The next morning!
Li Yi was woken up early by the village loudspeaker; it was Feng Kai calling on the villagers to assemble at the village committee office.
Knowing he had important business to attend to, Li Yi didn’t linger in bed; he reluctantly climbed out from under the covers.
After getting dressed and quickly washing up, the family gathered around the stove for a simple meal.
Afterward, Li Yi followed his father out the door, heading straight for the village committee office in the center of the village.
By the time the Li family arrived, most of the villagers were already there, gathered in small groups in the courtyard of the village committee office, chatting.
Perhaps due to the shortage of rations, Li Yi noticed that most of the villagers looked gaunt, and some even seemed unsteady on their feet.
Seeing this, Li Yi finally realized that the situation in the village was even more dire than he had imagined.
No wonder Uncle Feng was so anxious and worked up!
When the villagers saw Li Yi arrive, they greeted him one after another, but most of their eyes were fixed on the cloth bag in his hand.
Everyone knew the commune was distributing money today, but where had it come from?
It must have come from Li Yi!
Barring any surprises, the cloth bag in Li Yi’s hands must contain the money to be distributed to everyone.
For a moment, everyone’s eyes lit up with eager anticipation as they stared at that cloth bag!
Walking into the makeshift village office, Li Yi saw Feng Kai, Zhang Tongfu, and Chen Wanzong squatting by the stove, smoking and chatting idly.
As soon as Li Yi walked in, Feng Kai asked, “Xiao Yi, when’s the truck with the sheep coming?”
“It should be here soon!”
He’d agreed with his brother-in-law yesterday to arrive early today. After all, it was over 350 kilometers from the village to Beijing, and a large truck would take at least eight hours.
Not to mention that once they reached Beijing, they’d have to slaughter the sheep that very night, so they had to get an early start.
“That’s good!”
Feng Kai continued, “Xiao Yi, our village has never raised sheep before, let alone sold them. How do you think we should handle the pricing?”
Li Yi thought for a moment and said, “Uncle Feng, top-quality lamb currently sells for 1.9 yuan per jin on the market. I’ll offer the village that price—what do you think?”
“The price is more than fair, but aren’t you planning to transport live sheep to the capital? How can we know the total weight?” Feng Kai asked again.
“That’s easy. Let’s grab a sheep of similar size right now, slaughter it, and weigh it. Whatever the price comes out to for that one, we’ll use that rate for the rest!” Li Yi said.
“Sounds good to me. We’re all family here—a few yuan more or less doesn’t make much difference!” Feng Kai nodded.
Zhang Tongfu chimed in, “I have no objections!”
Chen Wanzong, the accountant standing nearby, chimed in, “Then let’s go over to the sheep pen right now and slaughter one. Once we’ve calculated the price, we can just grab the sheep and load them onto the truck as soon as the truck arrives!”
“Alright!”
Then, under Feng Kai’s direction, more than two hundred able-bodied villagers marched in a grand procession toward the nearby livestock shed.
Over at the sheep pen, the villagers had already separated the rams from the ewes.
This wasn’t done specifically because they were selling the rams, but because rams tend to get agitated and frequently fight when kept together with ewes.
If the rams started fighting, it could easily endanger the pregnant ewes, so they had to be kept in separate pens.
When the group arrived at the ram pen, Feng Kai addressed several young, strong men in the crowd: “Da Lei, you, Liangzi, and Daliansheng go inside and bring out a sheep—just pick one of medium size!”
Feng Kai was quite fair in his dealings. He knew that the price of all the sheep would be calculated based on the price of a single sheep, so the choice of this particular sheep was crucial.
If it was too small, the village would lose out; if it was too large, Li Yi would lose out. Therefore, he simply had Liu Da Lei pick one of medium size.
This way, regardless of whether one side came out ahead or at a disadvantage, the difference wouldn’t be too significant.
“Alright!”
With that, Liu Darei and the few young men Feng Kai had called out immediately stepped forward, jumped into the pen, and prepared to catch a sheep.
But just then, Li Yi suddenly turned to Liu Darei and said, “Brother Darei, I’m craving some meat. Pick out a big, fat one for me—nothing small, okay?”
Liu Darei didn’t respond to Li Yi’s request; instead, he instinctively glanced at Feng Kai.
Feng Kai, of course, knew exactly what Li Yi meant and hurriedly said, “Xiao Yi, that’s not appropriate!”
