Chapter 221: Pulling a carriage of sugar residue, became a public enemy

Li Long and Tao Daqiang drove the horse-drawn carriage to the sugar factory. After the guard made a phone call to Section Chief Hu, he let them in.

"Xiao Li, you brought these things very punctually." Section Chief Hu was very happy. "I'll call someone over to settle the account now."

Section Chief Hu called someone over to count the materials, check the quality, and then calculate the settlement.

After Li Long took the slip to get the money, Section Chief Hu said with a smile:

"Xiao Li, we don't have much contact, but you've helped me twice. There are a few bottles of sugar syrup here. I know there's a custom of dipping zongzi in white sugar and sugar syrup here, so take them back to eat. By the way, do you have any other thoughts? You can tell me directly."

Li Long actually really had thoughts, he said:

"Section Chief Hu, I really have a small matter I want to ask you for help."

"Tell me, as long as it can be done, I'll try my best." The smile on Section Chief Hu's face faded a bit.

"It's like this." Li Long saw Section Chief Hu's expression, but didn't change his mind. He said, "I raise a few pigs at home—my family can also be considered a professional pig-raising household. I heard that you directly dump the sugar residue after the sugar factory extracts sugar. I drove the horse-drawn carriage over this time, wanting to pull a carriage of sugar residue back..."

"What kind of matter is this." Section Chief Hu smiled again. "Like this, I'll make a phone call... Your horse-drawn carriage can't hold much, I'll approve a few sacks for you, you fill a horse-drawn carriage, and then fill a few more sacks. Anyway, this is to be dumped. If you want to pull it away, then consider it waste utilization. If you want to pull it in the future, just come and pull it..."

Saying that, Section Chief Hu picked up the phone on the desk and dialed a number. After it was connected, Section Chief Hu elongated his tone and said:

"Xiao Song, how many carriages of sugar residue were dumped today? Still loading now... Sure, after it's loaded, let the carriage stop at the factory gate, come over, I have something to say."

Putting down the phone, Section Chief Hu said with a smile: "Xiao Li, you could have said this matter earlier. If you had said it earlier, you could have come to pull it every day."

Li Long thought to himself, if it weren't for the mutton matter and this reed leaf matter, I really wouldn't have remembered. Making money is the priority.

After waiting for a while, a young man came to the office in a hurry. Section Chief Hu said to him:

"Xiao Song, this is Xiao Li, from the county supply and marketing cooperative. He wants some sugar residue. You take him over, he will use a horse-drawn carriage to load it. You prepare a few sacks for him, let him fill them, and then go unload the carriage."

After finishing, he said to Li Long:

"Xiao Li, in the future, if you want sugar residue, just find Xiao Song. He is in the loading and unloading group, and he is responsible for unloading the sugar residue."

"Hello, Team Leader Song." Li Long took the initiative to reach out and said, "Sorry to trouble you."

"No trouble, no trouble." Xiao Song was also a young man, smiling and saying, "This doesn't count as anything. Then shall we go load it now?"

"Alright."

Li Long said goodbye to Section Chief Hu, took Tao Daqiang downstairs, led the horse-drawn carriage, and followed Xiao Song out of the sugar factory.

"The self-unloading truck is at the back gate, because there is still water in the sugar residue, the front gate is not easy to pass, that side is easier to walk." Xiao Song explained.

Li Long took out a box of cigarettes and stuffed it over:

"Team Leader Song, sorry to trouble you."

"Haha, Xiao Li, right? You're too polite." Xiao Song wasn't polite either, took the cigarette, looked at it, and stuffed it into his pocket with a smile. "I'll go get the sacks for you first. You lead the horse-drawn carriage to that side, the back gate, you can see the big truck, just wait there."

When Li Long led the horse-drawn carriage to the big truck, he found that there was an even younger person waiting in the passenger seat. Seeing Li Long, he got off the truck a bit nervously.

"Team Leader Song went to get the sacks, let us wait here." Li Long explained, and the young man nodded nervously without speaking.

Xiao Song came over holding a roll of sacks. Li Long and Tao Daqiang hurriedly went to take them and put them on the horse-drawn carriage. Xiao Song said:

"Follow our truck now, we have to unload the sugar residue into the big pit at the back. Before unloading, you load first, load as many sacks as you can."

Li Long and Tao Daqiang looked at each other and both smiled.

This can be done!

The horse-drawn carriage followed the big truck for several hundred meters, and then they saw a big ditch. There was water at the bottom of the ditch, and at this moment, quite a few people were waiting on both sides of the ditch.

These people had wet trousers, and were waiting with various tools in their hands. When the big truck came, they were all ready for battle.

There were also quite a few people in the ditch. They were loading the sugar residue that had already been poured to the bottom of the ditch into baskets and bags.

