Chapter 21

After finishing the sheep offal soup in the room and chatting about family affairs for a while, listening to his eldest brother Li Jianguo ask his niece and nephew some questions like "chickens and rabbits in the same cage" under the kerosene lamp, Li Long felt that this was happiness.

Although poor, it was peaceful.

Seeing that the time was not short, Li Long got up, said a word to Li Jianguo, and returned to the east room.

The stove in the east room was pressed with coal fire earlier. He poked the fire with a stove hook, and a burst of smoke and fire rushed up. After this burst of smoke and fire rushed open, Li Long hooked open the stove lid, put a few pieces of coal inside, covered the stove lid, and began to take stock of today's harvest, and planned tomorrow's affairs.

The income from deer antlers and water rat skins, after deducting sesame cakes, buying tea leaves, and the gloves bought for Tao Daqiang, plus the ten yuan given to the sister-in-law, now, adding the money he originally had, there is less than ten yuan in his hand.

But with the package of bullets given by his eldest brother, Li Long is confident that he can trade for one or two frozen sheep tomorrow.

He plans to buy some tea leaves, salt, and such tomorrow. Even if Halimu's family has enough, they can be placed there, and then go to other herdsmen's places to trade for other things.

Although the herdsmen's winter shelters are not far from the foot of the mountain, they have more concerns, and they have no spare money in their hands, so they rarely go down the mountain to buy things.

But they have things in their hands, and Li Long can trade these things back and go to the acquisition station to sell them for money.

Looking at the time, it was only ten o'clock, he still had no sleepiness, thinking about what to use to pass the remaining time.

In this day and age, there are no radios or televisions, let alone mobile phones, so it's really quite difficult to pass the time.

Li Long was thinking about whether to go to someone's house to play poker. He vaguely remembered that "fighting the landlord" hadn't risen in this day and age, only "throwing two sons" and "striving for the top".

Entertainment activities in the eighties were very few, otherwise, Gu Ermao wouldn't have called Li Long to watch other people's televisions.

Up to now, the entire production team didn't have a television—not even constant electricity was connected.

Just as he was thinking, dog barking and footsteps came from outside.

Li Long put on his clothes and walked out.

A person was standing outside the courtyard gate, looking like a girl.

Li Long shouted:

"Who?"

"Li Long, it's me, Gu Xiaoxia." The girl responded.

Gu Xiaoxia?

Li Long reacted quickly; this was the daughter of Gu Bo Yuan, the only college student in the production team. According to his eldest brother Li Jianguo, Gu Bo Yuan brought his daughter to the production team more than ten years ago. At that time, the team leader was stunned when he heard that this was a college student.

In that era, let alone college students, even junior high school students were already intellectuals.

Why Gu Bo Yuan came to this place where even birds didn't really poop, not many people in the production team knew. But a great talent came to the team, and he wanted to stay, so he was naturally welcomed.

When Gu Bo Yuan came, his daughter was only three or four years old, now counting, she should be less than twenty.

Because of special reasons, Gu Xiaoxia returned to the team after graduating from high school. In Li Long's memory, in his previous life, Gu Xiaoxia seemed to have married Gu Ermao because of his entanglement, then divorced because of domestic violence, and then her whereabouts were unknown.

"Xiaoxia is here, is your dad okay?" Li Jianguo also opened the door and walked out at this time, seeing it was Gu Xiaoxia, and asked with a smile, "Come into the room."

"No... no. Uncle Jianguo, I... I want to buy some mutton from your house. My dad is sick, I want to supplement him." Gu Xiaoxia's voice was very low, and it could be heard that when she said these words, she was quite embarrassed.

"Your dad is sick? Did he drink medicine? What illness?" Li Jianguo asked with concern.

He graduated from junior high school, although not as highly educated as Gu Bo Yuan, he was also considered one of the few "intellectuals" in the production team, and the relationship between the two families was not bad.

"Drank it, my dad said it's nothing, caught a cold."

"Then you wait, I'll cut a piece of mutton for you." Li Jianguo hurriedly turned back to the room, took a piece of mutton and came out, but he didn't hand it to Gu Xiaoxia, but handed it to Li Long:

"Little Long, you send Xiaoxia back, it's pitch black, it's not safe!" Gu Xiaoxia didn't refuse.

Li Long returned to the room, put on his hat, carried the mutton, and walked out.

Gu Xiaoxia followed him silently, the two were one and a half meters apart.

In this day and age, people's words are to be feared.

"When did your dad get sick?" Li Long asked.

"Yesterday. Yesterday there wasn't much firewood at home, my dad was chopping wood in the courtyard, sweated and caught a cold."

"That's not heavy, just sweat it out and it'll be fine." Li Long nodded, "Still have medicine at home, right?"

"Yes." Li Long asked one sentence, Gu Xiaoxia answered one sentence. She always kept her head half-lowered.

Li Long felt it was meaningless, so he didn't speak either.

His eldest brother Li Jianguo's meaning that it was not safe outside, this was really not safe. Don't look at this place being more than twenty kilometers away from the mountains, but just a month or so ago, there were wolves appearing in the reed marshes outside the production team. The dogs raised in the team were not good things either, at this time the local dogs grew quite large and were very fierce.

And even more dangerous were those idlers who didn't rest well at night and whose energy couldn't be vented.

!.

Otherwise, it wouldn't be possible to have a "strike hard" campaign in two years.

The Li family was about three hundred meters away from the Gu family. The moon hadn't risen at night, but with the snow reflecting the sky light, the road could barely be seen. Li Long carried a flashlight, although he didn't turn it on, he was always preparing.

Just as he walked halfway and was about to turn, Li Long heard footsteps not far away on the opposite side, Gu Xiaoxia behind him leaned back, he reacted immediately and shouted loudly:

"Who?"

When shouting, the flashlight light had already been turned on, shining towards the corner.

A black shadow ran quickly into the distance, and soon rushed behind someone's courtyard, disappearing.

A burst of dog barking rang out over there.

"It's fine, maybe someone passing by." Li Long turned his head and said to Gu Xiaoxia, "Let's go."

Gu Xiaoxia had lingering fears, she most likely knew what that black shadow wanted to do, just didn't expect that Li Long, who she heard was quite cowardly before, was actually so "fierce" at this time?

Next, until walking to the entrance of the Gu family, Li Long didn't speak. Entering the courtyard, Gu Xiaoxia walked two steps quickly and opened the door.

Li Long carried the meat into the room and saw Gu Bo Yuan lying on the bed.

He was sleeping and didn't hear the movement.

Li Long saw that the room was quite warm, so he said:

"Prepare warm water for your dad, drinking more water will make him get better quickly." After saying this, he put down the meat and turned to go out.

"Give you money!" Gu Xiaoxia chased out and shouted.

"This is what my eldest brother said, for your dad to treat his illness, don't want money." Li Long waved his hand and went back.

It seemed Li Jianguo mentioned a word, the work points earned by the Gu family at the end of the year were less than their own family, didn't get much money and even subsidized it.

Fortunately, Li Long remembered that next spring, the production team would change to a village, the village primary school would open, the village would only teach the first and second grades, and the third grade would go to the brigade. At that time, Gu Xiaoxia seemed to be a teacher in the village primary school, and her family's life would get better.

He thought about the black shadow earlier while walking back.

Who could that be?

Looking at the figure, why was it so familiar?

(End of chapter)