Chapter 191: This method for catching water rats must not be learned by others!

Not long after finishing lunch, Tao Daqiang hurried over. Li Long hadn't expected him to be so proactive, but after thinking about the value of water rats, Li Long grabbed an iron shovel, and he and Tao Daqiang took the nets and the tire to the edge of the Little Haizi.

"Daqiang, this is five yuan from selling the fish yesterday." Li Long handed Tao Daqiang a five-yuan note. "Take it."

Tao Daqiang tried to refuse, but Li Long said:

"We've made it clear: the water rats from the time before last settled your debt. Take this money, otherwise, it'll be hard for us to split the money later."

Only then did Tao Daqiang take the money, fold it in half, and with a shy smile, tuck it into the inner pocket of his jacket, patting it to ensure it wouldn't fall out.

"Let's set the nets first before we go look for water rats." Li Long looked at the water surface and said, "Otherwise, it's not safe to leave the nets here, and it's inconvenient to carry them around."

"Brother Long, I'll do whatever you say!" Tao Daqiang naturally had no objections.

Li Long put the tire into the water, sat on it, took the bag, and paddled toward the place where he had first set the nets after returning from the mountains, then began setting the nets.

Today he only took six nets, mainly intending to go to the purchasing station to sell the water rat pelts and musk from the two trips after selling the fish tomorrow.

After the six nets were set, as Li Long paddled the tire to the shore, Tao Daqiang pulled him up and said:

"Brother Long, I don't think there are any more water rat holes on this east bank. Should we go to the north side?"

"We aren't going to the north side." Li Long waved his hand. "That side is the levee. Even if there are water rat holes, we can't dig them. If we dig poorly and collapse the dam, the trouble will be huge."

Tao Daqiang understood and continued to suggest:

"Then go to the south side?"

"Go to the south side. If there aren't any on the south side, then we'll go to the west side."

They found a nest of water rats in the reeds on the south side. Just as they were digging, Ma Jinbao hurried over.

"Yo, you guys are still digging." Ma Jinbao saw Li Long and Tao Daqiang, and while driving his sheep to eat the grass on the bank, he said, "What's so good about these water rats? Are you digging them to eat the meat or for the pelts?"

"That depends on what the purchasing station wants them for." Li Long said while watching the hole in the water, "We haven't taken the ones we dug last time to the purchasing station yet. After we go there, I'll ask clearly and then tell you?"

Ma Jinbao didn't believe Li Long didn't know, and he also knew Li Long wouldn't say. However, digging for these water rats was also troublesome; he had seen with his own eyes Xu Jianjun dig for half a day and get nothing.

Ma Jinbao didn't understand why Xu Jianjun didn't dig anything up, so he wanted to see for himself.

Li Long knew Ma Jinbao's thoughts. He seemingly casually stuck an iron shovel directly into the water, just enough to block the water rat's hole leading into the water, and then said to Tao Daqiang:

"Daqiang, you dig first, I'll go find a stick."

There were many wooden sticks on the bank of Little Haizi that had been washed down from upstream by the flood. Li Long easily found a suitable one.

Some of these sticks had already rotted. Li Long waved it and hit the ground twice to ensure the stick was strong enough, then carried it back. By the time he returned, Tao Daqiang had already dug to the first nest.

"It went in!" Tao Daqiang shouted, then quickly started digging.

Li Long stood there holding the stick, watching vigilantly.

The water rats' hole leading into the water inside had been blocked, and they were running around in a panic, eventually choosing to break out.

When the first water rat rushed out from the hole on Tao Daqiang's side, Tao Daqiang slapped it into the mud with one shovel. The second one followed closely, and Li Long accurately hit the water rat on the head with the stick, knocking it unconscious directly.

After a good while, no third water rat came out, so Tao Daqiang continued digging, while Li Long hit the two water rats with the stick a couple more times before putting them into the bag.

"You two are something," Ma Jinbao watched and didn't think it was anything strange. He hadn't noticed the effect of Li Long's shovel and thought that perhaps the nest Xu Jianjun dug earlier didn't have any water rats in it, and this nest just happened to have them.

He couldn't help but envy the two's luck and said:

"You two are still capable. Yesterday Xu Jianjun dug a hole, and it turned out there wasn't a single water rat... You dig two and both have them. Li Long, your luck is good, and your eye is good too!"

"You're saying the hole on the east bank was dug by Xu Jianjun?" Li Long asked, then glanced at Tao Daqiang.

Tao Daqiang pretended nothing was wrong and continued digging.

"Yeah, he didn't even let me say it. What's this? It's not like it's anything shameful... But I heard Xu Jianjun was beaten by someone last night, beaten while wearing a urea bag, and he was covered in chicken poop, it was so smelly. I heard his wife didn't even let him into bed yesterday..."