There was water at the bottom of the ditch, and the sugar residue itself contained water when poured, so every basket was quite heavy. Those people didn't care about their clothes getting wet and just loaded it like that. Seeing the truck come, these people accelerated their speed, and some retreated, afraid of being buried by the sugar residue poured down.

On both sides of the big ditch, various tools were parked: donkey carts, horse-drawn carriages, hand-pushed carts, and even a bicycle.

Sugar residue is the residue left after sugar beets are boiled and the sugar juice is squeezed out. For the sugar factory, these residues have no value, but their nutritional value is generally still there, and pigs love to eat them, making them very good pig feed.

After the truck stopped, it didn't unload as before. Xiao Song got off the truck. After Li Long and the others arrived, he said to Li Long:

"You load now?"

"Then please wait a moment." Li Long immediately said:

"We load very quickly."

Saying that, he pulled the horse-drawn carriage to the side of the truck. After lining them up, he tied the horse's reins to the side of the truck, and then he and Tao Daqiang took the sacks and iron shovels onto the truck, quickly loading the sugar residue.

Tao Daqiang whispered:

"Brother Long, I only know now that you brought the iron shovel for this... You are too smart!"

"Hurry up and load! Everyone else is watching!"

The sugar residue was still a bit hot when it came out of the sugar factory, but Li Long and Tao Daqiang couldn't care about that much anymore. They loaded ten sacks, and then shoveled quite a bit from the truck onto the horse-drawn carriage, and then loaded the sacks onto the horse-drawn carriage.

Ten sacks sounded like a lot, but when really loaded, from beginning to end, one on each side, piled up, it was loaded in one layer.

Li Long and Tao Daqiang got off the truck. Xiao Song came up smoking and asked:

"How is it, do you want to take more sacks to load?"

"No, no, no, it's enough." Li Long said. "Delaying your unloading time, adding trouble to you."

"It's fine." Xiao Song smiled. "Anyway, dumping is dumping, you taking it away is also waste utilization. Alright, then we'll unload."

Li Long untied the reins, pulled the horse-drawn carriage to the side, waved to Xiao Song, and then led the horse-drawn carriage away.

"Brother Long, that Team Leader Song said we could load more, why didn't we load more?"

"That would be annoying." Li Long looked back at those people who were already actively preparing and waiting to rush up once the sugar residue in the truck was unloaded, and said:

"You also saw when we were digging in the truck just now, the way those people looked at us was like looking at enemies. Don't look at Section Chief Hu telling Xiao Song it's fine, we can load casually, but loading these ten sacks is the limit. We have to know when to stop."

"Then we can't come to load in the future?"

"Naturally, we can come to load, but we can't come empty-handed." Li Long smiled. "Wait for a while."

Raising pigs can't just rely on this, it also needs feed like wheat bran, it's better to mix them.

After the horse-drawn carriage left Shicheng, Li Long let Tao Daqiang sit on it, and he sat on the shaft and walked forward. When passing the Mahe River, Li Long stopped, led the horse-drawn carriage to the side of the road, and went down to the river to wash well.

Looking at the stones in the river, there was no jade—thinking about it, it was normal. If this could be seen at a glance, it would have been picked up long ago.

"Daqiang, here, five yuan for this trip." Li Long said. "Keep it." "Brother Long, I don't want money, can you give me a bag of sugar residue?"

"You take it home to feed the donkey? Sure." Li Long handed over the money. "Take the money, and I'll give you a bag of sugar residue."

"That won't do." Tao Daqiang hurriedly waved his hand. "Such a big sack of sugar residue, it must be seventy or eighty kilograms, if I take money again, my dad will scold me when I go back."

No matter how Li Long gave it, Tao Daqiang didn't want it, so that was it.

Returning to the county seat, Li Long treated Tao Daqiang to lunch at the Big Meat Canteen, brought the glutinous rice, red dates, and raisins to the big courtyard, and then drove the carriage back to the brigade.

First went to the old horse number to unload five sacks of sugar residue. Old Luo was very happy, and then went to Tao Daqiang's home to unload a sack of sugar residue. Tao Daqiang wanted to follow Li Long to the Li family, but Li Long said:

"You wait another two hours before coming, then we'll go set the nets."

Li Long led the horse-drawn carriage home. Li Jianguo and the others were all there, busy pulling grass in the vegetable garden.

"What is that you're pulling?" Li Qing Xia was tall, and at a glance, he saw Li Long pulling a carriage of things back, asking.

"Sugar residue, I sold things at the sugar factory and pulled a carriage of residue back." Li Long said. "Unload some at the old horse number, and unload the rest at home to feed the pigs."

"This is good!" Once Li Jianguo heard it was sugar residue, he said with a smile, "Pigs love to eat this."

!.

The whole family came out of the vegetable field and started unloading the sugar residue.

