Chapter 170: Xu Jianjun Punished for Greed

Li Long ultimately didn't hit the fox—because Gu Xiaoxia wouldn't let him.

"It's so good-looking... don't hit it, it's so beautiful..." Gu Xiaoxia begged Li Long.

Li Long saw this expression of Gu Xiaoxia, which was almost like acting like a spoiled child, for the first time, and said with a smile:

"Originally, I was going to hit it down and make a fur scarf for you, but since you said don't hit it, then don't hit it, and I might not be able to hit it anyway."

He put away the gun, and Gu Xiaoxia looked at the fox again with satisfaction, continuing to look after the rice in the pot.

In a while, by feeling, the rice should be cooked, and there was no burnt smell. Gu Xiaoxia carefully uncovered the pot lid made of broom millet stalks. A burst of steam mixed with the fragrance of rice rushed towards her. She habitually leaned back, and after the steam dissipated, white rice was revealed, and a circle of golden scorched rice could be seen on the edge of the pot.

"Very good!" Li Long glanced at it from the side and praised, "Not bad, not bad, I can't grasp the heat, come, I'll serve the rice."

"I'll do it, I'll do it." Gu Xiaoxia felt settled at this time, feeling that she hadn't lost face after all. She took the bowl handed by Li Long, scooped two bowls of rice with a spatula, and asked Li Long:

"Eat the scorched rice now or later?"

The amount of rice wasn't much, just one flat bowl for each of the two people. The scorched rice could be taken off as a whole now.

"Later, eat now, scorched rice as a snack." Li Long said.

The two ate like this outside, using wooden stumps and wooden boards as simple dining tables.

Looking at the blue sky, white clouds, and green grass, tasting the delicious food from nature, even Li Long, this country bumpkin, felt that this moment had a poetic feeling.

It's just that the little flies came to make trouble from time to time, which was a bit disappointing.

After eating, the two tidied up the bowls and chopsticks together. Gu Xiaoxia broke the scorched rice into several pieces, wrapped them in the cage cloth Li Long bought earlier, put them into her shoulder bag, and then looked at Li Long locking the door reluctantly, preparing to leave here.

"If only I could come here every week." She felt sincerely, "Feels like a dream."

"That's not simple, as long as you can free up time, I can bring you here every week. Of course, even if you can't come every week, it should be no problem to come twice a month." Li Long said indifferently, "This is not far. When can we buy a car, it will be even more convenient to come here..."

Gu Xiaoxia's face turned red immediately. What she noticed was the word "us" in Li Long's mouth.

Is this planning for the future? Is it a future life together?

Perhaps because they had their own thoughts, the words of the two on the way back were much less.

When they arrived at the county, the two felt as if they had returned from a fairy tale to reality. The people coming and going with gray, black, and white as the keynote, as well as the dusty street surface and broken houses, made Gu Xiaoxia feel that everything in the mountains before was so unreal.

Li Long sent Gu Xiaoxia to the middle school dormitory, then rode his bicycle back to the village.

Passing by the reed ditch, Li Long was a bit surprised to find that a large piece of cement board was laid on the canal where water originally passed, and slopes were built with soil on both sides, which made it convenient for people and cars to pass.

When the flood passed before, the horse cart needed to detour to the side of the reed beach. Although it was shallow, the water surface area was large, but people could sit on the horse cart and pass without getting their shoes wet.

Now the cement board was set up on the canal. Although it looked like it couldn't bear too heavy a car, it was no problem for people to walk.

He only thought about repairing the bridge in two years, but didn't expect such a simple method—looking at this cement board, it should have been moved from some big canal.

In the 1960s, water conservancy was vigorously developed. Many big canals were paved with cement boards. Later, because of the long time, these cement boards were broken and rotten, and the big canal returned to the shape of a soil slope. Because the soil quality was easily washed by water, it was easy to accumulate at the bottom of the canal, plus it was easy to grow grass, so there were two compulsory labor works in spring and autumn every year to clear the canal.

Li Long suddenly saw some fine threads swaying by the muddy water, and he felt disgusted.

This thing was often played by the water when he was a child in his previous life. At that time, the elderly told children that this was horse mane soaked in water for a long time and changed, becoming alive.

Li Long believed it at that time—strips of twenty or thirty centimeters long, the thickness was indeed a bit like horse mane.

It wasn't until he was old in his previous life, the internet was developed, and he could brush anything in short videos, that Li Long knew this thing was a horsehair worm.

In the 1980s, there were many such horsehair worms in the water here, often tangled into a ball. At that time, children were not afraid, and even used sticks to curiously break the horsehair worms.

It wasn't until he watched that movie from South Korea that Li Long felt disgusted by this thing.

