Chapter 503

The next afternoon, Li Long drove the tractor and returned to the county with Gu Xiaoxia.

With the tractor, although Gu Xiaoxia's butt hurt from sitting in the back, it was fast, and she didn't have to pedal it herself, so it actually felt quite good.

After returning to the yard, Gu Xiaoxia prepared dinner, while Li Long went to release the roe deer and the little deer, cleaned the glass room, and added water and food for them.

While sweeping the yard, he saw the big hedgehog poking its head out and running along the wall to the back of the house, biting something in its mouth, not knowing if it was an earthworm or a centipede. Li Long guessed it was likely an earthworm; the centipedes in Xinjiang couldn't grow that big.

As long as there's food, it can live well. Li Long felt it was quite good to have more such living things at home. Anyway, the yard was big; if it were just the two of them, it wouldn't be very good.

The roe deer were frolicking in the yard, running a circle from time to time, making quite a bit of noise. Gu Xiaoxia poked her head out of the kitchen to look, then went back to continue cooking.

Seeing that these few had frolicked enough, Li Long drove them all into the glass room. Li Long thought that when these roe deer grew up and weren't fun anymore, he would drive them to the old horse station in the team, and then see how to utilize the glass room.

It should be nice to grow some fresh vegetables in the middle of winter. Avoid always having those few types, eating them until he was tired of them.

If there are conditions, then one should live one's life better.

"Dinner is ready, come eat." Gu Xiaoxia shouted at the kitchen door, and Li Long washed his hands to eat.

"You should rest well these few days." At the dinner table, Gu Xiaoxia said, "You've been in the mountains for so long, look, you've tanned, it's just right to rest well at home."

"Isn't this my normal skin color?" Li Long held the porridge, took a sip, and said with a smile, "People in Europe and America even specifically sunbathe on the beach to get this color, thinking it's a healthy skin color."

"Don't mind them, it's fine if we look good ourselves." Gu Xiaoxia didn't have the idea of yearning for Europe and America. "Sunburning too hard will cause scars, and they won't fall off later."

"Okay, I'll listen to you." Li Long followed the advice.

That's how daily chats between husband and wife are.

"I can't be idle for long." Li Long said while eating, "When I have time, I want to go to the animal husbandry team's outpost. The yards of Halimu and Yushanjiang's families are broken, so I'll take a few people to help repair them. The two of them went to the summer pasture to herd sheep, leaving only women and children at home, so I have to go see them from time to time."

"Hmm, that's as it should be." Gu Xiaoxia had heard Li Long talk about how his first pot of gold came from, so she was quite grateful to Halimu and Yushanjiang. If it weren't for work reasons, she would have followed Li Long into the mountains to visit these friends long ago.

"Who are you going with?" Gu Xiaoxia picked up a piece of meat for Li Long and asked, "Can you find people?"

"Just take a few people from the team." Li Long said, "After two days, when farm work is slack, I'll call Daqiang and the others. It's just a day or two of work, applying mud to the roof, repairing the yard, and patching the wall will be about enough. I'll go buy a sheep, boil a pot, and eat while working there. By the way, are you free? If you're free, you can go too."

"I'm afraid not." Gu Xiaoxia shook her head, "I might have to go to various schools for inspections in the next few days. The midterm exam is coming up soon, and the bureau attaches great importance to it this year. We all have to go down to the township schools in batches to see the situation."

Gu Xiaoxia actually wanted to go, but she was really busy. She wouldn't even be able to return to the team for the next two weeks, and she might have to stay in the more distant townships for inspections.

Li Long felt a bit of regret, but thinking about it, it was normal. Gu Xiaoxia was a state cadre and naturally had to be bound by the unit and discipline. He suddenly thought of something and said:

"Not only work, but also actively move closer to the organization, write an application or something. I remember you joined the Youth League when you were in school, right?"

"Hmm." Gu Xiaoxia said with a smile, "I didn't expect your political sensitivity to be quite strong. I've already written the application, and Director Wang said the organization would focus on examining me."

If you want to progress within the system, this point must be kept up.

After the two finished eating and washing up, they went to the bedroom to watch TV and chat. Li Long felt this was normal married life.

The TV series played by CCTV was titled "Wu Song," which was a plot segment about Wu Song from "Water Margin." It looked quite exciting. Gu Xiaoxia watched it very seriously, and Li Long accompanied her until the cast list was finished before changing the channel.

