Chapter 319: This work is not afraid of many people, only afraid of no one doing it

Although he really wanted to live in the big courtyard for a period of time, Li Long knew that there would be a big job coming up, so he still had to go back and make preparations first.

After all, whether he could earn a big sum before the end of the year depended on this opportunity.

Riding his bike to the department store to buy some food, Li Long turned around and went home.

Wearing a cotton-padded jacket, a cotton hat on his head, a mask covering his face, a scarf knitted by Gu Xiaoxia wrapped around his neck, plus the big-headed shoes he got from Li Xiangqian on his feet, he was basically fully armed.

After passing the commune and turning east, Li Long saw that the water in the Mo Hequ had stopped. The few pools of water left at the bottom of the canal were also covered with thin ice. There was a gap between the ice and the little water left underneath, and one could see the air bubbles in the middle of the ice layer with the naked eye.

A few children were playing near the ice layer, and one was holding a stone and smashing the air bubbles, as if they had fished out small fish or something from underneath.

Since the water in the Mo Hequ was cut off, then the big event that followed should be coming soon, right?

Thinking that there might be a big battle coming up, Li Long immediately accelerated his riding speed. When he arrived at the elementary school and saw that the students had already finished school, he rode forward, found Li Juan and Li Qiang in the crowd, took them, and quickly went home under the envious eyes of other children.

So far, there were no more than five bicycles in the entire village, and the total number of bicycles in the whole township would not exceed one hundred. Therefore, almost everyone seen on the road was walking, occasionally someone would be pulling a horse cart or a donkey cart, or pulling a flatbed cart by manpower.

Returning to the Li family, Li Long left a portion of the food, then went to the Gu family, left a portion here, told Gu Bo Yuan about Xiaoxia's situation, chatted for a few words, and then returned to Old Ma Hao.

Tao Daqiang was waiting for him here.

"Brother Long, you're back." Tao Daqiang greeted with a smile, "You must have been exhausted these past few days."

"It's alright," Li Long parked his bicycle and greeted him, "Let's go, let's go into the room, it's cold outside."

"It's fine, what's cold about this, it won't be cold until a few days later."

"Daqiang, do you have any plans for the next step?" Since Tao Daqiang didn't want to enter the room, Li Long stood outside and chatted with him, "How are the preparations for the wedding going?"

"Hmm..." At this time, Tao Daqiang was a bit embarrassed, "It's almost all done, just waiting for the event."

"Then do you want to be idle during this period, or do you plan to earn some more money?" Li Long teased him with a smile, "Are you dating your partner every day?"

"No, no..." Tao Daqiang hurriedly waved his hands, his face turning red, "How could it be every day... once a week... two or three times?"

Fine, the kid has opened up.

"Brother Long, can we still earn money? Catching fish?" Tao Daqiang asked, "You have so many people coming from your hometown, this fish catching is not easy to sell, walking to the county..."

Li Long didn't explain directly, but asked him:

"Then do you want to earn it? Don't worry, this time, even if we add some more people, we can still earn money. But you have to be able to endure hardship, the tiredness and freezing are not ordinary, and it might be even harder than before."

"That's not a problem." Hearing about manual labor, Tao Daqiang waved his hands, "What's there to be afraid of? Last year smashing the ice hole, I didn't feel anything tired."

He subconsciously thought that Li Long was going to expand the ice hole smashing thing.

"Then just be prepared. Let your father prepare the donkey cart too, this will also be used. We'll calculate the money together then."

Li Long just wanted to seize this opportunity to have a big one, maybe he could earn a tractor for next year!

Tao Daqiang got the confirmation and happily prepared to go back. Just as he arrived at the courtyard entrance, he turned his head back and asked Li Long:

"Brother Long, Yongqiang also asked me before, wanting to work with you, what do you think..."

"If he wants to work this time, that's fine." Li Long really didn't care about having many people this time, the more the better.

"That's fine, I'll go tell him." Tao Daqiang left with light steps.

The sky darkened. Li Long added some coal to the stove in Li Anguo and the others' room, and used some coal dust to press the fire on top, so that when they came back, they only needed to use the stove hook to poke the fire and it would start.

He put some lump coal on his side, and after the firepower was drawn up, the room suddenly became warm.

Uncle Lao Luo was shouting outside:

"Xiao Long, are we waiting for them to come back to eat this meal?"

"No need, let's eat first." Li Long pushed the door and walked out, "They'll eat the leftovers when they come back. They've been strolling around the county today, probably not hungry."

