Chapter Summaries

Li Long bought jade saved by Engineer Liu, heard about the Jade Carving Factory’s decline, and encouraged the retired engineer to seek promising apprentices at the growing jade street. He later found Yusufu selling jade there and bought several thousand yuan’s worth, leaving Yusufu to reflect on how far Li Long had risen.

• Li Long paid Xiao Wu a thousand yuan for Engineer Liu’s rough jade and finished carvings, then drove Engineer Liu to the Red House for coffee and a meal.
• Engineer Liu told Li Long that the Jade Carving Factory had lost orders, cut staff, and neared collapse, and regretted that he had not passed on the Kunlun School techniques to a true disciple.
• Li Long urged Engineer Liu to look for students at the jade street, and Engineer Liu decided to rest before considering a stall there in spring.
• Li Long found Yusufu absent from his Railway Station stall and went to the jade street, where Yusufu was selling jade and described the stronger business there.
• Li Long bought good rough jade from Yusufu and other stallholders, spending at least five thousand yuan, while Yusufu gave him a discount.
• After Li Long drove away, Yusufu’s fellow stallholders marveled at Li Long’s wealth, and Yusufu wondered how his old acquaintance had become so successful.

In spring 1996, Li Long advanced plans for machine-picked cotton as Wang the Miser explored adopting the method for his cooperative. Meanwhile, Li Juan’s boyfriend Wang Yusheng and his parents visited the Li family, and the two families smoothly agreed on marriage arrangements.

• Wang the Miser learned about Li Long’s machine-picked cotton plans, but Huang Xinping declined to invest in new seeders for their cooperative.
• Li Long planned to buy a cotton picker for his cooperative and operate it himself during the coming harvest.
• Wang Yong and Hou Xiumei visited Fourth Team to formally discuss the marriage of Wang Yusheng and Li Juan.
• Li Long’s professional connections with Wang Yong and Hou Xiumei quickly put both families at ease.
• Li Jianguo refused a bride price, while the Wang family agreed to provide household furnishings, renovations, and jewelry for Li Juan.

Li Long handled Li Juan’s wedding plans, worried over Mingming and Haohao’s school concerns, and fended off buyers seeking his jade by claiming he had sold it all. Li Qiang was assigned to a research institute in Yanjing, while Li Long sold a collection of antiques to spread the impression that his valuables were gone.

• Li Long and Gu Xiaoxia settled on giving Li Juan a luxury Volga after she and Li Jianguo rejected a Mercedes-Benz.
• Li Long and Gu Xiaoxia learned that Mingming and Haohao feared attending different junior high schools from the girls they liked, and encouraged them to focus on their exams.
• Two men came to the Purchasing Station seeking Li Long’s jade, but Li Long said he had sold his good pieces in Yanjing and spread word that he had no valuable jade left.
• Li Qiang told the family he had been assigned to a research institute in Yanjing, then briefly returned home before reporting to his unit.
• Li Long sold more than twenty antiques to Boss He for over fifty-one thousand yuan, and the resellers spread news that he had sold his valuable old objects.

Li Long sold the remaining antiques at the Purchasing Station for over a hundred thousand yuan, then arranged to buy a cotton picker for the coming harvest. In August, art dealer Meng Haichuan arrived to buy the paintings and calligraphy Li Long had acquired in Yanjing, and their negotiations began with an authenticated work by Painter Qi.

• Li Long’s warehouse sale drew crowds until late July and brought in over a hundred thousand yuan, after which he distributed staff bonuses and sold the leftover scrap metal.
• Li Long agreed to buy a five-row cotton picker from Factory Director Du for 1.4 million yuan and prepared the Cotton Gin for a much larger harvest.
• Meng Haichuan contacted Li Long in August and visited the Purchasing Station with bodyguard Li Zhongping and specialist Hou Yueming to discuss buying his Yanjing paintings and calligraphy.
• Li Long brought several dozen works to the Purchasing Station and presented Painter Qi’s “Lotus Flowers,” which Meng Haichuan and Hou Yueming authenticated.

