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

For the past two days, the Li family, and by extension the Tao family, had become the center of gossip within the production team. The Lis had first purchased a horse stall, then, after the land distribution, hauled in several large cartloads of manure, and finally, during the distribution of team assets, paid in full to buy the team's finest asset: the big red horse number seventy-six. They had also bought a cart from the Qin family, who had drawn it in the lottery, for forty-eight yuan.

With both the horse and cart now secured, the efficiency of their future work was something that made others envious just thinking about it!

Following suit, the Tao family had also bought a donkey; although they hadn't purchased a cart yet, Tao Jian She had already declared that they would use wood from home to have Carpenter Qu build one, and in another couple of days, they would go to the Supply and Marketing Cooperative's Hardware and Electrical Store to buy wheels, completing the set.

Everyone knew the Tao family was riding on the Li family's coattails, but it was too late to say anything about it now.

In the team, or rather, among other households in the village, those who had drawn major items usually either owed money, borrowed money, or, like Li Jianguo in his previous life, painfully gave up their claim or settled for something less.

However, this distribution of team assets also revealed some households in the team that were quietly quite wealthy. Besides the Li family, Wang Caimei's family had paid cash for the items they received, and two other families had also bought the team's horses and carts, one of which was the Bai family, original long-term residents here.

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

Next, Li Long went into the mountains twice more to haul manure; once the snow here had melted, the team began plowing the fields with tractors, and the Li family started transporting the manure to the fields, spreading it as they went, so that when the tractors plowed afterward, the manure would be turned under the soil.

When the Li family entered the fields, they found that everyone in the village was working in their own plots. Since it was not yet time for assigned public labor, everyone was busy tending to their own land.

Everyone understood clearly that by working harder now to clean up the fields, they would harvest more grain in autumn; after handing over the state quota, retained grain, and other deductions, whatever remained would be entirely their own!

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

The land hadn't been plowed yet, so most of these people were picking up reeds that had been turned up the previous year, while others were digging up licorice roots. If the reeds weren't picked out and got plowed back into the soil, they would grow again, and they were extremely difficult to eradicate completely.

Licorice roots were a medicinal herb that the procurement station bought; although the price was low, collecting them now, accumulating little by little, still amounted to a bit of extra income.

Wang Caimei drove the tractor into the field and stopped at the head of the plot.

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

"Brother Wang, when you plow later, could you help my family by turning one extra furrow outward?" Li Long said as he took out his lighter to light Wang Caimei's cigarette. "The edge of this field is quite flat, and there aren't any tough grass clumps, so it shouldn't take much effort to turn."

"Is that so..." Wang Caimei smoked while frowning, looking at the edge of the Li family's land.

For a field strip five hundred meters long, adding one extra furrow would gain them nearly half a mu; this young Long from the Li family really calculated precisely.

Seeing his expression, Li Long smiled and said:

"Brother Wang, I won't let you suffer a loss; tonight I'll cut two jin of meat for you, how about that?"

"Alright." Wang Caimei tucked the Snow Lotus cigarettes into his pocket and said, "Seeing that you're honest, I'll take this risk and tilt the plow outward for you by one furrow."

In truth, what risk was there? The fuel was provided by the team, and the tractor currently belonged to the team; if Wang Caimei tilted the plow share outward slightly, no one would say a word—after all, boundary markers were only placed between two households' lands, and for families like the Lis located on the outer perimeter of the strip fields, there were no boundaries at all, and no one paid any attention.

It wasn't until after the first round of the household responsibility system was implemented that green belts were established outside the strip fields, where long trenches were dug and poplar trees planted; only then were proper boundaries established.

The Li family had already spread all the manure onto the field; watching Wang Caimei start plowing with the tractor roaring, Li Jianguo came over and asked:

"Xiao Long, what did you say to Wang Caimei?"

"I told him to tilt the plow outward by one furrow when plowing, so we can gain half a mu of land." "He agreed?" Li Jianguo looked at Li Long with some surprise; he hadn't expected this move.

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

"That scoundrel!" Li Jianguo cursed, but then he added, "Xiao Long, with half an extra mu, we can harvest an extra hundred jin of wheat! This is a good thing!"

"Mm, I'm going to dig up some licorice roots," Li Long said with a smile. "The marshland outside our field is full of licorice; one pass of the plow will unearth quite a few licorice roots."

Licorice roots could not only be sold; many villagers suffered from pharyngitis and would keep a section of licorice, shaving off a small piece to hold in their mouths when their throats felt uncomfortable, which provided some relief.

By the time Wang Caimei finished plowing, Li Long and Liang Yuemei had also returned to the cart at the field head, carrying a large bundle of licorice roots. Li Jianguo, meanwhile, walked through the field once more, picking up the reed roots that had been plowed up; at a time like this, one could not be the slightest bit careless.

That evening, before Li Long could go deliver the meat to Wang Caimei, the man had already arrived at the Li household. Liang Yuemei handed him a three-kilogram piece of wild boar cured meat, and amidst Li Jianguo's laughing curses, he happily took the meat and left.

Next came harrowing, leveling, cutting the fields, and sowing. The plots in Northern Xinjiang were large, and the advantage was that these processes were all mechanized, requiring very little manual labor.

And at this time, it was also when the team needed to assign laborers to earn work points.

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

Farmland water conservancy construction in Northern Xinjiang had been underway since the 1950s and 60s; leveraging the local terrain, many wetlands and small lakes had been transformed into reservoirs, canals resembling a spider's web had been excavated, and relying on these canals, vast amounts of arable land had been reclaimed.

!.

These canals were dug entirely out of flat ground; because they lacked the concrete slab reinforcement of later generations, the mud from both sides and the sand brought by the water caused siltation every year, so the first task each spring was to clear the canals. The banks on both sides needed to be raised, the grass growing inside scraped away, and the silted areas dug out to restore flow.

Small canals were manageable, but large canals were a job requiring both strength and skill. People below had to dig out the silt and throw it up, while those above reinforced the canal banks with the mud; with large canals being one or two meters deep, using iron shovels to dig out the mud scoop by scoop, someone inexperienced could develop seven or eight blood blisters on their hands in a single day.

Li Long had no intention of doing it. Earning one work point for a day's labor, he neither lacked points nor did he want to do this kind of work anymore.

One could call it laziness, or one could say he looked down on the work.

Therefore, Li Long planned to become a village loafer for the time being.

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

Because the weather was getting warmer, the meat could not be preserved if not processed. The Li family did not 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 Li Long's suggestion, mainly to deal with people like Wang Caimei.

Most of the remaining meat was directly cut and stir-fried into minced meat topping; with a layer of oil pressing down on top, it could last half a year without spoiling. The cured meat was primarily intended for giving as gifts.

"Oh, Xiao Long is here, why bring meat?" Ma Hongmei, seeing Li Long arrive, warmly poured him a glass of water, then happily took the meat into the inner room.

Xu Chengjun looked at Li Long and asked:

"What's the matter? Speak up."

(End of Chapter)