Chapter 129: Starting to neglect one's proper work again

The next morning, Li Juan went to school, and Li Qiang went to preschool. The brigade's loudspeaker was shouting about assigning work to clear the irrigation canals; Li Jianguo went, Liang Wenyu went to the fields to pull weeds, and Li Long began to organize the nets he had bought back.

The snow had already melted completely, the ice in the Little Haizi had also mostly vanished, and green had already appeared in the fields. So, next, it was time to do his own "proper business"—what others saw as "neglecting one's proper work."

In later generations, the village had produced quite a few non-professional "fishermen." During the agricultural slack season, they would set nets to catch fish, retrieve the fish early in the morning, and then go to the market to sell them. During the busy farming season, they would hang up their nets and become genuine farmers.

However, such a situation would not appear for at least another three to five years in the previous life; now, Li Long had made it happen ahead of time.

While he was organizing the nets, Tao Daqiang arrived in the courtyard.

"Brother Long, are we setting the nets this afternoon?"

"Mm." Li Long responded and said, "You haven't set nets before, have you?"

"No." Tao Daqiang stepped forward to touch the nets; he was a bit curious and also a bit cautious. These nets were not cheap!

Because he needed to buy a donkey and make a donkey cart, Tao Daqiang had borrowed eighty yuan from Li Long. According to Li Long's terms, it would be deducted from his future wages. Tao Daqiang could calculate that this would require at least sixteen days of hard labor's wages.

So, even though he didn't know how to set nets, he very much hoped Li Long would take him to start working—the feeling of carrying debt was very unfamiliar and uncomfortable.

"Then I'll teach you how to organize the nets first. We'll set the nets, retrieve the fish early tomorrow morning, and then I'll take the fish to sell. You need to organize the nets well at home; we'll go set the nets again tomorrow afternoon."

"Okay." Tao Daqiang didn't say much, but his attitude was very earnest, and Li Long was very satisfied.

Li Long taught Tao Daqiang how to organize the nets once and told him how to tie the ropes after picking them up.

In order to make it easier to find the position of the sticky nets in the water, Li Long specifically found several colored cloth strips to tie to both ends of the nets, so that when setting the nets, they would be easy to fix in the water and easy to find.

After Tao Daqiang learned how to organize the nets, Li Long took the cast net and practiced casting it in the courtyard, from the initial half-net to later barely being able to cast a circle.

This was indeed a job requiring both skill and strength. Tao Daqiang watched with envy and also wanted to try. As a result, it looked like the real thing, but once the net went out, when it landed, it was basically either a straight line or a crescent moon. Li Long didn't want to laugh for fear of hurting Tao Daqiang's self-esteem, but he was really holding it in uncomfortably.

"Brother Long, if you want to laugh, just laugh. Anyway, I know I'm clumsy." Tao Daqiang wasn't annoyed either. "I'll practice more when I have nothing to do."

Tao Daqiang now liked following Li Long to catch fish; he knew this could bring in ready cash and could reflect his value better than doing farm work.

Even though he was clumsy, maybe he could succeed if he practiced more?

Near the end of the morning shift, Li Long and Tao Daqiang collected the nets, and he began to cook.

Both his eldest brother and sister-in-law had been doing physical labor, so Li Long planned to make a solid meal.

In his previous life, he didn't know how to cook at the beginning, and even if he did, it was just to muddle through a meal. But later, he knew that if he wanted to eat well, he had to know how to cook himself, otherwise others wouldn't accommodate him.

Thus, the food Li Long cooked gradually became delicious; at least home-cooked meals were no problem.

First, knead the dough. After kneading it well, cover it with a damp cloth to let it rest. Then, find dried chili peppers from the spare room to soak, peel scallions and garlic, and scoop out a large spoonful of rendered mutton fat to prepare.

When the chili skins were soaked soft, cut them into small cubes and set them aside. He planned to make a spicy chili meat sauce to mix with hand-pulled noodles.

Because mutton fat easily solidifies, commonly known as "congealing," he didn't stir-fry the vegetables first, but boiled water, preparing to cook the noodles first.

