Chapter 13

Gu Ermao relied on this shameless spirit in later generations to marry a beautiful wife, but it's a pity that he didn't do his job properly, didn't live a good life, beat his wife every few days, gambled, and finally his wife ran away.

Then he continued to live his life. Because the land allocated to everyone in the village was not small, he also managed his parents' land. When the rent for the contracted land became high, Gu Ermao rented out the land for ten years all at once, and the more than one hundred thousand yuan in rent he received was lost in one night.

In the two years before Li Long passed away, Gu Ermao lived a life of hunger and satiety, and the village working group wanted to help him out of poverty, but this guy belonged to the kind that couldn't be helped up even with mud.

He died of illness in his own earthen house a few years earlier than Li Long.

Looking at that face now, Li Long was truly annoyed, slapped his hand away, and said:

"I have serious business, no time to fool around with you here, move aside."

Gu Ermao withdrew his hand, put his hands into his sleeves, and said with a cheeky face:

"Why are you angry? I'm joking with you! Zhao Changjiang's family in the township bought a TV, I just got the news, and came over specifically to ask you to go see it. That's a TV! A home movie! Watch whatever you want, Wu Shufen is also going to watch it, hurry back and prepare!"

As he spoke, he also glanced at the fish in Li Long's hand.

These fish, they are really big, really beautiful!

Every time he said where Wu Shufen was going, even if Li Long didn't want to go, he would definitely change his mind.

Although he heard that Wu Shufen had already broken up with Li Long, he thought Li Long definitely wouldn't want to, right?

He heard that Li Long caught guagua chickens last night and caught fish today. This person had learned skills after going to Wucheng. Although Gu Ermao had already made up his mind to give Li Long some color yesterday, thinking about Li Long's ability to catch things and eat meat, Gu Ermao decided that it was better not to break off the friendship with him.

Otherwise, where would he go to eat meat?

"No time." Li Long waved his hand, not paying any attention to Wu Shufen's matter, "I have things to do, if you want to watch, go watch it yourself."

After saying this, Li Long bypassed Gu Ermao and walked toward Brigade Leader Xu Chengjun's house.

Gu Ermao shouted several times behind him, but Li Long pretended not to hear.

Living a new life, there was no need to maintain some meaningless relationships. He was truly stupid enough in his previous life.

Xu Chengjun's house also had a kerosene lamp lit, and the style of the lamp was the same as Li Jianguo's.

Li Long knocked on the door, and Xu Chengjun's child, Xu Mingwa, opened the door. Mingwa was nine years old, looked up at Li Long, and shouted into the house:

"Dad, Li Qiang's uncle is here! And he's carrying fish!"

Xu Chengjun was demobilized from the army. He first served as a militia captain in the production team. Because he was in the prime of his life and acted decisively, he took over the position of brigade leader after the old brigade leader resigned after serving as militia captain for five years.

After becoming the brigade leader, he also acted decisively, using his comrades' relationships to organize a side business team to dig fritillaria and codonopsis in the mountains and sell them to the county collection station, which could distribute some cash to every household in the brigade every year, so he was very supported by everyone.

"Xiao Long is here." Xu Chengjun was listening to the radio on the kang. In this day and age, a radio could be considered a big item. Hearing his son say that Li Long was carrying fish, he got off the kang, dragged his shoes, stood up, and said with a smile:

"You're here, why bring fish? I heard you're not working at the factory in Wucheng anymore?"

"Mm, my ability is limited, I have little schooling, my knowledge level is limited, there are some jobs I can't do, so I came back. These are carp caught from the small sea today, I brought two over for you to taste."

"These fish are not small!" Xu Chengjun's wife, Ma Hongmei, looked at the two fish, and her face blossomed with smiles, "Chiseling an ice hole must not be easy."

"It's okay, we're young." Li Long handed the fish to Ma Hongmei and said to Xu Chengjun, "Brigade Leader, I have something to discuss with you."

"What is it, you say." Xu Chengjun pinched out his cigarette. In this day and age, men basically didn't avoid children when smoking, and there was no such thing as the harm of secondhand smoke, "I'll handle it for you under the principle of what can be handled." "Brigade Leader, you also know my family's situation. Now that I'm back, the charcoal and firewood my brother prepared are not enough, so I want to borrow the brigade's horse-drawn carriage to go into the mountains to pull back some firewood."

"That won't work, right?" Xu Chengjun shook his head slightly when he heard this, "Not to mention that the mountains are so far away, and you're not familiar with the place, so you might not be able to find firewood. And the situation in the mountains is so complicated, if you get lost and can't come back, how can I explain it to your brother?"

"Brigade Leader, I know what you mean." Li Long smiled, "A colleague of mine is from Qingshuihe Commune, and he lives on the edge of the mountains. We have a good relationship, and he came back with me. I'll go to his house first this time, and I won't go deep into the mountains, I'll just get some unusable wood from them."

"So that's how it is..." Xu Chengjun thought for a moment, and then said to Li Long, "Since that's the case, I won't persuade you, but we'll do things according to the rules. We only have a few horses in our brigade, and if we use the carriage, we have to calculate work points."

"How many work points?" Li Long had long known about this item, so he wasn't surprised.

Seeing that Li Long wasn't surprised and didn't refute, Xu Chengjun felt a bit higher of this young man in his heart. He thought that since Li Long brought fish, he would definitely refute when he mentioned work points.

Quite a bit of city government. The young man had matured after training in Wucheng for a few months.

"Ordinary people work one work point a day in summer, and two work points in winter. A horse's work is ten times that of a person, which is twenty work points. Now we calculate the average work point, one work point is eight cents, so a horse is one yuan and six mao a day, and I won't charge you for the carriage, how about that?"

"Alright." Li Long paid the money on the spot.

Xu Chengjun didn't be vague either, Li Long handed the money to him, and he wrote a note for Li Long.

!.

"Hereby lend Li Long of our brigade one horse, one horse-drawn carriage, Brigade Leader Xu Chengjun, x year x month x day."

"Alright, Brigade Leader, you all rest early, I'm going to the horse stable now to say hello to Old Man Luo in advance."

"Alright." Xu Chengjun didn't keep him, and after Li Long went out, he closed the door.

"This Li Long has made something of himself." Ma Hongmei sighed after Li Long left.

"I heard from Li Qiang that they ate partridge at noon today, and it was also caught by his uncle." Xu Mingwa stared at the two fish and then wiped his snot with his arm, imagining the taste of the fish.

"Mm, it looks different from before. The city really trains people." Xu Chengjun nodded, "It's just a pity that he was fired."

"Forget about him, these fish are not bad, we'll cook fish tomorrow."

Li Long returned home, took two more fish, and went to the horse stable.

The horse stable was the place where the production team raised horses, and there were people specifically feeding the horses. The person raising the horses was surnamed Luo, and Li Long didn't know his full name, so he just followed the villagers and called him Old Man Luo.

Old Man Luo was a bit hunchbacked, looked to be in his fifties, and lived in a small house next to the horse stable. There was also a kang here, and a stove.

Seeing the fish Li Long brought, and having Xu Chengjun's note, Old Man Luo smiled and promised Li Long that he would definitely prepare the best horse for him.

When Tao Daqiang rushed home, he found that his family hadn't left any food for him.

His heart suddenly turned cold.

(End of chapter)