Chapter 514: The aftermath of being in the newspaper: Going on stage to receive an award

The nervous system relaxed after arriving in Shicheng. The road ahead was relatively familiar, and besides, there had been two relatively strict cleanup activities this year. In this area, no one dared to openly rob money like last winter.

The location of the Old Street was not far from the south side of the Wuyi Highway. When Li Long arrived at the Old Street, he simply drove in. After parking the tractor, he got off and went to Ke Ke Ke Youmu's milk tea shop.

The milk tea shop had no guests now. Ke Ke Ke Youmu poured a bowl of milk tea for Li Long, sat opposite him, and asked:

"Old fellow, why did you come at this time?"

"I went to Kuitun," Li Long said truthfully, "Isn't it that I just came back, so I came to your place to rest."

"Kuitun, huh, heard it's not bad over there." Ke Ke Ke Youmu had a face of longing, "I haven't been there yet."

"You are already quite good," Li Long smiled, "Some of my friends in the mountains have never been out of the mountains in their whole lives, never been out of Ma County, and just passed like that." 【514-8

"Haha, actually, it's quite good to come out and see things," Ke Ke Ke Youmu nodded in understanding. "Some of my relatives are the same; they stay in the mountains for a lifetime and don't know what the situation is like outside. Some even thought the old folks were still alive; they were still asking me when I went back."

Li Long nodded; this was very normal.

After finishing the milk tea, Li Long went to Chen Xingbang's stall to take a look. Chen Xingbang had bought a pig today and was selling pork. A few people were gesturing for him to cut them some pork belly. Chen Xingbang saw Li Long, nodded, and smiled, prioritizing his business first.

After these people finished weighing their meat, Li Long chatted with him for a few sentences and talked about his second brother, Li Anguo.

"He's going to be made a regular? Being made a regular is good," Chen Xingbang was also happy for Li Anguo and the others. "Once made regular, that means being a formal worker and eating commodity grain. Once they settle down in Kuitun, bring the wife and kids over to Kuitun, and they can live a peaceful life in the city from then on."

The Northwest is a bitter and cold place, and the cities aren't as prosperous as those in the Central Plains, but at least it's a city. Being able to take root here and eat commodity grain is much better than being back in the village, circling that one-third of an acre of land that barely keeps you fed.

It's not just them; in two more years, the young people in the home village will basically all go out to work, because if you want to get rich, just guarding that little bit of land really won't get you anywhere.

After chatting for a while longer, someone came to buy meat, so Li Long said goodbye and left. He returned to the parking lot, paid the money, handed over the tag, drove the tractor out, turned onto the Wuyi Highway, and headed east all the way.

When he returned to the compound, the sun was still a pole high. Gu Xiaoxia hadn't returned yet, but the roe deer and the little deer heard the commotion and started calling out first.

Li Long felt a bit tired. He closed the main gate and went to change the food and water for the little guys. Passing by the wall, he saw the big hedgehog with something in its mouth, sneaking toward a crack in the wall.

Li Long didn't bother with it and went to change the roe deer's sugar dregs and feed. These roe deer and the little deer were quite picky; a lot of sugar dregs were pushed out and scattered everywhere, so Li Long deliberately put out a little less food. Since they didn't want to eat, they could eat a little less. Anyway, they looked significantly fatter.

After finishing, Li Long didn't let them out. He closed the door and returned to the front yard. He was too lazy to cook dinner, so he rode his bicycle out, went to the canteen, bought ten meat buns, and brought them back.

He was already hungry. Without waiting for Gu Xiaoxia to return, Li Long ate four first. After eating and drinking water, he covered the remaining buns with a basin to wait for Gu Xiaoxia to eat when she returned.

He went to change his clothes, entered the room, and lay down.

Having driven for several hours on this trip, he felt as if his ears were filled with the rumbling sound of the machine.

He had been lying down for less than an hour when he heard movement outside; Gu Xiaoxia had finished work and returned.

Li Long climbed up and went out the door. Gu Xiaoxia was smiling as she propped up her bicycle. Seeing Li Long, she asked with concern:

"When did you get back? Is everything okay over there?"

"I've been back for an hour. Second brother and the others are all doing well over there."

"What are you hauling in this trailer? It's so big?" Gu Xiaoxia closed the courtyard gate and walked inside carrying her bag, her gaze still resting on the harvester in the tractor trailer.

"A harvester for cutting wheat," Li Long explained. "When the wheat ripens in July, we'll rely on this to cut it. It's much faster than people cutting it—five minutes per mu of land. We'll see if we can earn another tractor with this by then."

"That doesn't seem very likely," Gu Xiaoxia said. "Is it really that profitable?"

"We'll see when the time comes. I don't know the situation yet. Wait until we use it, and we'll know."

After dinner, the two of them watched TV in the bedroom and chatted about household matters.

"The commendation document from the county has come down, and your name is on the list for advanced individuals in ethnic unity," Gu Xiaoxia said. "The affiliation is listed as a Supply and Marketing Cooperative employee. I saw the notice saying there's a commendation meeting the day after tomorrow. You'll probably have to attend, right?"

"The day after tomorrow? Then I have to take the harvester to the team tomorrow and then prepare a bit," Li Long thought for a moment and said.

"You should run to the Supply and Marketing Cooperative more often these next few days. I heard from our Director Wang that this matter of yours has had a big impact. It's not just the county; it's possible your name will be on the list of advanced individuals for the prefecture as well."

