Reborn in 80: Starting with hunting in the mountains to get rich

Li Ju'an laid out mountain delicacies, including medicinal herbs and other mountain delicacies he had gathered from the mountains, as well as a skinned lemur and a complete lemur skin.

An auntie who was passing by asked about the price, but didn't haggle, just shook her head and left.

He wondered if he was unfamiliar with local prices after his rebirth and had overcharged. He simply stood up and walked around the various stalls selling local delicacies to see how much others were asking for.

There are several stalls selling wild boar meat and bear meat, with prices ranging from 30 to 35 cents per pound.

Li Ju'an removed the two black guns, took the accessories, and went into the county town. He seized the opportunity and saw that the two men who were setting up stalls were also hunters, so he offered them a cigarette to get on their good side.

"Brother, we hunted a black bear! The meat is good, plentiful, and cheap!"

The two hunters were straightforward men. Seeing that he was a young man who was sensible and perceptive, they were happy to chat with him for a while.

"What did you hunt that you're selling?"

"On a single trip, I caught a jumping cat and a yellow-haired cat. We ate some at home, and divided up the extra meat to sell."

The two hunters, cigarettes dangling from their lips, glanced sideways at his palm, and chuckled silently without saying a word.

"Young man, which mountain are you from? A newbie, huh? How many hunting dogs did you bring up the mountain?"

Li Ju'an knew that hunters all had their own methods and could tell the difference in experience and skill between each other. In the eyes of these experts, the wild boar he had hunted was nothing compared to what the veteran hunters had to offer.

He forced himself to put on a brave face and said, "I'm from Lijiatun in Xing'anling. I brought a big spotted dog and an old yellow dog."

The hunter grinned at him, thinking, "How could a guard dog possibly catch the eye of an expert?" They took Li Ju'an's cigarettes and pointed out a path.

“Young man, if we’re talking about that corner of Lijiatun in the Xing’an Mountains, Old Tao, the professional hunter of hunting dogs, lives in your village. The hunting dogs trained by him are sought after by hunters from all over the mountains. As a novice hunter, it’s not right for you not to ask Old Tao to buy your hunting dogs.”

Li Ju'an had heard of Lao Tao's name before. When the villagers talked about him, they all avoided the topic and showed disdain, as if they were talking about an oddball.

He had also heard of Lao Tao's training of Da Hu. That hunting dog was a Qingchuan dog, one of which was stronger than ten, daring to compete with wild boars, and was known as the local "jungle warrior".

Li Ju'an was also very interested and asked the two hunter brothers: "How do you sell Master Tao's dogs? Do you usually buy a trained hunting dog, or send it over to Master Tao to train?"

The hunter brother started talking, puffing on his opium, and began to chat with him.

In their younger days, the Lu family hunted in the mountains. They brought eight dogs with them when hunting wild boars, but four died, and three were crippled by the boars. The boars, weighing four hundred pounds each, had rammed the dogs, leaving them in gruesome deaths; their intestines spilled out. The wild boars' powerful slaps were too much for the dogs to withstand. The three crippled dogs whimpered on the way back to the village, and eventually died there as well.

In the end, the Lu family's last remaining dog was so frightened that it whimpered every night, tucked its tail between its legs, and howled pitifully whenever it saw someone going into the mountains. From then on, the Lu family laid down their hunting rifles and made a living by hunting for clubs in the mountains.

But Lao Tao's trained dog, Da Hu, was rumored to be even more legendary, capable of single-handedly capturing wild boars! He also had the skill of catching foxes. The village was filled with the saying, "When a Qingchuan dog makes a move, you know it's a dog." To outsiders who disagreed, Lao Tao would simply retort, "I can subdue a dog by its own strength," implying that his trained Qingchuan dogs were all tough dogs.

“Young man, don’t be fooled by the plain-looking Qingchuan dogs that Lao Tao trains. Once they enter the jungle, they turn into tigers and are truly formidable mountain-chasing dogs.”

"Moreover, Old Tao has a strange personality. If he doesn't like someone, no matter how high the price, he won't give them a Qingchuan dog. But if someone catches his eye, even if they can't produce a single word, he'll gladly hand over a trained Qingchuan dog with both hands."

