Chapter 136: Chapter 127: Selling the Big Pelt in Town

"Brother, I won’t see you out then."

"Big Brother, go on and eat with Sister-in-law."

As soon as Li Dayong left the Zhao’s house and the door clicked shut, Wang Meilan started complaining to Zhao Youcai, "Wasn’t running around outside all day enough for you? Now you’re going to be gone for a whole day and night tomorrow?"

"It’s not for a day and a night." Zhao Youcai shook his head and said, "Tomorrow, we’ll go over, track the pig’s movements, confirm the hunting ground, spend one night on the mountain, and then hunt the day after."

"So, two days then?"

"Mhm." Zhao Youcai nodded. "Two days. We’ll definitely take it down."

"You’re obsessed, I tell you!"

The next morning, Zhao Youcai was up bright and early again. It was just past five, still dark out, when he started bustling about, slicing salted vegetables, cooking flatbread, and steaming sticky bean buns.

How could he possibly fight on the mountain for two days and one night without enough food?

By the time it was past seven, Zhao Youcai had all the food prepared. Only then did he go out to notify Wang Qiang and Lin Xiangshun.

Before eight o’clock, Zhao Youcai returned home. A moment later, he was heading out again, carrying a rifle in one hand and a satchel in the other.

Zhao Jun, who was in the middle of eating, was surprised to see this. He put down his chopsticks and was about to ask, but Wang Meilan stopped him.

Wang Meilan said irritably, "Don’t mind him. Eat your food."

Zhao Jun understood immediately. His father, that Zhao Ergudong, must have made his mother angry.

After he finished eating, he went back to his room, grabbed his satchel, and slung it over his shoulder. He didn’t take a rifle, though. Leaving his room, he said to Wang Meilan, "Mom, I’m heading into town."

"Be careful, son." As Wang Meilan spoke, she pulled a roll of money from her pocket and handed it toward Zhao Jun.

Zhao Jun reached out, but instead of taking the money, he pushed it back. "No need, Mom. I’ve got money in my pocket."

With that, Zhao Jun headed out. Wang Meilan put the money away and muttered under her breath, "My son is still the best."

The moment Zhao Jun opened the door, he saw Li Baoyu standing right outside, as if about to pull the door open himself. Instead, they nearly bumped right into each other.

"Let’s go." Zhao Jun said simply, and the two walked shoulder-to-shoulder out of the courtyard.

The two of them left the village and headed straight for the place where the big market was held the other day.

The small train into town would stop at that spot around nine-thirty in the morning.

They had left early, so they weren’t in a hurry and strolled leisurely in that direction.

Li Baoyu said, "Brother, my dad and my uncle went to hunt that Pig God again. He said if they don’t get it today, they vow not to return."

Zhao Jun was speechless. That kind of phrasing had Li Dayong written all over it.

’Vow not to return... a bit like ’won’t return until we’ve smashed Loulan,’ isn’t it?’

Seeing Zhao Jun remain silent, Li Baoyu added, "My dad said they’re going to do a drive hunt today too."

Zhao Jun casually replied, "They’ve got a lot of men and a lot of rifles. They might actually pull it off."

The two arrived at the place where the market had been held. It wasn’t a market day, so there were only a few passersby and some other villagers also waiting for the small train into town.

Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu greeted the people they knew and then waited at the station for the train to arrive.

It was called a station, but it was really just a big willow tree with a wooden plank hanging from it. Painted on the plank were the two characters for "Station."

After waiting there for a short while, the small train slowly chugged into view with a blast of its whistle.

Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu boarded the second car. A table was set up by the car’s entrance, with a ticket seller sitting behind it.

"Two people." Zhao Jun handed over a twenty-fen paper bill. The ticket seller took the money, pinching it in his hand, and gave Zhao Jun two two-fen coins from a small box beside him.

The two entered the car. There were no seats; everyone was either standing or sitting on the floor. They found a less crowded corner and leaned against the wall of the car.

