Chapter 401: An Early New Beginning

In the middle of the night, Yang Yongqiang was sent back by Tao Daqiang. He was drunk, and until the end, he kept muttering about buying a bicycle for his sister to go to school immediately.

Really a good brother.

Eating and drinking were in Li Long's room. Tao Daqiang was the most sober in the whole scene. Before leaving, he cleaned up the things on the table and put them into the kitchen, and added coal to the stove in Li Long's room to press the fire, letting the coal burn slowly. After all these were done, he left.

Burning the stove in Northern Xinjiang is experienced, there are ventilation holes on the door, so there is no worry about people being poisoned.

Li Long was dizzy, let Tao Daqiang clean up, he took off his clothes, covered himself with a quilt, and fell asleep.

In the middle of the night, Li Long was thirsty. He was woken up by thirst. After waking up, he felt his head was still a bit dizzy, climbed up, poured half a cup of boiled water from the thermos, added some cold water from the teapot, and drank it in big gulps, feeling much more comfortable.

This wine is okay, at least it doesn't hit the head.

He looked at the stove fire, the charcoal foam on the upper layer hadn't burned out yet, and the red charcoal below wasn't very obvious. Tao Daqiang had quite a technique for pressing coal.

Put on his clothes, pulled the door and went out, a gust of cold wind made him shiver, so he ran quickly to the side of the dry toilet and started peeing in the snow.

Thinking of the scene of his peeing when he was just reborn, Li Long's childhood heart was aroused, so he waved his little brother and sprinkled the letters "nb" on the snow.

It's just a pity that there was little urine, and the last b didn't close the mouth.

It seems that this boast is still a bit empty.

After peeing, Li Long shivered, ran back to the room quickly, listened carefully at the door, heard Old Luo Shu's snoring, and only then felt relieved to return to the room, close the door, and continue to sleep.

Youth is good, this thought just flashed in his mind, and then he fell asleep in a daze. In this era, there is basically no such thing as insomnia.

When Li Long woke up again, the sky was already bright. Sunlight shone in through the window covered with plastic paper, sprinkled on the table and the ground. From the head of the bed, he could see dust floating slowly where the sunlight came through.

Li Long was stunned for a while before rubbing his face and climbing up.

Put on his clothes, cleaned up the room simply, carried a washbasin out to get some water, and washed up.

The wild boar and deer in the pen were calling when they heard the movement. Li Long looked at the sky, should be hungry.

Old Luo Shu was already cooking in the kitchen. Seeing Li Long get up, he smiled bitterly:

"Drinking wine is a mistake. Got up late, the livestock are usually fed by this time."

"Don't worry, being hungry for a meal doesn't count as anything." Li Long got water to wash his face, and then prepared with Old Luo Shu.

The dishes stir-fried last night were basically eaten clean. This morning Old Luo Shu cut pickled vegetables and prepared to stir-fry again. Li Long saw his face was still a bit haggard, should be not fully recovered, so he took the kitchen knife to cut vegetables, and Old Luo Shu went to cook porridge.

The two had a simple breakfast, Li Long helped Old Luo Shu feed all the livestock in the pen, and went to his big brother's place.

The Li family had already finished breakfast, the pigs had been fed, at this time Li Juan and Li Qiang were doing homework, Li Jianguo was cleaning up the remaining fish and rabbits in the idle room, and Liang Yuemei was cleaning up in the kitchen.

"Big Brother, I'm going to drive the horse cart out again tomorrow." Li Long greeted his sister-in-law, went to the idle room, and said while cleaning up the fish and rabbits with his big brother, "I'll haul these things together to Shicheng to sell, and then get some grain to haul to the mountains. Now the mountains are short of grain, they don't want money for buying sheep, so use grain to top it."

"Good." Li Jianguo said, "People are good to us, we can't owe them. Bring more things, it's not easy for you to go into the mountains this time, and it's hard for them to come down the mountain, you bring more things, they will be less troublesome."

The matter was settled like this, Li Long and his big brother loaded the remaining rabbits and fish onto the horse cart together.

There were more than 40 rabbits, and 200 or 300 kilograms of fish. It was worth it to go to Shicheng to sell a trip.

When the two were loading things, Jia Wei Guo came over with two rabbits again.

Li Long took the rabbits and weighed them, saying:

"These are all over three kilograms, three yuan each, I'll give you six yuan."

