Chapter 177

Li Long had a wonderful meal of rice at Gu Xiaoxia's place and left with a full stomach.

Two teachers came over to watch the fun in the middle. Li Long generously held his bowl and greeted them, and also praised Gu Xiaoxia's cooking and stir-frying.

Those two teachers originally wanted to come over to watch the fun, but they didn't expect to be shown such affection, so they left.

Li Long got on his bicycle and said to Gu Xiaoxia:

"Then I'll go first. I'll come to see you when I have time. Your father's side will be finished in about ten days. Are you still going to the mountains during this time?"

"I won't go for now, I know my father is fine." Gu Xiaoxia wiped her hands with her apron and said, "He is happier there than in the team, and the food isn't bad either. My students are having their mid-term exams, so I'm a bit busy during this time."

"Then I'll take you to the mountains when you're free." Li Long pedaled his bicycle, waved at Gu Xiaoxia, and rode away.

Gu Xiaoxia watched Li Long's back disappear before returning to the dormitory to continue tidying up. Although it was only for lunch, it felt very fulfilling.

Li Long was still a bit embarrassed when he pedaled his bicycle close to the team. Originally, he came back to deliver some wild vegetables and incidentally check on the situation at home, but as a result, he had lunch at Gu Xiaoxia's place, and the wild vegetables he brought back were a bit wilted.

But it was still okay, it could be eaten.

When he was close to the village, he saw a group of children at the reed ditch dismantling reeds to make spears (or red-tasseled spears), which was to break a long reed from the root, and then except for the top two leaves, all other leaves were removed.

The reeds didn't have tassels yet at this time, and the top was very sharp. The children would then tear the two leaves at the top into fine threads, looking just like the tassels of a red-tasseled spear. After making them, they would play with each other.

Li Qiang was also among them. Li Long stopped his bicycle and asked him:

"Qiangqiang, why didn't you have class this afternoon?"

Preschool should have classes in both the morning and afternoon.

"Our teacher said she had something to do this afternoon, so she let us play first and have class later." After the previous Russian olive flower incident, these children were a bit afraid of Li Long. Now, seeing him come over, they all stood on both sides of the road holding their spears properly, making Li Long feel like he was inspecting troops.

"Then you guys play, don't hurt yourselves." Li Long gave a warning, got on his bicycle, and pedaled home.

Li Jianguo and Liang Yuemei had both gone out to work, and Li Juan hadn't finished school yet. Li Long locked his bicycle, took out the wild vegetables, and seeing that there was only half the water left in the vat, he went to fetch water.

This well was shared by seven or eight families. When Li Long went over, a woman from another family was also fetching water. Seeing Li Long come over, she asked with some surprise:

"Little Long, you're also here to fetch water? Do you know how to draw it?"

If it were in the past, Li Long would most likely have thought the other party was kind, but now he could hear that the sister-in-law's tone was clearly mocking. He didn't reply, stepped forward first, put down the bucket, took off the shoulder pole, used an iron hook to fasten the bucket handle, grabbed the shoulder pole, and slowly lowered the bucket into the well. When the bucket reached the water surface, he grabbed the other iron hook of the shoulder pole and swung it with a clever force. The bucket tilted on the water surface, water entered the bucket, he paused for ten seconds, and then pulled the full bucket up.

Watching Li Long skillfully draw a bucket of water, the sister-in-law who originally wanted to see a joke was unhappy. When two people met to fetch water, there was usually a bit of competitiveness, after all, the one who fetched water later was equivalent to eating the water that had been touched by the other family's bucket.

Li Long pulled this bucket of water up and poured it into the bucket on the well surface, and after drawing another bucket, he carried it back.

Although there was no conflict with anyone during the whole process, the idea of digging a pressure well became even stronger.

At least if a pressure well was dug, it would be clean and safe to use.

He remembered that every year, dead mice, small birds, and such were fished out of this well. After all, the well mouth didn't have a cover yet. In two years, there would be an iron cover, but it wouldn't be sealed tightly in winter.

The water was definitely not very clean.

Pressure wells in this era didn't have standard models. The pressure well heads were all welded by blacksmiths themselves, costing more than ten yuan each, which wasn't expensive, but not cheap either.

For Li Long, it was naturally no problem, but the problem was the person digging the well. Of course, another problem was finding a suitable location. He remembered that in his previous life, digging a pressure well was relatively easy—dig a three or four-meter pit, and after hitting water, leave the pipe directly and seal the soil back.

But this three or four-meter water layer was a saline-alkali layer, and you basically wouldn't drink the water that came out. If you wanted drinkable water, you had to keep digging down, at least to more than ten meters, past the sand and gravel layer, and only then would the water layer below surge up.

