Chapter 111

Chapter 111

Although they only had half an hour, at least they had been able to meet.

After the acupuncture treatment, Ye Qing already had a good understanding of Han Yabo's physical condition.

If we follow the plan and execute it strictly, it shouldn't be an issue for Han Yabo's body to recover to the state of a healthy peer.

Since Han Yabo's situation had been laid out in front of Zhao Yuliang, there was no need for Ye Qing to hide anything anymore. She directly exchanged information with Colonel Zhao, sharing her plan to conduct a small-scale breeding area pilot project in Kaoshan Village, as well as the possibility of opening a pharmaceutical factory in the future.

The pig farming reform in Qingshan Farm in the second half of the year had shown significant results, giving Zhao Yuliang confidence.

The county was definitely interested in Ye Qing's feed recipe and had already organized several meetings involving relevant units. Zhao Yuliang had participated in many of these discussions. There was a lot of back-and-forth over where to build it, with many towns wanting to get involved. However, since the final data from the demonstration case at Qingshan Farm hadn't been released yet, the entire plan hadn't been finalized.

The pigs were taken away by the acquisition station yesterday, and the data had already been submitted to the county government office. It was estimated that after the new year, this matter would be finalized. Ye Qing had already stated that she wouldn't interfere with this matter. However, since the recipe was proposed by her and there was a successful case at Qingshan Farm, it was likely that Qingshan Town would secure this project.

Zhao Yuliang didn't have the ambition to snatch this feed factory away. His main focus was still on farm development and farming; this was his primary job. Opening a feed factory didn't align with the military's principle of not competing with civilians, and there was no precedent for it. Even if the application was submitted, the higher-ups would only approve it if they were crazy.

However, Zhao Yuliang believed that under the premise of such a large-scale planting of grain crops and the farming of livestock, poultry, and aquatic products by the military, they could definitely add some other profitable projects. Once the factory was built, it would require a large amount of raw materials, and buying them locally would be the best option.

If the factory was ultimately built in Qingshan Town, his military farm would have a significant advantage. They could become the supplier of raw materials for the feed factory. Whatever the feed factory needed, they would grow and raise on the farm, so there would be no worry about sales.

This was why Zhao Yuliang had been so proactive in getting involved in this matter recently. His goal was to help Qingshan Town gain some support. Once the factory was built in Qingshan Town, he could secure the large orders for raw materials, bringing in extra revenue for the farm.

Previously, since their relationship wasn't that close, Zhao Yuliang wouldn't have mentioned these calculations to Ye Qing.

But now that they were considered "family," Zhao Yuliang didn't hold back with Ye Qing and directly brought up the feed factory matter, wanting to pull Ye Qing into the plan and have her voice opinions to the county.

After all, whether it was the feed recipe or the entire scientific farming plan, they were all developed by Ye Qing. Her opinion would carry significant weight. If she requested that the factory be built in Qingshan Town, the county would definitely consider it, and other counties wouldn't dare to object.

Initially, Ye Qing definitely didn't want to get involved in these matters. She didn't care which town the feed factory would be established in, as it wouldn't put any money in her pocket or lead to a promotion. The profitability of the factory wouldn't be under her control either.

But now that Zhao Yuliang had directly asked for her help, Ye Qing couldn't refuse anymore.

After all, if Zhao Yuliang really secured the raw material supplier deal for the feed factory, the military farm would indeed generate a large amount of revenue, which would be crucial for the farm's expansion.

With this achievement in hand, Zhao Yuliang would be able to firmly secure the top position as the farm leader, and no one would be able to surpass him in the future.

For Ye Qing, having Zhao Yuliang in charge of Qingshan Farm would also bring her many benefits and conveniences. Not to mention the potential for deeper cooperation in pig and cattle farming in the future, just having Zhao Yuliang's support in Han Yabo's farm reforms meant everything would be under her control. However, if Zhao Yuliang were transferred away, it would be uncertain whether the next person in charge would be as easy to work with.

Therefore, Ye Qing would definitely actively participate and strive for the establishment of the feed factory in Jiaotan County. However, whether it would ultimately succeed was up to fate.

Having succeeded in his "sneaky plan," Zhao Yuliang immediately beamed with joy. When Ye Qing and Song Chunhua were about to return to Kaoshan Village, he didn't even assign Xiao Zhu to see them off. Instead, he personally drove a military truck and sent the two all the way to their doorstep. He even affectionately called Ye Qing "niece" repeatedly, as if he wanted to officially add her to his family register.

Ye Qing was at a loss with this new "uncle." She hopped out of the truck as soon as they arrived, afraid that Zhao Yuliang might suddenly act unreasonably and insist on holding a grand recognition banquet to formally acknowledge her as his "niece" despite not sharing the same surname or blood relation.