"This is what's left after extracting sugar? It's not sweet either?" Li Qing Xia picked up a strip, smelled it, and tasted it in his mouth. "Can sugar still be extracted?"

"It's already extracted." Du Chunfang scolded with a smile. "If sugar could still be extracted, would they let you pull it away?"

Li Qing Xia smiled: "That's right."

The sugar residue was unloaded and immediately fed to the pigs.

After unloading, Li Jianguo went to tidy up the horse-drawn carriage. Li Long changed his clothes and came out, seeing that the boiled reed leaves were still soaking in the big pot, so he asked:

"All boiled?"

"Done, see how you'll bring them tomorrow."

"Then how to bring them? Load them in a sack and pull them over." Li Long said. "Set the nets to catch fish today, and sell the reed leaves along with the fish tomorrow."

Li Long also separated some of the glutinous rice, raisins, and red dates, planning to distribute them to people he was familiar with.

Liang Yuemei knew how to wrap zongzi, so Li Long handed the remaining ones to her.

"Then wrap more." Liang Yuemei said with a smile. "It was not bad to be able to wrap a few in previous years. This year there are so many glutinous rice, red dates, and raisins, so we can't wrap too few."

At this time, everyone still liked these extra snacks. Zongzi, mooncakes, and even the dead-dough lamps steamed on the 15th of the first lunar month.

But gradually growing up, these things weren't eaten much. Thinking about it, it was still because the material in this era was not enough, especially food was relatively scarce, so they would crave these things. Later, when the material was abundant, they gradually didn't like them.

To wrap zongzi, glutinous rice, red dates, and raisins need to be soaked. Liang Yuemei started to get busy, while Li Long took out the nets.

"I'll follow tomorrow too." Li Qing Xia said. "Let's ride two bicycles, bring more things, and go early."

"Sure." Li Long said with a smile. "Selling fish and reed leaves, I can't handle it alone, it's just right for you to go, Dad."

This time Du Chunfang didn't stop him either. It was obvious that if it were just selling fish, Li Long could handle it alone, but if he had to sell reed leaves, he definitely couldn't take care of it. She loved her youngest son and didn't want Li Long to be tired alone.

Besides, there was no work in the fields now, so there was no need for Li Qing Xia to be busy in the fields.

Li Long hadn't gone to set the nets yet. Tao Daqiang came over, and Qin Jiajie also came together.

Li Long took a package of glutinous rice, red dates, and raisins packed together and gave it to Qin Jiajie:

"Brother Old Qin," Li Long said, "Take it home to wrap zongzi, you've worked hard these days."

"What hard work." Qin Jiajie said with a smile. "It's just picking reed leaves, what's hard about that? It's just letting mosquitoes bite, nothing."

He took the glutinous rice package, hesitated for a moment, and asked:

"Then Xiao Long, the remaining money... is there any other work? The kind that can offset money? My family is not afraid of hard work..."

"Really? Then like this." Li Long thought for a moment and said, "You know shovel handles, right?"

"How could I not know that?"

"Two dimes each." Li Long said. "I want as many as you can cut."

"Sure!" Qin Jiajie smiled. "I'll go back and cut them now!"

After Qin Jiajie left, Tao Daqiang asked with some confusion:

"Brother Long, what do you want so many shovel handles for? Tying big brooms?"

"Yes. I'm going to cut shovel handles in the mountains in a few days, are you going?"

"Going." Tao Daqiang said with a smile. "I'm good at cutting that."

The two carried the tires to set the nets. Li Long also brought the basin. Although loach didn't sell as hotly as before, there was a group of people who could be considered fixed customers, and they would come to buy some every two or three days, so this money was definitely to be earned.

Meng Zhiqiang was also setting nets. Now he was the only one left in the Little Haizi. Others might have set nets and left, or might have given up.

Li Long's nets were set in the deep part, not overlapping with theirs, so he didn't care about that much. After setting them, he walked around the Little Haizi and didn't see any water rats, so he went home.

When retrieving the nets the next day, what surprised Li Long was that not only fish were hung on the nets, but also a wild duck and a water chicken.

The wild duck was fine, but that water chicken was very fierce. When Li Long went over, the guy kept stretching its sharp beak to peck at Li Long, making Li Long so angry that he pinched its mouth and stuffed it into the bag, not afraid of suffocating it.

The basin was placed relatively low, so there were mostly ditch fish inside, which made Li Long very happy.

The two carried the harvest and the tires back, and then ran into Meng Zhiqiang who came to retrieve the nets.

Simple greeting, then hurriedly went home to retrieve the fish. Today he had to go to Shicheng to sell fish, the action must be fast.

Li Qing Xia had been waiting early, spread out the plastic cloth, and started sorting the fish, while Li Long hurriedly picked out the wild duck and water chicken and found a rope to tie them up.

Let Li Qiang play with them.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 222 =====