Chapter 217

After Li Long finished selling fish on the old street of Shicheng, he turned to the department store, intending to see if there were any good things inside.

After walking around, Li Long stopped in the clothing and hat section.

They had received a new batch of sun hats that looked quite pretty. Li Long picked one for Gu Xiaoxia and one each for Li Juan and Li Qiang.

As for the others, including himself, Li Long bought five straw hats directly. Summer was coming, and it would soon be time to harvest wheat and flax; these items had a relatively high cost-performance ratio.

He went to the food section and bought six packs of soft sponge cakes, packed them up, and tied them to the handlebars of his bicycle.

The Shicheng department store had a bicycle shed with someone specifically watching the bikes. Li Long's gun was on his back; after coming out, he tied it to the main frame of the bicycle.

He hadn't run into any trouble selling fish today, which left him a bit disappointed. There were people who looked like hoodlums, but because the auxiliary police were there, they just wandered around the old street and didn't exhibit any excessive behavior.

The vigorous "Strike Hard" campaign of his previous life actually didn't have a particularly large impact here in Northern Tianshan. The main reason, as Li Long had analyzed with others in his previous life, was that these were mostly emerging cities, and classes like the "second generation" hadn't formed yet.

Of course, the most important reason was that most of the people here had come from all over the country, so everyone's status was about the same. Moreover, it was currently the period of reform and opening up, and everyone was busy solving the major issues of food, clothing, and getting rich; those who were idle were, after all, in the minority.

After buying the items, Li Long rode his bicycle east along the department store; this road could also lead out of Shicheng.

On the road, he could see people wandering, but not many; more were busy people coming and going in a hurry.

Returning to the county compound, Li Long put down the scale and basin, rinsed them simply, rested for a while, and then went to the meat canteen to eat.

Going to Shicheng to sell fish, the fish sold quite quickly, but the two hours spent on the round trip meant that by the time he finished and got to the county town, it was almost time to eat.

It was too late to go home to eat, so Li Long simply ate at the canteen, which saved trouble.

Manager Zhong of the meat canteen saw Li Long and asked him about the fish again. Li Long actually thought of it every time he came over, but he would forget when he was dividing the fish at home.

Saying "next time" in his mouth, Manager Zhong wasn't particularly anxious, and after chatting with Li Long for a few sentences, he went to get busy.

He must bring a few big carp here tomorrow.

After eating, Li Long went to the market to take a look and found that there were people selling fish, but not Wang Cai Mi and Meng Zhiqiang; they should have already sold out.

The antique sellers weren't in the market, and there were no other antiques at the stalls. Li Long looked around and felt there was nothing to buy, so he rode his bike to the compound, rested for a while, and went home.

When he reached the township middle school, the students were almost done with class. Li Long went to Gu Xiaoxia's dormitory. The door was locked, so he opened it and put the sun hat and the two packs of sponge cakes inside.

There were more things in the dormitory than before, but it was very neatly organized. Li Long looked around, smiled, and turned to leave.

Just as he was about to lock the door, Gu Xiaoxia came running over, panting.

"I saw you weren't here, so I put the things down," Li Long explained. "Are you getting ready for class?"

"I have a class in the second period this afternoon, and I was just preparing materials in the office." Gu Xiaoxia smoothed the hair behind her ear and said, "Did you go sell fish today?"

"Mm," Li Long adjusted the straw hat on his head and said, "I went to sell fish in Shicheng. I saw they were selling hats at the department store, so I bought some. There's one for you; it's in the dormitory."

"Then you... now..." Gu Xiaoxia asked hesitantly.

"I'm heading back first," Li Long said. "You still have to prepare for class, and there are so many students now... I'll sit for a while when I come next time."

"Alright," Gu Xiaoxia also knew that it wasn't convenient at this time, so she said readily, "I'll cook for you when you come next time."

"Sounds good." Li Long smiled; he had to make sure to arrive by lunchtime tomorrow no matter what.

Li Long rode away. Gu Xiaoxia walked two steps toward the classroom, then turned back and used her key to open the door.

Originally, she had thought Li Long bought her the same straw hat he was wearing; actually, there was nothing special about that straw hat. Two years ago, Gu Xiaoxia worked in the fields without even that hat, and could only wear a headscarf.

She just didn't expect it to be that trendy sun hat with a hard plastic brim and floral fabric; she had only seen this kind of sun hat in pictorials.

It was truly beautiful!

There were also two packs of sponge cakes on the edge of the table. Gu Xiaoxia ignored them, put the hat on her head to try it, looked in the mirror, and felt very satisfied.

She smiled.

When Li Long passed the elementary school, he saw that school wasn't out yet, so he rode directly home.

There was no one at home. Li Long guessed that Li Jianguo and Liang Wenyu had gone to work in the fields, and Li Qing Xia and Du Chunfang should have followed them to see the land.