Hand-pulled noodles were also a technical job. In his previous life, Li Long didn't basically learn until he was nearly fifty—this "learning" meant being able to knead the dough well, let it rest well, and pull it very thin without breaking. Just like this kind of technical work, some people learned it at seven or eight years old. Li Long remembered a friend of Li Qiang's age who, at over eight years old, brought a bowl of hand-pulled noodles over to show off to Li Qiang that he knew how to pull noodles, while Li Long didn't learn until he was nearly fifty.

The technique was very simple, easily broken through with a single poke. But that layer of paper was something some people might never understand in their whole lives.

The weather was getting hot, and the stove in the room wasn't often used; it would be dismantled in two more days. So Li Long was boiling water and cooking noodles on the firewood stove in the courtyard.

At this time, firewood stoves were relatively common. Although they weren't as convenient as the gas stoves of later generations, the things cooked on them were delicious.

Pour water into the pot, hug a bundle of corn stalks and sunflower stalks and place them by the stove, then pull a handful of reeds as kindling, stuff a few corn stalks into the stove, put the reeds underneath, and after lighting them, white smoke came out of the chimney, and the fire soon burned up.

"Little Uncle, are you cooking?" Li Qiang was the first to return. Seeing Li Long busy at the stove, he immediately ran over to help. "I'll set the fire!"

"Okay, be careful, don't make the fire too big." Although Li Qiang was only six years old, rural children could already do work at this time. Given Li Qiang's current situation, he would be able to enter the first grade by autumn.

Thinking that Li Qiang's teacher might be Wu Shufen at that time, Li Long felt a bit strange.

"Uncle, the water is boiling!" Li Qiang shouted outside. Li Long's noodles inside had also been pulled. He picked up the noodles with chopsticks, took a strainer to the stove, and seeing the water boiling vigorously, he put the noodles in, slowly and gently stirred them open, and then went into the room to bring out a basin of water and placed it on the stove; this was for cooling the noodles.

When Liang Wenyu and Li Jianguo returned, the noodles were already served, and the noodle soup was also poured into the basin. Seeing them enter the courtyard, Li Long began to pour oil into the pot, stir-fry the meat, and cook the spicy chili skins.

When a large plate of bright red spicy chili meat was brought to the table, the fragrance mixed with the spicy smell rushed to the nose. Li Jianguo couldn't help but say:

!.

"Little Long, when did you learn to cook this? It smells strangely fragrant!"

"Saw it in the canteen for big meat, thought you were tired, so I made some to try." Li Long was very satisfied with the reactions of his eldest brother, sister-in-law, and Li Qiang.

"It looks fragrant!" Liang Wenyu had originally planned to come back to cook. In her memory, Li Long couldn't cook and belonged to the type who could even overflow the pot while boiling porridge. Although he had looked much more sensible in the past two months, he couldn't have learned to cook without a sound.

He really had learned to cook, and it looked very good! This made her very surprised.

"Eat quickly, the food will get cold, it won't be delicious when it's cold." Li Qiang urged. The family still maintained the old rules: Li Jianguo ate first, adults first, and then the children.

Eating mixed noodles required using a plate. The family ate happily. Li Long habitually poured some vinegar into his plate. Li Qiang followed suit, and soon his eyes and nose were streaming from the spicy stimulation. He wiped it with his sleeve and continued to eat in large mouthfuls, while eating he also looked at the plate of spicy chili meat on the table, obviously not intending to finish with just one plate.

For a time, only the slurping sound of eating noodles remained in front of the table. Li Long smiled while eating.

In the afternoon, Li Jianguo continued to go to work, Liang Wenyu went to the fields after tidying up, and Li Qiang went to preschool somewhat reluctantly—at the dinner table, he heard that Li Long was going to the Little Haizi to set nets and especially wanted to follow, but was scolded by Li Jianguo.

Now it wasn't like winter; the deep parts of the Little Haizi were two or three meters deep. If a child fell in, it would really be the end.

Tao Daqiang arrived at the Li house early. After obtaining Li Long's consent, he practiced casting the net in the courtyard on his own.

After the sun slanted to the west, Li Long and Tao Daqiang went together, put the nets into a urea bag, and walked toward the Little Haizi.

A new round of neglecting proper work had begun.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 130 =====