Of course, Li Long was just joking. They were eating soup noodles at night. Now it's cold in winter, and they don't do hard labor, so eating something thin is normal. Besides, they were eating white flour. If anyone still had opinions, Uncle Lao Luo would probably smash them with a spatula!

A big bowl of dough flakes went into his stomach, Li Long felt a little thin sweat coming out on his back, and he said with a smile:

"Uncle Lao Luo, your cooking skills are getting better and better!"

"Haha, just messing around." Uncle Lao Luo said with a smile, "Eating by myself, just pondering a little bit."

Uncle Lao Luo was very content. Now he was doing his old job and getting wages. Although he was also doing part-time cooking—doesn't he have to cook for himself when living alone? Besides, with so many people together, eating is lively, it's just putting a little more rice and kneading a little more flour when cooking—what's that? Now other old friends still envy him.

After eating, Li Long helped Uncle Lao Luo clean up the bowls and chopsticks, and then returned to his room.

He planned to go see the situation tomorrow, and he would have to keep an eye on it every day for the next few days.

At this time, there was nothing to do. Li Long listened to Uncle Lao Luo feeding the wild boars and deer outside, and didn't go over to help. He pulled the electric light, touched a book from under his pillow. The novels at Big Brother's place had been read by him almost all, and this one was cleaned out from the big courtyard in the county, a thoroughly reactionary book "Dang Kou Zhi". If one hadn't read "Water Margin" first, one might really be fooled by this thing.

The sky darkened, and the voices of Li Anguo and the others came from outside.

Li Long put down the book and walked out of the room, watching Big Brother already leading the horse cart away, and Li Anguo and the others walked over carrying some things.

"Xiao Long, you're fast." Li Anguo said with a smile.

"Riding a bicycle, how can it not be fast." Chen Xingbang said enviously, "Tomorrow when we earn money, we'll buy one too, an old one is fine."

"Uncle Xiao Long, you try this chicken cake, it's delicious." Li Junfeng handed the chicken cake to Li Long. Li Long took a piece, ate it, and asked:

"Was the stroll good today?"

"It's alright. The county town is a bit small," Chen Xingbang said, "The shops are a bit few, and there are few people. Other than that, nothing else."

"That's true, the people in one county here are only as many as the people in one town in the mouth." Li Long said with a smile, "The land is vast and the people are few, what's lacking now is people. You strolled through the market, you should have seen that anything handmade can be sold for money."

"That's really true, there are really many opportunities, it seems that there are not many people who know crafts here." Li Anguo felt deeply, "There is everything sold in that market, I was just thinking, can that thing be sold? And there are really people buying it..."

"Enter the room, it's cold outside." Li Long said, "The stove is set up, you can poke it open with the stove hook and there will be fire. Uncle Lao Luo has already prepared the meal for you."

"Uncle Xiao Long, can you let me learn your bicycle tomorrow?" Li Junfeng asked hurriedly. "Tomorrow afternoon is fine, I have to use it in the morning."

"Fine, fine, fine, afternoon is fine." Li Junfeng actually didn't care about morning or afternoon. After this trip, he had a bold idea: earn more money, even if he stayed outside for half a year or a year, when he went back to his hometown, buy a bicycle, how good!

Li Junshan hadn't spoken much, feeling like he had something on his mind.

Li Long didn't ask either, he wasn't a psychologist, they were all adults, he couldn't manage that much.

Li Long lived in one room by himself, and the four of them lived in one room. At the beginning, Chen Xingbang and the others had opinions, but now they didn't.

Four people lived in one room, although the smell was a bit unpleasant, but wasn't it lively? With the two juniors Li Junfeng and Li Junshan there, there were many things they didn't need to manage.

When pressing the reed bundles, Li Long had mentioned it to them. Han Benzhong and their two families had gone back, now there were empty rooms, if they felt crowded, they could live separately, anyway, the stove and coal were ready-made.

What made Li Long a bit puzzled was that the first one to oppose was Chen Xingbang, while the others didn't have any opinions. So Li Long didn't say anything else.

Fortunately, the rooms in this horse station were built according to the layout of the warehouse and office, each room was at least thirty or forty square meters, highlighting the word "big", so four people living there wouldn't be crowded.

The next day after breakfast, Li Long rode his bicycle and headed north.

Passing through the old village, arriving at the second portion of ration land divided by his family, he rode along the road pressed by the horse cart along the edge of the land until he reached the edge of the big Haizi.

The water in the big Haizi at this time was much less than when the nets were cast before. Some shallow shoals were now exposed with mud, and some troughs were also revealed.

!.

There was some thin ice on the shore here, because the water receded quickly, the ice was stacked layer by layer to the water's edge.

