Chapter 31: The Black Market is Indeed Black

When Li Long finished dressing and headed out to the west room, he saw a large, dark figure loitering outside the courtyard gate. Startled, he shouted, "Who's there?"

"Brother Long, it's me."

It was Tao Daqiang's voice.

"Daqiang, why are you here so early?" Li Long breathed a sigh of relief, then asked in confusion, "I was planning to come to your house to find you after I ate."

"I was afraid... I was afraid I'd miss the time," Tao Daqiang replied with a simple, honest smile, scratching his hat.

"Come inside, quick." Li Long went over to pull him in, only to notice that Tao Daqiang's hat was covered in white frost, as were his eyelashes and eyebrows. He couldn't help but ask

"What time did you get here?"

"I... I don't remember." Tao Daqiang was so frozen that his speech was slurred.

"Get inside! You didn't stay up all night, did you?"

Li Long was only guessing, but he had nearly hit the truth.

After eating and returning home last night, Tao Daqiang had indeed found there was no food set aside for him, so he hadn't said much and went to bed early.

However, once he lay down, he worried he wouldn't wake up in time because Li Long had said they were leaving before dawn.

As a result, he tossed and turned, eventually not daring to fall asleep at all. He simply got up, dressed, and sat on the heated kang waiting.

Tao Jianshe had long since fallen asleep. Feeling that enough time had passed, Tao Daqiang quietly slipped out and made his way to the Li family home.

When Li Long hadn't woken up yet, he waited at the courtyard gate, staying there until Li Long finally rose. No one knew how long he had been waiting in the interim.

Hearing voices outside, Li Jianguo opened the door. Seeing it was Tao Daqiang and Li Long, he immediately ushered them in.

Liang Yuemei hurried to serve them cornmeal porridge. Tao Daqiang leaned against the heated wall, taking quite a while to recover from the cold.

After washing up, Li Long helped Liang Yuemei carry the bowls and serve the food. Breakfast consisted of cornmeal steamed cakes, mutton stir-fried with salted vegetables, porridge, and the leftover fish soup from the previous night.

Li Long and Tao Daqiang didn't stand on ceremony, wolfing down the food. Wiping his mouth, Li Long said to Li Jianguo

"Big Brother, I have a few 'Gua Gua' chickens in my room. I'll take a few to sell; you can prepare the rest for us to eat."

Tao Daqiang looked at Li Long with envy. Brother Long was truly impressive—he could produce meat just by reaching out a hand.

Li Jianguo unhooked a set of keys from his waistband, opened the chest of drawers, pulled out a stack of food coupons, counted out several, and handed them to Li Long

"Here, is this enough?"

"Not enough, get some more."

"Alright." Li Jianguo didn't argue; now that his younger brother was capable, he was naturally happy.

Li Long didn't think of himself as being better than his big brother. After all, once they reached the spring equinox next year to divide the land, that would be the time for his brother to show his true skill. He intended to save his own two acres for his brother to farm as well.

With the food coupons in hand, Li Long and Tao Daqiang headed out. They hitched the sled, and Li Jianguo placed the urea bag containing the fish onto it. Li Long then went to his room to get the bag for the chickens, pulling out six of them, wringing their necks one by one, and placing them on the ground. The remaining five live chickens were tied in their bag and placed on the sled. Tao Daqiang grabbed the rope on the sled and strode out.

This simple sled was similar to a stretcher, but the front was raised, and thick iron wires were embedded into the two bottom poles to reduce friction. The rope was tied to the front, and once secured, it could be pulled easily.

The snow on the road had been compressed into ice, so the sled glided over it, flying forward with almost no effort.

On a whim, Tao Daqiang pulled faster and faster. Finding it amusing, Li Long called out a warning from behind

"Daqiang, be careful when you put strength into it, don't let the things on the sled fly off!"

"Yeah, I know!"

The two of them slowly disappeared at the end of the road.

By dawn, Sister-in-law Lu had arrived at the Li house again.

"Oh, Auntie, you all eat early, don't you?" Sister-in-law Lu said with a smile, watching Li Juan and Li Qiang playing on the kang.

