Chapter 293: Another Brand Seared onto This World

Xu Chengjun had originally intended to go work, but clearly sensing that Li Long's matter was more important, he simply shouldered his shovel, gathered two young men, and led Li Long to the site marked out for Li Long's homestead.

"Look here," he said, "in front of your elder brother's house there is a pit; that spot is unsuitable, so I won't mark it for you. Just beyond that lies the safflower field cultivated by your brother's work group; this soil is fertile, unlike some places that are all alkali. Your homestead will be marked out right here. Any further forward, and you reach the various families' private vegetable plots and wheat threshing floors. The small strip of land remaining in between is far too narrow to ever be marked out as another homestead, so we must leave a passage for everyone to reach their vegetable gardens, about twenty or thirty meters. Everything beyond that, this entire area, is allotted to you."

Xu Chengjun, talking to himself as much as to others, settled the matter right then and there.

The few people who had followed him along also thought this entirely normal, a matter of course.

The two big jobs Li Long had brought to the production team might earn him some personal benefit; at most, everyone would feel envious, but certainly not jealous.

Those with ability eat meat; those without gnaw on steamed buns. This is perfectly normal. Moreover, Li Long was not hogging the food for himself; the changes brought to the team by these two major jobs were obvious to all. The first one need not be mentioned—it enriched those ten individuals—but the second one benefited every single household in the entire village.

Furthermore, Xu Chengjun had more than once stated privately that as long as Li Long remained in the team, such jobs would surely occur frequently. Since the man had connections, their team simply had to do its best to keep him. If anyone tried to sabotage Li Long and drive him away, then he, Xu Chengjun, would be the first to object.

Therefore, these young men held no objections to Xu Chengjun allotting Li Long such a large homestead plot; instead, they chimed in with suggestions: build several rows of houses, construct a large pen for raising livestock, and when planting vegetables, intercrop some corn and the like within the compound...

Li Long smiled and acknowledged each suggestion in turn, then watched as those young men hammered four stakes into the four corners of this plot. He even had to tug at the two young fellows at the front; otherwise, they truly would have left only twenty meters for the path leading to the vegetable garden ahead.

In that case, his homestead plot would have exceeded four mu.

That would be twice the size of other people's courtyards.

What others give is theirs to give, but we cannot simply accept it like that.

In the end, Li Long paced it out and calculated that this homestead plot was at least one mu larger than his elder brother's.

Actually, in this era, apart from the old village compound to the west, the homestead plots in the other two residential settlements were all somewhat arbitrary. It would only be twenty years later, when the residential settlements were merged, that each household would have a fixed homestead of one mu and seven fen, including both house and courtyard.

And right now, Li Jianguo's courtyard certainly exceeded two mu.

Li Long's was even larger, appearing to be over three mu, though of course this was merely the framework. To actually raise the houses, many more steps would need to be taken.

"Little Long, when do you plan to build these houses?"

"Next year. It simply has to be next year," Li Long said. "Let's leave it for now this year."

Building a house first requires laying the foundation: digging away the top layer of poor soil, then fetching good earth to pad a thick layer underneath. Once the house foundation is finally completed, it must sit much higher than the surrounding ground.

All of this is manual labor, irreplaceable, unlike in later generations when one could simply pour cement to cast the foundation trenches. At this time, it was still quite troublesome. Of course, this was merely the first procedure. Li Long remembered Li Jianguo once saying proudly that for their current Li family house, they had hauled over two hundred cartloads—horse-drawn carts—of earth just to pad the foundation.

That was no small amount!

"Little Long, when you start construction next year, pick a slack farming season, go into the mountains and bag a couple of wild beasts. At that time, I'll shout a notice over the loudspeaker, and I guarantee plenty of people will come; they'll have it done for you in just a few days."

"That's definitely no problem!" Li Long had actually thought the same thing. "At that time, there will certainly be enough meat for everyone!"

"Then it's settled," one of the young men said with a smile. "Li Long, your hunting skills are truly undeniable. This winter, we should also go into the mountains and take a look..."

"Mm, bring your guns and prepare your ammunition. A while ago, I even spotted a brown bear," Li Long knew that saying anything to dampen their enthusiasm would be misunderstood, "as well as a pack of wolves. There are many creatures in the mountains, but with guns and a few more people, as long as we find something, hunting it will be easy enough."

"Really? Then after the militia training finishes, we'll go," that young man said, his interest sparked.

"Don't listen to Little Long talk like that," Xu Chengjun cut in directly. "The reason he can bag game is that he has friends in the mountains, people who tell him where the animals are. You lot going? You'd be lucky not to get lost the moment you enter the mountains!

