"These Mongolian Gazelle horns aren't up for trade." Li Long took the Mongolian Gazelle head and told Wang the Miser, "You can trade for the meat, Brother Miser, but we're keeping the horns. We have a use for them."
"Even just one would do." Wang the Miser smiled, holding a clip of ammunition. "Ten rounds for four jin of Mongolian Gazelle meat—how about I take one horn instead of the meat?"
"No, that won't do either." Li Long stood firm. "If I shoot another Mongolian Gazelle with horns next time, I can trade those with you."
"All right, then give me four jin of Mongolian Gazelle meat. From the female." Wang the Miser settled for his second choice.
Neither Li Long nor Wang the Miser said it outright, but Li Long knew that Wang the Miser probably understood what Mongolian Gazelle horns were good for.
Information didn't spread as readily back then. Most people still thought Mongolian Gazelles were like Wild Mountain Goats and would never think of them as antelopes.
Quite a few people came to trade for Mongolian Gazelle meat that day. Xu Haijun alone traded twenty rounds for ten jin.
Most came to try something new. In those days, ammunition was still fairly easy to get hold of. The militia held live-fire training twice a year. Ammunition controls were lax, too. Rounds drawn from the Armed Forces Department usually weren't returned. Although a fixed number of rounds fired was recorded, in practice, it depended on how each person felt.
At Li Long's price of ten rounds for four jin, all forty jin of Mongolian Gazelle meat had been traded away before dark. If he hadn't asked his sister-in-law ahead of time to cut off a leg from a Mongolian Gazelle and half a rack of ribs from