Chapter 170: Xu Jianjun Punished for Trying to Get Something for Free

Li Long ultimately failed to shoot that fox—because Gu Xiaoxia wouldn't let him.

"It's so beautiful... let's not shoot it, it's so pretty..." Gu Xiaoxia pleaded with Li Long.

Seeing Gu Xiaoxia's expression, which was almost like acting spoiled, for the first time, Li Long smiled and said:

"I originally planned to shoot it and make you a fur scarf, but if you say no, then no. Besides, I might not have been able to hit it anyway."

He put away his gun. Gu Xiaoxia, satisfied, glanced at the fox once more, then continued tending to the rice steaming in the pot.

A short while later, judging by the feel, the rice should be done, and there was no smell of burning. Gu Xiaoxia carefully lifted the lid made from broom millet stalks. A burst of steam mixed with the scent of rice hit her face. She instinctively leaned back, waiting for the steam to clear, revealing the white rice. A ring of scorched, golden-brown crust clung to the pot's edge.

"Great!" Li Long glanced over from the side and praised, "Not bad, not bad. I can never get the heat right. Come, I'll serve the rice."

"I'll do it, I'll do it." Gu Xiaoxia, now feeling much more confident and relieved she hadn't made a fool of herself, took the bowl Li Long handed her, scooped two bowls of rice with the spatula, and asked Li Long:

"Shall we eat the crust now or later?"

The amount of rice wasn't much, just enough for two flat bowls each. The crust could be removed in one piece right now.

"Later," Li Long said. "We'll eat the rice now and treat the crust as a snack."

The two of them ate outside, using wooden stumps and planks as a makeshift table.

Gazing at the blue sky, white clouds, and green grass, tasting nature's delicacies, even Li Long, this country bumpkin, felt a touch of poetry in that moment.

It was just that the little flies kept coming to cause trouble, which was a bit of a dampener.

After eating, the two cleaned the bowls and chopsticks together. Gu Xiaoxia broke the crust into several pieces, wrapped them in the new cloth Li Long had bought here, and put them in her shoulder bag. Then, reluctantly, she watched Li Long lock the door, preparing to leave.

"If only we could come like this every week," she sighed sincerely. "It feels like a dream."

"That's not hard. As long as you have the time, I can bring you here every week. Of course, even if we can't come every week, twice a month should be no problem," Li Long said casually. "It's not that far. When we can afford a car someday, it'll be even easier to come..."

Gu Xiaoxia's face instantly flushed red. She had noticed the word "we" in Li Long's mouth.

Was he planning for the future? For a shared life together?

Perhaps because each had their own thoughts, they spoke much less on the way back.

When they reached the county town, it was as if they had returned from a fairy tale to reality. The people passing by, mostly in shades of gray and black, the dusty streets, and the dilapidated houses made Gu Xiaoxia feel that everything in the mountains earlier had been so unreal.

Li Long dropped Gu Xiaoxia off at the middle school dormitory, then rode his bike back to the village.

Upon reaching Weigou, Li Long was somewhat surprised to find that a large cement slab had been laid across the channel where water used to flow, with earthen ramps built on both sides. This made it much easier for people and vehicles to cross.

Previously, when the flood came, horse-drawn carts had to detour to the edge of the reed marsh. Although the water was shallow there, the surface area was large, but people could sit on the carts and cross without getting their shoes wet.

Now that a cement slab spanned the channel, it might not support very heavy vehicles, but it was fine for pedestrians.

He had only thought about building a bridge in a couple of years and hadn't considered such a simple solution. Looking at the cement slab, it must have been moved from some larger canal.

During the 1960s, there was a great push for water conservancy, and many large canals were paved with cement slabs. Later, as time passed, these slabs broke and deteriorated, and the large canals reverted to their earthen slopes. Because the soil would wash down and accumulate at the bottom of the channel, and because grass grew easily there, there were mandatory work duties to clear the canals twice a year, in spring and autumn.

Li Long suddenly noticed some fine threads swaying in the murky water's edge, which made him feel a bit uneasy.

In his previous life, he used to play with these things by the water when he was a child. The elders told the kids that these were horsehairs soaked in water for a long time, which had turned alive.

Li Long had believed it back then—each thread was twenty or thirty centimeters long, and the thickness did resemble horsehair.

It wasn't until near the end of his previous life, when the internet was widespread and short videos showed everything, that Li Long learned these things were horsehair worms.

In the 1980s, these horsehair worms were very common in the water here, often tangled into clumps. Children at that time weren't afraid; they would even use sticks to curiously break the worms apart.

It wasn't until he had seen that Korean movie that Li Long started feeling uneasy about these things.

