Chapter 274

When Li Long left the compound, he specifically urged Gu Xiaoxia not to let the mother and daughter know the location of the compound. If she wanted to see them, she could just go to the free market; they were settled now, and there was no need to get too close.

After all, they weren't relatives.

Li Long's defensive mindset made Gu Xiaoxia a bit puzzled, but the image Li Long had built up before was quite reliable, so Gu Xiaoxia didn't think much of it and agreed.

Li Long rode his bicycle back home, where only Du Chunfang was in the courtyard.

"Mom, where's Dad?" Li Long propped up the bicycle and asked Du Chunfang, who was chopping pig feed there.

Now, every morning, Li Qing Xia and Tao Daqiang would retrieve the nets, and Du Chunfang would sometimes help, sometimes go to the vegetable garden, or go to the fields in front to get pig feed.

The production team's fields here were large, and many of the wild grasses growing on the ridges were things the pigs liked to eat. You could get a basketful in a while with a basket or a urea bag.

Although the Li family had plenty of feed, Du Chunfang felt it was better to feed the pigs some grass as well.

The Li family's pigs were growing fast; with sufficient feed, they had already reached seventy or eighty kilograms by September. In previous years, pigs would only be this size by the end of the year, but it looked like they might reach over a hundred kilograms this year.

Li Long remembered that in his previous life, when people in the team raised pigs, they used pure corn, soybeans, wheat bran, and other grains and oil residue. Although they were raising lean-type pigs, by the time they slaughtered them at the end of the year, after removing the pig head, trotters, and internal organs, they still weighed a hundred and forty kilograms.

If you really let pigs eat as much as they wanted, they would grow quite large.

Li Jianguo had also said that among these pigs, they would keep two sows to breed with a boar next year, and the rest would be slaughtered before the end of the year. Part would be sold directly to the township purchasing station, and part would be sold to fellow villagers or taken to the free market.

By then, the weather would be cool, and there would be no fear of the meat rotting. Few people in the team raised pigs, so when it froze at the end of the year, who wouldn't want to buy some meat?

As for the boar, Li Jianguo had already thought it through. There were many people raising pigs in the township, and the person raising pigs in the neighboring team had specifically brought in a Ukrainian Large White pig as a boar. They hadn't done this themselves, but they could pay to have them bred.

Breeding boars was a regular income for professional pig farmers. Li Long remembered that in another two years, there would be people raising boars, and around the turn of spring and summer, they would drive the boars from house to house in the countryside looking for breeding opportunities. Money wasn't as precious then as it was now, and one breeding session would cost five or ten yuan—the daily income wasn't small.

"The old man went to the fields to look at the sunflowers," Du Chunfang said with a smile. "Did you sell the fish? Your dad said the oil sunflowers grew well this year—your big brother said you brought back a lot of manure in early spring, and that was a huge help."

"Yeah, there's plenty of manure in the mountains. When the sunflowers and corn are harvested, I'll have to go pull a few more cartloads. This land won't be moved for years or decades, so applying manure is just growing food for our own family," Li Long said casually. He propped up the bike and went to the well to draw water.

"Don't drink cold water; there's mung bean soup in the room," Du Chunfang said hurriedly, thinking Li Long was going to drink well water. "You just came back from outside, covered in sweat, you can't drink this cold water, don't shock your system."

"Mom, I know, I'm just washing my face. The road is very dusty." Li Long smiled, washed his face with the basin, and returned to the kitchen.

In the kitchen, there was a basin of mung bean soup boiled until it was mushy. Some people liked the soup, and some liked the sandy bottom.

Li Long scooped a bowl of soup and drank it, but it didn't feel satisfying, so he drank another bowl.

Seeing that he had finished half the mung bean soup, Li Long looked around the kitchen, found some mung beans, took them out, rinsed them with water, and started boiling them in the pot.

"Why are you boiling more? Isn't there some already?" Du Chunfang was a bit puzzled.

"That's not enough," Li Long said with a smile. "My dad, my big brother, and Juan, Qiangqiang, who wouldn't drink a couple of bowls when they get back? This is different from watermelon... it's fine to make more."

He had always been curious about one question: why was the mung bean soup boiled in these times green, while the mung bean soup boiled in later generations was red?

Once a pot of mung bean soup was boiled, Li Long poured the soup out. While he was washing the pot, Li Qing Xia walked into the courtyard carrying a sickle.

"Dad, why didn't you ride the bicycle?" Li Long asked with a smile.

