Chapter Summaries

Jia Tianlong bought over 430,000 yuan of medicinal herbs from Li Long and described how villagers he had tried to help sold their best astragalus to his competitor. After the deal, Li Long picked up Mingming and Haohao and found his mother, Du Chunfang, still watching over them at preschool.

• Jia Tianlong told Li Long that villagers, including relatives, had sold their best astragalus to a competitor and left him only inferior roots, so he stopped helping those who had betrayed his trust.
• Jia Tianlong saw Li Long's large stock of medicinal herbs, rented a second truck, and had his staff inventory and load the goods.
• Jia Tianlong paid Li Long more than 430,000 yuan for the herbs, then left to deliver them and seek suppliers in Ili.
• Li Long deposited most of the payment, kept some working capital for Gu Boyuan, and drove to the Team's Preschool Class to collect Mingming and Haohao.
• Du Chunfang told Li Long she would keep watching the twins because she had missed caring for him when he was young.

Li Long learned from Li Jianguo how Mohé Tobacco had been made and handled plans for his beef-jerky business before heading into the mountains to trade. He heard that a gun-carrying man had confiscated fritillaria from several traders, leaving him determined to investigate.

• Li Long took Mingming, Haohao, and Mom to Li Jianguo's house, where Li Jianguo explained how tobacco stalks were processed and roasted into Mohé Tobacco.
• Li Long discussed drying rooms, meat supplies, and a possible telephone with Sister Yang, then considered preparing a separate room for Mingming and Haohao.
• Li Long dropped the children off at the Preschool Class, spoke with Meng Hai about road repairs, and drove into the mountains with supplies.
• A trader told Li Long that a man on horseback carrying a gun had confiscated fritillaria from several people coming to trade.
• Li Long decided to investigate the confiscations.

Li Long tried to restore the herb diggers’ trust in trading at the Wooden Cabin while investigating the Forest Ranger who had been confiscating Fritillaria. After Bolati arrived with more Fritillaria, Li Long told him about the intruder, and Bolati reacted furiously, leaving them to investigate who was behind it.

• Li Long reasoned that the man confiscating Fritillaria was likely connected to the Forestry Team and concluded that his visits were hurting business at the Wooden Cabin.
• Wu Bensheng and his nephew traded Fritillaria with Li Long, then encouraged other herb diggers to trust him and come trade; braised meat drew more customers that afternoon.
• Li Long arranged with Ke Youmu to supply at least five hundred kilograms of beef and mutton daily and learned that Ke Youmu’s family had opened a successful offal soup shop.
• Li Long told Gu Boyuan about the Forest Ranger and planned to wait for Bolati or try to catch the man himself.
• Bolati brought two sacks of Fritillaria, and Li Long told him about the confiscations; Bolati said the area was his territory and angrily demanded to know who was causing trouble.

Li Long investigated a young man who had confiscated herb gatherers’ fritillaria from his cabin and learned that Ablikim had done it to pay gambling debts. After Aili dealt with Ablikim and Bolati promised to watch the cabin, Li Long planned to compensate the herb gatherer whose fritillaria had been taken.

• Bolati told Li Long about a young gunman who had confiscated fritillaria, and they suspected Ablikim because he had lost his wages and sheep gambling on ankle bones.
• Bolati reported the incident to Team Leader Aili, who investigated and summoned Ablikim.
• Ablikim confessed to taking fritillaria to get cash, and Aili took his gun to cover the team’s losses before Ablikim’s father took him home.
• Li Long traded cooked offal for fritillaria throughout the day and accumulated more than two hundred kilos.
• Bolati returned with fritillaria from the team and told Li Long that Ablikim had been sent home and would be kept away from the cabin.
• Li Long accepted Bolati’s offer to watch the cabin and planned to compensate the herb gatherer whose fritillaria Ablikim had taken.

Li Long arranged for Ke Youmu to supply cooked offal, traded it for fritillaria in the mountains, and explored ways to transport larger loads. Later, Jia Tianlong arrived early with an urgent order and admitted his attempt to source fritillaria in Ili had failed, leaving him dependent on Li Long’s stock.

• Li Long praised Ke Youmu’s wife’s offal soup and arranged to buy cooked offal while prioritizing good-quality meat deliveries.
• Li Long shared the offal with his family and friends, then traded it at the Wooden Cabin for fritillaria as mountain gatherers exchanged increasingly large harvests for food and cash.
• Li Long asked Li Xiangqian about finding a larger vehicle and heard that a retired worker had discovered a jade boulder weighing more than three tons near the Ma River.
• Li Long decided not to bring his own high-quality jade out of the mountains, and Bolati later reported that Abulikemu was grazing sheep under his father’s watch.
• Around May 20, Li Long collected fritillaria from local teams, and Jia Tianlong arrived early to fulfill an urgent order after failing to buy enough stock in Ili.