After riding past Weihu, it took Li Long a while to put the matter aside, because he saw something even more infuriating.

Li Qiang and a group of children were by the roadside, using long reeds to poke at a sparrow's nest in a large poplar tree. The old sparrows chirped and scolded from the sidelines, but were powerless to stop them.

"Qiangqiang, what are you doing?" Li Long stopped his bike, planted one foot on the ground, and demanded.

"Getting the old sparrows!" Li Qiang didn't think what he was doing was wrong; it was done every year.

"You can't do that!" Li Long said coldly. "Now, the old sparrows are good; they eat insects. You can't take them. Break the reeds quickly, and remember, no poking!"

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

"Because in winter, the old sparrows eat wheat and grass seeds," Li Long said. He couldn't explain the big principles to him, so he started with the simplest explanation, and he was also explaining to the other children:

"In summer, the old sparrows eat insects. Their bellies are full of insects. If the insects are eaten, then there are fewer insects in the wheat and corn fields! Besides, if you poke the old sparrows down now, the baby sparrows won't grow up. Won't there be fewer old sparrows in winter, making them harder to catch?"

"That's right." Li Qiang was smart and figured it out immediately. He threw the long reed in his hand onto 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 the old sparrows, but also the big-headed sparrows, the hoopoes, and the swallows—you can't take any of them, understand?"

"Understood!" the children chorused.

"Good kids! Come, to my house, I'll give you candy!" Li Long waved his hand, and the children cheered as they ran toward the Li family home.

One child had originally been hiding the reed in his hand—the reed he had chosen was the thickest, like Sun Wukong's Golden Cudgel. One end was crushed and wetted, then twisted and stirred inside the sparrow's nest to pull the whole nest down.

Now, which to choose: the candy or the reed?

Seeing the other children run far ahead, this child made a decisive move, threw the reed into the bitter bean bushes by the roadside, and then sprinted to catch up with the others.

When Li Long arrived home, he saw Li Juan chopping pig fodder in the yard. He parked his bike, smiled, and said:

"Juan, you must be exhausted."

"Not tired," Li Juan replied with a smile. "Just now, while pulling pig fodder, Tianfeng and I went to play in the big canal ahead for a while." Zhao Tianfeng was Li Juan's classmate, similar to a best friend today; the two children had a very good relationship.

Li Juan looked at the group of children in the yard with some surprise and confusion. Li Long went into the east room, found a handful of fruit candies, and handed them to Li Qiang:

"Qiangqiang, you go and distribute them."

Li Qiang took the fruit candies and happily held them up:

"Line up, one by one!"

Li Long smiled. He really looked the part.

He handed two fruit candies to Li Juan:

"Juan, you eat some too."

Li Juan smiled, accepted them, peeled one and put it in her mouth, then carefully folded the wrapper and put it in her pocket.

That evening, Li Long went to check the wild boar and the young deer in the horse stable. The wild boar was still lively, but the young deer looked a bit listless.

"Little Long, this deer might be hard to raise," Uncle Luo said awkwardly. "I thought it was like feeding sheep, but it seems these deer are very delicate..."

"It's fine," Li Long reassured him. "None of us have raised them before. Not just the whole team, but even the whole township, this is the first time. If they survive, it's fate; if they don't, it's normal."

!.

"Alright, hearing you say that puts my mind at ease," Uncle Luo said, clearly under less pressure. "I'll try using more concentrated feed and let them out to run around more often to see how it goes."

The next day, Li Long rode his bicycle up the mountain again. Before heading up, he went to the big courtyard to check the two branches of sika deer antlers. The salt and mud on the outside had dried completely, but they still felt quite heavy, meaning the antlers inside hadn't dried yet. He decided to let them sit for a while longer.

Pedaling his bike with a gun on his back, he arrived at Little White Poplar Gully. Li Long smelled the familiar scent of smoke again; the members of the sideline team were still busy there.

Seeing Li Long approach, they were used to it and greeted him casually. Li Long exchanged a few words with Gu Bo Yuan, then slung his gun over his shoulder and wandered into a nearby mountain gully.

Seeing Li Long so leisurely, most others showed expressions of envy, especially regarding the gun on his back; they were truly envious to the point of jealousy. Having a gun in the mountains was like a fish in water!

In the gully where Tao Da and the others had previously hunted sika deer, there were no small animals left. The droppings had dried, the grass had grown back, but there was no sign of any movement.

Li Long entered several remote small gullies and was surprised to find that the Fritillaria and Codonopsis seedlings had already sprouted. Codonopsis is best dug up in autumn and winter, but Fritillaria could actually be dug now, though they weren't quite plump yet.

