Chapter 127: Do Your Own Work, Eat Your Own Rice

These past two days, the Li family, and by extension the Tao family, became the center of gossip in the team. The Li family first bought the horse stable; after the land division, they hauled in several large carts of manure; then, when the team's assets were distributed, they paid in one lump sum to buy the team's best horse, Number 76, the great red one. They also bought the cart from the Qin family, who had drawn it, for forty-eight yuan.

With both the horse and cart ready, just thinking about how smoothly they'll work from now on makes one envious!

The Tao family bought a donkey as well. Although they didn't buy a cart, Tao Jianshe had already spoken up: they would use the wood at home to have the carpenter Qu build a cart, and in a couple of days, go to the Supply and Marketing Cooperative's Five-Metal and Chemical Store to buy a wheel, and everything would be complete.

Everyone knew the Tao family had benefited from the Li family's luck, but it was too late to say anything now.

In the team, or rather, for other families in the village who drew large items, if they wanted them, most had to owe money or borrow it. Some, like Li Jianguo in his previous life, had to endure the pain of giving up or settle for something second-rate.

However, this distribution of team assets also revealed some people in the team who kept quiet but were actually quite well-off. Besides the Li family, the Wang Cai-mi family paid for their own share of the distributed items. Two other families also bought horses and carts from the team, including the Bai family, who were originally long-time residents here.

With these people as a backdrop, the Li family didn't stand out as much.

Next, Li Long went into the mountains twice to haul manure. After the snow melted here, the team started using tractors to plow the fields. The Li family began hauling manure into the fields, spreading it as they went. After spreading, when the tractor plowed, it turned the soil over, burying the manure underground.

When the Li family entered the fields, they found that everyone in the village was working on their own plots. It wasn't yet time for public labor duty, so everyone was busy on their own land.

Everyone knew clearly: the more one worked now, the cleaner the fields would be, the more grain would be harvested in autumn. After paying the public grain and deductions, everything remaining would be their own!

Even if it was just so the children could eat a few more mouthfuls of fine grain, one had to work harder now.

Before the fields were plowed, most people were picking up the reeds turned up from the previous year's plowing, while others were gathering licorice roots. If the reeds weren't picked out and were plowed back into the field, they would grow again, and they were extremely difficult to eradicate completely.

Licorice roots were a medicinal herb bought by the purchasing station. Although cheap, gathering them now, little by little adding up to much, would be a windfall.

Wang Cai-mi drove the tractor into the field and stopped at the headland.

Li Long stepped forward and, amidst the roaring sound of the Dongfanghong 75 crawler tractor, handed a pack of cigarettes to Wang Cai-mi in the cab.

"Brother Wang, when you plow later, could you help me turn over one extra furrow on the outside?" Li Long said while taking out a lighter to light Wang Cai-mi's cigarette. "This part of the field is quite flat and has no big clumps of jiji grass, so plowing shouldn't be too tiring."

"Is that so..." Wang Cai-mi frowned, looking at the edge of the Li family's field while smoking.

The field strip was five hundred meters long. If one extra furrow was turned, the field would gain half an mu. This little Long of the Li family was calculating very precisely.

Seeing his expression, Li Long smiled and said:

"Brother Wang, I won't let you lose out. I'll cut two jin of meat for you tonight. How about that?"

"Fine." Wang Cai-mi stuffed the Snow Lotus cigarettes into his pocket and said, "Seeing that you're honest, I'll take the risk and plow one furrow over for you."

Actually, there was no risk at all. The fuel was provided by the team, and the tractor belonged to the team now. If Wang Cai-mi shifted the plowshare slightly outward, no one would say anything—after all, the boundary stakes were placed between the two families' fields. For families like the Lis, located on the outer edge of the strip fields, there were no boundary stakes, and no one cared.

It wasn't until after the first round of land contracting that the area outside the strip fields was to be greened. A long green belt was dug and planted with poplar trees, and only then was there a proper boundary.

The Li family had already spread all the manure into the field. Watching Wang Cai-mi drive the tractor and start plowing with a roar, Li Jianguo came over and asked:

"Xiao Long, what did you say to Wang Cai-mi?"

"I told him to plow one furrow outward when he plows, so we can gain half an mu more." "He agreed?" Li Jianguo looked at Li Long, somewhat surprised. He hadn't thought of this move.

"I gave him a pack of cigarettes and promised to bring him two jin of meat tonight, and he agreed."

"That coward!" Li Jianguo cursed, but then he thought and said, "Xiao Long, half an mu more means one hundred jin more of wheat! This is a good thing!"

"Yeah, I'm going to pick up licorice roots." Li Long smiled and said, "The marsh outside our field is full of licorice. With one furrow plowed, we can dig up quite a few licorice roots."

Licorice roots could not only be sold; many villagers suffered from pharyngitis. They would keep a piece of licorice, and when their throat felt uncomfortable, they would shave off a small piece and hold it in their mouth, which would have some effect.

After Wang Cai-mi finished plowing, Li Long and Liang Yuemei returned to the cart at the headland carrying a large bundle of licorice roots. Li Jianguo walked through the field again, picking up the plowed-out reed roots once more. At this time, one could not be careless.

That evening, before Li Long could go deliver the meat to Wang Cai-mi, the latter had already come to the Li family. Liang Yuemei gave him a three-kilogram piece of wild boar cured meat. Amidst Li Jianguo's laughter and scolding, he happily left with the meat.

Next came harrowing, leveling, cutting the land, and sowing. In Northern Xinjiang, the field plots were large, and the advantage was that these processes were mechanized, requiring very little manual labor.

At this time, the team also needed people to work to earn work points.

The first work assignment of the year was to dig the main canal.

Agricultural water conservancy construction in Northern Xinjiang had been underway since the 1950s and 1960s of the last century. Relying on geographical advantages, many wetlands and small lakes were transformed into reservoirs, and water channels like a spiderweb were excavated. Then, relying on these channels, vast amounts of arable land were reclaimed.

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These canals were dug entirely in flat land. Because they lacked the concrete slabs used in later times for reinforcement, the mud from both sides and the sand brought by the water would cause siltation every year. Thus, the first task of spring was to clear the canals. The banks on both sides had to be raised, the grass growing inside had to be scraped off, and the blocked sections had to be dug through.

Small canals were manageable, but large canals required both strength and skill. The people below had to dig out the silt and throw it up, while those above had to reinforce the mud onto the canal banks. Large canals were one or two meters deep. Digging out the mud with a shovel, one shovel at a time, would cause inexperienced workers to develop seven or eight blood blisters on their hands in a single day.

Li Long did not plan to work. Working a day earned one work point. First, he didn't lack them; second, he really didn't want to do this work again.

You could call it laziness, or you could call it looking down on it.

So Li Long planned to become a loafer in the village from now on.

But before leaving, Li Long still took a piece of wild boar cured meat to the home of the village director, Xu Chengjun.

Because the weather was getting hot, the meat could not be preserved if not processed. The Li family didn't have the habit of smoking meat, so they simply cut the meat into strips, rubbed them with salt, and made cured meat. Of course, this was also Li Long's suggestion, mainly to deal with people like Wang Cai-mi.

More meat was directly cut and stewed into minced meat (sa-zi). A layer of oil on top could keep it from spoiling for half a year. The cured meat was mainly for giving to others.

"Oh, Xiao Long is here. Why did you bring meat?" Ma Hongmei saw Li Long approaching, warmly poured him a glass of water, and then happily took the meat to the inner room.

Xu Chengjun looked at Li Long and asked:

"What's the matter? Speak."

(End of this chapter)