“Uncle Feng, just listen to me—there’s nothing wrong with it!”
Then he turned to Liu Darei again and said, “Brother Darei, don’t just stand there like an idiot—hurry up and grab one! We’re in a rush!”
Seeing that Li Yi was serious, Liu Darei immediately led his men into the flock to start selecting.
Soon, they found a large, well-proportioned ram with a plump, elegant build.
Liu Darei then pointed at the ram and asked Li Yi, “Xiao Yi, what do you think of this one?”
Li Yi took a look and realized that although this ram was slightly larger than an ordinary one, it wasn’t the fattest—it was only of above-average quality.
“Too small—get a bigger one!”
Without hesitation, Liu Darei and the others began searching through the flock again.
Eventually, they set their sights on a particularly striking, massive ram. This time, without consulting Li Yi, they simply claimed the huge, fat ram.
Once the massive, fat ram had been bound and carried out of the pen, Liang Wanhe, the butcher who had been waiting outside, immediately stepped forward.
Wielding a gleaming, sharp knife, he skillfully slaughtered the massive ram.
Once the fat ram had stopped moving, Liang Wanhe immediately hung it by a rope from a small tree in the courtyard—one as thick as a bowl—and, with practiced ease, began to “strip” the ram.
His technique was exceptionally skilled; in just a few minutes, he had peeled the entire hide off the sheep.
He then gutted the sheep, removing all the internal organs into a basin, leaving him with a complete carcass (a whole, skinned sheep).
Although the meat still contained a large number of ribs and the spine at this point, when buying a whole sheep, these parts are all counted as part of the total meat yield.
Li Yi immediately had someone bring out a large platform scale to weigh the carcass.
62 jin!
After weighing it, Li Yi turned to Feng Kai and said, “Uncle Feng, 62 jin. At 9 yuan per jin, that comes to 117.8 yuan. Let’s round it up to 118!”
“Xiao Yi, you’re getting ripped off!”
“Haha, Uncle Feng, you’re overthinking it. I’m just making a little less profit—I’m definitely not losing out!”
Li Yi wasn’t just trying to console Feng Kai; he simply wanted to share more of the profits with the villagers and hadn’t actually lost any money.
After all, aside from the initial investment of 40,000 yuan, he hadn’t had to lift a finger—the villagers had handled everything from the pasture and labor to the feed.
Under these circumstances, he still owned half the profits from this herd. In Li Yi’s view, he was absolutely raking it in with this deal!
To put it simply, just this batch of rams alone had a conservative market value of 60,000 to 70,000 yuan, yet he’d paid only half that price—saving him a solid 30,000 yuan.
On top of that, the village has over 500 ewes and 400 head of cattle.
If one were to calculate the total value of these cattle and sheep, this investment could yield him a profit of at least 100,000 yuan.
More importantly, Li Yi’s original intention in leading the villagers into animal husbandry wasn’t to make money for himself.
If he wanted to make money, there were plenty of other ways to do so; there was no need to skimp on his fellow villagers.
That is precisely why, when settling accounts, Li Yi didn’t mention a word about the tens of thousands of yuan he had invested upfront. Instead, he deliberately used the fattest sheep as the standard for valuation, with the sole purpose of ensuring his fellow villagers received a larger share of the profits—nothing more.
His actions filled the villagers with deep gratitude. Though they were poor, they were neither foolish nor unreasonable—they knew who had their best interests at heart!
So, one by one, they spoke up to share their thoughts:
“Xiao Yi, you work hard for your money—you really don’t need to do this!”
“Exactly! We’re already more than satisfied that you’re helping us all make money. We can’t let you lose money on this—that wouldn’t be right!”
“That’s right, Yi, you really mustn’t do that…”
Just as everyone was discussing this, the sound of a large truck rumbling suddenly came from outside the livestock shed.
Immediately afterward, a massive convoy of nine large trucks drove into the courtyard where the livestock shed was located…
……….
PS: Some readers have pointed out that the money distributed doesn’t count as an investment—but rest assured, the author hasn’t forgotten that.
You all remember the background behind Li Yi leading the villagers into the livestock business, right? It was started when the village faced a massive crop failure. His original intention was simply to help the villagers get through the crisis; making money was just a side benefit—he was even willing to accept not making any profit at all.
This is the author’s personal interpretation—if you don’t like it, please go easy on the criticism!