bookrebus Chapter 414 Starting a Livestock Farm
Chapter 414 Starting a Livestock Farm
Li Ju'an was quite happy, and he told Sun Weimin about what happened at the ranch afterwards.
“Your father is slow at hunting, so the ranch leader, Wang, said it was out of consideration for him and gave me half of the work. Lu Zhiqiang and the others should be on their way to help hunt the sheep now.”
He waved his empty hands. There wasn't a single mink cage around him; all four minks had been lent to the ranch to catch wild sheep.
Sun Weimin stared in disbelief, then sat up abruptly and shouted, "What happened next? Did they find any bombs at the ranch?"
Li Ju'an laughed and said, "What did we find? It's a complete mess. Four minks crawled down the ground and all the sheep were driven out. The ranch workers were too busy shoveling to help. At noon, the first canteen made up for the pig slaughtering feast. Captain Wang even complained that there wasn't enough fried pork."
Sun Weimin opened his mouth blankly, and after a long pause, he finally realized that he hadn't been living in fear these past two days; he had simply been tormenting himself. Nobody really cared about the bomb.
He suddenly threw off the covers and sat up, turning over and sitting on the edge of the kang (a heated brick bed), cursing angrily, "You little brat, you knew all along but didn't tell me!"
Li Ju'an crossed his arms and laughed even harder, saying, "I told you long ago, would you still come with me to hunt bears every year? It's a deal, now that things are quiet at home, you have to come with me this winter."
Sun Weimin glanced around. Seeing that he had sat up and was very calm, and could even argue with Li Ju'an, the Sun family sisters-in-law were relieved and quickly thanked the Taoist priest and saw him off.
None of the women in the family cried or made a fuss. Sun's mother came over excitedly, grasped Li Ju'an's hand, her eyes still red, and said gratefully, "It's all thanks to my nephew. If you hadn't come, we don't know when our Sun Weimin would have gotten better."
She recounted how Sun Weimin and Li Ju'an used to wear the same open-crotch pants and catch loaches when they were little. When she got emotional, she even held their hands and talked about how the two of them used to steal eggs from the chicken coop when they were young.
"You and Weimin went to steal eggs and refused to return them. Your mother scolded you, but you didn't say anything. You just got along well with Sun Weimin. I don't know what you two were doing, but you refused to get off the bed every day. Do you remember what happened after that?"
When asked about his childhood, Sun Weimin blushed with embarrassment, clearly still remembering the events, but hesitated and refused to speak.
Li Ju'an had lived two lives, and decades had passed, so he truly didn't remember. Who could remember things from decades ago? He asked curiously, "What happened? What happened to the eggs?"
While wiping away her tears, Sun's mother laughed and said, "You two rascals, you actually stuffed eggs in your pants, saying you wanted to learn how to incubate eggs like a hen. Those eggs were dirty and smelly, and they were already cooked on the kang (heated brick bed)."
Li Ju'an almost vomited. Good heavens, he actually did something like this when he was a kid?
He turned to look at Sun Weimin, who had already buried his head in the ground and was lying on the bed pretending to be dead. He covered his head with the blanket, ignoring everything outside the window. His ears betrayed his thoughts, burning red.
Li Ju'an asked, "What was Lu Zhiqiang doing back then? Didn't we grow up together?"
Sun Weimin then shouted impatiently, "Who do you think went to report the egg incident?"
Li Ju'an: "..."
Lu Zhiqiang, you little rascal, I'll remember you.
After Li Ju'an left the Sun family, the old lady and mother of the Sun family thanked him profusely and instructed him to kill the red fox.
The old lady, leaning on her cane, said, "That fox spirit must be absolved, otherwise the Taoist priest said that our dear grandson will still be bewitched by the fox spirit."
The women from the Sun family behind them repeatedly uttered "Amitabha." Li Ju'an had no idea which deity they were worshipping.
He grinned and said, "Don't worry, Grandma, I'll go into the mountains right now, catch the fox, skin it, and you can rest assured."
Ordinary people would certainly avoid the Fox Spirit. But the Sun family is a family of hunters with a fierce and ruthless nature, and they believe in the principle of "I will not offend others unless they offend me."
Before leaving, Li Ju'an winked at Sun Weimin, waved, and called out, "Let's go!"
"Walk slowly, nephew, be careful as it's snowing outside."
……
Before the second heavy snowfall of winter, Li Ju'an cleared away all the wild sheep that had been marked out of the forest farm and pasture. Otherwise, with the heavy snow blocking the roads in winter, even without heavy smoke bombs or strong winds, the frozen ground would be a thick, hard block of earth that couldn't be dug up at all, and the wild sheep wouldn't come out of the ground.
He sold most of the sheep hides and bones to Pang Duolai, who borrowed money from Zhang Yingnian to buy the hides. He sold the sheep bones to a traditional Chinese medicine shop to raise money. He sold some of the sheep hides, which were of slightly lower quality, to merchants in the county town who bought them in small quantities.
His impression after this trip was that, since the policy was relaxed, there were significantly more individual business owners. Businesses on the streets of town were booming, and wealthy people were willing to spend money.
Some hunters even tanned the hides themselves, making coats from the pelts to sell, and some people would haggle over the price to buy them. This would have been absolutely unthinkable in the past.
When Song Desheng heard that Li Ju'an was hunting wild sheep, he took the initiative to come over and brought another brother with him, saying, "Brother Li, can you sell me a few live wild sheep? I'm planning to start a breeding business with my cousin, and we'll take over the brick kiln next door and turn it into a breeding farm."
Upon hearing this, Li Ju'an realized that Song Desheng's idea of starting a breeding farm had been brewing for some time. He asked, "What did your cousin do in the past?"
"You know him? He used to raise pigs in the production team. Last time his pigs ran away, you were the one who helped find them."
Li Ju'an remembered that when the production team was still in operation, the pigs had indeed run away once, which made the production team leader so anxious that he sent people all over the mountain to search for them. It took seven days and seven nights to find the pigs.
Song Desheng said, "Brother Li, I'll go back to the village with you and discuss this matter with Lu Zhiqiang as well."
Lu Zhiqiang had been wanting to start a breeding farm for a while now. These two were in the same boat; one wanted to raise snow frogs, the other black bears, or even bear cubs. Li Ju'an, on the other hand, thought raising wild sheep was a good idea.
In the 90s, the price of sheep bones skyrocketed, becoming comparable to that of tiger bones. Since the trade in tiger bones was prohibited in later generations, sheep bones were used as a substitute, causing prices to soar overnight.
Li Ju'an nodded and said, "No need to buy from me, I'll just become a partner and invest. Let's run it together!"
Song Desheng's eyes lit up, and he exclaimed in surprise, "Brother Li, you're really willing to cooperate? This is quite a commotion, hahaha, I thought you were going to give me a good scolding again."
Li Ju'an laughed and said, "What were you thinking about all this time? Raising bear cubs to extract bile in three to five years, then wanting to raise snow leopards and blue sheep—can you only raise one of those?"
They're all protected animals, each with a higher level of protection than the last. I'm afraid I'll get tired of eating them in prison.
Song Desheng was satisfied and grinned as he leaned close to him, saying, "Then let's invite Lu Zhiqiang over to my house for a visit. It'll be a good opportunity for us to plan this matter properly. Isn't Lu Jinyang quick-witted? Let him manage the finances; he'll be a fast calculator."
"Absolutely. We must drag Lu Jinyang into this too. The capable should do more."
"Ha ha ha ha."