Have you forgotten what happened last year? When it comes to actually entering the mountains, it's nowhere near as simple as you imagine. Those bears can pounce on people, and wolves eat people too. Little Long can hunt because he has the skill; when he tells you it's easy to hunt, he's just being modest. If you take that literally, then you're the fools!"

Xu Chengjun's words left those few young men somewhat embarrassed, and Li Long just smiled.

Indeed, Xu Chengjun saw things clearly.

"Little Long, that's it then; I'll take the men back. Rest assured about these stakes; no one will dare touch them. That village director from your sister-in-law's village is a complete fool! Allowing the stakes marking divided land to be pulled up and replanted? If anyone dared do that on our team, just watch me squeeze the shit out of him!"

Xu Chengjun's words were spoken with great authority, and Li Long believed he was fully capable of carrying out such a threat. This confidence stemmed from his past role as militia company commander, from his understanding of the villagers, and of course, from the support everyone gave him.

People often say that harsh mountains and treacherous waters breed vicious people, but in this place, the opposite was actually true.

The village where Li Long lived, from its founding until Li Long's death in his previous life, truly felt like a self-contained system. Could you imagine? For decades, there were no petitions filed from the village; whenever any situation arose, the village resolved it directly on its own.

Disputes certainly existed, and sometimes the police station was called in to resolve them. There had even been cases of gambling that ruined families.

But most people in this village were reasonable, and the mainstream mindset among the villagers was simply focused on how to live a good life, on how to take good care of their own small families.

The village where the Liang family lived was closer to the county town, and the people there possessed a stronger sense of superiority, yet every year there were villagers traveling to the prefecture or the autonomous region to file petitions. Some of those perpetual troublemakers truly gave the village headaches.

Of course, the village officials at that time were also fools, themselves unclear and muddled, so there was nothing to be done.

In the village where Li Long lived, people like Xu Chengjun, and those who came after, if they truly gained any benefits, laid everything out in the open. As long as you did good things for the village and everyone, then even if everyone knew you were taking some benefit, no one would say anything.

For instance, regarding this job of binding large brooms that Li Long introduced, did no one guess that Li Long was taking some benefit from it?

Plenty of people could guess. But no one would speak of it, let alone report it to the supply and marketing cooperative. That was because Li Long had tangibly provided convenience for everyone, enabling them to earn money.

Over the following thirty or forty years, such matters were quite common, and everyone grew accustomed to them. So actually, when outsiders heard about such things, they would sometimes come to incite the villagers to file petitions or call those "style and conduct hotlines."

And then the villagers would look at them as if they were fools.

One could call this a peasant-style cunning, or the mindset of small-scale farmers, but for the locals, as long as life was good, that was enough. How much benefit others took was their own capability. If you lacked capability, and yet someone placed the money right in front of you for you to earn, and then after earning that money you went and reported them, that would truly be eating from the bowl and then cursing the mother once the chopsticks were put down; that would make you less than human.

After Xu Chengjun led the men away, Li Long merely took another look at this plot of land. The safflower stalks had already been cut and taken back to feed livestock or burn as firewood. The land had not yet been plowed; this area counted as land opened up by the work group, and currently, the village's tractor was mainly occupied plowing fields and sowing winter wheat, so it couldn't attend to this.

He simply gave it some brief thought, then returned to the Li family home. Next year would be soon enough to deal with it.

"Little Long, now that these sugar beets have been brought back, your sister-in-law and I need to properly process them. For the fishing and selling fish ahead, you and Daqiang can go; I won't be joining for now," Li Jianguo told Li Long during lunch.

"Alright, I see you dug up quite a lot of sugar beets," Li Long said with a smile. "That will keep you busy for a while."

"Mm, I plan to dig a vegetable cellar at the eastern end, and store some of the sugar beets inside," Li Jianguo said. "Anyway, we have reeds, wood, and the like readily available; we just need to dig."

"Then you must find a good spot; it would be troublesome if you dug two or three meters down and hit water."

"Mm, I know."

And so the matter was settled. In the afternoon, Li Long and Tao Da continued to set their nets; on the way, they encountered Yang Yang Yongqiang, who was also carrying a net heading toward Little Little Haizi.

"Yang Yongqiang, have you ever set nets before?" Due to previous events, the relationship among the three had grown considerably closer.

Yang Yang Yongqiang was not tall, under one meter seventy, but he looked quite sharp. Hearing Li Long's question, he replied:

"No. My old home was in Gansu; when I came here with my father, I was still small. There was no water back in our old home, so we had never even eaten fish."

"Then did you teach yourself how to set nets?" Li Long asked. "Tell me how you do it."

