Chapter 187: Tao Daqiang also has times when he is petty

"Daqiang, I know it wasn't you." Li Long said with a smile, "If it were you, these water rats wouldn't have escaped—look, this area only has traces of digging, there's no sign of catching water rats at all. The person who dug the burrow didn't know that water rats have several burrows, and in the end, they likely caught nothing."

Li Long didn't suspect him, which made Tao Daqiang breathe a sigh of relief, and then he became angry again:

"Then who could it be? It was clearly the burrow I found first..."

Li Long comforted him:

"Daqiang, these water rats, before they are caught, don't belong to anyone. Whoever catches them, they belong to. If you saw it, marked it, and wounded it, and it escaped from your hands and was caught by someone else, then you could barely say it was yours. Now, it's naturally whoever can catch them, they belong to."

He remembered the time Li Qiang caught fish. Li Qiang also felt that someone had betrayed him, bringing others to catch the fish that should have been caught by himself. But in reality, fish at that time were considered wild resources. If you didn't catch them, then whoever caught them, they belonged to.

"It's just a pity for this nest of water rats, looking at these nests, there must be at least five."

"No problem, this Little Haizi range is so big, there should be more." Although Li Long understood, he didn't plan to go back empty-handed today, so he pointed forward and said:

"Let's look ahead, see if there are any burrows ahead."

Tao Daqiang was still a bit unwilling. He asked while walking:

"We catch water rats, how could others know? And they just happened to dig the burrow I saw..."

"Must have been heard or seen by others. That person heard or saw only a little bit, didn't know what the water rat burrow looked like specifically, maybe didn't even know if water rats were valuable or not..."

Li Long thought of a person while saying this.

"Should be Ma Jinbao..."

"Ma Jinbao? You say he dug it?" Tao Daqiang didn't believe it, "He can do this? Someone who doesn't even pick up grass in the field, doesn't even move a broom at home, can dig this burrow?"

"I'm saying, it should be Ma Jinbao who told others about us digging water rat burrows, letting someone interested hear it and run over to dig. I guess, they felt we've made money in the past half year, wanted to follow behind and drink some soup, but were too embarrassed to come and ask, heard Ma Jinbao bragging, and then..."

The rest didn't need Li Long to explain, Tao Daqiang could also imagine it.

Sigh, it's still a pity for that nest of water rats!

"No matter what, if I know who it is, I still want to beat him up!" Tao Daqiang at this time had a bit of a clear-cut love and hate.

"But you can't beat him openly," Li Long joked while walking, "Find a sack, take advantage of the night when he's alone, cover him from behind with a sack and beat him up, he won't know who beat him... no, a sack won't do!"

"Why won't a sack do?" Tao Daqiang thought this idea was not bad!

Li Long was actually joking, bringing some scenes he saw in novels in his previous life into the present. Seeing Tao Daqiang so "eager to learn," he explained:

"The sacks of each family in the team are written with names to prevent mixing. If you beat him up, you can't take the sack away, right? If you take it away, won't it be discovered? Use a urea bag, that one generally doesn't have a name, it's just too small..."

The bags of each family in the team weren't many. Hemp sacks were usually issued by the team or bought by each family. Because they held a lot, most were written with the surname or name of each family to make a mark.

Urea bags were bought uniformly by the team when sowing and fertilizing. After the fertilizer was used up, whoever worked nearby would take the bag. Sometimes they discussed it, and each family had a few.

So urea bags usually weren't marked, because the team gave a lot of fertilizer to the land every year, so this thing was plentiful.

Li Long was just saying it. Seeing Tao Daqiang lost in thought, he hurriedly said:

"Daqiang, don't take it seriously, I'm just saying it. This matter is still unknown who did it, and besides, they didn't take advantage, let's just focus on finding and digging first."

"Yeah, I know." Tao Daqiang began to look toward the water, occasionally using the iron shovel to stir the reeds by the water to see if there were any traces.

Having searched once before, he had some experience, so this time when they reached the corner of the east bank and the south bank, Tao Daqiang was the first to find a quite large burrow under a cluster of reeds.

"Brother Long, look, is this it?" Tao Daqiang used the iron shovel to chop off those reeds, revealing the burrow entrance hidden by the grass below.

Half of the burrow entrance was in the water. Because there were reeds blocking it, the owners of these burrows didn't care. Yellow and green droppings were scattered at the reed roots, looking quite fresh.

"Should be it. But there are many reed roots, should be quite hard to dig."