In their hometown, a person had only a few cents of land, but there were many people. Here, there were few people and much land, and even on the edge of this land, there was a lot of uncultivated land, which was a great temptation for Li Qing Xia.

After all, he understood that it was almost impossible for an old farmer like him to enter the city and eat commodity grain. But if he had hundreds of acres of land, life could be much more comfortable than that of a landlord in the past.

No, in the feelings of Li Qing Xia and Du Chunfang, they were living more comfortably now than the landlords of the past.

How could the landlords of their generation in the past eat meat every day? Going to the city or the market meant walking, or at most riding a horse-drawn carriage.

Now he could even ride a bicycle.

Li Qing Xia even had an idea: he had to learn to ride a bicycle before leaving Northern Tianshan.

How beautiful it would be to ride a bicycle and take his wife to the big market in the future!

The Northern Tianshan in early summer wasn't that hot yet. There was a breeze in the wilderness. Li Jianguo said to Du Chunfang in the field:

"Mother, go sit under the poplar tree at the edge of the field. It's cool there."

"How cool can it be..." Du Chunfang wasn't very used to this kind of work in the big fields. Weeding was too delicate, and she soon fell behind. Her hand was also cut by a reed, so Li Jianguo told her to go sit under the tree at the edge of the field for a while.

Du Chunfang felt a bit ashamed; she hadn't done much work and still had to have others worry about taking care of her.

She also felt a bit aggrieved. Why were the reeds in this field so fierce? She only pulled on one, and it cut her hand, and it wasn't a small cut either.

Li Jianguo took a ball of old cotton directly from the horse cart cushion, lit it with a match, and pressed the ash onto Du Chunfang's wound, which stopped the bleeding.

Du Chunfang had originally been sweating from the heat, but when she reached the shade of the tree, she suddenly felt cool. "This is really strangely cool." Du Chunfang felt a bit surprised. When she was in the courtyard, she didn't have such a strong feeling; after all, even if it was hot in the courtyard, there was a grass shed covered with reeds. Du Chunfang, on the other hand, was someone who liked to sunbathe, so she often did.

The sun in Northern Tianshan was too pleasant. After all, there was already pollution in their hometown, and the sun was often gloomy, as if covered by a layer of gauze, not looking clear.

Here, a sunny day meant the sun, and a rainy day meant heavy rain, and then it would be sunny again, which made people feel very comfortable.

So when chatting with Li Long, Li Long said he wanted them to live here for a long time, and Du Chunfang secretly agreed.

What was good about going home? Eating wasn't good, living wasn't good, and the children in their hometown weren't doing very well themselves, and there were conflicts from time to time, which was quite annoying sometimes.

She had quietly told Li Qing Xia that she wanted to live here for a long time. Li Qing Xia had wanted to at first, but later said it wouldn't work.

There was still land in their hometown, and the ancestral graves. When people get old, they want to return to their roots, so they still had to go back to their hometown, but they could live here for a while longer.

Although Du Chunfang felt a bit regretful, it was also good to be able to live here for a longer period.

Watching Li Jianguo and the three of them working in such a large plot of land, Du Chunfang suddenly felt that her eldest son and daughter-in-law were actually quite capable. The couple managed this large plot of land, and there were several pigs and horses at home—truly capable!

Li Long was putting things in the room and putting the gun away when Tao Daqiang came over not long after.

Li Long took out a five-yuan note and handed it to him:

"Daqiang, take this."

"Brother Long, I don't want it... Wang Cai Mi and the others came back from selling fish this morning. They sold it for several yuan, and each of them bought another net..." Tao Daqiang was still worried. "Many people in the team heard about it, and quite a few are thinking about buying nets too."

!.

"Then let them buy," Li Long knew this was inevitable. "Work in the fields isn't very busy right now; weeding is just weeding, and doing more or less doesn't have much impact. Since there's a way to earn money, people in the team will definitely follow. A net costs a few yuan; if you can earn back the cost in a day, you'll definitely do it!"

"But with so many people, the fish in the little lake..."

"Don't worry about that; there are plenty of fish in the little lake," Li Long smiled and stuffed the money into Tao Daqiang's pocket. "You can't catch them all. Besides, with the way they catch them, catching them for a month won't equal the number of fish that run away during those few days of watering and draining."

"But the price of fish..."

"I sell fish in Shicheng, and they mostly sell at the morning market in the county. If it drops, let it drop; it won't have any impact on us."

Hearing that there was no impact, Tao Daqiang felt relieved.

The sun was still quite hot. Tao Daqiang asked Li Long when they were going to set the nets, and Li Long said to wait.

"It's too hot now; let's go in a while," Li Long said. "Work in the fields isn't easy to do either."

