Starting with vegetable greenhouses in 1988

Chapter 94 Inquiry
"Da da da……"

The tractor passed the checkpoint and entered Langfang territory.

Inside the truck bed, Li Zhe was covered with a thick quilt and a cotton hat, with only his eyes showing; Li Weidong and Li Zhiqiang lay on either side of him, talking loudly.

"Uncle, will we really be able to ride in a truck in a few days? My goodness, I never dared to dream of it! We can actually use a truck to haul vegetables! Just thinking about it makes me feel so proud!" Li Zhiqiang's voice was filled with excitement. Before Li Zhe could answer, he continued, "I heard that trucks have canvas awnings. Once we cover the truck with the canvas awning, we won't have to worry about the cold wind blowing into the cargo box. We can continue to haul vegetables even when it rains or snows. It will be much more comfortable than it is now."

Li Weidong also shouted, "Qiangzi, look at your pathetic self! A truck has a cab, but is the cargo box more comfortable than the cab?"

"Uncle, I had completely forgotten about this! I've never been in the driver's seat before!"

Li Zhe did not participate in the discussion between the two—mainly because the noise of the tractor was too loud, and he had to shout to speak, which would leave him feeling cold.

Li Zhe wanted to take a nap, but it was too cold to fall asleep. He looked around at the endless plains: This land is fucking perfect for greenhouse farming…

There was a Happiness 250 motorcycle following behind the tractor, neither too close nor too far. At first, he didn't pay much attention, but the further they went, the more he felt something was wrong—these days, few people in the village could afford a motorcycle.

Li Zhe shouted, "Brother, Zhiqiang, have you seen that motorcycle behind us?"

Li Weidong replied, "I don't remember anything!"

Li Zhiqiang said, "It shouldn't be from our village! Only three or four households in our village have motorcycles!"

Li Zhe banged on the carriage and shouted at Zhao Tiezhu in front, "Zhuzi, slow down!"

"Brother, what's wrong?" Zhao Tiezhu asked, somewhat puzzled.

"Don't ask any questions yet, just listen to me, slow down the tractor." After saying that, Li Zhe turned to Li Weidong and Li Zhiqiang and said, "Get your equipment out!"

Li Weidong pulled a sickle out of the basketball hoop: "Second brother, do you suspect that group of people are after us?"

“I’m not sure either, it’s always good to be careful.” Li Zhe also pulled out an iron rod.

The tractor slowed down, but the motorcycle did not, and it overtook the tractor directly from the right.

"Uncle, these two look unfamiliar. I've never seen them on this road before!" Li Zhiqiang muttered.

Li Zhe didn't answer, but said to Zhao Tiezhu, who was driving the tractor, "Zhuzi, you can drive it normally now!"

Now it's the tractor following the motorcycle.

After traveling less than 3 kilometers, the tractor turned right and entered a different road from the motorcycle, and the two vehicles gradually disappeared into the distance...

"Damn, that country bumpkin surnamed Li is pretty alert! If I hadn't been careful, he would have spotted me!" The man on the motorcycle cursed and slowly brought the motorcycle to a stop.

The man sitting in the back seat said, "Don't worry, bro, we're all bundled up so tightly, even his dad won't recognize us."

The man on the motorcycle opened his helmet visor and looked at the tractor that had become a black dot on another side road, his expression somewhat conflicted.

These two men are Ma De and his cousin Huang Dayong.

Ma De is also a stall owner at Chongwenmen Market. He used to buy cucumbers from Li Zhe, but when Li Zhe wanted to raise prices, he led a protest and stopped buying cucumbers from Li Zhe after that.

Seeing that Sun Tao, Hong San, and Li Jinxia were making money selling cucumbers, he felt increasingly resentful, feeling that he had been cheated by these people—he wanted to make money too!

The origin of the Li family's cucumbers has always been a mystery. When the Li family first entered the market, they claimed that they got the cucumbers from vegetable farmers, and many people speculated that the cucumbers were grown by the Li family. Later, as the Li family gradually faded out of the vegetable market, this matter became a mystery.

Ma De secretly inquired in the market about "which village the Li family was from," but the Li family kept their mouths shut, only saying that they were from Langfang, never revealing which village they were from.

He wanted to follow the Li family to see where the cucumbers came from—if the Li family grew them themselves, then there was nothing he could do; if they were bought from other vegetable farmers, then there would be room for maneuver.

He had already found out the selling price of Sun Tao and others: Li Zhe sold it to Sun Tao for 6 yuan per jin, while Sun Tao and others sold it to the outside world for 7 yuan per jin.

He guessed that Li Zhe's purchase price wouldn't exceed 5 yuan per jin. If he offered 5.5 yuan per jin, would he still be worried about the farmers refusing to sell?
Huang Dayong asked, "Brother, what do we do now? Should we keep following them?" Ma De said, "We can't follow them anymore. If we do, we'll definitely be discovered. This is their territory; it won't be good if we get caught."