He remembered Harimu saying that near his winter camp, and in the area around it, there were Fritillaria gullies filled with the plants. If he couldn't hunt anything, should he take some time to make a tool and go dig them up?

At lunchtime, the man who had mentioned the wild boar spoke up again. His name was Wei Zhonghua.

"Alright, tomorrow morning around five or six, I'll come get you, and you take me to have a look," Li Long thought. Since he had nothing else to do, he might as well go check it out.

"Then why not stay here tonight and squeeze in with someone at the winter camp?" Wei Zhonghua thought Li Long was returning to the team only to come back early the next morning, which seemed like too much trouble.

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

Early the next morning, Li Long arrived carrying his gun. He woke Wei Zhonghua, and the two of them crept eastward.

At this time, the sky was just beginning to lighten, and the two of them struggled along the narrow goat path.

"Just below the slope of that gully ahead," Wei Zhonghua whispered. "Are we here too early?"

Li Long said nothing. He climbed to the top of the slope, felt the wind with his hand, and then led Wei Zhonghua around to the downwind side.

The two lay in ambush, waiting until dawn, but the wild boar herd never appeared, leaving them somewhat disappointed. Li Long went down to check and found that the wild boars had indeed rooted up a large patch of grass there. Judging by the dryness of the soil, it must have been three or five days ago.

He slung his gun over his shoulder and said to Wei Zhonghua:

"This herd of wild boars must be wandering and not fixed in one spot. Let's come back and check in a few days."

The two returned empty-handed. The others who had been waiting to eat wild boar meat were also somewhat disappointed, but everyone understood this was no big deal; after all, no hunter catches something every time they go out.

In the following days, because the trees grew fast and many willow branches were cut, the progress of weaving the carrying frames sped up considerably. Even Xu Jianjun, the slowest, had accumulated enough to weave thirteen or fourteen frames.

Li Long came every day to check the quality of the frames. Over these days, three were found to be substandard and had to be reworked. Although the two people who wove the frames complained a bit, they obediently reworked them. Everyone knew the money wasn't easy to earn, but there were plenty of people who wanted to earn it.

Running from the winter camp to Little White Poplar Gully every day, Li Long felt he had built up his stamina; his physical strength and walking endurance were far superior to most people's. He also noticed that more people were appearing in the mountains; occasionally he would meet someone on horseback or on foot. Seeing Li Long carrying a gun, these people generally avoided any interaction or conversation with him.

Li Long guessed they were likely members of the Forestry Team, or people entering the mountains to gather herbs or collect deer antlers.

He hadn't found any deer antlers in a long time.

Although he had collected quite a few from the herdsmen, to be honest, he hadn't actually found many himself.

That morning, after cooking porridge and mixing it with wild vegetables for breakfast at the winter camp, he leisurely arrived at Little White Poplar Gully, where Xie Yun Dong anxiously said to him:

"Xu Jianjun has been arrested!"

"What? Arrested? By whom?"

"They say it was the Forestry Team. They claimed Xu Jianjun secretly went to dig up Fritillaria in the Forestry Team's jurisdiction and arrested him! Xu Jianjun didn't come back last night. We went out to look but couldn't find him, thinking he might have gotten lost and would return today.

Unexpectedly, someone on horseback came this morning saying he was arrested and told us to go to the Big East Gully in the east to pay money and get him back."

"Damn it!" Li Long was so angry he wanted to curse.

It was a very simple task: just cut willow branches in Little White Poplar Gully and weave the carrying frames. Yet Xu Jianjun had to make this trouble!

Did he not want to work anymore?

"Little Long, what do we do?" Xie Yun Dong looked worried. "What can we do! They don't recognize our team's introduction letter at all!"

Previously, when he led people in sideline work, they just worked; the mountains were so vast, no one cared.

Now, unexpectedly, while things were going well, Xu Jianjun couldn't return!

"It's fine. Let the others continue weaving; you and I will go get him," Li Long reassured him, since everyone else was watching. Those people looked fearful, surely worried that even weaving the frames here would be banned next.

"Good." With Li Long's words, Xie Yun Dong felt he had a backbone and nodded vigorously.

"Everyone, work with peace of mind. We have the branches, the proof, and the introduction letter. As long as we weave the frames right here, we'll be fine." Seeing Xie Yun Dong still distracted, Li Long spoke loudly to the others, "We are going to bring Xu Jianjun back—but since he violated the rules, he will still be punished when he returns!"

Those who had previously harbored hopes immediately gave up the thought—even if they got him back, if he was fined, wouldn't all this work have been in vain?

(End of this chapter)