Li Ju'an was secretly alarmed; Old Tao was truly an oddball. He was very tempted by what he heard; what hunter wouldn't want a hunting dog that was stamina-rich, fast, hardworking, and strong and brave?

Suddenly, the two hunters looked up in surprise and simultaneously gazed towards the street corner.

"Oh my God, here comes Lao Tao."

When Li Ju'an turned around, he saw that the person walking past the street corner was none other than Shan Gouzi, the young man from the forest farm who had been with him.

The old man was startled and slapped on the head. So this was the same old Tao who everyone in the village avoided and gossiped about.

He thanked the two hunters and then took out the parts for the Type 56 semi-automatic rifle from the oil paper package. Experts know how to modify homemade guns. Seeing that the parts were almost new and the price was cheaper than what they sold at the supply and marketing cooperative, they immediately picked out quite a few. They happily became sworn brothers with Li Ju'an and told him to come back to them next time he needed parts.

Several hunters selling wild game gathered around.

One by one, the oil paper packages were opened, and the accessories were selected piece by piece. Some hunters, who hadn't brought enough money, simply used pheasant meat from the stalls as payment.

Li Ju'an wasn't having it. He had come to the county town to sell wild game, and all the wild game that his competitors couldn't sell was stuck in his hands. What kind of mess was this?

Seeing his sullen face, his competitors felt a little bad and simply offered him a discount. A pheasant weighing over 4 jin (approximately 2 catties) would normally sell for 2 yuan, but Li Ju'an only gave him a discount of 1.2 yuan. A half-jin (approximately 2.5 kg) pheasant would cost 5 mao (0.5 yuan), so he was given a discount of 3 mao. It was a good deal no matter how you looked at it.

As the accessories were sold, Li Ju'an's pockets swelled with more and more yuan, a thick wad of yuan, all earned from selling gun accessories.

Two stacks of Treasuries, a huge sum of money!

He touched his chest and quickly hid the ten-yuan note inside his cotton coat, tucking it tightly into his inner garment; otherwise, he wouldn't feel at ease keeping it in his pocket.

He was overjoyed. He disassembled the two black guns whose serial numbers had been filed down, sold the parts separately, and used the money to buy a legitimate, high-quality gun from the supply and marketing cooperative. After all, no one could carry a black gun into the forest farm and flaunt it in front of the forest farm's security department; that would be utterly foolish.

Li Ju'an returned to the stall with two stacks of ten-yuan notes hidden on his person, a woven bag of pheasants, half a jin of wild boar meat, wild boar meat, and tobacco leaves at 2 cents per jin.

He noticed that Lao Tao, a professional dog breeder in Qingchuan, was squatting next to him, also setting up a stall and selling a simple live roe deer.

Wild roe deer are now protected animals and cannot be hunted, but in this era, they were highly sought after. Besides their meat and fur, they could be sold as medicine in the pharmaceutical market. As long as there was sufficient quantity, they would be a valuable commodity.

But it's not easy to sell a live roe deer for a good price.

Old Tao wasn't in a hurry. He patiently squatted on the ground, silently watching the crowds coming and going at the market.

He noticed that the young man beside him had brought a lot of prey and was selling it very quickly.

Li Ju'an raised his voice and shouted loudly, "Meat for sale! All kinds of meat are available!"

"Wild boar meat and bear meat are 30 cents a pound, pheasants weighing four pounds are 2 yuan each, and those weighing about three pounds are 1.5 yuan each!"

"Flying catfish are 4 cents a pound, and we're also selling hazel grouse! Half a pound of hazel grouse with flower tails is 5 yuan, selling hazel grouse!"

The extremely rare grouse was something Li Ju'an had just managed to get at a bargain price from the hunter. Combined with the linden honey he was originally selling—pure, wild, black honey from Northeast China—its value was comparable to grouse meat.

The honey collection station buys honey for 70 cents a pound, while it costs more than a dollar a pound in the market. He sells half a pound of his wild linden honey for 4 dollars.

Anyone would be curious when they encounter something unusual, and Lao Tao, a professional dog breeder in Qingchuan, is no exception.

The young man's stall, laden with so many delicacies from the mountains and rivers, caught Old Tao's attention, and he couldn't take his eyes off it. He wondered if the young man could really sell all that meat.