Riding the bicycle across the reed lake, it took Li Long a long time to throw this matter away, because he saw another more infuriating thing.

Li Qiang and a group of children were on the side of the road, holding long reeds, and were poking sparrow nests on the big poplar tree. The old sparrows were chirping and scolding on the side, but they were helpless.

"Qiangqiang, what are you doing?" Li Long stopped the bicycle, put one foot on the ground and asked.

"Digging old sparrows!" Li Qiang didn't feel that what he was doing was wrong, it was like this every year.

"Can't dig!" Li Long said with a cold face, "Now old sparrows are good, they eat insects, you can't dig them anymore, quickly fold the reeds, remember, can't poke!"

"Why? Didn't we eat old sparrows in winter?" Li Qiang still didn't quite understand.

"Because old sparrows eat wheat and grass seeds in winter," Li Long couldn't tell him big principles, so he could only tell from the simplest, and he was also telling other children:

"Old sparrows eat insects in summer, a belly full of insects, insects are eaten, then there are fewer insects in the wheat and corn in the fields! Besides, you poke the old sparrows now, the small old sparrows can't grow up, are there fewer old sparrows in winter, not easy to catch?"

"Right." Li Qiang was very smart, and reacted immediately. He threw the long reed in his hand to the ground and even stepped on it a few times, "I won't poke anymore."

"I won't poke anymore either!" another child followed suit.

"Not only old sparrows can't be poked, big-headed sparrows, hoopoe, swallows can't be dug, know that?"

"Know that!" the children said in unison.

"Very good! Go, go to our house, I'll give you candy!" Li Long waved his hand, and the children cheered and ran towards the Li family.

One child originally hid the reed in his hand—that reed was the thickest one he chose, like Sun Wukong's golden cudgel, one end stepped on, wetted, poked into the sparrow nest, turned and stirred, and could pull the sparrow nest down.

Now, candy or reed, which one to choose?

Seeing other children running far away, this child hardened his heart, threw the reed into the bitter bean bush on the side of the road, and then chased after the children with a run.

Li Long returned home, saw Li Juan chopping pig grass in the courtyard, stood up the bicycle and said with a smile:

"Juan, tired, right?"

"Not tired." Li Juan said with a smile, "Just now when pulling pig grass, I played with Tianfeng in the big canal in front for a while." Zhao Tianfeng was Li Juan's classmate, similar to a best friend now, and the two children had a very good relationship.

Li Juan looked at the group of children in the courtyard, a bit surprised and puzzled. Li Long entered the east room, found a handful of fruit candies and came out, handing them to Li Qiang:

"Qiangqiang, go and share them with them."

Li Qiang took the fruit candy and raised it happily:

"Line up, one by one!"

Li Long smiled, quite like it.

He handed two fruit candies to Li Juan:

"Juan, you eat too."

Li Juan took it with a smile, peeled one and put it in her mouth, then carefully folded the candy paper and put it in her pocket.

In the evening, Li Long went to see the wild boars and little deer in the horse stable. The wild boars were still very energetic, but the little deer were a bit wilted.

"Xiao Long, this deer might not be easy to raise." Uncle Lao said embarrassedly, "I thought it was the same as feeding sheep, it seems this deer is very delicate..."

"It's okay." Li Long comforted him, "No one has raised it, let alone the whole team, even the whole township is the first one. Raising it is good fortune, not raising it is normal."

!.

"Then fine, with your words, I'm relieved." Uncle Lao obviously didn't have so much pressure, "I'll try to use more fine feed, and often let them come out to run and see."

The next day, Li Long rode his bicycle and went up the mountain again. Before going up the mountain, he went to the courtyard, looked at the two roe deer velvet antlers, the salt mud outside was completely dry, but it still felt quite heavy, the velvet inside should not be air-dried yet, so let it be for a period of time.

Pedaling the bicycle carrying the gun, he arrived at Bai Yang Ditch. Li Long smelled the familiar smoke again, and the sideline team was still busy there.

Seeing Li Long come over, they were already used to it, greeting him normally. Li Long chatted with Gu Bo Yuan for a few words, then carried the gun and wandered around the nearby mountain ditch.

Watching Li Long so leisurely, most of the others showed envious expressions, especially for the gun on Li Long's back, they were really envious to the point of jealousy. Having a gun in the mountains is really like a fish in water!

There was no existence of small animals in the ditch where he hunted roe deer with Tao Daqiang before. The feces had dried up, the grass had grown, but there was no movement.

Li Long entered several remote small ditches again. He was surprised to find that fritillaria and codonopsis seedlings had grown up now. Codonopsis is better to dig in autumn and winter, but fritillaria can actually be dug now. It's just not that plump.