Zheng Sanyang failed to secure fritillaria from Abulaiti and went to Li Long’s purchasing station to cause trouble, only to discover its prices were far above what he expected. The chapter ended with Li Long encountering the injured Mo Linsheng again in the mountains.

• Abulaiti refused Zheng Sanyang’s offer and had the forest rangers drive him from the Forestry Team office.
• Zheng Sanyang learned from Abudula that Li Long had bought the team’s fritillaria and then identified Li Long as his rival.
• Zheng Sanyang went to Li Long’s purchasing station and falsely claimed he had arranged a purchase with Li Long.
• Gu Boyuan rejected Zheng Sanyang’s offer of seventy yuan per kilogram, and the traders revealed that the station already paid around that much for fritillaria.
• Li Long encountered the injured Mo Linsheng again in the mountains.

After a wolf attack left him injured, Mo Linsheng sheltered at Li Long’s mountain cabin and killed the same wolf when it came after him again. Li Long returned to find him alive, and planned to give him clothes and put him to work while he recovered.

• Mo Linsheng returned to Li Long’s cabin with multiple wounds from a wolf attack, traded fritillaria for food and medicine, and decided to stay somewhere safer instead of continuing to dig in the mountains.
• Bolati told Li Long and Mo Linsheng that wolves had killed a lone fritillaria digger near Red Mountain Mouth, and Li Long left Mo Linsheng an iron spade before driving away.
• That night, the wolf attacked Mo Linsheng at the shelter, but he struck it with the spade and pursued it until he killed it near the spring.
• Mo Linsheng dragged the dead wolf back to the fire, treated his wounds, and slept until Li Long returned the next morning.
• Li Long praised Mo Linsheng for killing the wolf and offered him clothes, thinking he could have him help out while he recovered.

After Li Long warned Mo Linsheng to recover and leave the mountains, Mo Linsheng ignored his advice and secretly began buying fritillaria with his hidden money. His cautious first day of trading succeeded, and he stayed alert at the Wooden Cabin overnight.

• Li Long treated Mo Linsheng's injuries, butchered the wolf, and warned him not to keep risking himself in the mountains.
• Li Long bought fritillaria from several traders, including two men who had previously robbed Mo Linsheng, then told Mo Linsheng he would be away the next day.
• Li Long rejected Mo Linsheng's offer to buy fritillaria in his absence, advised him to heal and leave, and later departed for the County Seat after Bolati visited.
• Mo Linsheng dug up his hidden money, buried most of it behind the Wooden Cabin, and kept a thousand yuan to buy fritillaria.
• Mo Linsheng bought around fifty kilograms of fritillaria that afternoon, traded some wolf meat, and kept the fire burning high through the night.

Li Long traveled to the Kuytun Farm Machinery Factory, tested and purchased a newly developed drying machine, then returned to the Dried Meat Processing Workshop to begin testing it on meat. He left the machine under a temporary shelter while Sister Yang worked out the drying time.

• Li Long rode west to the Kuytun Farm Machinery Factory, where Factory Director Du showed him the factory-built drying machine.
• Li Long and Factory Director Du dried steamed buns in the machine, and Li Long confirmed that it worked well and learned its safety precautions.
• Factory Director Du arranged for the machine to be loaded onto the truck and gave Li Long over thirty thousand yuan as his share of the snow-clearing machine profits.
• Li Long returned to the County Seat, asked Gu Boyuan to pause purchases, and brought Sun Jiaqiang and Liang Shuangcheng to help unload the machine at the Dried Meat Processing Workshop.
• Li Long explained the operating procedure to Sister Yang, who began testing how long the machine needed to dry meat.
• Li Long built a temporary plastic-covered shelter over the machine to protect it from rain.

Mo Linsheng was robbed and beaten by the two men he had previously defeated, but Bolati arrived and rescued him. After spending the night injured in the Wooden Cabin, Mo Linsheng opened the door the next morning and saw two people approaching from the trees.

• The two men recognized Mo Linsheng at the Wooden Cabin, later noticed his injuries, and returned to beat him and steal his fritillaria and money.
• Bolati arrived on horseback, stopped the attackers at gunpoint, freed Mo Linsheng, and took the men back to the Forestry Team.
• Bolati stored the fritillaria in the Small Room and showed Mo Linsheng how to secure the door before leaving him to recover.
• That night, Mo Linsheng went to the Spring Water, heard wolves howling nearby, and rushed back inside, where his wounds began bleeding again.
• The next morning, Mo Linsheng opened the door for fresh air and saw two people emerge from the trees and approach.