The train stopped for about five minutes before starting up again. After a little over an hour, they heard the ticket seller shout, "We’ve arrived at Yong’an Town."

Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu got off the train and headed straight for the state-owned store.

After walking for over twenty minutes, the two arrived at the entrance of the state-owned store. The moment they stepped inside, Li Baoyu’s eyes went wide, trying to take everything in.

Zhao Jun pulled him to the left, past the pastry counter. Ahead of them was a long row of wooden tables displaying various kinds of fur.

There were squirrel furs and weasel furs, all neatly rolled into tubes and stacked in orderly piles.

Behind the long wooden tables, two individual desks were placed perpendicular to them. A man and a woman sat at each desk, one hand flipping through a ledger, the other working an abacus.

Every now and then, they would stop their work on the abacus to pick up a pen and write something in a notebook.

Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu walked up to the long tables. Zhao Jun asked, "Are you buying large pelts?"

"We are." The moment Zhao Jun finished speaking, the woman snapped her ledger shut, pushed her abacus aside, and rose from her stool to face them.

It was said that in those days, the service attitude of employees at state-owned stores in some places was terrible; some shops even had signs up that read, "Beating customers is prohibited."

But don’t forget, this was the Northeast.

Northeasterners, regardless of gender, tend to have tough personalities.

If you act tough, you might find someone tougher than you.

Especially these Mountain Runners—which one of them hadn’t seen blood?

So, in an era where fights weren’t reported to the authorities and people didn’t try to extort each other, the service attitude of employees in Northeastern state-owned stores was actually quite decent.

Zhao Jun took the rolled-up pelt from his pocket and handed it over across the long wooden table.

The female employee took it, slowly unrolled the pelt, and spread it out on the table. After measuring it span by span with her outstretched hand, she looked up at Zhao Jun and said, "Seven hundred."

"What?" Hearing this, Li Baoyu was immediately indignant. "Someone from Yongsheng Village came down before the New Year and sold one for one thousand yuan!"

The female employee glanced at the tall and sturdy Li Baoyu and explained patiently, "The one-thousand-yuan ones are males. Females are seven hundred."

"Seven hundred it is." Zhao Jun agreed immediately. It wasn’t just with Purple Sable Fur; even with weasel pelts, the male’s was more expensive than the female’s.

This was because the guard hairs on a male’s coat were glossier and of better quality than a female’s, making it more valuable.

Hearing Zhao Jun agree, the female employee first rolled the Purple Sable Fur into a tube, then pulled out a small wooden box from under her desk and carefully placed the fur inside.

After putting the large pelt away, the employee took a key from her pants pocket, unlocked a drawer in her desk, and took out a bundle of brand-new ten-yuan banknotes.

The bundle of money was bound with a kraft paper band. The employee undid the band, counted out thirty bills from the stack to put back in the drawer, then closed it with one hand while handing the rest of the money to Zhao Jun with the other.

"Count it."

Zhao Jun took the money. Holding the stack in his left hand, he spat on his right thumb and forefinger and began to count.

The brand-new ten-yuan banknotes still smelled of ink. Beside him, Li Baoyu sniffed the air and broke into a grin.

Zhao Jun counted it twice before looking up at the employee and saying, "It’s all here."

Hearing this, the female employee nodded and sat back down.

Right there in front of the long table, Zhao Jun counted out thirty-five bills from the stack in his hand and gave them to Li Baoyu.

"Haha..." Li Baoyu took the money and couldn’t help but laugh out loud, drawing the gazes of the shoppers over at the sales counter.

Zhao Jun jabbed him with his elbow and said, "Put it away, quickly."

Li Baoyu unbuttoned his cotton-padded jacket and stuffed the money into an inside pocket.

Just then, Zhao Jun’s gaze fell upon something behind the male employee’s chair: a stack of badger pelts.

It wasn’t a big stack, only seven or eight of them.

Zhao Jun asked, "You’re even buying badger pelts now?"

