Chapter 297: Is this what they call

By late October, Li Jianguo had finished his work in the fields and joined in, while Li Long handed over the matter of setting nets and selling fish to his older brother, and he hitched up the horse cart and went to the county.

At this time, the Salt Industry Company hadn't been established yet. Large-scale salt transactions were handled through the Supply and Marketing Cooperative.

As a member of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative, Li Long naturally had a discount when buying salt.

"You're buying so much?" The person in charge of the warehouse was also a bit surprised. "What is this salt for?"

"For those herdsmen friends of mine, for feeding livestock, rubbing skins, and such."

"Oh, oh... no problem. Anyway, it's coarse salt, there's plenty in the salt lake." The person in charge of the warehouse didn't ask much more and even helped Li Long move it.

Li Long also asked:

"Is this salt from Jinghe or from over at Wucheng?"

There were quite a few salt lakes in Northern Xinjiang; there was one east of Wucheng, about two hundred kilometers away. There was also one in Jinghe west of Wusu, which was slightly further away.

"From Jinghe, the salt there is good." The person in charge of the warehouse said, "But it's coarse salt, so it doesn't matter if it's good or not, as long as it can be used."

It was also used for pickling vegetables.

It was rumored that the salt from Jinghe was better, especially the bottom layer under the salt lake. According to an industry insider he heard about in later generations, as long as this bottom layer existed, the salt lake would always produce salt. It was just because of the rumors about this bottom layer, that mineral salt could cure diseases, that many people, mainly industry insiders with connections, went to shovel that bottom layer, and in the end, the Jinghe salt lake no longer had salt.

True or false, it was just a rumor.

This time, Li Long added sideboards to the four sides of the horse cart, half a meter high, which could hold over a dozen bags of coarse salt.

Li Long felt these should be enough.

He had originally planned to buy some other things, but thinking that Ha Ha Li Mu and the others would be leaving soon, it wouldn't be safe to buy things and leave them in the winter quarters, so he thought he would wait until they came back.

When Li Long arrived at the winter quarters, Ha Ha Li Mu was picking grass bundles in front of the winter quarters.

A high stack of grass had already been piled up by the side of the winter quarters, and Ha Ha Li Mu was picking the grass from below to the top, stacking it neatly.

When Li Long drove the horse cart over, Ha Ha Li Mu saw him, put down the wooden fork, ran over, and helped Li Long get the horse cart to the front of the winter quarters.

"I brought over all the salt you'll use in the winter. Anyway, if you put this salt inside your winter quarters, no one should steal it." Li Long unloaded the sideboards and said while moving the salt bags down.

"That's true. In a while, it will snow in the mountains, and basically there won't be anyone around."

"How did your wolf hunting go?" Li Long asked again.

"I killed two more." Ha Ha Li Mu shook his head and said, "Wolves, they are very smart, and later they didn't come out. I don't have many bullets left here, and I still need to use them when I go back. I'll see when I come back; if they are smart, they won't come, and if they come again, then I'll kill them again."

He hadn't wiped them out.

The wolves would definitely retaliate.

"When our militia has winter training, I'll bring over more bullets, and then we'll go hunting, whether it's wolves, deer, or wild boars, we'll deal with them."

"That's good." Ha Ha Li Mu nodded repeatedly. In winter, many animals hibernate and hide, and if those wolves want to find food, they will definitely have ideas about the herdsmen's cattle and sheep. Having more bullets is a good thing for those of them who have guns.

After unloading the salt, Li Long let Ha Ha Li Mu go back to his grass, while he himself started digging manure by the side of the winter quarters.

The horse cart with sideboards could hold more manure, and Li Long worked very energetically. Now there were chemical fertilizers for sale, but the grain ration fields would continue to be planted until the first decade of the new century, when the team re-divided the land because of drip irrigation (not dividing the land, but re-dividing it according to each family's original grain ration fields and contracted fields), and only then would the plots change owners. That was still nearly thirty years away, so adding more manure to the fields was beneficial.

After loading a full cart of manure, when Li Long stopped and prepared to leave, Ha Ha Li Mu had already arranged the grass and was burning a fire on the stove.

"Later, drink milk tea, eat naan, and gnaw on air-dried wolf meat." Ha Ha Li Mu signaled to Li Long, "Tomorrow, I also have to go into the mountains to the summer pasture."

Only then did Li Long understand that Ha Ha Li Mu had actually been waiting for him, and he asked:

"Have they all gone back already?"

"They left, they all left."

Since Ha Ha Li Mu said so, Li Long let go of the number 76 he had brought over and let it continue to graze. He used the bucket he carried with him to draw a bucket of water from the stream to water the horses.

Ha Ha Li Mu was burning tea on the stove, and on the other side, he had already brought out a bag of naan. The naan should have been made in the last two days and wasn't very dry. Li Long sat in front of the winter quarters, broke off a piece, put it in his mouth, and chewed slowly.

Ha Ha Li Mu brought out another plate of air-dried wolf meat from the winter quarters; this was prepared to steam the meat after the tea was boiled.

Li Long didn't urge him. In this era, there were no mobile phones, no internet, and all kinds of things were relatively slow. He had been here for nearly a year and had already gotten used to it.

Before, he would have regretted that the road from home to the mountains, which originally took an hour by car, took four hours by horse cart and at least two hours by bicycle.

But now, sitting on the horse cart and coming over slowly, and having to go back slowly later, he didn't feel impatient.

The original appearance of life in this era was like this; it couldn't be rushed, it couldn't be fast. Watching Li Long slowly break the naan and eat, Ha Ha Li Mu also sat down, picked up a piece of naan, and slowly ate it.

