bookrebus Chapter 440 The Lu Family Secretly Returns to the Mountains
Chapter 440 The Lu Family Secretly Returns to the Mountains
Before the end of the year, Li Ju'an bought hides at low prices in the village. His reputation spread far and wide, and every day, besides taking care of his wife and child, he would run to Old Tao's house with the child in his arms.
The widow Chen looked at the baby in his hands and liked it more and more, saying it reminded her of the days when she raised her daughter. Li Ju'an quickly asked the widow Chen for advice on raising a baby and learned how to change diapers. Old Tao was sent outside to smoke.
Old Tao, puffing on his pipe, felt something was off and asked him, "You little rascal, did you come here to collect hides?"
Li Ju'an chuckled and said, "How could that be? I just came to visit. The Sun family came looking for me. Otherwise, my house is far away, so it wouldn't be easy for them to come looking for me."
Sun Quande and his group arrived carrying heavy loads of argali hides, along with moose and roe deer hides. These weren't as valuable as the larger, more expensive fox pelts, and with the Lunar New Year approaching, most of the southern merchants had returned south, leaving no one to buy pelts. Even if they tried to contact familiar pelt buyers, prices wouldn't recover before the new year.
Even if Sun Weimin wanted to sell bear bile, he had to process it properly and dry it in the shade until after the New Year, when the price of bear bile would rise before he could sell it.
The first wave of Sun family members arrived.
The Sun family members led the mules over with smiles, unloading stacks of hides from the backs of the three mules, and shouted at the top of their lungs, "Li Ju'an! Your hides are here. Isn't that perfect? Now that the hides are here, let Old Tao do the work. This business is a complete package, very efficient!"
The speaker was Sun's second uncle.
Originally, Uncle Sun disliked Old Tao the most. Rumors circulated in the village that Uncle Sun used to follow Old Tao around, calling him "Tao Pao" affectionately, and even fought with Old Tao's father. Old Tao was a fierce hunter, eccentric and reclusive, specializing in hunting wolves and bears, and was particularly skilled at making landmines. The landmines he made had precise and perfect gunpowder control.
Old Tao's favorite thing to do when blowing up bear pens was to bring landmines, throw in those two tubes, and no matter what kind of bear peninsula it was, it would blow it to smithereens with a bang.
As a result, Old Tao stole a lot of bear pens that Old Master Sun had identified as valuable. Adding to this, Old Tao already had a bad reputation in the village; rumors circulated that his wife had died under mysterious circumstances, supposedly because he had taken her into the mountains to sell her to seahorse collectors for money, essentially exchanging her for his wife. Therefore, Old Master Sun held a strong grudge against Old Tao and refused to let his children and grandchildren go into the mountains with him.
At that time, only Uncle Sun was rebellious and wouldn't listen to advice. Uncle Sun often spoke up for Lao Tao and argued with his father, saying, "Brother Tao is not that kind of person. His wife was dragged away by wild animals in the mountains and that's why she died. She was never sold."
The old man of the Sun family was young and hot-blooded at the time. He was furious and grabbed his belt to beat him, cursing, "What do you know! You just believe what he says. A woman this age can't have children and went into the mountains and got lost. Who would believe that he wouldn't go looking for her? Besides, that woman seems to have some problems."
Old Tao's first wife wasn't from the village. It was said she wasn't very bright and was brought back by Old Tao. She also couldn't have children. Since Old Tao was an outsider, no one knew where he was originally from or where his parents were.
Rumors spread, and some even said that Old Tao had killed someone and was afraid of being arrested, so he fled to the village. This made the Sun family even more convinced that it was perfectly normal for someone with a criminal record to abduct a mentally challenged woman who couldn't have children and sell her to a thug who collected seahorses.
Uncle Sun trusted Lao Tao back then, and the two of them went hunting in the mountains together, killing many wild boars and engaging in other hunts. Lao Tao even taught him as an apprentice. But later, the two had a falling out and went their separate ways. Uncle Sun married and had children. Uncle Sun's hatred for Lao Tao was stronger than anyone else's, even stronger than that of the old man Sun had back then.
