Time Travel: Volume 1! Starting from a Small Mountain Village

"Hey, don't underestimate Long Zhiqing just because she's young. She's got a lot of skills! I brought people here this time partly to help lower the price, and partly because I hope you can build a good relationship with Long Zhiqing. If she gives you some pointers in the future, you'll be rolling in it."

Meeting the skeptical gaze of his old comrade-in-arms, Xu Tiansheng praised Long Zhiqing without hesitation, after all, what he said was true.

Station Chief Wu's real name is Wu Tianmu. The two of them probably got along very well in the army because they both had the character "Tian" in their names.

But an explosion injured them both, forcing them to retire at the same time; in fact, their circumstances had been quite similar before. Now that Xu Tiansheng's machinery factory is thriving, as his former comrade-in-arms, he is happy for his good brother, but also somewhat lost.

Not knowing where his agricultural market stall was headed, his eyes lit up when he heard his old comrade say this. The two of them often joked around and were both the type who didn't want to be at a disadvantage, but he knew that Lao Xu wouldn't joke about something like this.

"Hehe, you're Long Zhiqing, right!" After figuring things out, he ran up to Long Lifan with a smile and said, "Old Xu and I used to be brothers who went through thick and thin together. I heard you helped him a lot. In that case, I'll give you another penny off, 8 cents apiece. How about that?"

"Really? Thank you, Station Master Wu!" Long Lifan didn't know what Factory Director Xu had whispered to this man that caused such a drastic change in his attitude. But she was still very happy to get even a penny less, and quickly thanked him.

With the price set, the next step was to determine the quantity. The 300 yuan that Secretary Miao had brought could buy about 370 chicks. This effectively meant they got 70 extra chicks. Long Lifan suddenly realized that having Director Xu accompany them to the farmers' market was undoubtedly the right decision.

After Secretary Miao handed the money to Wu Tianmu, the two began to carefully examine the chicks. Long Lifan began to screen them one by one according to the method found in the system, trying to select chicks that could lay eggs in the future.

Long Lifan carefully placed the chicks she had selected aside, afraid that she might hurt these cute little creatures with her heavy hands.

After Wu Tianmu finished writing the receipt, he came out and found that Long Zhiqing was actually sorting through the chicks. Looking at the chicks that had been selected, as the head of the farmers' market, he could tell at a glance that Long Zhiqing had chosen all the females.

"Long Zhiqing actually knows these things?"

Wu Tianmu secretly wondered to himself. In the past, when people came to select children, they always chose the big, active ones, because they were more likely to survive. He had seen people select children like Long Zhiqing before, but they were all knowledgeable and did it so that the children would lay more eggs later.

At 300 yuan, that's 375 birds at 8 cents each. However, considering the possibility of damage during transport, Wu Tianmu bought a few more. This was perfectly reasonable; their farmers' market always did it this way.

They took out the prepared bamboo basket and lined it with a layer of straw. Just as they were putting the chicks into the basket, a loud commotion came from next door.

A staff member ran over and said to Wu Tianmu, "Station Master, you'd better go take a look! The sow that Professor Wang is in charge of next door can't give birth to piglets, and he's yelling at us to call a veterinarian!"

Upon hearing that it was Professor Wang, Wu Tianmu's face immediately fell. He greeted Xu Tiansheng and the others, and left with the staff member.

Wu Tianmu followed the staff to the pigpen, where a large black sow was lying on the ground, making grunting noises as if she were being tortured. There were two newborn piglets in the straw next to her.

The rest seemed to be going less smoothly. An old man was half-squatting in front of the sow, constantly stroking its belly. A young man stood beside him, holding a pen and paper, seemingly taking notes.

"king…"

"Did the veterinarian call?" Wu Tianmu was about to speak when he was interrupted by the old man's voice. Perhaps seeing that the sow was having a difficult birth, the old man was in a very bad mood, and his voice was almost a roar.

"I've sent someone to invite him, Professor Wang, please wait a moment!" Wu Tianmu quickly replied, trying to calm the old man down.

Despite being the station chief, Wu Tianmu dared not show any temper in front of Professor Wang. This was partly due to Professor Wang's background in Beijing, and partly because Professor Wang, as a zoology research expert, was not someone Wu could easily offend.

It can be said that a large part of the reason why the Pingwu County Agricultural Trade Station is still able to survive is because of Professor Wang. If it weren't for his breeding experiments with pigs here, the agricultural trade station would probably have been shut down by the authorities long ago.

However, Professor Wang is currently researching a white-haired pig, a species they have never encountered before. This breed of pig encounters various problems with each birth, which Wang Tianmu and his team are already used to.

Calling a veterinarian wouldn't have helped, but Professor Wang refused to believe it and insisted they call one every time. What could they do with such a stubborn and obstinate professor?

"Slapping its belly like that won't do any good! It will kill it."

Just as everyone was anxiously waiting for the veterinarian to arrive, a clear voice rang out. Following the sound, they saw Xu Tiansheng leading Long Lifan over.

Long Lifan immediately noticed the sow lying on the ground; it was clearly experiencing a difficult birth. But patting it like the old man had done wouldn't help; if it dragged on any longer, the sow would die. So, she couldn't help but speak up.

However, to her surprise, there were two newborn piglets nearby, and they were white. It's worth noting that white pigs are an imported species and were generally rejected; at that time, most pigs raised were native black pigs.

But in about ten years, these white pigs quickly took over the market due to their fast growth cycle, and at that time, almost every household raised white pigs.

"Who are you, spouting nonsense here? Do you even know what kind of pig this is?"

Upon hearing a girl criticize his teacher, the young man immediately stood up to defend Professor Wang. His tone was condescending and disdainful. Professor Wang turned to see who was speaking and saw a young girl.

"Landrace pigs, also known as large white pigs, originated in the Netherlands. The advantage of this type of pig is its fast production cycle; it can grow to more than 200 pounds in just 4 to 6 months. However, it also has many disadvantages. First of all, the piglets are relatively large and not easy to reproduce, just like now."

"Secondly, they have poor physical condition and relatively low disease resistance, and they have extremely high requirements for the breeding environment, otherwise they are very prone to getting sick."

Long Lifan recounted everything she knew about white pigs, but there was one more thing she didn't mention: the meat quality of white pigs was much worse than that of black pigs, and their nutritional value was also lower than that of local black pigs. However, for people who couldn't even afford meat these days, who cared about nutrition? Having meat to eat was good enough.

"You..." The young man was shocked to hear Long Lifan's words. The other party actually knew, and not only knew, but knew so much about it.

"Young lady, since you know so much about these pigs, do you have any good solutions for this situation?" Professor Wang, who had been listening to Long Lifan's detailed explanation of the white pigs (which seemed to be even more thorough than his own as a researcher), couldn't help but ask.

In truth, he knew that even if the veterinarian came, it wouldn't be of much use, but listening to the little girl's words, he decided to give it a try, even if it seemed hopeless.

"The white pig is relatively large, but it has already given birth to two piglets, which means its uterus is wide enough for delivery. It's likely that the piglets inside are breech. What you need to do now is to get it up and walk around a few times, which will help reverse the position."

Wang Hongtao hesitated for a moment because the little girl's method was so simple. He was afraid that herding the sow would exhaust her strength, making it difficult for her to give birth and even causing her death.