This time, it was the male employee who answered. He didn’t get up, just turned his head, pushed up his glasses, and replied, "We are. We just started buying them after the New Year."

Zhao Jun asked again, "What about Black Bear pelts, wild boar hides, and roe deer skins?"

"Black Bear pelts, we might start buying those in a while," the male employee said, then thought for a moment and added, "There’s been no word about buying roe deer or wild boar hides."

"Alright, thanks." After saying this, Zhao Jun pulled Li Baoyu away from there and walked toward the sales counters.

At the general goods counter, Zhao Jun bought two tins of clam oil for Wang Meilan, and for Zhao Hong and Zhao Na, he bought two pencils with erasers on the end. Zhao Hong had been clamoring for one since the year before last.

Although Zhao Jun thought these kinds of erasers weren’t very practical, what could he do when his little sister was making a fuss about it?

Arriving at the tobacco and alcohol counter, Zhao Jun spent five yuan to buy two cartons of Huatuan cigarettes.

He was about to start his job soon. Even though he had his brother-in-law looking out for him at the Forest Farm, he still needed to build a good relationship with his direct supervisor.

Otherwise, even if people went easy on Zhao Jun out of consideration for Zhou Jianjun, he wouldn’t get a share of any good opportunities that came up.

The little shop in the village also sold these Huatuan cigarettes, but they were more expensive than down the mountain. By buying two cartons here, Zhao Jun saved nearly one yuan.

Whatever Zhao Jun bought, Li Baoyu bought too.

He bought the clam oil as a token of respect for Jin Xiaomei, and the pencils with erasers were for Li Xiaoqiao.

Li Xiaoqiao and Zhao Hong were classmates and played together every day. If she saw Zhao Hong with that kind of pencil and she didn’t have one, she would definitely throw a fit.

Seeing Zhao Jun buy cigarettes, Li Baoyu thought for a moment and also took out his money to buy two cartons.

Don’t be fooled by how reckless Li Baoyu was when running the mountains; his emotional intelligence was very high.

In a little while, Zhao Jun would be starting his job, while he himself would be learning to drive from Lin Xiangshun. Since he wasn’t an employee of the Forest Farm, he had to maintain good relations with both Lin Xiangshun and the others on the vehicle team.

"Two jin of trough cakes, two jin of oven fruits, two jin of small fried dough twists."

"I’ll have the same."

"And two jin of tangqiu."

"Me too."

The two bought some more snacks, each leaving the store carrying several brown paper bags.

They hadn’t gone far from the state-owned store when two men in black cloth padded jackets emerged from an alley next to the store and started following them.

They both wore dog-fur hats and walked with their heads down, their faces unclear. They were of average build.

After being followed for two streets, Zhao Jun noticed. Without turning his head, he shifted all his bags to one hand, reached back with the other, and flipped up the back of his cotton-padded jacket, revealing an Invasion Blade.

The two men were intently following when they suddenly saw Zhao Jun’s movement. Curious, they stared fixedly to get a better look.

The instant they saw the Invasion Blade, the two men stopped dead in their tracks. They recognized it as a knife used by Mountain Runners, and they knew that people who could make money in the great mountains were all ruthless characters.

What’s more, the Invasion Blades of some of those fifty- and sixty-year-old Mountain Runners had even drawn human blood.

The two men automatically retreated. Zhao Jun paid them no mind and just continued walking home with Li Baoyu.

It was true that the train ran from both ends of the line, but the train back to the village wouldn’t arrive for another two and a half hours.

Zhao Jun and Li Baoyu had nowhere to go in town, and on a cold winter day like this, they couldn’t just wait outside. They might as well just walk back.

It was a journey of nearly forty li. By the time they were almost home, it was close to five-thirty, and the sky was already dark.

Just as they entered the village, Zhao Jun felt something cold on his face. He looked up and saw a light snow beginning to fall.

Zhao Jun turned his head to look toward the great mountains, a feeling of worry rising in his heart.