"What? He was beaten while wearing a bag?" Li Long felt it was a bit magical. "When?"

"Last night, I was drinking at Old Zhang's store, and he came over, so I invited him for a drink. After drinking..." Ma Jinbao was too embarrassed to say he vomited all over Xu Jianjun, so he blurred that part over and continued:

"After drinking, he wanted to go home, but he was beaten at the entrance of Wang Cai Mi's house. Wang Cai Mi's wife saw it, it must be true!"

Li Long didn't look at Tao Daqiang; he already knew it must have been Tao Daqiang who beat him—it couldn't be such a coincidence!

But thinking about it, beating Xu Jianjun up over a water rat hole was childish enough.

It's just that he couldn't say anything about this. By this time, Tao Daqiang had already dug to the end of the main tunnel, and two water rats rushed out together. While Tao Daqiang slapped one, the other rushed toward the water, was picked up by Li Long with the stick, fell into the mud, and was then knocked unconscious with two hits.

Four water rats in hand.

Ma Jinbao watched like he was watching a circus, feeling why were these two so capable?

Originally Li Long thought there were no more, but he didn't expect that the largest water rat was hiding in the last side tunnel, fully one and a half times as big as the others!

This water rat was knocked unconscious by Tao Daqiang, almost flattened!

Five water rats, even without musk, plus the four from last time, conservatively estimated, Tao Daqiang could get forty yuan!

With Ma Jinbao by his side, Li Long didn't say it out loud. He carried the shovel, and Tao Daqiang carried the bag as they walked toward the tire.

Ma Jinbao watched the two, and after they walked far away, he muttered to himself:

"What Xu Jianjun said is really like it. This Tao Daqiang is really like Li Long's lackey, a little follower."

After walking far away, Li Long whispered to Tao Daqiang:

"Daqiang, just from the water rat pelts and musk from yesterday and today, you can get at least forty yuan!"

"What? So much?" Tao Daqiang exclaimed suddenly. "How could it be so much?"

Two days' worth of a worker's monthly salary, what kind of concept was this?

"One pelt is conservatively eight yuan, yesterday and today there are nine pelts in total, plus there was a musk yesterday." Li Long calculated for him. "Even if there's no musk today, this adds up to almost ninety..."

"That... that..." Tao Daqiang stammered for a long time, too excited to know what to say.

"It's a pity that the number of these water rats is limited. Around this Little Haizi of ours, we can dig at most two or three more nests." Li Long sighed. "I don't know if there are any over at Big Haizi."

This was much faster than catching fish, and mainly, it wasn't that hard.

Because Ma Jinbao was there, Li Long and the others didn't continue to the west bank but walked back instead.

They didn't cast nets today. When the two returned to the Li house, it was still early, so Li Long began skinning the water rats. Tao Daqiang didn't dare to do it, afraid of ruining the pelts, so he helped Li Long. "Daqiang, after we're done in a while, do me a favor. I plan to clean up a room at the horse pen to live in. Tomorrow I'll bring the furniture back. You help me clean it up, and by the way, we'll build the wall in the middle of the horse pen."

"No problem." Tao Daqiang said readily. "Anyway, there's nothing to do."

Five water rats, just skinning them took over an hour. What surprised Li Long was that two of the five had musk.

The two scraped the oil off the pelts, rubbed them with salt, and then stretched them with wooden sticks, putting them in the spare room to dry.

Seeing it was still early, Li Long took a few newspapers from the spare room, grabbed a big broom, and said to Tao Daqiang:

"Daqiang, let's go, come work with me."

Tao Daqiang took the big broom in his hand, and Li Long picked up a small broom. The big broom was made of needle grass, and the small broom was made of sorghum stalks.

Just as the two went out, Li Qiang returned from preschool and asked when he saw Li Long:

"Little Uncle, where are you going?"

"Going to the horse pen to work." Li Long touched Li Qiang's head. "You go home, your sister will be back in a while, you can listen to the little loudspeaker."

"I want to go work with you." Li Qiang's eyes lit up and he said, "Can I go?"

!.

"Sure, as long as you're not afraid of being tired." Li Long said with a smile. "But you can't run away halfway through."

"Guaranteed not to!" Li Qiang said loudly, then happily followed Li Long. In Li Qiang's eyes, Li Long was omnipotent. He admired his little uncle very much, and being able to work with him made Li Qiang feel very proud. He took the small broom from Li Long's hand and walked between the two with his head held high and chest out.

Li Long took a newspaper, tucked the rest under his arm, and began folding a hat.

"Little Uncle, what are you folding?" Li Qiang asked curiously, looking up.