Huang Dayong asked, "Then what should we do? Should we just not look for a greenhouse?"

“We definitely need to look. Let’s follow the road the Li family just took and ask around for places where greenhouses are built. It’s the dead of winter now, the fields are bare, and you can see the greenhouses from far away. We’ve been following them for so long, I reckon the greenhouses aren’t too far from here. Even if we don’t find out today, we’ll keep asking around tomorrow, and if we go to a few more villages, we’re sure we’ll find them.”

Huang Dayong muttered, "Your idea is really stupid..." He regretted coming with Ma De—riding a motorcycle in the dead of winter was truly a hardship!

"Being a little slow is fine, it's better than getting caught and beaten up by the Li family!" Ma De smiled, turned his motorcycle around, and headed back along the fork in the road.

They walked two miles at their previous pace, but neither encountered the Li family's tractor nor saw any sign of the greenhouse.

On the dirt road ahead, there was a man carrying a bamboo basket. Ma De saw that he was dressed in a rustic way and guessed that he was a local villager.

Ma De stopped his motorcycle and asked with a smile, "Fellow villager, let me ask you something!"

The man, in his thirties, had mud on his trousers and dirt stuck in his fingernails. He casually put his basket on the ground and asked, "What's up? Where are you from? Your accent doesn't sound like you're from around here."

Ma De pulled out a Daqianmen cigarette from his pocket and handed it over: "We are vegetable buyers from Beijing. We heard that some people around here grow vegetable greenhouses, did you know that?"

"What is a vegetable greenhouse? We do grow cabbage there, though."

"We don't want cabbage, we want cucumbers!"

The man glared at him, looking at him like he was an idiot: "Where did you get cucumbers in the dead of winter?" The man lifted his basket, "I did catch a wild rabbit, I'll sell it to you for 5 yuan, want some?"

"Your rabbit is so skinny, there's hardly any meat on it. At most, three pieces." Huang Dayong hadn't eaten wild rabbit in a while, and seeing the gray rabbit still kicking around, he thought it would be perfect to have with his drinks.

"Alright, here you go." The man grabbed the rabbit.

Huang Dayong pulled out a wad of cash from his canvas bag, but before he could make change, Ma De pressed it back down. "Fellow villager, we have other things to do, so we'll leave the rabbit behind." Seeing that he didn't seem to know anything about it, Ma De didn't ask any more questions and rode off on his motorcycle.

"Brother, that rabbit is nice."

"Alright, stop thinking about that rabbit. Finding a vegetable greenhouse is the priority. I'll treat you to a meal later."

Huang Dayong tightened his cotton-padded coat: "Brother, it's getting dark and colder. Why don't we go back first and look for it again tomorrow?"

"If you want to make money, you have to be able to endure hardship! As the days get colder, you'll be even less inclined to come. Go ahead and ask around."

Ma and his companion walked and asked around, visiting several villages in total. Finally, they heard from an old woman that there were two families in Daying Village who grew vegetables in greenhouses, and one of them, surnamed Zhu, was the son-in-law of their village.

The Ma brothers were overjoyed: they finally knew where they were!

Then, they learned another piece of news from the old woman: the Zhu family's greenhouse had run into trouble, and now only the Li family in Daying Village was growing greenhouses.

This sudden and devastating news shattered their hopes—they had made a wasted trip!
The two men had no interest in listening to the old woman's ramblings. Without saying goodbye, they got on their motorcycle, turned around, and drove off, infuriating the old woman who cursed them from behind.

Huang Dayong, sitting on the back of the motorcycle, complained, "Brother, what are we going to do? These vegetable greenhouses are probably grown by the Li family themselves! We've just made a wasted trip."

Ma De had already considered this possibility and joined in the cursing: "That heartless peasant, he sells cucumbers that cost two cents a pound in the summer for six or seven yuan! How much does he make? Even if we calculate based on 100 pounds, he must make at least six or seven hundred yuan a day!"

"Brother, he clearly grew the cucumbers himself, so why did he say he got them from a vegetable farmer?"

Ma De snorted, "He's afraid people will be jealous, so he grows and sells his own produce. This country bumpkin pockets all the money. He's just using Sun Tao and his idiots as cover!"

The two brothers were feeling very depressed. It was completely dark, with only the car headlights casting trembling beams of light on the bumpy dirt road.

Suddenly, the headlights illuminated a broken tree, as thick as a bowl, lying across the road ahead. Ma De quickly slammed on the brakes. Four dark figures darted out from behind a corn stalk stack by the roadside. The man in the lead swung an iron bar and smashed it down on Ma De's head.

(End of this chapter)