Chapter 177: Li Jianguo's

Li Long ate a beautiful bowl of rice at Gu Xiaoxia's place and left while burping.

In the middle, two other teachers came over to watch the excitement. Li Long greeted them very generously while holding his bowl and praised Gu Xiaoxia's cooking and vegetable stir-frying.

Those two teachers originally wanted to come over to watch the excitement, but they didn't expect to be shown a face of affection, and then they left.

Li Long straddled 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 another ten days or so. See if you want to go into the mountains during this time?"

"Not going for now, I know my father is doing well." Gu Xiaoxia wiped her hands with an apron and said, "He is happier there than in the team, and the food is not bad. My students here are about to have their midterm exams, so I'm a bit busy during this time."

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

Gu Xiaoxia kept watching Li Long's back disappear before returning to the dormitory to continue tidying up. Although it was only a noon, it felt very fulfilling.

Li Long felt a bit embarrassed when he was about to reach the team while pedaling the bicycle. Originally, he came back to send some wild vegetables and see how the family situation was, but as a result, he ate lunch at Gu Xiaoxia's place, so the wild vegetables he brought back were a bit wilted.

But it's okay, they can be eaten.

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

The reeds hadn't grown tassels at this time, and the top was very sharp. The children then tore the two leaves at the top into fine threads, which looked like the tassels of a red-tasseled spear, and after making them, they played 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?"

The preschool class should have classes both morning and afternoon.

"Our teacher said she had something to do this afternoon, let us play first, and then have class in a while." After the Russian olive flower incident last time, these children were a bit afraid of Li Long. Now, as soon as he came over, they all stood on both sides of the road holding seedlings in a disciplined manner, making Li Long look like he was reviewing troops.

"Then you guys play, don't hurt yourselves." Li Long exhorted, pedaled the bike, and went home.

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

This water well was shared by seven or eight families. When Li Long came over, the woman from another family was also carrying water. She saw Li Long coming and asked with some surprise:

"Xiao Long, you also come to carry water? Do you know how to draw it?"

If it were in the past, Li Long would probably have thought the other party was kind, but now he could hear the teasing meaning in that sister-in-law's words. He didn't reply, stepped forward first, put down the bucket, took off the shoulder pole, hooked the bucket handle with an iron hook, grabbed the shoulder pole, slowly lowered the bucket into the well, waited until the bucket reached the water surface, grabbed the other iron hook of the shoulder pole, used a clever force to swing it, the water bucket tilted on the well surface, water entered the bucket, paused for ten seconds, the water was full, and the bucket was lifted.

Watching Li Long skillfully draw up a bucket of water, the sister-in-law who originally wanted to watch the joke was unhappy. When two people meet to draw water, they usually have a bit of competitive spirit. After all, the one who draws water later is equivalent to eating the water that the other family's bucket has touched.

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

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

At least if the pressure well is hit well, it is clean and reassuring to use.

He remembered that there were dead mice and small birds fished out of this well every year. After all, the well mouth didn't have a cover now. Two years later, there was an iron cover, but it wouldn't be covered tightly in winter.

The water is definitely not very clean.

The pressure well of this era has no standard, and the pressure well head is welded by the blacksmith himself, ten or twenty yuan each, not expensive, but not cheap either.

For Li Long, it is naturally no problem, the problem is the person who digs the well. Of course, there is another problem, which is finding a suitable location. He remembered that it was easier to hit a pressure well in his previous life, dig a three or four-meter pit, and after water comes out, leave the pipe directly and seal the soil back.

But the water layer of these three or four meters is an alkali layer, and the water hit out basically cannot be drunk by oneself. If you want drinkable water, you have to continue to hit down, at least hit down more than ten meters, pass the sand and stone layer, and the water layer below will surge up.

The pressure well of this time is also simple. As long as it hits a sufficient depth, the water can come up by itself.

Filling the water vat, Li Long was cleaning 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.

"Hungry or not?" Li Long asked while washing wild vegetables. "If 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, this you should recognize, it's wild chives." Li Long finished washing, hung up the wild vegetables, shook his hands, and said, "Then you will do your homework in a while?"

"Homework is finished, I'm going to cut pig grass. There is a piece of sweet curved vegetable by the edge of our family's land, our family's pigs love to eat it." Li Juan's eyes were bright. "I'm afraid others will cut it, so I have to hurry."

"Fine, go, don't cut the root." Li Long exhorted with a smile. In 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 scumbag 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 elementary school.

No need for him to worry.

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

Li Qiang followed Li Long happily helping, very happy. What he held was the steamed bun stuck to the edge of the pot on the bottom layer, with a thick layer of golden-yellow edge. Children in this era like this layer the most.

It is said that if you eat it, you can pick up money—Li Long only knew later that the old people said so just to keep children from wasting food.

But children believe it at this time.

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

"If a pressure well head only costs ten or twenty yuan, then the remaining things are simple." Li Jianguo said with a smile, "Then let's hit one."

"Finding someone is more troublesome." Li Long was a bit worried. Now there is nowhere to have a private well-digging, state-run well-digging exists, but people definitely won't come to hit a well for our small pressure well.

"Finding what person?" Li Jianguo said this with full self-satisfaction, "It's just that the tools are troublesome..."