Li Long sold dozens of paintings to Meng Haichuan, secured an official approval for machine-picked cotton trials, and began harvesting with the Cotton Picker. The first demonstration showed that the machine cleared the fields quickly, though its dirty cotton needed gin processing before sale.

• Li Long negotiated with Meng Haichuan, selling dozens of paintings for about two million yuan, including the Lotus Painting for 480,000 yuan.
• Li Long deposited the proceeds, gave the Purchasing Station staff bonuses, and told curious resellers a partial account of the sale.
• Li Long and Xie Yundong prepared selected cotton fields for machine harvesting, while Mingming and Haohao started junior high school at No. 2 High School.
• Li Xiangqian gave Li Long an official County Cotton and Hemp Company approval for the Fourth Team's Cotton Gin to conduct machine-picked cotton trials, and Li Long made copies of the document.
• On September 24, Li Long drove the Cotton Picker into the fields and harvested a clean swath in one pass, prompting cooperative managers to consider machine harvesting despite the need to gin the dirty cotton.

Li Long expanded the Cooperative’s cotton operations with machine harvesting, stricter factory safety, and new land leases, while helping area managers secure higher bonuses. By autumn 1998, cotton prices had surged and the Cooperative had grown to twenty thousand mu, but Li Long warned that prices would fall the following year and remain low for years.

• Xie Yundong expanded the Cotton Picker’s trial to a thousand mu, and Li Long trained Li Junhai to operate it as the harvested cotton was cleaned at the Cotton Gin.
• Li Long fired Xu Feibao for smoking near the cotton and gathered the workers for a strict fire-safety briefing; Xu Feibao later struggled to find work in the County Seat.
• Li Long agreed with Xu Haijun that the Cooperative should lease more land and raise bonuses for managers whose drip-irrigated fields yielded over three hundred kilograms per mu.
• The Cooperative approved higher bonuses, leased another five thousand mu by spring, and drew attention from county and prefecture reporters as cotton cultivation spread.
• In autumn 1998, the Cotton and Hemp Company offered 6.6 yuan for cotton, prompting Li Long and Xie Yundong to raise area managers’ bonuses to thirty thousand yuan as the Cooperative’s acreage reached twenty thousand mu.
• The Fourth Team prospered, Li Juan gave birth to Wang Lei, and Li Long warned that cotton prices would fall the next year and remain low for seven or eight years.

In 2001, Li Long secured approval to buy cotton and used his cotton gin and harvesters to offer farmers an alternative to private buyers and costly hand-picking. The chapter left him preparing for a major machine-picking harvest as the Fourth Team planted all its cotton for machine harvesting in 2002.

• Rising supply costs and picking wages squeezed cotton farmers, while Li Long expanded his sugar trade and the Cooperative continued earning modest profits through drip irrigation.
• Li Long obtained Autonomous Region approval for his cotton gin to purchase cotton and refused investors’ pressure to join their associations or coordinate prices.
• Farmers brought cotton to Li Long’s gin, where he paid cash and explained machine-harvesting costs and requirements to those considering it for the next year.
• After Li Long’s television interview publicized machine-picking methods, the County Agriculture Bureau estimated that nearly half the county’s cotton farmers planted machine-picked cotton in 2002.
• Li Long ordered two more cotton pickers and recruited local young men to train as operators, while the Fourth Team planted all its cotton for machine harvesting.
• Li Long cast a net from Little Haizi’s North Dam Line as he looked ahead to the coming harvest.

The author explained the delay in posting the June monthly ticket prize draw and said they would take a break before starting the next book in late July. They announced the top contributors and prize winners, then returned to writing.

• The author said a power outage delayed posting the draw results and explained that they had already conducted the draw on June 30.
• The author decided to rest and postpone the next book until late July after more than two years of frequent updates and upcoming family obligations.
• The author reported receiving 8,874 monthly tickets and drawing ten prizes, in addition to prizes for the top three contributors.
• The author named One of the Five Pests, Sky Wolf Xiaotian Zhan, and The King's Scepter as the top contributors and listed the prize draw numbers.
• The author asked the winners to contact "Wu Liu Military Bayonet" in the group to choose their prizes, which included newly added items such as jade objects and apricots.