Ye Qing ran quickly and, after entering the house, thought for a moment before returning to the door. She called out to Zhao Yuliang, who was turning the vehicle around to leave, and handed him a jar of monkey wine, a bottle of wild fruit brew, a bag of dried meat jerky, and a pack of homemade malt candy, all carefully wrapped in yellow paper.

"There aren't many good things at home, but these are slightly presentable. They didn't cost much, so please take them back and try them as my New Year's gift to you."

"Next year, let's team up and really grow the farm's breeding business. Let's make Qingshan Farm a benchmark in the military farms industry!"

Zhao Yuliang didn't pay much attention to the contents of this New Year's gift, but Ye Qing's words truly hit home for him.

He extinguished the cigarette in his mouth, smiled as he accepted the items, and his eyes lit up with determination as he responded with a loud "good." He then happily stepped on the gas and drove away, the green military truck's wheels churning in the snow, splattering mud all over Ye Qing.

Ye Qing: ...

She didn’t need to make this trip now; she could have waited until tomorrow’s lunch at the military canteen to bring it.

After meeting Han Yabo, Song Chunhua felt completely at ease. After the New Year, the school at the farm would reopen. She and Han Yabo would both be living at the military farm, even though they would be in different areas and wouldn’t see each other often. However, just knowing that her husband was nearby filled her with an unprecedented sense of joy and peace. They would be breathing the same wilderness air and looking up at the same sun and clouds in the sky.

Song Chunhua’s smile never left her face, radiating the joy and peace she felt. Upon returning to the village, she busied herself with various chores inside and out, even digging out the rags she had saved to learn how to make shoe soles from Murong Ah Po.

It was obvious that Ye Qing and Song Chunhua had encountered something good on their trip. However, the girls in the household and Murong Ah Po were all tactful and mindful. They continued with their tasks in silence, without asking any questions.

On the same day, Wu Yongbing and the old party secretary arranged for a tractor to transport the quota of pigs from the pigsties in Kaoshan Village to the acquisition station.

The pigs raised by Ye Qing were undoubtedly up to weight standards. They even exceeded the targets, making Kaoshan Village stand out far above the other production teams in the Red Flag Commune this year.

The other team leaders were astonished and eager to learn Kaoshan Village’s secret to raising such high-quality pigs. They crowded around Wu Yongbing, hoping to learn his methods.

Wu Yongbing felt extremely pleased and proud seeing these once arrogant leaders now fawning over him.

It was certain that Kaoshan Village would win the advanced award this year.

After delivering the pigs for the task, there were still a few pigs left that belonged to the collective. Besides these pigs, there were also a few wild boar piglets that Ye Qing had caught a few months ago, which now weighed around a hundred jin each.

According to the usual practice in Kaoshan Village, pigs would be slaughtered on the morning of New Year’s Eve, and every household would get some meat while it was still warm to make dumplings for the New Year’s Eve dinner.

However, this year, thanks to the large hunting expedition by the military, every household in the village had already received more than ten jin of meat. There was no need to slaughter pigs on New Year’s Eve to enjoy meat. Therefore, after discussing with the production team cadres, Wu Yongbing decided not to slaughter the remaining pigs for now.

The main reason was that those pigs hadn’t reached their maximum weight yet. At around a hundred jin each, it would be a waste to slaughter them now.

Ye Qing had mentioned that the pork breeds in the northeastern region were of slightly inferior quality but were thick-skinned and tough. With careful feeding, they could fully mature in a year and a half. Normally, they could grow up to three hundred jin.

That meant in a few more months, by the time of spring plowing next year, these pigs could gain another hundred jin each.

And that would be the time when the Northern Wilderness faced a shortage of both vegetables and meat, but these pigs would be at their fattest.

Wu Yongbing thought that would be the perfect time to slaughter these pigs. After months of going without much meat, everyone could use some to prepare for the hard work in the fields.

Although there was no year-end pig slaughter, Ye Qing’s reward couldn’t be missed. After all, it was thanks to her feeding that the pigs in the team were successfully raised.

By the end of the year, Kaoshan Village had already settled accounts on the twenty-third day of the twelfth lunar month, known as the Minor New Year. Each family would exchange grain and cash based on the labor points recorded by the scorekeeper. The distribution within each family was first discussed internally before applying to the old party secretary.

The reason for the application was that the granary of the production team mainly stored coarse grains like corn, sweet potatoes, and beans. The proportion of fine grains like rice and wheat flour was relatively low. If every family wanted to exchange for fine grains, there wouldn’t be enough to go around.

Therefore, the old party secretary needed to regulate and strictly control the grain exchange ratio. Based on this year’s grain storage, each family could only exchange up to one-tenth of the total grain, and the exchange rate for fine grains was three times that of coarse grains.