Looking over, there was no one in the big Haizi. At this time, the temperature of the air had reached below zero, no one would come down to catch fish at this time.

He pushed his bicycle and circled along the outer edge of the big Haizi, wanting to circle to the north gate to see.

There were a few small canals and rivers in the southeast, which were also the water sources of the big Haizi, but they were completely dry at this time, and there was some cow and horse manure in the river ditch.

Li Long didn't ride, there were many camel thorns in this area, he was worried about not riding well and directly puncturing the bicycle tire, that would be quite troublesome.

When he reached the far east, this was already a dam with cement slabs blocking the front and soil piled up at the back. The top of the dam was two meters wide, so riding a bicycle was no problem.

Riding along the dam to the gate, Li Long found that the gate had been raised to the highest, and the water in the Haizi was rushing down along the gate, flowing downstream.

Occasionally, one could see a fish jumping up from the gate and falling down again.

Without needing to distinguish, everyone knew that only silver carp would do this.

Li Long stayed at the gate watching, and soon someone rushed over from the small house under the gate. Seeing Li Long, he shouted:

"What are you doing?"

"I'm from the village above, just seeing how the water is inside."

"How else can it be? Releasing water." Looking at Li Long riding a bicycle, the person's tone slowed down a bit, "Nothing to see, outsiders are not allowed to come up here, you hurry down."

"Until when will this water be released?" Li Long wanted to verify the thing in his memory, so he asked.

"What's it to you? Hurry down." That person didn't want to say, waved his hands, and then turned and went into the room.

This room was actually mixed with branches, wood, and mud, and a little smoke came out from inside, it should be a stove set up. That person was most likely watching the gate, and should be roasting fire at this time.

Li Long pushed his bicycle to the door of this "shack", set up the bicycle, pushed the half-covered door, and walked in.

"What are you here for?" That person was poking the stove, and there was a burnt fragrance mixed in the room.

Li Long saw the fish that had been roasted a bit burnt placed by the stove, and was happy.

He took out a cigarette from his pocket, pulled one out, handed it over, and said:

"Come, brother, have one."

After taking the cigarette handed by Li Long, that person's face eased a bit, he looked at the cigarette, the corners of his mouth twitched, as if smiling, and then pulled out the stove hook from the stove mouth, and lit the cigarette.

This person was in his forties, shorter than Li Jianguo, only about 1.6 meters, with little hair, a very tanned face, and very dirty clothes, don't know how long it hadn't been washed, emitting a fishy smell.

The room was not big, two roasted fish were hanging by the stove, there was a wooden bed in the back, and five or six fish weighing two or three kilograms were placed in a basin by the bed.

"Brother, there are quite a few fish here!"

"That's for sure, releasing water every day, the fish can jump out from time to time, if you want to eat, take one!" This person was also very generous.

"That's not needed. I'll just ask one thing—brother, is the water in this big Haizi going to be released dry? I see the water in the Mo Hequ is not flowing into it."

"Hey, isn't it!" That person heard Li Long guess it, so he took a fierce puff of the cigarette:

"The downstream and upstream water managers are having a lawsuit (quarreling), and we in the middle are suffering—anyway, we do whatever they tell us to do above. We didn't win above, so they got angry and let the water be released dry, so let it be released..."

"Is there a reservoir storing the water released below?" Li Long asked. There was actually a series of reservoirs below the big Haizi, but the further north, the deeper into the Gobi Desert area, and the more desolate it became.

"That's for sure... but it's said that this time it's not, this time the water is released, and it basically ends up in the sandy nest land. A leader over there said he wanted to open up the sandy land next year, and now he's releasing water to soak it—isn't that nonsense! Releasing water into the sandy land, it seeps down, there's nothing left, soaking a fart!"

Chatting with this person for a while longer, Li Long knew the basic situation, left the remaining half pack of cigarettes here, and got up to leave.

That person felt bad, found a net bag, directly loaded two fish, and stuffed them to Li Long:

"Take it, it just jumped out this morning, it's alive, feel free to eat!"

Li Long felt bad, so he took it.

Cigarettes were nothing to him, fish were nothing to the other party, this could be considered a win-win.

Li Long rode his bicycle and didn't return the same way. There was a county road here, directly circling the west side of the big Haizi, leading to the commune. Because large trucks passed by from time to time, the road condition was okay.

Riding to the commune, Li Long turned east, rode, and returned to Old Ma Hao.

It was already lunch time, and Li Long felt a little more at ease in his heart.

Next, it was to go inquire about the situation every day. (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 320 =====