"My father won't let me work in the fields; he told me to come over and see you quickly and ask when you're going. He said that earning money catching fish with you is more important than working in the fields; he can finish the work on those few acres of land by himself."

"In a while, the wheat in the team will be harvested, and it will be troublesome to work then," Li Long said.

"At that time..." Tao Daqiang was also a bit troubled.

"I'm going into the mountains; what about you?" Li Long asked again.

"Then I'll go into the mountains too." Tao Daqiang wasn't afraid of hardship, but hardship without a harvest was what made people despair. Working in the fields for a day earned one work point, and now one work point had risen to thirty cents. That thirty cents was still a lot in the eyes of others, but Tao Daqiang, who had seen a bigger world following Li Long, felt that working for a day and only earning one steamed bun was really not worth it.

When the two went to the little lake, the sun was already slanting west, and the wind blowing on their bodies wasn't that hot anymore. Tao Daqiang carried the tire, and Li Long carried the net and the basin. Going to Shicheng, small ditch fish were also popular. He felt his father was still an old ginger; this move was really good.

At the little lake, Wang Cai Mi and Meng Zhiqiang were already in the water. When Li Long passed by, he smiled and reminded them:

"Brother Dalu, you have to be careful; those water beetles are fierce. Get out as soon as you finish setting them."

"Hey, hey, I know, I know," Wang Cai Mi said while setting the net.

Li Long and Tao Daqiang walked away, and only then did Wang Cai Mi hurriedly reach out and scratch the inside of his thigh—he had already been bitten by a water beetle. Now it was truly itchy and painful, the kind that made him unable to stop scratching.

Wang Cai Mi was still wondering why he hadn't seen Li Long selling fish at the morning market when he was setting the net. He asked around after going back and found out that Li Long had gone to Shicheng. Wang Cai Mi still thought it was quite good; Li Long was putting in effort without getting any benefit, running so far to sell fish—was it worth it?

Later, he found out that Li Long going to Shicheng perfectly avoided the trouble of them and the team members fighting among themselves and lowering prices for malicious competition, while they ended up with a mess.

The next day at the morning market, it was still Wang Cai Mi and Meng Zhiqiang selling fish, and on the third day, two other people from the team joined.

At first, they were all like Wang Cai Mi, with an enamel basin, and the fish price wasn't low—but the next day, someone went to catch fish late and saw that everyone else had sold half, so he was worried about not selling them and sold them at half price directly. Once he lowered the price, his money was sold, and the others' fish couldn't be sold.

For the past few days, many people in the team had been full of joy. It wasn't much, but earning three, four, five, or six yuan a day, and those who knew how to set nets could catch seven or eight kilograms to ten kilograms directly, earning even more.

Although they walked more, the money was immediate, and it came fast. Many people immediately felt that money was so easy to earn!

There was more than one person maliciously lowering prices. Although they earned less money by lowering prices, at least they still had money in their hands.

But the population of Ma County wasn't as large as Shicheng's, and the people who ate fish were basically fixed, just that much. In the end, at the most, more than a dozen people from the whole team went to sell fish. The final result was that these dozen people, except for the two who lowered the price from the beginning, didn't sell out the rest of the fish—don't forget, there were already stalls in the market.

Besides, no family could eat fish every day.

Even Li Long would interrupt his trips to Shicheng for a few days.

Once the fish couldn't be sold, it was followed by a bigger vicious cycle. Someone went to the market the next day, and it started at forty cents per basin!

And those who came later sold it for thirty cents per basin. The fish buyers were very happy; compared to before, wasn't such cheap fish like picking it up for free?

But the remaining fish sellers were embarrassed. Some people borrowed money to buy several nets in order to catch more fish, sell more fish, and earn more money. They had to at least earn back the cost of the nets, right?

As a result, they had no vehicle. By the time they got to the morning market, the sun was out, and people were slowly starting to disperse, while their fish were just starting to be set up for sale.

They couldn't sell them.

It was a pity to throw them away, so some people specifically waited to see them throw them away, and then those people would pick them up, but they just wouldn't buy them.

Because of this, several people in the team started to have conflicts.

When Tao Daqiang told Li Long about this, he was still a bit worried:

"Women from two families started arguing at the compound gate, and the cursing was very ugly. One family said the other lowered the price first, making everyone unable to earn money. The other family said they were selling their own fish, so they could sell it for whatever price they wanted, and others couldn't interfere..."

Li Long was equivalent to a bystander. After hearing these things, he asked:

"What about Wang Cai Mi? I saw quite a few people setting nets the day before yesterday, but only half were left yesterday, and I don't know how many people can persist today."

He believed that some people would still persist. After all, although catching fish to earn money was hard, it was more convenient than working in the fields for money. If any family had difficulties and needed money urgently, they would catch the fish and take them to the market to sell, and the money would come.

Those who could persist became the "fishermen" that many people in later generations envied.

(End of chapter)