"A hat. We'll be cleaning in a while, there's a lot of dust, so we'll all wear hats, otherwise our heads will be full of dust and hard to wash."

"What does this hat look like?" Li Qiang asked.

"Have you seen the soldiers from the Soviet side in the movies? It's that kind of boat-shaped hat." Li Long explained. Actually, the most iconic ones were the hats of those female officers of the Nationalist Party in war movies, but for young people of this era with clear loves and hates, they wouldn't want to be associated with reactionaries.

The boat-shaped hat was easy to fold. Li Long folded one, opened it, and put it on Li Qiang's head. Li Qiang took it off with both hands, looked at it curiously, then put it back on his head, very happy.

Li Long folded two more, one for himself and one for Tao Daqiang, and then they arrived at the old horse pen.

Old Luo was feeding the little deer. Seeing the three come over, he said with a smile:

"Little Long, are you here to clean the room?"

"Yeah." Li Long said, "Clean it early so we can move the furniture over." He said as he went into the room, saw that it had already been simply cleaned, and asked suspiciously:

"Uncle Old Luo, did you clean it?"

"I just swept it simply, you guys still have to do the heavy work." Uncle Old Luo said with a smile.

Li Long and the others started cleaning, while Uncle Old Luo went to feed the wild boars and little deer.

Li Qiang had no patience for work. After working for a while, he ran to look at the little wild boars and the little deer. He even mischievously climbed into the deer pen, wanting to have close contact with the little deer.

The deer screamed in terror, then knocked Li Qiang, who wasn't paying attention, over with its head.

Li Qiang's "ouch" brought Li Long and the others over. Seeing Li Qiang knocked over by the little deer, Li Long smiled and said:

"Qiangqiang, you'd better come out, that deer's strength is not small."

He saw small bumps on the head of the little deer that knocked Li Qiang over and guessed it might be a little male red deer.

The horse pen room was quite dusty and had a smell of old manure. Li Long and Tao Daqiang cleaned for over an hour, clearing the spider webs on the ceiling, the old dust in the corners, and the stains on the walls, and sprinkled clear water on the ground—there was an artesian well not far from the horse pen, and the water was quite convenient. This was specially dug for feeding horses at the time.

Seeing it was still early, Li Long and Tao Daqiang went out of the room and started building the wall in the middle of the yard.

Because they didn't mix mud, they temporarily just piled up the dirt clods and broken bricks that Uncle Old Luo had picked up.

"After a few days when the morning is free, I'll make some dirt clods," Tao Daqiang said, "and mix some mud to build this up."

"How can you do it alone?" Li Long said with a smile, "Catch fish for two more days, I'll go into the mountains to see if I can get a wild boar, then I'll call some young guys in the team to work together."

"That would be great!" Tao Daqiang's eyes lit up. "There must be many people in the team who want to come and work!"

Although production has been contracted to households, income cannot increase all at once. Now, every household wants to eat some meat to satisfy their cravings, at most they catch some fish in the canal. It's no wonder Tao Daqiang took the water rat meat back for the first time.

Like Li Long's family, which doesn't lack meat, let alone the whole team, the whole township is almost unique. The commune, or rather the township head, couldn't eat like this either.

Before dark, Li Long and Tao Daqiang barely built a half-meter-high wall in the middle of the horse pen yard.

Li Long was a bit discouraged; this wall was actually useless. With the little deer's ability, it could easily jump over it.

Then I'll take time to go hunting, and then come back to cook meat to treat people.

"Uncle Old Luo, we're leaving." Li Long simply patted the dust off his body and said to Uncle Old Luo, "In a few days, I'll call people over to build the wall. Let the little deer stay in the deer pen for a few days first. It's been bothering you these days."

"What bother, I get to eat meat and fish every day, feeding pigs and deer isn't heavy work." Uncle Old Luo waved his hand. "If you say it again, you're being a stranger."

"Then I'll give you your salary." Li Long took the money out of his pocket. "I won't give you a high salary, twenty a month, how about that?"

"Of course that's good!" Uncle Old Luo said with a smile. "I'm very happy to be able to get such a high salary—but you have to get me more things to raise, otherwise this money burns my hands."

"Okay, when I go into the mountains, I'll see what else I can catch. If I catch it, I'll send it over."

"Good, good, good."

Li Long took Li Qiang home, and Tao Daqiang also returned to his own home. Because they had to set the nets early the next morning, and cleaning the room was quite tiring, they went to sleep early.

In his dream, Li Long moved into a building—that's right, in the dream, the horse pen room turned into a small two-story building, the villa kind, it was beautiful! And this was his and Gu Xiaoxia's new room—that feeling, hey!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 192 =====