That meant if a family’s labor points could exchange for three hundred jin of grain, they could only exchange a maximum of thirty jin of fine grains. For every thirty jin of fine grains, they would have to give up ninety jin of coarse grains—a steep trade-off. After deducting this amount, the remaining labor points could only exchange for two hundred and ten jin of coarse grains.

This exchange ratio was certainly not cost-effective, especially for families with many children and fewer labor points. They couldn’t afford to exchange for fine grains and had to exchange as much coarse grain as possible to get through the year.

Since arriving in Kaoshan Village, Ye Qing had consistently earned full labor points by working hard in the fields. Later, after she started raising pigs, her labor points decreased slightly, but after the health station was built, she earned twenty labor points a month. By the end of the year, she could exchange for nearly five hundred jin of grain.

This was achieved in less than five months since she arrived in Kaoshan Village.

Ye Qing’s household now had six permanent residents, and she occasionally hosted Song Chunhua as well. In addition, Gu Weinan would sometimes come over for meals, so there were many mouths to feed.

Meng Jia was a sent-down youth and would definitely receive grain. Murong Ah Po and Zou Yun had their household registrations in the village, so they would also receive basic rations. However, Zheng Xin’s household registration was not in Kaoshan Village. Since she was relying on Ye Qing, she couldn’t receive grain from the Kaoshan Village production team and had to be supported by Ye Qing.

Therefore, according to Ye Qing’s instructions, all the labor points earned by her or other family members were exchanged into coarse grains. As long as it was filling, she didn’t mind what kind of grain it was.

It wasn’t that Ye Qing particularly liked coarse grains, but she needed to use them to avoid drawing attention. Her situation in Kaoshan Village was already quite conspicuous, and if people knew that her household always ate fine grains, it might attract jealousy. Switching entirely to coarse grains helped her fly under the radar.

In reality, there was never a shortage of fine rice and flour in Ye Qing’s household. Whenever the grain in the rice jar or flour bag was running low, she always found a way to bring back a basket of fresh supplies to refill them.

After all, it only took her ten minutes or so to accelerate the growth of dozens of jin of fine grains using her special abilities. With the nearby military farm as a convenient excuse, as long as she said the grain was a subsidy from Zhao Yuliang, no one would think twice about it.

Everyone knew that Ye Qing had become a key player at the military farm. The farm’s leadership was eager to please her, and the military farm had tens of thousands of acres of good farmland—it was least lacking in grain. Subsidizing some fine grain for Ye Qing every month wasn’t an exaggeration.

The grain in the warehouse had already been distributed a few days earlier. Now that the pigs were out of the pen, Kaoshan Village had indeed earned the title of advanced production team for the year, thanks to their success in both delivering public grain and raising breeding pigs. Therefore, Wu Yongbing and the old party secretary agreed that they should reward Ye Qing, the unsung hero who made it all possible.

But Ye Qing was already living comfortably and didn’t need much, so deciding on a reward was a challenge.

Kaoshan Village wasn’t exactly wealthy, and after the year-end accounting, there wasn’t much left in the communal funds. The remaining money was reserved for the spring planting next year and definitely couldn’t be used for a personal reward for Ye Qing.

After discussing for a while, the production team cadres finally decided to reward Ye Qing with a hunting gun.

Yes, a hunting gun.

Before the Spring Festival, the production team went on a hunting expedition in the mountains. Both Wu Yongbing and the old party secretary went along, so they were well aware that the gun Ye Qing brought into the mountains at that time was borrowed from Gu Weidong.

As a native of Changbai Mountain, every household was certainly equipped with a hunting gun. Ye Qing now had a homestead in Kaoshan Village and was the partner of the Gu family’s son, making her a legitimate daughter-in-law of Kaoshan Village. Her marksmanship was also quite good. She definitely needed her own hunting gun, especially since she would be regularly going into the mountains to collect medicinal herbs once the health station was established.

So after much discussion, everyone thought this reward was the most appropriate.

The key was that Kaoshan Village actually had a hunting gun to spare. In the early years, when the village resisted invaders, they seized many rifles from the enemy. After the war of resistance ended, these rifles were converted into hunting guns, which were then distributed to every household.

The remaining guns were stored in a secure storage room, locked away for safekeeping. They were only brought out as backups when a household’s hunting gun malfunctioned during the annual year-end hunt.

The old party secretary found an experienced hunter who selected the most accurate and best-conditioned gun from the collection. Wu Yongbing personally delivered it to Ye Qing.

Just after Ye Qing had seen off Zhao Yuliang, Wu Yongbing arrived at her home, holding a hunting gun that had been polished to a gleaming shine. When she realized the gun was a reward from the production team, Ye Qing’s eyes lit up, and she stood up straight, staring at the gleaming rifle.