Pressure wells at this time were also simple. As long as you dug to a sufficient depth, the water could come up by itself.

After filling the water vat, Li Long was washing the wild vegetables when Li Juan came back with her schoolbag. Seeing Li Long washing vegetables, she quickly put down her schoolbag and came out to help.

"Are you hungry?" Li Long asked while washing the wild vegetables, "If you're hungry, I'll stir-fry a dish for you now."

"Not hungry, I brought steamed buns at noon." Li Juan shook her head, "Uncle, what kind of vegetable is this?"

"This is wild celery, you should be able to recognize this one, it's wild chives." Li Long finished washing, hung the wild vegetables up, shook his hands, and said, "Then are you going to do your homework later?"

"Homework is done, I'm going to cut pig grass. There's a patch of sweet sow thistle at the edge of our field, our pigs love to eat it." Li Juan's eyes were bright, "I'm afraid someone else will cut it, so I have to go quickly."

"Alright, go ahead, don't cut the roots." Li Long smiled and gave a warning. Over the past few months, he clearly felt that Li Juan was much more lively than before, but he didn't know how her studies were.

Li Long was a poor student in his previous life, so he wouldn't ask about Li Juan and Li Qiang's academic performance. Li Qiang was a bit naughty, but in fact, his academic performance was very good after entering elementary school.

He didn't need to worry.

When Li Jianguo and Liang Yuemei came back in the evening, Li Long had already prepared dinner. He made cornmeal porridge, stir-fried wild vegetables, and steamed buns.

Li Qiang followed Li Long and happily helped, busy and happy. He was holding a steamed bun from the bottom layer that was stuck to the side of the pot, which had a thick layer of charred yellow edge. Children in this era loved eating this layer the most.

It was said that if you ate it, you could pick up money—Li Long only found out later that the elderly said this just to keep children from wasting food.

But children believed it at the time.

After dinner, Li Long told Li Jianguo about the idea of digging a pressure well.

"If a pressure well head only costs more than ten yuan, then the rest of the matter is simple." Li Jianguo said with a smile, "Then let's dig one."

"Finding someone is troublesome." Li Long was a bit worried. There was no one digging wells privately yet. There were state-run well diggers, but they definitely wouldn't come to dig a well for this small pressure well.

"Finding who?" Li Jianguo said with a face full of self-satisfaction, "It's just the tools that are troublesome..."

"What tools are needed?" Li Long hadn't heard the implication yet, "Big brother, do you know what's needed?"

"Digging a pressure well in our own yard, the diameter won't exceed ten centimeters at most. What's needed is a long steel bar, ten meters... no, that would need two steel bars welded together. Then there's the pipe for the pressure well..."

Li Jianguo was rolling a cigarette, and at this moment he stopped his hands, calculating, "According to your statement, three or five meters deep definitely won't work. We definitely can't drink that saline-alkali water, so we have to find a good place. Let's dig the well in the yard, dig and see first..."

Li Long listened to Li Jianguo speaking so methodically and couldn't help but ask:

"Big brother, how do you know so clearly?"

"Me? Hehe, ask your sister-in-law what I used to do?" Li Long turned his head to look at Liang Yuemei, who was measuring clothes for Li Juan.

"Your big brother, before we were married, he was in the well-digging company. I was there too. By the way, there was also Tie Tou's father from across the street."

"At that time, we used manual drills to dig wells. It was so tiring. The wells for the county bank and the supply and marketing cooperative were all dug by us. Later, the well-digging team stopped for a while, and we settled down here." Li Jianguo recalled.

"Big brother, so you're a professional well digger." Li Long suddenly realized, "Then shall we dig tomorrow? I'll go to the blacksmith shop tomorrow to weld a well head, buy the pipes, and weld the steel bars. We can get it done in a day."

As soon as he said this, the whole room—Liang Yuemei, Li Juan, and even Li Qiang—looked at Li Jianguo with bright eyes.

Clearly, they all agreed with Li Long's proposal.

Carrying water was really troublesome. Even little Li Juan had carried it. Although she couldn't fill it, when she was in a hurry to use water, she had to carry two large half-buckets.

Li Jianguo looked at them, thought for a moment, and said:

"The farm work isn't busy these two days, so let's dig. I'll go find Old Lu now and settle this matter. Once the well is dug, both our families can use it."

This statement was definitely flawless. Every family's compound now only had a courtyard wall and no gate. The relationship between neighbors was usually good, so it was perfectly fine for the Lu family to use the pressure well if the Li family had one.

!.

Li Jianguo got up, lit the rolled cigarette with a kerosene lamp, draped his coat over his shoulders, and went out.