"Just go to the water's edge, unwind the net strand by strand, find spots on both sides, and tie it off. That's it," Yang Yang Yongqiang replied. Knowing Li Long was an expert in this area, he understood such a question must have a reason, so he explained.

"When you set the net later, tie off one end, but don't tie the other; let the net hang a bit looser," Li Long instructed. "How many nets are you setting?"

"Originally one, now two."

"How many fish did you catch with that single net originally?"

"Two or three basins, oh, that is, two or three kilograms."

!.

"Alright, you can try the method I mentioned. Be sure to keep the net loose."

When they reached the dam, Li Long and Tao Daqiang headed upward, while Yang Yang Yongqiang whispered to Li Long:

"Brother Long, I won't tell anyone else!"

Li Long smiled and said nothing. This was really just a matter of piercing a sheet of paper; sooner or later, someone would figure it out.

Yang Yang Yongqiang took the net, found a channel, put on his shoes, and waded into the water to head inward.

He had already seen Meng Zhiqiang setting a net on the other side, still tying both ends.

He wondered if this was Li Long's secret technique for catching many fish?

Originally, everyone shared the same idea: stretch the net line as taut as possible to cover a longer distance, which should offer more chances to catch fish.

But Li Long said the net line must be kept loose; wouldn't that mean a fifty-meter net could only span thirty or forty meters at most?

Still, since Li Long had said it, they might as well do as he instructed.

Returning to Little Little Haizi to catch fish, Li Long felt not the slightest unfamiliarity; he pushed a tire into the water and prepared to take the net bag to set the net.

Tao Daqiang hurriedly stopped him:

"Brother Long, let me give it a try?"

"You? Sure." Li Long smiled and handed the net bag to Tao Daqiang. "Have you set one before?"

"I have."

Tao Daqiang looked somewhat embarrassed. "I still can't set the net using my mouth, but I thought I'd practice more. It might take a bit longer."

"That's fine; you go ahead and set the net. I'll check for any water rat holes; if there aren't any, I'll cast the net a few more times, then head back to cook some fish; Juan and Qiangqiang love eating them."

"Alright." Tao Daqiang sat on the tire, pressed it down slightly, then skillfully paddled the tire toward the deep-water area.

Li Long watched and noticed that Tao Daqiang could indeed use his mouth to set the net, but his hands and mouth were not well coordinated; when setting the net, he couldn't paddle the tire, causing it to spin in circles easily.

He smiled; he had been just like this when practicing before, which was perfectly normal. With more practice, it should be fine.

He began walking along the water's edge and soon spotted two spots that looked like water rat holes, yet he saw no green droppings, unsure whether they had been cleaned out or submerged by rising water.

After making a full circle and returning, Li Long took out his casting net, found an open stretch of water, and began casting.

It had been some time since he last cast; this first throw was not very round. As the net sank into the water, he slowly hauled it up and felt somewhat disappointed seeing only three, five, or six crucian carp beneath it.

There were far fewer fish near the shore.

The largest crucian carp weighed only about two hundred grams; although quite big, it was hard for Li Long to feel satisfied.

The only pleasing thing was that these fish were truly beautiful, far more so than those in Big Little Haizi.

Li Long held the fish in his hand, feeling its unyielding, slippery body struggling to leap free; he thought that grilling it later would surely taste delicious.

He changed locations and cast two more nets, finally catching a five-striped black fish about the length of a chopstick, which counted as some harvest.

He looked up; if he were setting the nets himself, all six lines should have been laid by now, but judging by the distance Tao Daqiang had covered, he had probably set only two lines.

Yang Yang Yongqiang walked over from the north along the dam, watched Li Long casting the net, and a few minutes later said to him:

"Brother Long, I know you've dug for water rats before; I saw a badger hole on the east side. Shall we dig it?"

"Where exactly? Are you certain there's a badger?" Li Long asked while retrieving his net.

"Yes. I watched that plump badger crawl inside. It didn't look fast, yet I couldn't catch up; that creature can really run..."

"Hmm, where is it? If it's not far, we can go dig after finishing setting the nets?"

Most people in the north know that snake oil and badger oil are excellent remedies for burns and scalds, so having some of this at home is considered a treasure.

Li Long had not encountered any in this life, but now that there was reliable information, he naturally intended to go and check.

"Good. Once Daqiang comes out, we'll put down our things, and I'll take you there."

"We don't know how many are inside," Li Long said. "Their meat is extremely fatty; ideally, a litter has three to five, so each of us can get one. If there's only one, then I'll just take some oil."

"No, no, no; let's split it equally," Yang Yang Yongqiang hurriedly waved his hands. "I can't dig it out myself, and I don't feel entirely comfortable asking others..."

Li Long understood his mindset.

(End of Chapter)