Mo Linsheng waited at the mountain cabin while herb gatherers arrived to sell their fritillaria, and Li Long eventually took him back to the County Seat. The fritillaria season was nearly over, and Li Long returned to the Purchasing Station with a record-sized load.

• Wu Bensheng and Wu Donghai arrived with sacks of fritillaria and bedding, said they were leaving the mountains, and waited for Li Long to buy their herbs.
• Mo Linsheng hosted the Wu uncle and nephew and several other herb gatherers, who shared porridge while waiting at the cabin.
• Li Long arrived, bought fritillaria from the waiting gatherers, and Bolati joined them after checking that Mo Linsheng was safe.
• Mo Linsheng told Li Long about the previous day's attack, and Li Long bought his and Bolati's fritillaria before driving the injured Mo Linsheng to the County Seat.
• Mo Linsheng checked into the county guesthouse, while Li Long took the loaded Jeep to the Purchasing Station, where Sun Jiaqiang and Liang Shuangcheng helped unload roughly five or six hundred kilograms of fritillaria.

Mo Linsheng adjusted to life back in the county town while Li Long finished a highly profitable fritillaria season. Chen Hongjun visited Li Long to collect dividends and learn from his business, leaving with plans to improve his Purchasing Station.

• Mo Linsheng got a haircut, bought clothes and toiletries, washed his workwear, and ate a large meal before meeting Wu Bensheng and Wu Donghai at the guesthouse.
• Mo Linsheng, Wu Bensheng, and Wu Donghai agreed to take the bus to Wu City together the next day.
• Li Long bought fritillaria from both Forestry Teams and the mountain harvest, reaching a total of twelve or thirteen metric tons before the season ended.
• Li Long distributed midyear bonuses, while the Purchasing Station and dried meat workshop continued operating with improved equipment and less seasonal pressure.
• Chen Hongjun visited Li Long, received a twenty-thousand-yuan dividend, and discussed business practices, taxes, product quality, and the risks of buying hides and wild mushrooms.
• After touring Li Long's Purchasing Station, Chen Hongjun took away new ideas and hurried back to put them into practice.

After the Fritillaria season ended, Li Long visited his family’s fields and persuaded them to hire long-term farmhands from their home village rather than expand their land or keep overworking themselves. At Little Haizi, he saw that the embankment remained vulnerable and decided to seek expert advice on making it secure.

• Li Long took Mingming and Haohao to preschool, then visited his mother and sister-in-law at the Fourth Team and watered the vegetable seedlings.
• Li Qingxia told Li Long that water rats had damaged several fishing nets, and he planned to try catching the rats with a cast net.
• Li Long argued that the family should hire farmhands instead of clearing more land, and Li Jianguo and Li Qingxia agreed to find workers from their home village.
• Li Long suggested hiring a worker with a family and offering the east room in his yard as accommodation.
• Li Long went with Li Qingxia to Little Haizi, saw the vulnerable embankment, and decided to consult a water conservancy expert about a lasting repair.

Li Long learned that Little Haizi’s dam could fail in a major flood and arranged to build an additional floodgate at his own expense. After the team leader agreed to the plan, Li Long turned his attention to checking whether the mountain road project had started.

• Li Long helped Li Qingxia catch fish at Little Haizi, then discussed the dam’s flood risk with Li Jianguo.
• Li Long proposed building a floodgate on the North Dam Line, and Li Jianguo explained that the team and township would need to be notified.
• Li Long told Xu Chengjun he would pay for the floodgate, and Xu Chengjun agreed to report the plan to the township and have the team provide labor.
• Li Long slaughtered two sheep at Old Ma's Place and, after wondering whether Meng Hai and the others had begun building the mountain road, decided to check the work the next morning.

Li Long visited Meng Hai’s mountain road crew with food and wages, then followed suspicious tracks and discovered a man secretly panning for gold. He confronted the frightened prospector about the illegality of unauthorized gold panning.

• Li Long gave an herb gatherer cash for fritillaria and shared food with him on his way into the mountains.
• Li Long brought cooked offal and four thousand yuan to Meng Hai, who described the crew’s road-building progress and plans.
• Li Long left the road crew and followed tracks from an abandoned Earth Cellar to a river tributary.
• Li Long watched a man pan several batches of gold dust and recognized the activity.
• Li Long approached the prospector, inspected his gold dust, and asked whether he knew unauthorized gold panning was illegal.