Li Long also came outside the courtyard. It was already dark. Because there was no light pollution and the moon hadn't risen yet, the sky was full of stars, which looked very beautiful.

Li Qiang didn't know when he had come to his side. He asked Li Long:

"Little Uncle, what are you looking at?"

"Looking at the stars."

"What's good about stars?" Li Qiang didn't quite understand. Weren't they just bright little dots?

Li Long thought to himself, when you grow up, you will miss the time when you could still see the stars all over the sky and clearly see each constellation.

Thinking this way, he became interested, took Li Qiang outside the courtyard, and taught him one by one, from the North Star and the Big Dipper to the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl.

He told constellations and also told folk stories.

In his previous life, he had absorbed a lot of information from short videos, and it came in handy at this time. The version of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl he told wasn't about stealing clothes, but the earliest version where both were gods in heaven.

He didn't know when Li Juan had also come out and was listening quietly on the side.

When Li Jianguo came out from the Lu family's house and saw the three of them looking at the stars, he was happy:

"It's pitch black, why aren't you going inside?"

"Is it settled?" Li Long asked.

"Settled. Tomorrow you go buy the well head and weld the steel bars. We'll dig the pit, and when you come back, we'll drill the hole—by the way, we also need to buy pipes." Li Jianguo said while taking money out of his pocket, "The well head and steel bars can be bought at Old Liu's place at the commune's agricultural machinery repair factory, just put it on the account. The pipes have to be bought at the supply and marketing cooperative. We need to prepare twenty meters first. You take this ten yuan first..."

"No need, no need." Li Long waved his hands hurriedly, "I have enough money."

"Your money is yours. This is digging a well for the family, you don't need to pay..."

"You provide the labor, I provide the money, isn't that just right?" Li Long wouldn't take Li Jianguo's money. He took two steps back, "Buying things is up to me, digging the well is up to you, just right."

Li Jianguo's money couldn't be given out.

The next day after breakfast, Lu Yingming and Sister-in-law Lu came over with iron shovels. It could be seen that they were even more excited than the Li family.

"Sister-in-law, you said you've dug so many wells for others, and now you can finally dig one for your own family, that's really great!" Sister-in-law Lu sighed, "It's not easy!"

Li Long rode his bicycle with Li Juan and Li Qiang, first sent Li Qiang to preschool, then took Li Juan to elementary school, and after dropping them off, arrived at the commune's agricultural machinery repair factory.

It was called agricultural machinery repair, but it was actually the former blacksmith shop. Because every production team had a Dongfanghong 75 tractor, as well as seeders, plows, and other agricultural machinery. These big guys were very sturdy, basically had no major problems, but minor problems would appear from time to time. These minor problems weren't worth returning to the agricultural machinery factory for repair, and they could be solved here.

Li Long arrived at the repair factory and found someone welding things there. He saw Old Liu, whom Li Jianguo had mentioned.

Old Liu was watching the master weld things. Li Long walked in. He looked a bit familiar, but he didn't recognize him, so he asked with a smile:

"Little brother, what are you buying?"

"Factory Director Liu, my big brother is Li Jianguo. Our family wants to dig a pressure well, and I want to come over and see if you have a pressure well head..."

"Old Li's brother? You're Li Long, right?" Old Liu was happy when he heard this, "What, digging a pressure well? We have well heads!"

He took Li Long to a warehouse and pointed to the four pressure well heads inside, "Look, they were all welded not long ago. Not many people dig pressure wells now, but they still do from time to time... By the way, is your family digging it yourself? Do you have tools?"

"No, my big brother said to find them from you too, said we need welded steel bars."

"Just say your big brother is from the well-digging company, he knows the ropes. How many meters do you need? I'll weld it for you now."

"The shallow water on our side is alkaline, so it needs to be a bit deeper, at least more than ten meters."

"Alright, three sections of steel bars, I'll put it on your big brother's account. Do you want pipes? I have pipes here, but they are old..."

"I don't need the pipes, I plan to go to the supply and marketing cooperative to buy new ones. By the way, don't put it on the account, I'll pay you cash."

"Alright. I heard you've made money from the beginning of the year to now. I thought it was just gossip, but it seems to be true. How about this, the cost of the pressure well is twelve yuan, I have to pay the workers, so fifteen yuan. The steel bars will be the cost price, three yuan, you give me eighteen."

"Good."

Li Long paid eighteen yuan and said to Old Liu:

"I'm going to the county to buy pipes now. Can the steel bars be welded when I come back?"

"That's definitely no problem."

When Li Long returned to the Li family with the full set of things, a pit two meters square and more than one meter deep had already been dug in the yard.

(End of chapter)