and fat in it; taking it back to stir-fry with other dishes would make for another delicious meal.

Having borrowed tables from the Lu family, the Li family set one table in the east room and another in the west room, while the women ate at a small table in the kitchen—it wasn't that women weren't allowed at the main table; there was no such rule here. It was simply because the women had work to do afterward, helping the Li family render the lard and fat.

Although wild boars aren't as thick with fat as domestic pigs, these two boars were not lean, and rendering the oil required a great deal of effort.

Of course, when the women finally left, each would take a bowl of the rendered oil and lard scraps home as a form of compensation.

Throughout the process, Li Long was actually quite idle; all the important, technical work had been left to others. At a time like this, no one would slack off; everyone worked vigorously so they could eat the meat with a clear conscience later.

Even after the meal, the Li family didn't need to clean up; the women helping in the kitchen nimbly tidied up the plates and bowls—in truth, cleaning was simple because not much grease was left on the plates, as the sauce had all been soaked up by the buns.

In this era, people were truly desperate for fats and oils.

And the Li family, thanks to this feast of abundant meat and vegetables, earned a reputation for generosity. The rumors regarding Li Long being arrested vanished completely amidst the large slices of meat.

After eating, he saw that the sun was beginning to tilt toward the west. Li Long didn't intend to idle about; he wasn't actually tired, so he took the dozens of wire snares he had made earlier, put on his padded coat and hat, and headed toward the snowy fields to the southeast.

The production team was located at the easternmost part of the entire brigade, and further east lay a vast expanse of wasteland. Currently, the wasteland reclaimed by the production team accounted for only about one-eighth of the total area.

In twenty years, once all those reed ponds, alkaline flats, and tamarisk marshes were reclaimed, the village's total land area would rank first in the entire township, and the land contracted by each household would be quite large.

Currently, various weeds and shrubs grew in these wastelands, and by summer, all sorts of medicinal herbs would grow there. For instance, a piece of *Lycium chinense* (Solyma) that would cost dozens of yuan in the future was everywhere here under the white thorns of the alkaline flats; one could easily dig up a whole sack in a single morning without even searching.

These wild medicinal herbs, which would be very expensive in later generations, were not even widely collected by medicinal herb companies now; at most, they would pay three to five mao per kilogram, and they still required the dried product.

By the time Li Long was nearing death in his previous life, the wasteland had been fully reclaimed, and the *Lycium chinense* no longer had a growing environment; one could only occasionally find one or two specimens on the edges of cultivated land.

The place he was going to was the tamarisk marsh, which had many wild rabbits, but it was difficult to walk through. A layer of snow on top had frozen into a crust, but it couldn't withstand a person; one step would cause you to sink directly into the coarse, sand-like snow particles below, making every step a struggle.

As Li Long reached the edge of the tamarisk marsh, panting heavily, he suddenly heard a "flapping" sound. He looked up toward the sound and saw a large eagle flying into the sky, clutching half a rabbit in its talons.

This fellow had a massive wingspan—at least two or three meters!

Li Long thought to himself that wild animals truly grew wildly during this time—*grow well, grow for a few more years, because it won't be this easy later.*

He entered the tamarisk marsh, where the tamarisk trees grew three to four meters high and were as thick as a man's arms. In ten years, most of the tamarisk here would be cut down, leaving none taller than a person, and eventually, it would be converted into farmland.

Near the roots of the tamarisk, rabbit tracks crisscrossed; Li Long carefully distinguished them.

In his previous life, when he first started setting rabbit snares, he would just set them randomly wherever he saw a track, without any method. Naturally, the result was that, aside from accidentally catching one unlucky rabbit, he had no harvest.

After many failures and communicating with others, he learned that this required technique. One had to find relatively fresh routes that rabbits frequently used—places they were bound to pass through, such as between two clumps of shrubs. Before setting a snare, one must avoid stepping on the tracks, otherwise, the rabbits would stop using that path.

Li Long had experience, so he searched carefully, trying not to go into the middle of the tamarisk marsh or too close to the edges—at the edges, even if you caught a rabbit, if you couldn't retrieve it in time, it would quickly become a meal for eagles, badgers, or foxes.

After walking a large circle and setting over twenty wire snares, Li Long walked out with the remaining snares. It was getting a bit cold, so he set the remaining ones more haphazardly.

If the others in the team saw this, they would call him a spendthrift. Setting snares haphazardly made them difficult to find. No one's family was extravagant enough to "play around" with such fine wire these days.

When Li Long returned home, he didn't go to the west room—the west room was currently filled with women helping to render lard, and he wouldn't be able to help much there anyway.

As dusk approached, Li Long was in his room helping Li Qiang process a wild boar tusk—Li Qiang wanted to use it as a toy, so Li Long planned to use fine wire and thread pulled from a tire to wrap a handle for him. Just then, he heard continuous footsteps in the courtyard.

He thought it was the women leaving after finishing their work, but it didn't sound right because there was no sound of the east room door opening; instead, the door to his own room opened.

Five or six young people poured into the room.

"Xiao Long, what are you busy with?"

Seeing these people arrive, Li Long understood immediately.

In the production team during winter, nighttime entertainment was very monotonous. These young men and women in their twenties basically formed groups to visit one another, and they often went to visit the "celebrities" of the team first.

Previously, during the two days after Li Jianguo had arranged for Li Long to enter the factory, these people had also come to his room. Back then, Gu Ermao and Wu Shufen were there, and it was Wu Shufen who had agreed to date him at that time.

Now Gu Ermao was not here, but Wu Shufen—to Li Long's surprise—was actually in the middle of the crowd, though she didn't quite dare to look at him, appearing somewhat awkward.

The one speaking was Xu Haijun, the cousin of the team leader Xu Chengjun; his name was just one character away from that future Olympic champion. He was considered one of the more organized and active members among the local youth.

"Making a toy for Qiang-qiang," Li Long said, gesturing with the tusk in his hand. "Come, come, sit."

There weren't enough stools in the room, but no one was being polite or minded; they sat directly on the heated *kang* bed—everyone's situation was similar these days, so no one looked down on anyone else.

"Xiao Long, you're quite something now," Xu Haijun said with a smile as he sat down. "Two wild boars—an ordinary person couldn't pull that off, right? I heard you even trade meat with others—five bullets for a kilogram. How about I trade for two kilograms? I've never eaten wild boar meat and want to try it."

"No problem," Li Long smiled. "There's plenty of meat; feel free to trade."

Everyone could see that Li Long had changed; he was no longer so vain and had become much more grounded.

The gazes of two girls fell upon Wu Shufen.