Saying that, he put the rabbits on the cart, took out a five-yuan note and a one-yuan note and handed them to the other party.

"Are you going to sell rabbits?" Jia Wei Guo took the money and looked at the horse cart and asked.

"Hmm, going to Shicheng tomorrow to sell these rabbits," Li Long said with a smile, "Otherwise, if they pile up in the house for a long time, they will have a smell."

"Hmm." Jia Wei Guo didn't know what he was thinking, was in a daze for a while, then helped Li Long and them load the rabbits and fish onto the cart, and then left.

Li Long persuaded him to come into the room to drink some water to warm up, but he refused to do so.

After the things were loaded on the cart, the cart shaft was supported by a stool, covered with plastic sheeting and tied with rope, so he didn't worry about wild cats causing trouble at night.

After entering the room, Li Long found a clean sack in the idle room—this sack was brought back from loading sugar residue. He planned to use this sack to load a sheep in the big courtyard, and then send it to Li Xiangqian.

After everything was ready, Li Long originally planned to go back, but Liang Yuemei stopped him.

"The meal is about to be made here. Why go back? Old Luo will know to eat here if you don't return." She said, "It's time for a meal and you're still running, this is really not intending to treat this place as home, right?"

Since sister-in-law said so, Li Long stayed. Li Qiang shouted Li Long outside. After Li Long went out, he found Li Qiang was in the snow pile outside the door, intending to build a snowman.

"The snow now can't be piled." Li Long persuaded him back, "Wait until it snows to pile. The snow now is scattered, no stickiness, when it snows, the snow has stickiness, that's when it's best to pile, and it can be kept for a long time."

There are few people in the countryside, and the whole village knows each other. Piling a snowman will at most be curious to see, and will not be destroyed. In his previous life, Li Long heard neighbors say that they bought a house in the county, every time it snowed, the grandson would shout to go out and build a snowman under the trees in the residential area. The snowman piled up in size, and the children specially found leaves, branches, coal balls, etc. to decorate it.

Then this snowman can be kept for at most one night, and it will be destroyed by others. I don't know if those people feel the snowman is terrifying, or purely have a destructive desire, not hoping for beautiful and complete things to exist—the big ones kick the head off, the body is broken, the small ones directly stomp a foot.

Every time the child goes to see the snowman full of joy the next day, he will cry.

Some people are really annoying.

Li Qiang was not very happy, but knew this was a fact, because he himself pinched the scattered snow outside the courtyard wall for a long time and didn't get a snowball, now he knew the reason.

Then wait for it to snow.

The sun had reached the south, Li Long squinted and looked, and didn't know if there were still people smashing ice holes to catch fish in the small Haizi now.

Things are really not thought about. In the afternoon, Li Long prepared to go back to the stable to have a good rest, and then when he came over early tomorrow morning, Liang's second brother came over with a bag of fish.

"Xiao Long, still collecting?" He saw the covered horse cart and guessed that Li Long should be going to sell fish. Since he was going to sell fish, then should he collect the remaining fish?

"Collecting, as long as you sell, then I will definitely collect." Li Long said with a smile, "How is the harvest today?"

"Okay." Hearing Li Long collect, Liang's second brother smiled, "Two carp, one black fish, all over two kilograms, one silver carp, we kept it at home to eat, and some crucian carp, the remaining dogfish were sent to you."

"Good." Li Long went into the room to get the scale, came over and lifted the scale with Liang's second brother to weigh it.

"Twenty-six kilograms, six cents per kilogram, six six thirty-six, two six twelve, fifteen point six." Li Long calculated quickly, and after calculating, he put down the scale and the bag and took out money.

"Fifteen, collect fifteen!" Liang's second brother hurriedly said, "There is more than one kilogram of dogfish, that is sent to you, attached."

"Good." Li Long counted out a big group and a five-yuan note and handed it over, saying, "Come, keep it."

"Heh, Xiao Long, your business, really good!" Liang's second brother took the money, tucked it into his upper pocket, and smiled, "We will send it over again after catching it later!"

"Good, good." Li Long said, "How much I want. Go, go into the room to drink water, I'll make room for you."

"I won't go in," Liang's second brother hurriedly waved his hand, "The body is full of fishy smell, waiting to go back to change clothes, you go to pour the fish, I'll wait here."

