The bald guys were surrounded by Lao Yin and his friends, and they looked like they would be followed by them today if they didn't give an explanation. They all regretted taking on this mission.
I originally thought that they were a group of wild idiots who would obediently send the mushrooms to the town after a few threats, but I didn't expect that they would be so cunning and arrogant.
There was no other way, the flat-headed man could only point at Zhou Huaian's uncle and aunt, "They asked you to pick the red mushrooms and sent them to you, so of course they are the ones who will take them."
Old Yin grabbed Zhou Huaian and said, "Did you hear them telling you to collect the rain? The radio said there will be a heavy rainstorm today. Hurry up and collect the rain. We have to hurry home."
"This..." Zhou Huaian looked at the crew-headed man in embarrassment, "Comrade, do you really want me to take it? The Public Security Bureau won't arrest me, right?"
Li Qiuyue deliberately frowned, "Youngest brother, the comrades from the cooperative have asked you to collect the goods, what are you afraid of?"
Zhou Huaian shook his head like a rattle, "No, that won't work. If these comrades don't give us a definite answer, we'd better not take them in. My son is only a little over one year old. If I'm arrested and put in jail, how will they live in the future?"
The guy with the flat head looked at him with disgust and said, "Don't worry, just collect them. No one will catch you." Such a tall and big man, but his courage is not even as good as a woman!
Zhou Huaian looked at Lao Yin and the others and said carefully, "Fellow villagers, this comrade asked me to collect it. You all need to testify for me!"
Secretary Zhang and Li Qiuyue looked at him like a young wife and all lowered their heads to hold back their laughter.
Old Yin and the others nodded with gloomy faces, "Don't worry, as long as you still buy our red mushrooms and help us sell mushrooms, we will testify for you."
"There's nothing I can do. I'm naturally timid and need someone to accompany me to the toilet at night." Zhou Huaian smiled and took down the scale with Li Qiuyue, and Lao Yin and others stepped forward to help sort.
The flat-headed man said to Secretary Zhang and the others, "Secretaries, they are collecting red mushrooms, and we are collecting the morels and big-foot mushrooms."
Secretary Zhang smiled and said, "You can buy it, but there are goods that cost 3.5 yuan and 3.5 yuan, and there are goods that cost 15 yuan and 15 yuan. You can't just sell them at the same price."
The crew-head groaned for a moment and said, "What does the three-dollar-and-a-half-dollar product look like? Bring it here so we can see it."
Secretary Lin took out a few second-class morels from his bamboo basket and said, "Look, this is what the three-dollar and a half-dollar goods are like."
The flat-headed boy thought the morels he brought out were cleaned up and looked pretty good. After a closer look, he realized that they were much smaller than the ones he bought for 3.5 yuan in previous years. "This one is not worth 3.5 yuan. I can give you 2.5 yuan per pound at most."
"Not for sale!" Secretary Lin took the morels and left. If he reduced the price by one yuan per pound, the amount he had from home would be five or six yuan less. He really was used to eating cheaply and thought that the world was still like before, where you had the final say.
The crew-head held him back and said, "Don't tell me you guys want to sell this size for 3.50 too?"
"These are still small?" Secretary Lin pointed at the morels in the bamboo basket and said angrily, "Such a large basket of morels only weighs more than 100 kilograms.
These were found by more than a hundred households in our village, who climbed over mountains and searched all over the forests. Each one is cleaned up. I charge you three dollars and a half per pound. Is it expensive?"
The crew-haired guy's face darkened. "Last year, heads bigger than this one were only two dollars and fifty cents or three dollars. Even if the price goes up, you can't ask for an exorbitant price!"
Old Yin sneered, "It's not like before. You can't decide how much you want. The bosses in the county are offering this much. We'll sell to whoever offers the highest price!"
"I thought it was still the old almanac. Do you really think we, the mountain people, don't know anything?"
The corners of the guy's mouth twitched a few times, and he cursed inwardly: "What a bunch of troublemakers."
Lao Hei lifted up his trouser legs and saw that some parts of his calves had been scratched. "Look, the wounds on my legs were all caused by leeches. My three children's legs are also like this.
My family of five only managed to collect more than four kilograms of morels in one day. If you want good quality and cheap ones, you can go into the mountains and pick them yourself!"
Mountain leeches, scientifically known as mountain leeches, are also called land leeches. They are famous "vampires" in the mountains and forests. The rainy season is the peak period of their reproduction and activity.
They have a suction cup at the head and tail of their bodies. When they usually rest, they curl up into the size of a soybean and hide in grass, stones, and behind branches and leaves.
Whenever people or animals pass by, its body becomes elongated and it crawls up your legs unnoticed, drilling into your skin and sucking their blood. While sucking blood, it also secretes an anticoagulant substance that destroys the coagulation function of platelets in the blood.
Therefore, the wounds bitten by leeches often bleed profusely, are extremely itchy and painful; in severe cases, they may even ulcerate and cause sepsis.
Therefore, every time Yang Chunyan and her colleagues went into the mountains, they had to wear boots and tie up their trouser legs to prevent things like leeches from getting in.
The other two villagers also rolled up their trouser legs. "Even if you wear rain boots, if you're not careful, these vampires will get in and suck your blood."
"Being bitten by a leech is nothing, but being bitten by a poisonous snake can cost you your life!"
"That's right. It's not easy for us to pick some mushrooms. A few days ago, someone in the village was bitten by a poisonous snake and is still lying at home! If it weren't for the youngest brother and his friends who helped buy snake medicine, he would be dead too."