Channel 9 was the Shihezi Station, which was playing "Oasis News" at this time. Because news collection was relatively small at this time and the gatekeeping was very professional, the recording of programs was very serious, so the news was new once a week. After being broadcast on Monday, the news for the whole week was a rebroadcast.

At this time, what many people hated most about watching TV was the news. Children who didn't know that news usually had a fixed duration would count how many segments the anchor read and how many were images, thinking that the number of segments in each news broadcast was fixed. Some children could even recite the news content, but even so, they wouldn't leave at this time, for fear that the news would suddenly be interrupted and the TV series would be played directly.

At this time, martial arts and gunfight TV shows were the most popular, and family chores were liked by adults, but more children still liked shows like "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" and "Wu Song." "Yearning" was liked by adults because it was closer to life.

After all, at this time, suffering, endurance, diligence, and kindness were praised.

Now Li Long actually liked watching the news; the news contained a lot of information and didn't just broadcast current events.

Oasis News broadcasted things about the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. Li Long discovered that they were already planting cotton over there. However, looking at the recording, the cotton wasn't covered with film; it should be upland cotton, and the yield wouldn't be very high.

But this was the beginning of cotton planting in Xinjiang. At this time, no one could have imagined that in the next few decades, in areas with conditions, the cotton planting plots in each county would reach more than one million mu.

Quite a lot.

The next day, Li Long rested, and Gu Xiaoxia went to work.

On Monday, the leaders had to hold a meeting first to determine the work. There weren't many things in the offices, and several eldest sisters began to discuss yesterday's TV series. Some could watch it, and some could only listen.

Gu Xiaoxia tidied up her desk. The old-fashioned orange-yellow desk had daily office supplies in the two drawers. The fountain pen Li Long gave her was very easy to use, and she unscrewed the ink bottle to prepare to suck ink.

"Little Gu, let me tell you, that 'Wu Song' was performed really well, the fighting was just like the real thing, and when he killed someone, it gave me a startle..." An eldest sister sat next to Gu Xiaoxia, turned her head, and said to Gu Xiaoxia, "I was sitting on the chair at the time and almost fell... Oh, I forgot, you don't have a TV at home, come to my house to watch when you have time, it's very good!"

"I watched it." Gu Xiaoxia smiled and said while sucking ink, "Wu Song splashing blood on the Mandarin Duck Building, that knife went down, and the blood splashed all over the wall, it was really realistic—if it weren't for my husband saying it was fake blood, I would have thought it was splashed with real blood."

"Blood? Red? Isn't it black?" The eldest sister asked puzzledly, "I also saw it splash on the wall, that..."

"Xiaoxia is watching a color TV, right?" Another colleague suddenly understood, "The blood on a color TV is red."

"Xiaoxia, whose house did you go to to watch a color TV?" This eldest sister was stunned for a moment when she heard this, "The families in our bureau who have color TVs are just Director Dong and Director Wang's families, right? You are..."

"No, I was at my own home." Gu Xiaoxia sucked the ink well, took out a tissue to wipe off the excess ink on the fountain pen tip, and said: "My husband came back from a business trip, and the bonus for this trip was quite a lot, so we bought a color TV."

"Yo, that's really not bad!" The eldest sister praised with a fake smile. Usually, when chatting about TV at this time, the eldest sister was the central figure in the office; after all, only her family had a TV, and others could only listen to what she said. Colleagues who were neighbors with her went to her house to watch TV, so they had to suck up to her.

Now suddenly hearing that Gu Xiaoxia's family bought a TV, and it was a color TV, she felt uncomfortable in her heart.

Gu Xiaoxia didn't intend to stand out, but usually, when this eldest sister chatted about TV in the morning, she would want to suppress her from time to time. She usually thought she would just endure it, but today, since there was an opportunity, why endure it?

"Little Gu, what size did you buy? 12-inch or 14-inch? Small ones don't look clear, even if it's a color TV, it's better to have a big one." The eldest sister suggested falsely.

"It's okay, 18-inch." Gu Xiaoxia knew she would go to the countryside in the next two days. She tidied up her work bag, put the fountain pen, notebook, and other daily necessities inside, and said while putting them in: "My husband specifically ran to the Shicheng Department Store to buy it. Originally, he wanted to buy a bigger one, but unfortunately, there wasn't one."

This time, the eldest sister's face turned almost green. Her family's black and white TV was 14 inches, the mainstream size, which was considered not bad. She thought that at least in terms of size, she could suppress Gu Xiaoxia, but she didn't expect that the one used in her home was 18 inches!