Li Ju'an smiled and helped carry the leather, saying, "Second Uncle, why do you have such a stern face again? Come in and have a cup of pine needle tea."
Uncle Sun waved his hand and said, "I won't drink. I'll just pile the leather over here."
The widow of the Chen family glanced at the second uncle of the Sun family, said nothing, and did not invite him in. Instead, she warmly invited the rest of the Sun family to come in: "Come in and sit down. It's so windy outside. Come in and warm yourself by the fire."
Uncle Sun also disliked Widow Chen. He unloaded all the hides and called Li Ju'an to count them. After Li Ju'an quickly finished counting, he waved his hand and said, "Alright, I've finished the work my brother asked me to do. I'm leaving now."
He was about to leave when Li Ju'an called out, "Second Uncle, when is your son coming to visit? That kid left his toy car on our ground last time."
Uncle Sun smiled somewhat bitterly and said, "I'll pack up and come visit you right away. Speaking of which, I haven't been able to visit your family since your child was born, so I should come over."
Li Ju'an grinned and said, "It's nothing, it's just that our home is too far away. To be honest, whose home isn't far from mine?"
"Thank goodness the road to your place is open now. It'll be much closer to your house than to the village from now on."
The Sun family laughed heartily, praising Li Ju'an for his excellent choice of the dry land. Despite the initial loss, the major road improvements to the dry land have turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
After the Sun family left, another group of Lu family members arrived. Lu Zhiqiang and Lu Jinyang were busy with the breeding farm in the county town with Song Desheng every day. Even though it was almost Chinese New Year, they were still busy and didn't have time to go into the mountains to set traps.
In Lu Zhiqiang's words, "Why bother going into the mountains to set traps? We can just drag out a local sheep, slaughter it, and eat it right away. The meat is incredibly fragrant, tender, and juicy, no less delicious than a slaughtered pig."
Lu Jinyang retorted, "If a ground sheep is really better than a pig for the New Year, then don't buy a pig for your girlfriend in Humahe. Just drag a ground sheep there and see if she snorts at it, and you'll be done with it."
Lu Zhiqiang scratched his head awkwardly and laughed, "You can't say that."
Lu Zhiqiang now makes frequent trips to the fishing villages along the Huma River. Last time, he even spent money to buy a pig from a farmer named Lao Wang. Dragging the squealing pig, he drove it all the way to his future father-in-law's house in the fishing village. He charmed his future mother-in-law and father-in-law, making them very happy. Everyone in the fishing village said he was a good man.
Lu Zhiqiang's reputation was so great that matchmakers from the fishing village came to Lijiatun to discuss marriage: "That young man from the Lu family in our village is handsome, good-looking, has a good figure, is of good character, and is also thoughtful and meticulous. Captain Yang, are there any other unmarried young men in your village? We can introduce some to him and arrange a marriage between the two villages."
Brigade leader Yang Dezheng encountered such a rare event before the Lunar New Year. The matchmaker was so eloquent that he was completely stunned. Even Old Li, a recipient of the Five Guarantees (a government welfare program for the elderly and disabled), was dragged to a matchmaking event by the matchmaker with smiles, who said that she would guarantee Old Li a wife after the Lunar New Year. Old Li was overjoyed.
It's a good thing that the two villages can visit each other more often, and that young men and women can have more blind dates. No one in the village disagreed. When the old man of the Lu family was happy, he called on his family members to also visit the fishing villages along the Huma River to find suitable partners for the remaining bachelors in the family. If they found a good-natured, hardworking, and capable girl from a respectable family to introduce to the Lu family, the old man would be overjoyed.
This gave the Lu family an excuse to go into the mountains.
The three uncles of the Lu family, the second uncle of the Lu family, and the eldest uncle of the Lu family, who had previously put down their hunting rifles, secretly picked up their hunting rifles again and carried the old man into the mountains.