Li Long discovered gold hidden in an abandoned mine, buried the remains of Lü Youcai, and let Tao Shengli go after warning him to leave the mountains. He returned to the roadwork site and planned to visit Yongfeng the next day to look for Lü Youcai’s descendants.

• Li Long questioned Tao Shengli about panning for gold and followed him to an abandoned mine where he had been living.
• Li Long found two packets of gold hidden above the mine entrance, along with a cloth strip naming Lü Youcai of Yongfeng.
• Li Long buried Lü Youcai’s bones and told Tao Shengli he would not arrest him, but warned him to leave the mountains or risk arrest if they met again.
• After Li Long left, Tao Shengli retrieved the gold he had hidden near his earth cellar and hurried away.
• Li Long ate with Meng Hai and the Qingshui River villagers at the roadwork site, then drove back and decided to search Yongfeng for Lü Youcai’s descendants.

Li Long traced Lü Youcai to his family in Liuhudi and told Wang Xiangyu that her husband had been killed in the mountains. He gave her two thousand yuan from the gold dust Lü Youcai had left behind, and the chapter ended as Lü Youcai’s son and daughter-in-law arrived.

• Li Long asked Li Jianguo about Yongfeng and learned it had once been called Liuhudi, though Li Jianguo knew of few Lü families there.
• Li Long questioned Old Man Zhu, who recalled that Lü Youcai had moved to Liuhudi in the sixties, married a local woman, and later disappeared in the mountains.
• Li Long followed Old Man Zhu’s directions to the Lü family home and met Wang Xiangyu, Lü Youcai’s wife.
• Li Long gave Wang Xiangyu Lü Youcai’s note and told her that her husband had been killed while panning for gold.
• Li Long offered Wang Xiangyu two thousand yuan from the gold dust, and Lü Youcai’s son and daughter-in-law entered the yard.

Li Long told Lü Dehai and Wang Xiangyu that Lü Youcai’s remains showed injuries and might have been left by a murder, prompting the family to investigate a former teammate. Lü Dehai arranged to retrieve his father’s bones, and Li Long took him into the mountains the next morning.

• Li Long explained how he found Lü Youcai’s remains, and Lü Dehai invited him to stay and eat while the family learned the news.
• After Li Long described injuries on the bones and an emptied hiding place, Wang Xiangyu suspected Liu Huijun, who had left shortly after the team returned from the mountains.
• Lü Dehai questioned Zhou Yulong and learned that Liu Huijun had been paired with Lü Youcai before moving away and later dying.
• Lü Dehai agreed to collect his father’s bones with Li Long’s help, while Wang Xiangyu stayed home.
• Li Long drove Lü Dehai to the county seat and arranged to take him into the mountains the following morning.

Li Long helped Lü Dehai recover Lü Youcai’s remains and then rescued Tao Shengli after Bolati caught him gold panning. On the drive back, Li Long considered developing a tractor-pulled pesticide sprayer after learning about cotton growers’ need for spraying services.

• Li Long took Lü Dehai to the grave where he had buried Lü Youcai’s bones, and Lü Dehai gathered the remains and prepared to take them home.
• Li Long found morels while waiting, then returned with Lü Dehai to the road crew and ate lunch with him.
• Bolati brought in Tao Shengli, whom he had caught gold panning, and Li Long persuaded Bolati to release him in exchange for some of Tao Shengli’s gold dust.
• Li Long told Tao Shengli that Lü Dehai was Lü Youcai’s son, and Tao Shengli learned that Li Long had helped the family recover the remains.
• Li Long asked Lü Dehai about cotton spraying in his area, and Lü Dehai said farmers would use an affordable tractor-pulled spraying service.
• As they reached the County Town, Li Long considered developing a pesticide-spraying machine for cotton growers.

Li Long paid Tao Shengli for his placer gold, investigated the county’s growing cotton acreage, and began designing a tractor-pulled cotton sprayer. Lü Dehai brought his father’s remains home and discussed burying them and buying a tractor, while Tao Shengli was left deciding whether to return to the mountains for more gold.

• Li Long bought Tao Shengli’s placer gold for eight hundred yuan and took him to the guesthouse, while Tao Shengli privately wondered whether he should retrieve the gold he had hidden in the mountains.
• Li Long studied Ma County’s cotton statistics with Li Xiangqian and concluded that cotton acreage would grow enough to justify developing a tractor-pulled spraying machine.
• Lü Dehai brought his father’s remains home, and he, Wang Xiangyu, and his mother decided to bury them beside their field and discussed buying a tractor and harvester.
• Li Long picked up Mingming and Haohao, then sketched a cotton sprayer and explained his plans to Gu Xiaoxia.