Li Long couldn't pull him, so he carried the fish to the idle room, poured the fish on the plastic sheeting, and felt a bit magical looking at the individual fish still moving. Thinking that Liang's second brother was still waiting, he quickly carried the bag out. Liang's second brother took the bag, smiled and turned to leave.

Liang's second brother's pace back was obviously much lighter. This made Li Long feel happy in his heart. The three Liang brothers had earned one or two hundred yuan from himself and his big brother in these days.

This money is not much for himself, but for ordinary people in the team, it is quite a lot. In less than half a month, three people can split forty or fifty each, equivalent to the wage of a third or fourth-level worker, and it is definitely no problem to have a fat New Year.

So, with more resources, in fact, there are many ways to make money. Just like Jia Wei Guo, even if the body is weak, there are rabbits in the wild, set two and it tops the worker's wage for four or five days, and this is the middle of winter, having this income in leisure time, isn't it better than staying at home every day or going to play cards?

Li Long used to feel that farmers in Northern Xinjiang should be about the same, until later the team organized tourism, after turning around many places, he found that in fact, the people in the village where he was, whether it was the awareness of rights protection or the idea of making money, and the ability to act, were very advanced and active.

It is not that all farmers have this active idea of finding ways to make money. In some places, farmers are really unable to be helped, can only see a little bit of petty profit in front of them, have resources but don't know how to use them, don't know how to fight for their own rights, and only know how to consume internally. For the sake of a fart-sized thing, they quarrel with neighbors endlessly, but don't know how to think about how to live a better life.

Organize the fish, Li Long picked out the dogfish, found a basin from the kitchen and opened it here.

He divided the opened dogfish into two portions, put one in the kitchen, and carried one himself back to the stable.

Old Luo Shu was listening to the radio, Li Long went to the kitchen and stewed dogfish soup. Last night drinking was considered tossing, just right to use this dogfish soup to supplement.

There were no good materials in winter, just use oil to fry the dogfish first, add ginger and water and boil it hard, the fish fragrance soon drifted out, boiled for half an hour, the dogfish meat was almost off the bone, add some green onion and dried coriander, put it in a bowl and serve it, that taste, unique.

Old Luo Shu smelled the smell and came out, looked at the fish soup Li Long made and was happy, saying:

"Xiao Long, this is fresh fish, right? The taste is too good!"

"Hmm, sent by Liang's second brother, I made it directly. Such good fish, it's a pity to freeze it. Middle of winter, rare! Old Luo Shu, wait a moment, I'll make another dish here, it will be ready in a while."

!.

The fish soup was refreshing to drink in the evening, and the two didn't eat much, just habitually full.

"Xiao Long, following you to eat, I'm almost getting rich disease here." Old Luo Shu said while eating, "Before, even if working in summer, it was two meals a day, where are there three meals a day at night? At most, chew two mouthfuls of dry steamed buns. Now, eat three meals every day, it's not easy to change later!"

"Change what? Before, Chinese people ate three meals a day. I heard, it was because those Tungusic wild pig skins couldn't stand Han people living a good life, so they let it change." Li Long told Old Luo Shu the words he heard from somewhere in short videos in his previous life.

"Tung... what? Wild pig skin?" Old Luo Shu was stunned, didn't understand.

Li Long began to sell his knowledge heard from short videos:

"That refers to the Manchu people from the Qing Dynasty who wore long braids. That person named Nurhaci, that name translated literally means 'wild boar skin.' The place they lived in was called Tungus."

"Is that so?" Old Luo was half-believing. "Xiao Long, I didn't expect you to know so much."

"That's right, I read books every day," Li Long joked. "There's a lot of stuff in books!"

He remembered that his eldest brother had a book specifically about Nurhaci's "uprising"—how he started with thirteen suits of armor, how he proclaimed the Manchu Qing, and how he defeated the dim-witted and corrupt "Great Ming." In it, Fan Wencheng was even portrayed as a Zhuge Liang-style strategist.

Looking at it before, he didn't think much of it, but comparing it with his memories, hey!

Does this count as someone writing such a book because the Xinhai Revolution wasn't thorough enough?

Alright, after showing off and tidying up, Li Long went out to relieve himself, banked the coal in the stove, and then turned on the lamp to flip through the "Wulin" magazine he had bought on this trip.

It really seemed quite exciting before, but now reading "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" from the beginning, why does it feel like there are so many plot holes... it makes one want to curse.