"I don't dare ride it recklessly. The road is bad; if it gets punctured by camel thorn, I'll have to patch it, which is troublesome." After the tire puncture incident, Li Qing Xia had started protecting the bicycle. He was very careful.

"How are the sunflowers?" Li Long asked.

"Pretty good. They're almost dry, ready to be harvested," Li Qing Xia said. "The sparrows have already started pecking at the seeds, so if it doesn't look good, we'll harvest them."

There were no harvesters in these times; harvesting sunflowers, or anything else, was basically manual labor. Everyone had a sack or a urea bag and a sickle. Everyone took a row, and those who were efficient would just cut the sunflower heads off and stuff them into the bag as they moved forward.

Of course, those who were more agile would usually cut down the stalks with a sickle after harvesting the sunflower heads. Once all the sunflowers were harvested and the stalks were dry in the fields, they would be bundled up with reeds and taken back as firewood.

Sunflower stalks and corn stalks were the main source of firewood for farmers in the team during the summer for a long time.

In winter, it was naturally red willow, saxaul, and coal.

There were many sparrows in these times; the season for eating insects had passed, and they mainly ate wheat, sunflowers, and corn. According to the common saying, sparrows were quite tasty at this time because they were no longer eating insects but grain, so it wasn't a pity to shoot them.

"If that's the case, we'll have to harvest in a few days," Li Long said, calculating that the season was almost here.

He thought of a famous sunflower variety from his previous life called "Short Big Head," with stalks only 1.1 or 1.2 meters tall, nearly half the height of the current ones. People didn't even have to lift their heads to cut the stalks; they could just cut them flat. That variety also had particularly large sunflower heads. For example, while sunflower heads were usually twenty centimeters in diameter now, that variety could grow to thirty or even forty centimeters. The seeds were also large.

For a period of time, everyone in the team planting sunflowers used this variety.

But later, because cotton, as a cash crop, had a state-protected price and its price had once soared to the sky, it made some people in the team rich, so almost all the land was planted with cotton.

"Short Big Head" was no longer seen in the team.

While Li Long was lost in thought, Li Qing Xia had already finished two bowls of mung bean soup in the room, wiped his mouth with satisfaction, and came out to say to Li Long:

"Without Xiao Long, how many nets do you plan to set today?"

"Dad, how did the fish sell at the market today?"

"Average. There were fewer people buying fish," Li Qing Xia said. "It didn't sell as fast as yesterday—there were seven or eight people selling fish scattered around the market, all with people, and many were selling them cheap, so ours didn't sell as smoothly."

"Then set two fewer nets and go earlier," Li Long said. "There are many regular customers in Shicheng who recognize our fish. There are also a few families in the team setting nets and going to the county to sell, so the competitive pressure is high."

"Okay." Li Qing Xia was quite content; even if he sold a little less a day, he still had an income of ten or twenty or thirty yuan, so how could he not be content?

While they were talking, Tao Daqiang walked over from outside. The three of them started removing the tires and preparing the nets. The tire pressure was a bit low, and after Tao Daqiang pressed it, he found a thin wire to poke open the soap pressed on the tire valve, and started inflating it.

This thing had to be tied with rope every day, and untied when they returned with the fish. Just as the three of them were busy, voices were heard from outside.

Li Long heard these words:

"The Li family is right here."

"Yes, yes, yes, this is the house. I just saw Li Long come back."

"Are you really Li Long's wife? Hehe, there's going to be a show to watch!"

"I'm a relative of Li Long's mother. It was agreed that I would marry Li Long, how could it be fake..."

Hearing this, his brain went 'boom'.

Another old story from his previous life was being dug up.

Actually, in his previous life, Li Long's father and mother had also come here at this time, but they didn't stay long after arriving and went back. After all, Li Long hadn't achieved anything in his previous life, Li Jianguo was busy here, and Du Chunfang favored her younger son and had had unpleasantness with Liang Yuemei.

At that time, there was no old horse corral, and it was hard to fit so many people into three rooms, so in the end, his father and mother went back.

Before leaving, Du Chunfang had quietly told Li Long she had introduced a partner to him, a relative from her maternal side, of course a very distant relative, the kind that was out of five, six, seven, or eight generations, from the same village, the kind that was one family many ages ago.

!.

After Li Long was dumped by Wu Shufen at that time, he still wanted to reconcile with this girl, so he refused. But he didn't expect that after Du Chunfang and the others went back, the girl came over from their hometown to find Li Long.