"How are your cattle and sheep this year?" Li Long asked while eating.

"This year, the grass in the summer pasture was very good, and the lambs, basically all survived." Once this was mentioned, Ha Ha Li Mu talked more:

"Before the transfer, you brought us so many things, letting us have a very happy and interesting time in the summer pasture. Everyone listened to the radio and learned a lot of things, and their ideas also changed a lot. Future life, it will get better and better."

"Yeah, it will get better and better." In the next few years, as long as there is no reckless tossing, life will definitely get better and better.

There will be more and more bicycles in the village, there will be the first television, there will be the first tractor, and more students will be admitted to high school and technical secondary school...

And people in the pasture will also start to settle down and graze, send their children to special Uyghur schools and Kazakh schools to go to school, some people will turn from herdsmen into economic agents or businessmen, and some will go abroad in the future to do business with foreigners from the same tribe next door...

Drinking milk tea, Li Long and Ha Ha Li Mu chatted about their respective experiences. Ha Ha Li Mu was also quite envious of Li Long's harvest from hunting this summer, and he told Li Long that many deer had now gone deep into the mountains, and when it snowed in winter, some big deer would bring small deer to the near mountains, which would be a good time to hunt deer.

"I ran into a brown bear at the hot spring." Li Long suddenly remembered something and reminded Ha Ha Li Mu, "You guys need to be careful; this guy is more powerful than a wolf."

"Yeah, we also ran into them in the summer pasture." Ha Ha Li Mu said, "They are usually scared away by some sounds, but when they are hungry, they will also come to find trouble for us. Fortunately, we all have guns—and there are many of us, so we aren't afraid of it."

However, brown bears would definitely cause trouble.

After the air-dried meat was boiled, Li Long ate two pieces, and after he was full, he said goodbye to Ha Ha Li Mu and left.

!.

Ha Ha Li Mu let Li Long take some air-dried meat, but Li Long didn't take it, saying he had plenty at home. Ha Ha Li Mu didn't force him anymore.

After this parting, they wouldn't see each other again until winter.

Fortunately, winter would arrive soon.

The next day, when Li Long and Tao Daqiang came over separately pulling the horse cart and the ox cart, Ha Ha Li Mu's winter quarters had already been sealed, and there was no one there.

After they loaded the manure, they returned to the team. That day, Li Jianguo set nets at the Little Haizi and told Li Long that there was something in the team tomorrow, so he had to stay in the team and let Li Long go to Shicheng to sell the fish.

Li Long thought that anyway there was nothing else to do, so he would go. After this trip, he planned to go into the mountains and be busy for a while. It was late autumn, and the codonopsis in the mountains was almost ready to be dug. Getting some of this stuff back, whether to sell it to the purchasing station or keep it for self-use, was quite good.

Using codonopsis to stew chicken in winter, that is a great tonic.

When retrieving the nets the next day, Li Long found that Yang Yongqiang had also arrived at the Little Haizi very early.

Li Long didn't think much about it and greeted him, and Tao Daqiang went into the water to retrieve the nets.

Yang Yongqiang had actually proven twice that what Li Long said was true: if one end of the net was loosened and set more loosely, the fish caught were indeed much more. After that, he came earlier every day to retrieve the nets, mainly to prevent others from seeing.

After all, everyone set nets, and in the past, everyone knew the situation inside out; if you suddenly caught more fish, wouldn't others ask?

They wouldn't go to ask Li Long, and they probably wouldn't get an answer even if they asked, but they would definitely ask Yang Yongqiang, and might even go to observe Yang Yongqiang setting nets. That's why he came early, so others couldn't see, and then there would be nothing to say.

Li Long and Tao Daqiang went back to sort the fish, and he rode his bike, took Li Juan and Li Qiang to school, and then took the things to Shicheng.

For Li Long, the fisherman who came here every few days to sell fish, people who often strolled on the old street were still clear about it. So they also bumped into him; if they bumped into him, they would come over to buy, and if they didn't, it was just bad luck, depending on the situation.

Therefore, Li Long's fish were still quite popular, and at the slowest, they were basically sold out within an hour.

Thinking that he was about to go into the mountains, after Li Long sold the fish, he packed up his things and pushed his bike without rushing to drink milk tea, planning to see if there was anything worth buying.

There were quite a few stalls on the old street, and the goods were also very rich. Now it was late autumn, and there were quite a lot of agricultural products; there were no watermelons, as the season had passed, but there were still sweet melons for sale. Li Long guessed that these should be late-season melons, the last batch of melons.

He didn't buy any; there were quite a few piled up at home, all planted by Li Jianguo in the cornfields where seedlings were missing, including pear melons, fragrant melon eggs, and so on.

When there were too many things, he didn't want to eat them; when he wanted to eat one, he would crack one open, and occasionally he wouldn't even remember.

A long-distance bus stopped on the old street, and a group of people poured down from it. One of them, carrying a large sack, hurried through the crowd and walked toward the end of the old street.

Li Long was bending over at this time, looking at the iron tools displayed on the stall, including grab hooks, small rakes, and small shovels, all of which looked quite good.

He bought one of each, planning to use them when digging for codonopsis.

After all, not all codonopsis grow honestly in the soil; some are in rock crevices or between tree roots, and at those times, using an iron shovel is inconvenient.

Special tools must be used.

When he straightened his waist to push his bike, he saw the person carrying the bag in front.

That guy, how did his posture look so much like Gu Ermao?

Li Long immediately followed; the grudge with this guy hadn't been resolved yet!

If it really was him, then Li Long definitely wouldn't be finished with him!

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 298 =====