"That's nothing!" Hearing this was a water rat burrow, Tao Daqiang immediately got his spirit back. He was just holding back a breath of anger, so he immediately dug toward the burrow entrance, and while digging, said to Li Long:

"Brother Long, you look around, don't let the water rats run away from other places."

Li Long was already looking for other burrows at this time.

He wasn't in a hurry. Water rats usually are active from afternoon to dusk. At this time, they should likely be sleeping in the burrow. Such burrows usually wouldn't have only one, as long as they run out, there will be movement, and they won't go out of a range of five or six meters, so they can always be found.

He held the iron shovel and vigilantly watched the water surface. The water here was a slope, gradually deepening from the bank, not the kind of newly built embankment that was straight up and down, so the burrow entrance was easy to find. In less than a minute, Li Long determined two targets. These two small burrows were in the reeds underwater, not easy to find without looking carefully.

During Tao Daqiang's digging, water was bubbling out of both of the seemingly small burrows. Li Long guessed, could it be that both burrows were branch burrow entrances for this water rat?

Li Long walked two steps toward the water, then lifted the iron shovel. This thing, one pelt was five or six yuan, it wouldn't be good if it ran away.

Tao Daqiang had already dug out the first grass nest of the water rat. He shouted while digging:

"Brother Long, I saw a water rat burrowing inside..."

Before his words were finished, Li Long saw a water rat burrow out from the burrow entrance on the right underwater. Just as it poked its head out, Li Long shoveled it out with one iron shovel.

Although the water rat's skin was thick, and it was underwater, this iron shovel might not break the skin, but Li Long still didn't want to take this risk; if it was shoveled broken, it wouldn't be valuable.

That water rat was shoveled out along with the dirt by Li Long, turned a somersault in the air, landed on the ground, and then clumsily crawled toward the water. On the bank, the water rat's movements were extremely slow. Li Long slammed down with one flat iron shovel, directly beating the guy until it didn't move.

He immediately continued to look, and then saw another water rat burrow out from the other burrow, only its triangle-like tail was still in the burrow, the whole body had entered the water, and it began to swim toward the deep water along the bottom of the water.

Li Long couldn't care about his shoes getting wet, jumped into the water, took the iron shovel, and went to shovel that big water rat. The huge force of the water flow made that water rat follow out of the water surface. It struggled hard, wanting to return to the water. Li Long used the iron shovel again to forcefully pull it and the water onto the bank.

Immediately, Li Long saw a water rat burrow out from the previous burrow entrance and swim into the deep water.

Couldn't catch up, could only take care of this one first.

Tao Daqiang was also screaming on that side:

"Hey, hey, hey, hey—a water rat came out..." He held the iron shovel and slammed it hard into the dug-out burrow, then picked out a fat water rat.

Li Long had also beaten that big water rat dizzy on the spot.

The two worked together again, finally dug the burrow completely open, and caught a small water rat, and this burrow was considered cleared.

"Ran away one or two." Li Long said, "This guy has two burrows underwater, too busy to handle, if there was one more person, it would be fine."

"It's fine, four water rats, this fur can sell for ten or twenty yuan." Tao Daqiang was very satisfied, isn't this better than farming?

"Yeah, pack it in the bag, let's go set the nets." Li Long nodded, tidied up, filled the dirt back roughly, and the two went to the place where the nets were set together.

Although the Little Haizi was smaller than the Big Haizi, that was relative. The water surface must be at least several hundred acres. One-third of it was covered by reeds and water grass, and the rest was all places where nets could be set.

With the tire, Li Long could choose the net-setting location at will. He chose a trough, quite far from the bank. Originally he wanted to be closer, so it would be easier to retrieve the nets tomorrow. But the matter of the water rat burrow being dug made him understand, don't think too well of the people in the team, there are good people everywhere, and there are also bad scoundrels everywhere.

The nets were set far, the water was deep, those who wanted to cause damage or pick up cheap deals, at least they had to consider whether they could bear the possible losses before going into the water.

Li Long paddled the tire to set the nets, Tao Daqiang looked at it enviously, and then began to practice casting the net by the water.

!.

Cast three or five nets, then looked at Li Long, who had already reached the reed edge thirty or forty meters from the bank and began to show off his unique skill of setting nets.

He sighed, he couldn't even cast a semi-circle when casting the net, let alone setting the net with his mouth, and even paddling the tire to retrieve the net could get him knocked into the water by a big fish.

If he hadn't followed Brother Long, wouldn't he be a useless person?