He remembered Halimu saying that there were fritillaria ditches near his winter shelter and their winter shelter, full of fritillaria. If he couldn't hit anything, should he find time to make a tool and go over to dig?

When eating at noon, the person who mentioned discovering wild boar opened his mouth again. His name was Wei Zhong Hua.

"Alright, tomorrow morning, five or six o'clock, I'll come call you, you take me over to see." Li Long thought anyway there was nothing to do, so he planned to go over and see.

"Then why don't you live here at night, and squeeze into someone's winter shelter." Wei Zhong Hua thought Li Long was returning to the team and running over early in the morning, feeling it was too troublesome.

"No need, I have a place to live." Li Long didn't explain in detail.

The next morning, Li Long came over carrying the gun, woke Wei Zhong Hua up, and the two touched towards the east.

At this time, the sky was just bright, and the two were barely walking forward along the sheep intestine path.

"Just below the slope of the ditch in front." Wei Zhong Hua said in a low voice, "Are we too early now?"

Li Long didn't speak, touched the top of the slope, then reached out to feel the wind, and took Wei Zhong Hua around to the downwind side.

The two laid an ambush, waited until dawn, and didn't see the wild boar group coming over, both were a bit disappointed. Li Long went down to take a look and found that the wild boar had indeed arched a large piece of grassland here. Judging from the dryness of the soil, it should have been three or five days ago.

He carried the gun and said to Wei Zhong Hua:

"This group of wild boars should be wandering, not fixed, let's come over and see in a few days."

The two returned empty-handed. Others who were waiting to eat wild boar meat were also a bit disappointed, but everyone understood that this was nothing, after all, no hunter could have a harvest as soon as they made a move.

In the next few days, because the trees grew fast and many willow branches were cut, the progress of weaving carrying frames was much faster. Even Xu Jianjun, who was the slowest, had accumulated thirteen or fourteen carrying frames.

Li Long came over every day to check the quality of the carrying frames. A total of three unqualified ones were checked out in these days, and they were sent back for rework. Although the two people who wove the carrying frames had some complaints, they still obediently reworked. Everyone knew that this money was not easy to earn, but there were many people who wanted to earn this money.

Running from the winter shelter to Bai Yang Ditch every day, Li Long felt that he had also exercised, and his physical strength and foot strength were much stronger than ordinary people. Then he also found that there were more people in the mountains, occasionally meeting people riding horses or walking. When these people saw Li Long carrying a gun, they basically didn't have any intersection with him, nor did they talk.

Li Long guessed that it should be people from the forestry team, or people who came into the mountains to collect medicine and pick up deer antlers.

He hadn't picked up deer antlers for a long time.

Although he collected quite a few from herdsmen, to be honest, he really hadn't picked up many himself.

This day, he boiled porridge in the winter shelter in the morning, ate breakfast with wild vegetables, and arrived at Bai Yang Ditch slowly. Xie Yun said to him anxiously:

"Xu Jianjun has been caught!"

"What? Caught? Caught by whom?"

"Said it was the forestry team. They said Xu Jianjun secretly went to dig fritillaria in the forestry team's jurisdiction, so they caught him! Xu Jianjun didn't come back last night, we went out to look for him but couldn't find him, thinking he might have gotten lost, and could come back today.

Didn't expect that someone rode a horse over early this morning and said he was caught, asking us to go to the big east ditch in the east to pay money and pick up the person."

"Damn it!" Li Long wanted to curse.

It was clearly a very simple task, just cut willow branches and weave carrying frames in Bai Yang Ditch, but this Xu Jianjun had to make this happen!

Did he not want to work anymore?

"Xiao Long, what to do?" Xie Yun had a worried face, "What to do! Our team's introduction letter, they don't recognize it at all!"

Before, he brought people to do sidelines, just do it, the mountains were so big, no one cared.

Didn't expect that this was done well, Xu Jianjun couldn't go back!

"It's okay, let others continue weaving, you and I go pick up the person." Li Long comforted him, after all, others were watching. Those people had some panic on their faces, definitely worried that weaving carrying frames here wouldn't be allowed next.

"Alright." Li Long spoke, Xie Yun had a backbone, and nodded hard.

"Everyone rest assured, we have branches, certificates, and introduction letters, as long as we weave carrying frames here, it's guaranteed to be fine." Li Long saw Xie Yun was still absent-minded, so he said loudly to others, "We are going to pick up Xu Jianjun—but he violated the regulations, and he will be punished when he comes back!"

Those who originally had some fluke mentality immediately extinguished their thoughts—even if the person was picked up, the fine was paid, wouldn't these days be in vain?

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 171 =====