Is this a generation gap, or just incomprehension?

Forget it, let's just read slowly. When Li Long flipped through other novels, he even had the impulse that he could write them too.

Of course, that was just a thought; having high standards but low ability is a common ailment.

He fell asleep without realizing it.

Because he slept early, when he got up the next day, it wasn't even eight o'clock yet, and it was still dark.

Li Long climbed out of bed, not expecting the kitchen light to be on; Uncle Lao Luo was already cooking.

Last night, he had mentioned that he was going to the county today, and Uncle Lao Luo had remembered it.

"I'm old, I can't sleep that much." This was Uncle Lao Luo's explanation. "Getting up early has its benefits; after finishing things one by one, I can do whatever I want with the remaining time, and I can listen to the radio properly without interruptions."

Fine, old people always have their reasons, even if he was helping Li Long, he also wanted to use a reasonable excuse.

After breakfast, Li Long dressed neatly, shouldered his gun holster, and went to his eldest brother's house. At Li Jianguo's place, Liang Wenyu was preparing breakfast. Seeing Li Long come over, she asked:

"Have you eaten?"

"Sister-in-law, I've eaten," Li Long said. "You guys go ahead with your work; I'll feed Seventy-Six a bit and then harness the horse cart to leave."

"Your eldest brother already fed it this morning; it should be drinking water now," Liang Wenyu said. "It'll be ready in a moment."

Li Long went out to the horse pen and happened to see Li Jianguo carrying a bucket out. Watering the horse in the morning requires warm water because they have to travel, so it needs to be done carefully.

The two of them harnessed the horse cart, and Li Long said goodbye to his brother and led it away.

The daylight wasn't very bright yet, but both Li Long and Seventy-Six were used to it. He drove the cart for a while, saw the road was fine, sat on the cart shaft, lightly flicked the whip, and Seventy-Six picked up speed.

The road was very quiet. When they reached Old Zhuangzi, one could see smoke rising from some houses, while others were still quiet. Occasionally, there would be dogs barking, but they would stop after a bark or two, and then dogs would bark in the distance, like a relay.

After passing the reed ditch, Li Long counted silently; one kilometer had already passed.

The road was boring, and now he couldn't sleep, nor could he sleep, so he could only count the distance like this to pass the time.

Then he couldn't help but let his mind wander. Although it wasn't New Year yet, this stage of the mission was completed. First, he had a wrap-up meal with Gu Xiaoxia, then recalled the past with his eldest brother's family, planned the farming for the coming year, and then fantasized about the future with Tao Daqiang and Yang Yongqiang.

The feeling of the New Year began to set in. From now on, a new stage was starting, and he needed to pull himself together and work hard.

Buying a tractor, buying a color TV, building a house.

None of these were easy to accomplish. A tractor costs six or seven thousand, an eighteen-inch color TV costs two thousand eight, plus building a house—

Alright, seems like it's okay?

As Li Long calculated this, the horse cart had already reached the township. On the road, one could see people—some riding bicycles, some walking, and some driving donkey carts or horse carts, but they were only encountered every few hundred meters or a kilometer, all heading toward the county.

By the time Li Long reached the county seat, the east finally revealed half of the sun's face.

He drove the cart to the meat canteen, bought two steamed buns, drank a bowl of hot water, which counted as a breather, and then drove the cart toward Shicheng.

This time, he didn't let Tao Daqiang and Yang Yongqiang follow him to sell the fish and rabbits, mainly because he had to go into the mountains later, and it would be difficult for them to return if they followed.

Moreover, that stage of work was over, and the accounts were settled, so whether to bring them along later was another matter.

Last night, the two of them didn't come to the horse stable, and in fact, they understood in their hearts. Besides, after being busy for a while, people need to rest too.

The traffic toward Shicheng increased; perhaps because of the upcoming New Year, there was a horse cart every now and then, as well as buses and cargo trucks.

It was quite lively, and Li Long watched, feeling that there was finally some New Year atmosphere.

Otherwise, it's no wonder his second brother and brother-in-law would say there was no atmosphere here; the population itself was just small.

Thinking in his mind, the horse cart passed the Mahe Bridge and the poplar grove without realizing it, and then the old street was right before his eyes.

The hawking of goods came over, the sound getting louder and louder.

A lively scene, and Li Long smiled.

I have arrived! (End of chapter)