"Really or fake? 18-inch is not cheap!" The eldest sister obviously didn't believe it. Gu Xiaoxia came out of the countryside, and the county only started contracting production to households last year. Her husband was a temporary worker, how much money could he earn?

"It's indeed not cheap. Last year it was 2,400, and our set was put in the village for my father-in-law and mother-in-law to watch. This year it's cheaper, 2,100." Gu Xiaoxia told the truth.

The more truth she told, the more uncomfortable the eldest sister felt. This price wasn't bad, and the money was all said out, could it be fake?

The other two colleagues obviously leaned toward Gu Xiaoxia and said with a smile:

"Xiaoxia, 18-inch TV, right? What brand?"

"Panda."

"Then let us see it when you have time? We haven't seen such a big color TV yet!"

"Okay, after work this afternoon is fine."

"Is noon not okay?" "I don't go home at noon, cooking is too late. My husband found an eldest sister to cook for me." Gu Xiaoxia said, "It's not far from the unit, and I can rest for a while after eating. Going home to cook and then running back here is too much of a toss."

What she said really made many people sour. Colleagues were basically married, and many didn't live with their parents. They had to rush back to cook after work, and couldn't even finish cleaning up after eating, and then had to rush back to the unit.

Now hearing Gu Xiaoxia say she didn't even have to do the cooking herself, this treatment really made people sour.

Fortunately, the leaders finished the meeting and came over to distribute work; otherwise, some people would really have broken their defenses later.

Li Long went to the market for a turn, saw Sister Yang selling food, said hello, and went for another turn, finding several people from the team selling fish here.

He went over and chatted for two sentences, knowing that they were going to the big lake to catch fish now, as there was a flood in the small lake and it was not easy to set nets, for fear that the nets would be washed away.

"No work in the fields recently?"

"Nothing, just weeding. This can be idle for two days, so I'll catch some fish to sell. I also want to sell fish to earn some money to get a bicycle, and then go to Shicheng to sell fish, so I can earn more."

Now everyone in the village knows that going to Shicheng to sell fish can earn more, and everyone doesn't avoid it.

"Good thing, catch more, sell more, little by little, it adds up very quickly." Li Long encouraged them with two sentences and left.

Since there was no work in the team, what he planned to do could be done.

!.

When eating at noon, Gu Xiaoxia told Li Long that two colleagues wanted to come to the house to see the color TV in the afternoon, and Li Long said with a smile:

"Okay. I'll clean up the room later and put out some fruit." Since Gu Xiaoxia's colleagues were coming, Li Long definitely had to treat them seriously. In any case, he had to raise his wife's face.

He also told Gu Xiaoxia that he planned to go to the team tomorrow to find Tao Daqiang and the others to see if they could go and fix Halimu and the others' house in these two days.

The two chatted about family life, and Sister Yang basically didn't speak, smiling and eating together.

She was very satisfied with her life now, earning money every day, and her daughter was also in school. The only regret was that she hadn't found her husband yet. If she could find her husband, her life would be considered complete.

She had already sent a telegram to her hometown, asking her hometown to send the address to her if they received a letter or telegram from her husband, but there was no news yet.

When Li Long was about to leave after eating, Sister Yang took a bag out of the room and said to Li Long:

"Uncle, these are the fritillaries you asked me to collect last time. After collecting them back, I washed them clean and dried them. I thought about collecting some more with the remaining money, but found that there were none for sale on the market, and the money is still here."

"Keep the money, sister." Li Long waved his hand, "Just charge it to the food expenses. Usually buy more meat, eggs, etc., don't save money. I'll take the fritillaries, if you have anything here, tell us in time."

Li Long didn't plan to sell this bag of fritillaries for the time being. The dried goods were less than ten kilograms, and there were some left at home. When the time came, he would pick some and put some in each family for backup.

Of course, he wouldn't use that much, so it would just be to cushion the bottom of the box.

Returning to the yard, Li Long cleaned up, thinking that Gu Xiaoxia's colleagues were coming, so he had to cook in the evening and make two better dishes.

The big hedgehog was stealing vegetables in that vegetable garden. Hearing the movement, it hurried to the wall, and Li Long didn't care about it, letting it hurry away. Maybe after a while, it wouldn't be afraid and could enter and exit swaggeringly.