He suddenly thought of the guy who dug the water rat burrow and harmed others without benefiting himself.

If he really found out who it was, he would definitely go at midnight and use Brother Long's method to beat him up!

Eight nets, Li Long set all the nets, paddled back in forty minutes, saw Tao Daqiang still practicing casting the net there, a few fish were jumping on the ground, mostly crucian carp, he said:

"Daqiang, you take these fish back, our family won't eat fish these two days, have to stop for two days."

"My family won't eat either." Tao Daqiang waved his hand, "That big carp hasn't been finished yet."

"Then... you take some away, see who to give to, give it to your brother's house. I'll send some to Grandpa Luo." Li Long thought for a moment and said, "Let's go, go back to peel the water rat fur."

The two returned to the Li house, put down the nets and the tire, and began to peel the water rat fur.

Four water rats, the largest one had the best fur and had a musk sac—only this one had it, the remaining three didn't.

This musk sac was bigger than the two musk sacs Li Long had cut down before, feeling granular inside, like it was filled with many small stones.

"Rub it with salt first, wait until it's completely dry, then go sell it." Li Long said, "It'll take three or five days."

"Great, Brother Long, I'm going back. I'll come over early tomorrow morning."

After Tao Daqiang left, Li Long rubbed the fur with salt, hung it up, and then carried the remaining fish to the old horse corral.

Grandpa Luo was feeding the little deer grass, and Li Long heard the wild boar's squealing from afar.

It was fortunate that the old horse corral was between three residential points, not relying on any of them, otherwise, he estimated someone would find trouble for Li Long. After all, this wild boar cub's squealing was too ugly, and it was full of energy, able to squeal for most of the day.

"Little Long is here—why are you carrying fish again? I'm a bit embarrassed." Grandpa Luo looked at the fish of all sizes threaded with reed grass in Li Long's hand and said with a smile.

"Just eat it with peace of mind, in such a big Little Haizi, there's nothing else much, just many fish."

"Then fine, I won't be polite. By the way, Little Long, these two days this little deer is a bit listless, don't know what the reason is."

Li Long went over to look, the two little deer's size didn't seem to have changed. In the little grid for the deer, there were alfalfa, reeds, gray strips, and other wild grass forage in the feeding trough, as well as some feed mixed with wheat bran, but not much was eaten.

This little grid was cleaned very cleanly, not even much feces could be seen, and there was no strange smell. Li Long looked at the little deer, thought for a moment, and said:

"Grandpa Luo, this deer should still not be used to this environment, let them out to run more."

"Fine, let them out to run outside every day later." Grandpa Luo nodded readily, "The courtyard is big, a small piece was planted with vegetables, they have all grown, I'll use the waste dirt blocks from outside to build a wall for the big piece, and let them run in that piece."

"Wait until these two days are idle, I'll bring people over to build the wall." Li Long said, "By the way, I'm going to clean up a room here. After a while, my dad and mom are coming over, my brother's side can't fit them, so I'll live here."

"That's great." Grandpa Luo was happy when he heard it, "Then I'll have a companion. There are many houses, although no one lives in them usually, I take care of them. You see which room you want to live in, I'll clean it up for you first."

Li Long looked at the row of flat houses, five rooms in total. Grandpa Luo lived in the one by the door, concurrently watching the main gate, so he pointed to the middle one and said: "I'll live in that one."

"Great, that room is the biggest, it's spacious to put things. Little Long, how are you going to get furniture?"

"Just made a set. I pulled a lot of wood from the mountains, it's a pity to burn it as firewood, so I made furniture."

"New furniture, Little Long, tell the truth, are you getting married soon." Grandpa Luo joked, "Who is the partner?"

"Gu Xiaoxia." Li Long didn't hide it, "Marriage still has to wait a year or two, we are both not in a hurry, she just started working, still have to pay attention to the influence."

"Good, good, good, that girl from the Gu family is a person who lives a life, unlike... cough, cough, you know it." Grandpa Luo said with a smile, "I just feel, after passing a winter, you have changed a lot, work hard!"

While Li Long was looking at the little wild boar in the old horse corral, Tao Daqiang returned home. Tao Construction was feeding the donkey. Seeing him return, he hesitated for a moment and said:

"Daqiang, I just went to the store to buy vinegar, heard Ma Jinbao bragging there, saying you dug water rats? Then said Xu Jianjun also followed?"

"Who? Xu Jianjun?" Tao Daqiang was originally squatting on the ground picking fish, hearing this, he stood up abruptly!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 188 =====