"What tools are needed?" Li Long hadn't heard the taste yet, "Brother, do you know what is needed?"

"Hitting a pressure well in our own courtyard, the diameter is at most not more than ten centimeters. What is needed is a long steel bar, more than ten meters... No, that has to be two steel bars welded together. Then it is the pipe used for the pressure well..."

Li Jianguo was rolling the Mohe tobacco, stopped his hand at this time, and calculated, "According to your statement, three or five meters deep is definitely not okay. That alkali water is definitely not drinkable, so we have to find a good place. We will hit the well in the courtyard, dig and see first..."

Li Long listened to Li Jianguo saying this with a method, and couldn't help but ask:

"Brother, why do you know so clearly?"

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

"Your brother, before we got married, he was in the well-digging company. I was there too. By the way, there is also Tie Tou's father next door."

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

"Brother, it turns out you are a professional well-digger." Li Long suddenly realized, "Then shall we hit it tomorrow? I'll find a blacksmith shop tomorrow to weld a well head, buy pipes and weld steel bars, and it can be done in one day."

As soon as he said this, the whole room, Liang Wenyu, Li Juan, and even Li Qiang were looking at Li Jianguo with bright eyes.

Obviously, for Li Long's proposal, they all agreed.

Carrying water is really annoying, even little Li Juan has carried it, although she can't carry it full, but when she is in a hurry to use water, she has to carry two large half-buckets of water.

Li Jianguo looked at them and thought about it, saying:

"The work in the fields is not busy these two days, so let's hit it. I'll go find Old Lu now and decide this matter."

This statement is definitely no problem. Now every large courtyard only has courtyard walls and no large gates. The relationship between neighbors is usually quite good, so if the Li family has a pressure well, the Lu family coming to use it is no problem at all.

!.

Li Jianguo got up, lit the rolled Mohe tobacco with a kerosene lamp, draped his clothes, and went out.

Li Long also came to the outside of the courtyard. The sky was already dark. Because there was no light pollution and the moon hadn't risen yet, the sky was full of stars at this moment, looking very beautiful.

Li Qiang didn't know when he came to his side and asked Li Long:

"Little Uncle, what are you looking at?"

"Looking at the stars."

"What's good about stars?" Li Qiang didn't understand, aren't they just bright dots?

Li Long thought, when you grow up, you will miss that you can still see the starry sky at this time, and you can still clearly see one constellation after another.

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

Telling constellations, and also telling folk stories.

In his previous life, he watched short videos and poured a lot of information into his brain, which came in handy at this time. The version of the Cowherd and Weaver Girl he told was not stealing clothes, but the earliest version where both sides were gods in heaven.

I don't know when Li Juan also came out and listened quietly on the side.

When Li Jianguo came out of the Lu family, seeing the three people looking at the stars, he was happy:

"It's pitch black, why don't you go into the house?"

"Is it settled?" Li Long asked.

"Settled. Tomorrow you go buy the well head, weld the steel bars, we dig the pit, and after you come back, we will drill the eye—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 are bought from Old Liu at the commune agricultural machinery repair factory, just record the account, the pipes have to go to the supply and marketing cooperative, we have to prepare twenty meters first, you take this ten yuan first..."

"No need, no need." Li Long hurriedly waved his hand, "My money is enough."

"Your money is yours, this is hitting a well for the family, you don't need to spend money..."

"You guys put in the effort, I put in the money, isn't that just right." Li Long wouldn't want Li Jianguo's money. He stepped back two steps, "Buying things is left to me, hitting the well is left to you, just right."

Li Jianguo's money was not given out.

After breakfast the next day, Lu Yingming and Lu's sister-in-law 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 dug so many wells for others, now you can finally dig a well for your own family, really not bad!" Lu's sister-in-law sighed, "Not easy!"

Li Long rode his bike with Li Juan and Li Qiang, first sent Li Qiang to the preschool class, then took Li Juan to elementary school, and after putting her down, arrived at the township agricultural machinery repair factory.

It is called agricultural machinery repair, but it is actually the blacksmith shop before. Because every production team has a Dongfanghong 75 tractor, as well as seeders, plows, and other agricultural machinery. These big guys are very sturdy, basically no big problems, small problems will appear from time to time, these small problems are not worth returning to the agricultural machinery factory for repair, and they can be solved here.

Li Long came to the repair factory and found someone welding things here. He saw Old Liu that Li Jianguo mentioned.

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

"Little brother, buying something?"

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

"Old Li's brother, you are Li Long, right?" Old Liu was happy upon hearing this, "Why, hitting a pressure well? There is a well head!"

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

"No, my brother said to find it from you, said to weld good steel bars."

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

"Our side's shallow water is alkali, have to be deeper, at least more than ten meters."

"Fine, three sections of steel bars, recorded on your brother's account. Do you want pipes? I have pipes here, but they are old..."

"I don't want the pipes, I intend to go to the supply and marketing cooperative to buy new ones. By the way, don't record the account, I'll give you cash here."

"Fine."

Old Liu said, "I heard you earned money from the beginning of the year to now. I thought it was gossip, it seems it's true. How about this, the cost of a pressure well is twelve yuan, I have to give the worker master wages, fifteen yuan. Steel bars just give the cost price, three yuan, you give 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 courtyard.