The evening meal should be lighter, so Li Long planned to cook some porridge, pull some green vegetables in the garden to mix, steam the air-dried meat, cut a plate when the time came, and make some dipping sauce. The time was still early, and seeing that the steamed buns weren't enough, he simply made dough, preparing to make a few leavened flatbreads later, and stir-fry some eggs. When eating, he could roll eggs and meat with the flatbread, no problem.

Thinking about the current per capita living standard, this could be considered a pretty good meal.

The dough was leavened, the green vegetables were blanched in the pot, taken out to squeeze out the water, added with small onions and cilantro, then adjusted with some chili oil, poured with vinegar and mixed, very refreshing.

The air-dried meat was steamed. The meat brought back was originally cooked meat, steamed for twenty minutes, taken out to cool, sliced and plated, and the dipping sauce was adjusted.

The eggs would be stir-fried later. Looking at the leavening of the dough, he prepared to make flatbreads.

He used the method of making Xibo flatbread, the fire was not big or small, and it was flipped when one side was slightly yellow, feeling like it wasn't quite cooked, but it was actually cooked, and it was fluffy and delicious.

The flatbread was thirty centimeters in diameter, cut into four pieces, put on a plate, and the rest was to cook rice porridge and stir-fry eggs.

After getting it ready, seeing that Gu Xiaoxia and the others hadn't finished work yet, Li Long went to release the roe deer, let them out for a while first, to avoid these few guys shouting anxiously when people came later.

But what Li Long didn't expect was that just after releasing these few guys, the door was pushed open, and Gu Xiaoxia pushed her bike and brought people into the main gate.

Li Long saw that it was going to be bad and hurried to drive the roe deer, but he didn't expect that Gu Xiaoxia's two colleagues saw that there were living things in this yard, first startled, and then were attracted by the cute big eyes of the little deer.

The deer and roe deer weren't afraid of Gu Xiaoxia. Seeing her come in, they actually wanted to smell her and would call out from time to time. Her two colleagues were extremely envious.

"Little Gu, is this what you raised at home? What is this? A deer?"

"Hmm, there are deer, there are roe deer." Gu Xiaoxia didn't expect to see this as soon as she entered the door, but it was nothing. Seeing Li Long over there preparing to drive the little things back, she pointed and introduced:

"That's my husband, Li Long. Li Long, these are my two colleagues, this is Su Ningning, this is Tao Min, we are all in the same office."

Su Ningning was slightly older than Gu Xiaoxia, about twenty-five years old, with short hair, looking very capable; Tao Min was about thirty years old, with the feeling of an intellectual woman, a bit similar to the teacher Wang next door when Gu Xiaoxia was in middle school.

"Sorry, sorry, I originally thought about letting them out for a while before you came, otherwise they would shout hard later." Li Long explained hurriedly, "Now I'll drive them in, you go into the room."

"No need, no need, they look quite cute, is this what you raised? Really not bad... bought?" Su Ningning asked.

"No, caught in the mountains." Li Long explained, "When I went on a business trip to the mountains, some I caught, some friends gave me."

"Heh, really good." Su Ningning looked very envious. Tao Min didn't say anything, her eyes swept around the yard, and then landed on the antenna in the corner of the main hall wall.

Being able to set up such a big yard, have a color TV, and have a tractor... this family is really incredible.

After Su Ningning and the others watched for a while, Li Long drove the deer and roe deer back.

"You just finished work, right? Dinner is already made, are you eating first, or watching TV while eating?" When Li Long returned to the front yard, Gu Xiaoxia and the three were chatting in the yard, and the two colleagues were quietly asking something while looking at Li Long's side.

Li Long saw that they stopped talking when he came over, so he asked.

"Li Long, can you cook?"

"Quite amazing!"

Su Ningning and Tao Min were both a bit surprised.

In this era, young men like Li Long who can cook and can take out something decent are not many.

"Home-cooked food, just taste it, give some suggestions." Li Long said with a smile, "How about, watch while eating?"

"Okay."

The small dining table was moved to the bedroom, the light was turned on, the TV was turned on, and Li Long and Gu Xiaoxia moved the food together.

Su Ningning looked at the dishes on the table, then looked at the TV, and then at this room, and suddenly said to Tao Min:

"Sister Tao, I didn't feel it before, but now I feel Little Gu is happier than us. I envy her."

Tao Min didn't speak; in fact, she had the same thoughts.

Such a life, who wouldn't envy it? (End of chapter)