Secretary Zhang saw Xiaoping and the others glance at the villagers, then turned his head away and said to the men who were rolling up their trouser legs:
"Okay, stop making a fool of yourself here. The comrades from the cooperative are here to collect mushrooms, not to watch you get bitten by leeches or poisonous snakes.
If you want to sell mushrooms, do it quickly and take out the big-foot mushrooms and shiitake mushrooms so that they can see them, so that you don’t have to wait until a heavy rain comes and you can’t go back.”
"Okay, let's line up in front of the tractor, right? Let's line up now."
Secretary Zhang looked at the guys with the short hair and said, "Comrades, the morels are not good, but there are other mushrooms. You can all take a look."
The flat-headed man said awkwardly, "Secretary Zhang, the price you asked for is a bit high. We can't make the decision. We need to go back and ask our superiors for instructions."
After hearing this, Secretary Zhang frowned and said, "What should we do with these mushrooms? You know, mushrooms are not like corn and sorghum. If we don't sell them today, they will rot tomorrow. We still rely on these mountain products to exchange for money to buy food!"
Except for the one who was sorting red mushrooms, everyone looked at the few people, "During the lean period, we rely on selling mushrooms to make money to buy food! If the mushrooms rot, you will give us money to buy food?"
"You can sell it to whoever you want!" The short-haired man said angrily, and climbed onto the tractor bucket with his men, cursing, "You are a bunch of troublemakers!"
The tractor started to rumble, emitting a cloud of black smoke, and turned around and headed towards the town.
Everyone watched the tractor go away, looked at each other, and burst into laughter, "Hahaha...hahaha..."
Zhou Huaian gave Secretary Zhang a thumbs up, "It turns out that the older you are, the wiser you are!"
Secretary Zhang laughed and said, "It's not that we are good, it's mainly because they don't accept red mushrooms. Also, they are used to having the goods delivered to their doorsteps and begging them to buy from them. That's why they are at a disadvantage today."
"Youngest!" Old Yin called Zhou Huaian and imitated his previous words in a pinched voice, "Third sister-in-law, we won't take her in. Forget it. Don't cause any trouble. Go home. There's nothing I can do. I'm naturally timid. I need someone to accompany me to the toilet at night!"
"Hahaha! The youngest one looks like a little wife."
Li Qiuyue smiled and said, "Okay, okay, hurry up and help sort the things. If a heavy rainstorm comes later and we can't get back, it will be troublesome."
Zhou Huaian patted Lao Yin, "Let me make it clear first! I can only give you IOUs today, and I will send you the money tomorrow."
"Okay!" Old Yin nodded with a smile, "Everyone, hurry up, we still have to go back to pick up the mushrooms!"
"oh oh!"
Zhou Huaian thought about the way the guys with the short flat heads left, and said to Secretary Zhang and the others, "Uncle Zhang, I want to stop buying morels and shiitake mushrooms for two days, and let them buy some as well. What do you think?"
Secretary Zhang and his colleagues thought for a moment and nodded, saying, "They were unprepared today and suffered a loss. If we don't let them receive some goods, they will definitely cause trouble for you. When we go back, we will tell everyone that we will send the morels to the town and hand them over to the cooperative in the next two days."
"Secretary Zhang, why should we give it to them? We would rather keep it for drying than sell it!"
"That's right, you want to get the good stuff but you're reluctant to pay for it, so why should we suffer the loss?"
Secretary Yang said in a deep voice: "The arm cannot beat the thigh. If we don't want to suffer any loss, we won't even be able to sell red mushrooms in the future!"
Old Yin took over and said, "If they get the youngest brother in jail, we won't be able to sell any truffles, let alone red mushrooms."
"Everyone, think positively. During the two days when we send it to the cooperative, we can just act like the youngest brother and confiscate the morels!"
"Yes, last year the youngest one was confiscated, so we sold it to them as well."
"Okay, now that we've agreed, let's get to work."
Secretary Zhang, Secretary Lin, and Secretary Yang also understood that everyone was just complaining. After all, they only cost three or four yuan per pound, and they would not really not send the mushrooms to the shared rental society.
Everyone came forward to help. The goods of Lao Yin and Bai Lingshan were selected by the villagers who gathered together. They were quickly sorted and weighed.
Zhou Huaian gave them a note and asked them to bring the money tomorrow. They would go back and pay each household according to two cents of their weight.
A group of men, some holding a basket, quickly moved the mushrooms to the truck bed, helped cover it with the tarpaulin, and then hurried back.
Li Qiuyue said to Zhou Huaian, "Youngest, hurry up. Your third brother went back and told mom and the others about what happened here. They must be very worried."
"Uh-huh!"
Zhou Huaian started the tractor and drove back quickly. When he was halfway there, he saw Wang Zhen speeding towards him on a motorcycle. When they saw each other, they both braked suddenly.
Wang Zhen turned the motorcycle around and rode in front of Zhou Huaian, pointing at the goods in the truck bed in surprise, "Brother-in-law, what's wrong with these goods?"
Zhou Huaian got off the tractor and told him what happened. "Originally, we only collected red mushrooms, which didn't affect them at all. This year, we added a lot of varieties, and they couldn't get the goods, so they were anxious."
Li Qiuyue said happily: "Uncle Zhang's method is still the best. Those people who were harassed by Old Yin and his gang had no choice but to leave in disgrace." (End of this chapter)
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