Liang Yuemei, who was busy stitching a shoe sole, nodded without saying much.

She didn't want to mention that they were up early because Li Long and the others were going to the county to sell fish. Although policies had loosened significantly, it was better not to give others something to gossip about. Besides, Sister-in-law Lu was a notorious chatterbox.

"Auntie, have you heard? Yesterday, the brigade borrowed three horse carts to go into the mountains to haul timber. The captain's cart only managed half a load, and the others came back empty-handed!"

Sister-in-law Lu lowered her voice to pass on the news she had heard.

"Why couldn't they get any? There's so much wood in those mountains."

"They said they couldn't find the path. People can get in, but the carts can't." Sister-in-law Lu thought those people were foolish. If the summer side-business teams could get in, how could they not find the way in winter? "Your Xiao Long is still the best; every time he comes back, his cart is full of goods!"

"Mhm, Xiao Long is just lucky," Liang Yuemei said vaguely.

"I don't think it's luck; I think Xiao Long is capable." Sister-in-law Lu had completely abandoned her attitude from a few days ago when she called Li Long a spendthrift, and had begun praising him instead.

"By the way, Auntie, my niece back home is nineteen. She's finished primary school, she's hardworking, and she's quite pretty. Maybe you could see if she could be introduced to Xiao Long..."

"I'll have to ask Xiao Long," Liang Yuemei said with a smile. "Xiao Long has high standards."

"Hehe, I know, I know. I'm just asking. If Xiao Long agrees, we can at least meet first; whether it works out or not is another matter."

Li Long had no idea that someone was already planning to "invest" in him as a potential asset. By the time they reached the black market, the sky was just beginning to brighten.

However, at the black market, some people were already preparing to pack up and leave.

"Did they come this early?" Seeing someone pushing a bicycle with two empty baskets on the back, Tao Daqiang couldn't help but ask, "What time did they set off?"

"They live close by," Li Long replied. He found an empty spot, parked the sled, and began taking out the goods.

"What are you selling?" someone immediately came over to ask.

"Fish," Li Long said without looking up. "And 'Gua Gua' chickens."

"Fish? What kind of fish?"

"Carp, crucian carp, grass carp, silver carp, and black carp. I have them all." Seeing how detailed the man's questions were, Li Long looked up and answered seriously, "Which kind do you want? How much?"

"What's the price?" The man was in his fifties, wearing a Zhongshan suit, looking like a cadre. "I see you didn't bring a scale."

"Sold by the piece. Large carp and black carp are two yuan each; silver carp is one-fifty per fish. Small crucian carp and miscellaneous fish are ten for one yuan. My big fish are all over 1.5 kilograms; they are definitely cheap!"

Li Long didn't have a scale, nor did he intend to bring one. In his previous life, when people sold crucian carp in the summer, they used large bowls, where one bowl was roughly a little over a kilogram. Now in winter, the fish were frozen, so he couldn't use bowls and had to sell them by the piece.

"Then take the fish out so I can see." The man seemed interested in buying, so Li Long pulled the fish out and laid them on the sled.

Others began to gather around to watch.

"They look good, quite large."

"Black carp! The meat on these is like garlic cloves, delicious!"

"That crucian carp is a big one, looks quite fat..."

Among the onlookers, there were those with an eye for quality, inspecting them one by one.

Li Long then pulled out one of the five 'Gua Gua' chickens to show it off

"Freshly caught 'Gua Gua' chickens. Three yuan each. Tastes better than regular chicken—it's wild game!"

There were many onlookers, but only one or two were actually picking through the fish.

Tao Daqiang watched the buyers nervously, terrified that someone might grab a fish and run.

"Young man, how much for this carp?" A woman in her forties picked up the largest carp and asked.

"Two yuan," Li Long said with a smile. "This is the biggest one. Look at the red head and red tail, how beautiful!"

"When was it caught?" The woman hesitated slightly.

"Yesterday! You can peel back the gill cover and see—it's bright red. We had to smash through a hole in the ice nearly a meter thick to catch it; it wasn't easy!"

"I'll take it then." The woman produced the money.

The first sale was complete!