Reborn in 78, I made my fortune by working in the mountains, supporting three families on my own.

"oh."

If Qin Yuchan hadn't mentioned it, Zhao Lei would have almost forgotten.

It's almost the end of August or the beginning of September, and it's time for Peipei to start school.

Qin Yuchan is a teacher at Tuanjie Township Primary School. With the summer vacation over, it's time for her to return to her post.

"Alright, I have to go up the mountain today too, I'll be going now."

"Okay, Sanshi, be careful! Making money is important, but your safety is more important to our family!"

Zhao Lei stared at Qin Yuchan in surprise, until her cheeks turned red. Qin Yuchan quickly covered her face with a handkerchief.

Zhao Lei smiled faintly, turned around, got on his tricycle, and rode away.

Zhao Lei arrived at the fork in the road leading into Qingfeng Mountain and lit a cigarette.

hiss!

He was waiting for Qin Bowen, as the two had arranged to meet yesterday.

After smoking two cigarettes in a row, Qin Bowen was still nowhere to be seen, and Zhao Lei was starting to get angry.

Finally, just as he was about to finish his third cigarette, Qin Bowen's figure appeared at the end of the road in the distance.

The kid was riding his old-fashioned bicycle, rushing over here in a great hurry.

Upon arriving, Qin Bowen was covered in sweat and said apologetically, "Brother-in-law, I'm so sorry, am I late?"

Zhao Lei snapped, annoyed, "You brat, what do you say? Time is money, don't you understand?"

"Brother-in-law, I was wrong! You asked me to prepare some bags beforehand, and it took a lot of time to find things."

Zhao Lei looked up and saw that there was indeed a stack of nylon bags tied to the back of Qin Bowen's old-fashioned bicycle.

"Alright, enough of this bullshit, let's get going. If we delay any longer, we'll lose at least several thousand dollars, you understand?"

Upon hearing this, Qin Bowen's eyes lit up instantly: "Brother-in-law, several thousand yuan? What are we going to do in the mountains today?"

Zhao Lei snorted coldly: "Didn't we run into a musk deer in the woods yesterday?"

Upon hearing Zhao Lei's mention, Qin Bowen immediately recalled the rare creature he had encountered in the mountains yesterday—the musk deer his brother-in-law had mentioned.

He had heard Zhao Lei say that the musk produced by the forest musk deer was extremely valuable, and he had always been very curious and wanted to see for himself what was so special about this musk.

But his brother-in-law's offer of several thousand yuan was truly unexpected.

"Brother-in-law, you mean we should go get some musk?"

"That's right!"

"Brother-in-law, how much can this musk sell for?"

Zhao Lei glanced at the sky; the thick fog in the fields was slowly thinning, and he didn't want to linger any longer.

He quickly called to Qin Bowen, "Let's go up the mountain first, I'll tell you all about it on the way."

The two rode their bikes for several tens of minutes and arrived at the foot of Qingfeng Mountain. The dirt road ended at the deep forest.

They pushed the tricycle and Qin Bowen's old-fashioned bicycle to a patch of grass, carefully locked them up, and then covered them with dense branches to hide them.

The two then shouldered their baskets and took their tools, and hurried into the depths of the mountains and forests.

Zhao Lei was experienced in hiking and remembered yesterday's route. The two walked for more than an hour in the mountains and successfully arrived at the place where they had encountered the musk deer the day before.

Qin Bowen kept asking questions along the way, and Zhao Lei only told him the truth when they stopped.

"Bowen, musk is extremely valuable; at the current market price, it can sell for around 2 yuan per kilogram..."

Upon hearing this, Qin Bowen jumped up in shock: "What? 2 yuan?"

Qin Bowen never imagined that the items produced in the mountains would be so valuable; a simple harvest could easily make him a millionaire.

You should know that at present, textile factory workers only earn twenty or thirty yuan a month, and those who earn work points in the production brigade earn at most a dozen yuan a month.

Even my brother-in-law recently built a two-story red brick house, which only cost three or four thousand yuan in total.

Go into the mountains to find some musk, and you can sell it for 20,000 yuan?

Qin Bowen's understanding was completely overturned in an instant.

Zhao Lei couldn't help but laugh. That's why people often say that you can't earn money beyond what you know.

If Qin Bowen were allowed to go into the mountains alone, and he were lucky enough to hunt a few musk deer, he would probably just treat them as fawns and cut them up to eat.

No one would have guessed that the most valuable part of the forest musk deer is its sac on its belly.

Qin Bowen nodded repeatedly.

No wonder my brother-in-law said he lost several thousand yuan.

If they had arrived a little earlier, they might have encountered a musk deer.

"I wasted more than ten minutes just now, and that's how I lost several thousand yuan!"

Thinking of this, Qin Bowen was extremely annoyed and repeatedly slapped his thigh.

Zhao Lei immediately saw what the kid was thinking, so he poured cold water on his enthusiasm.

"Bowen, aren't you dreaming? Do you think earning 2 yuan is that easy?"

Qin Bowen realized what was wrong: "What's wrong? Brother-in-law, didn't you say it could sell for 2?"

Zhao Lei retorted irritably, "I said 2 yuan per kilogram. But do you know how much musk is in the sac of an adult male musk deer?"

Qin Bowen had no idea about these things. He shook his head repeatedly, "I don't know. But I'd guess it's at least a pound and a half, right?"

Zhao Lei immediately laughed: "You're dreaming! Generally speaking, there's very little musk in a musk sac because it contains a lot of impurities. Plus, the drying process removes those impurities."

"The amount of musk that ultimately reaches medicinal value is only about ten grams. You can calculate for yourself how much a single musk sac costs."

Qin Bowen was a little discouraged when he heard this.

According to what he saw yesterday, the musk pouch of that small forest musk deer was about the size of a small stone fist.

An adult musk deer's sac should weigh at least a pound and a half, right? But to my surprise, my brother-in-law said it only weighed a dozen grams, which is a huge difference.

500 grams per jin (500 grams), 1 kilogram (1kg), can sell for 20,000 yuan.

The price is around 20 yuan per gram, so even a dozen grams would cost two or three hundred yuan.

After figuring it out, Qin Bowen perked up again and grinned at Zhao Lei, "Hehe, brother-in-law. More than 20 yuan per gram, even a dozen grams is quite a lot, that's two or three hundred yuan. In that case, it's worth more than the sow we hunted yesterday."

"Yes, so it's unrealistic to think you can easily make tens of thousands of dollars just by hunting a single animal. But this is still a very high value."

Qin Bowen nodded repeatedly: "Yes, yes, yes. We go through so much trouble to hunt a sow, and the money we get from selling it to the supply and marketing cooperative might not even be as much as a dozen grams of musk."

"I never expected that there would be so many treasures in our mountains. If I had known this earlier, why would I have bothered with school? I would have gone hunting in the mountains from a young age."

Zhao Lei kicked him irritably: "You brat, you're hopeless. You'll suffer if you're uneducated, you know? Look at Uncle Changlin. He's been hunting for decades, has he made a fortune?"

Qin Bowen thought about it and agreed.

Before Uncle Changlin joined their hunting team, his family struggled to even eat meat.

Moreover, since Uncle Changlin is over 50 years old and can still hunt, their family is considered to be one of the better-off families in the neighborhood.

Qin Bowen suddenly looked at his brother-in-law and felt that his brother-in-law's figure was becoming more and more imposing and tall.