But what was more dramatic was that the girl was actually quite thoughtful. Before finding Li Long, she first inquired about Li Long's situation in the team, and upon learning that Li Long wasn't a worker now and didn't do anything proper, she came over and made it clear to Li Long.

She said that although the elders of both families hoped the two would be together, she had met a positive and upward-looking young man on the way over. Free love was popular in this era, so she hoped to make it clear to Li Long that they wouldn't interfere with each other and would each seek their own happiness.

This girl wasn't Li Long's type either, so Li Long agreed; he even thought the other party had quite a mind of her own.

It wasn't until many years later that he slowly pieced together the truth: it wasn't that the girl was looking for true love, it was just that she had a clear goal and hadn't taken a fancy to him.

But now, she had come to the door, and the meaning in her words was very clear—that was, she had inquired clearly about his background!

Li Long panicked for a moment, not because he was worried that this matter would be hard to solve, but mainly because he was afraid Gu Xiaoxia would misunderstand!

He suddenly thought of Gu Bo Yuan, and then turned and ran.

There were no other houses outside the east wall of the Li family at this time—according to the residential land, usually two houses were side by side, one with an east door and one with a west door. But at this time, there was plenty of space, and everyone hoped to have their own house, so the east side of the Li family was empty.

Li Long ran straight out from the east side and headed toward the Gu family.

This matter would definitely reach Gu Xiaoxia's ears in the end. Regardless of how things turned out, if he said it himself, it would actually be very easy to cause a misunderstanding.

So, solve the future father-in-law first, and then things would be easy to handle.

That was Li Long's thought.

When he circled from the east side to the main road behind, he looked back at his own courtyard gate and could see several aunts, sisters-in-law, and young wives gathered at the gate; they were planning to watch a show.

Although the sources of people in the village were varied, everyone basically lived according to their own family traditions behind closed doors. Those habits brought from various places didn't need to spread, and there weren't that many outdated customs, but to be honest, not being able to see people around them living too well was a common problem.

Was the Li family living well? That was naturally very good. And it seemed to have exceeded the meaning of living well for an ordinary family.

Bicycles, there were less than six in the whole village, and the Li family had two!

Horse carts, there were less than ten in the whole village including donkey carts, and the Li family had one.

Pigs, there were less than twenty in the whole village, and the Li family had half of them.

Not to mention other things, just these were enough to make some people's eyes red with envy.

Of course, it was just envy. Everyone also knew that this was the result of hard work. So even if they were envious, that kind of low-class behavior, even decades later, rarely happened.

For example, what was spread a lot on the internet, that someone's fish pond made money and someone would sprinkle some medicine... that really didn't happen.

Because by the nineties, after the Little Haizi was washed away and the Big Haizi was contracted out, someone really did contract a stretch of wasteland between the village and the Big Haizi, dug more than ten fish ponds, and raised fish.

At first, everyone watched the show, thinking, can this make money?

They had trucks and sent the raised fish directly to Wucheng to sell, and they really made money.

After making money, they would occasionally invite the well-known "fishermen" in the village to help clear the pond bottom, of course paying them, and not only paying them but also giving them fish.

These fish were still being raised the year Li Long passed away.

Someone was contracting to raise crabs in iron cages on the north bank of the Big Haizi, and the people in the team at most caught some crabs that ran out of the cages on the south bank of the Big Haizi at night. At most, they caught a lot and went to the market to sell them for fifty or sixty per kilogram—and then they were reported.

Even then, no one sprinkled medicine in the water—that kind of thing that would cut off one's descendants really didn't happen.

But watching a show, that was different—if the Li family was allowed to make money and live better than others, why weren't others allowed to watch the Li family's show?

That was impossible.

Li Long understood the minds of these people too well; they just wanted the Li family and the Gu family to misunderstand, and of course, if it wasn't a misunderstanding, that was even better, confirming Li Long as a scumbag, and the Li family as a village elder family in name, but actually doing immoral things in secret, and then their reputation would be ruined.

Li Long dashed to the Gu family.

Gu Bo Yuan wasn't there.

Although Li Long vaguely remembered where the Gu family's land was, he didn't dare to go—he would still have to pass through the residential area in front, and he would accidentally run into them, so he still had to let Gu Bo Yuan know the truth of the matter at the first opportunity, at least not to make the first impression so bad.

But Gu Bo Yuan wasn't there, what to do?

Li Long was pacing back and forth in the courtyard in a hurry, waited for a while, and seeing that Gu Bo Yuan hadn't returned, he strode out.

He couldn't wait any longer.

(End of chapter)