"No way?" Li Long was a bit puzzled. "Usually, if you've already been recognized by the county, the prefecture wouldn't repeat it, right?"

"Yours might be an exception." Gu Xiaoxia was also quite proud. Her own husband wasn't even on the payroll, just a temporary worker, and now he was directly in the autonomous region's newspaper and had even received an advanced individual award from the county. What an impressive thing!

Sometimes she also regretted that Li Long wasn't in the system. But thinking about it, if Li Long wanted to enter the system, he certainly could, but he wouldn't be as free as he was now, nor would he be able to earn this much money.

And Gu Xiaoxia could clearly see that Li Long really didn't intend to be constrained within the system, so he should just follow his own ideas.

She had become a staff member at the Education Bureau, a state cadre, and gradually, the allure of eating commodity grain had faded; she wasn't as superstitious about it as before. After all, the money a cadre or a worker earned in a year wasn't as much as what Li Long earned in a few days. Anyone who encountered such a thing would have their worldview impacted.

"Since you have to attend the meeting, why don't you buy some cloth tomorrow and make a new set of clothes?" Gu Xiaoxia said. "You're going to show your face in front of all the people in the county; it's not very good to wear old clothes."

"There's nothing wrong with it," Li Long waved his hand. "My shirt isn't old now; just washing it and wearing it clean is enough. Let's not go in for so much formality. It's not an important meeting anyway; I think it's just going through the motions."

Li Long insisted, so Gu Xiaoxia didn't say anything more.

The next day, Gu Xiaoxia went to work. Li Long fed the roe deer and gave them water, then drove the tractor out and headed toward the team.

Facing the sun, he headed north and then east. When he passed the primary and middle schools, classes had already started, and outside the primary school, one could even hear the sound of students reading.

When he returned to the courtyard, his mother and second sister-in-law were mending nets in the yard. Li Long drove the tractor into the yard, turned off the engine, and got off.

"You're back? How is it over in Kuitun?" his mother Du Chunfang asked.

Although second sister-in-law Chen Li Rong didn't speak, she looked at Li Long, waiting for his answer.

"Second brother and the others are all doing well," Li Long said with a smile. "There's no problem with the matter of becoming a regular. In a few days, the letter of inquiry from our hometown will be sent back, and they will officially become workers. By then, second brother and the others will ask for leave and come back."

"Good, good, good." Du Chunfang nodded. "It's good that they're doing well. This is great; from now on, they'll be workers and eat commodity grain. Li Xue Qin's mother, in the future, you take the kids and follow Anguo to Kuitun; you'll be city people then."

Chen Li Rong blushed and nodded without speaking.

"Where are big brother and big sister-in-law?" Li Long asked.

"They went to work in the fields. There are weeds in the melon field, so your big brother and big sister-in-law took the horse cart to the fields, saying they'd clear the weeds."

Fine. Li Long couldn't unload the harvester by himself; he had to wait for his father and Tao Daqiang to return. He had originally thought about helping mend the nets, but Du Chunfang chased him away, saying he didn't need to help and told him to go to his own room to rest.

Li Long smiled and headed toward the front yard.

The yard was still swept clean, and there were no weeds in the vegetable garden. The vegetables that could be eaten now were still just chives, celery, and baby bok choy. The green beans, chili peppers, and eggplants were growing quite well and looked like they were about to bloom, but it would still be another half a month to a month before they could be eaten.

He opened the door, and the air that drifted out was normal, without a hint of a musty smell.

This must be because it was aired out frequently. He went over and lay on the bed, thinking about the next steps. He had to attend the meeting, but he also had to earn money. He planned to drive the tractor to construction sites more often, hauling sand and bricks, earning some pocket money bit by bit.

When the wheat matured, he would first harvest the fields in the team that were willing, and then expand to the surrounding areas. If this machine was good, then he would see whether he needed to buy another tractor and bring another harvester. By then, the tractor could be used by his big brother, and the horse cart could be retired.

Planning in his mind, he fell asleep without realizing it.

He was woken up by Tao Daqiang.

"Are you back from selling fish?" Li Long rubbed his eyes and climbed up. "How was it?"

"About the same as before, selling twenty or thirty yuan a day," Tao Daqiang said with a silly smile. "But I can't catch any more these next few days. I have to be busy with work in the fields for a few days, and then I'll catch more after I'm done."

This was something that couldn't be helped. Tao Daqiang had a family now and couldn't just focus on his side business like before. In the team, the mainstream view was that no matter how much money you made from side businesses, your status was still that of a farmer, and you had to farm the land well first.

Although the money Tao Daqiang made selling fish was more than what he made farming, if he neglected the land, no matter how much money he made, everyone would think he wasn't attending to his proper duties.

It had nothing to do with how much money was made; it was just a matter of profession. Or rather, the concepts passed down for many years wouldn't be easily broken.

Li Long got up, left the courtyard, and went with Tao Daqiang to his big brother's courtyard.

"Brother Long, is this the harvester?"

!.

"Yeah." Li Long and Tao Daqiang worked together to lift the iron thing down and placed it in the shed on the east side of the house. This was where they covered and stored the horse cart and farm tools.

"Is this thing easy to use?" Li Qing Xia looked at the iron thing curiously.

"It should be. It takes five or six minutes to cut a mu of wheat," Li Long said. "After cutting, it falls to one side, and you just have to bundle it."

"That's good." Li Qing Xia thought that sounded convenient.

"A combine harvester is even more convenient," Li Long added. "In two years, when I've saved enough money, I'll buy a combine harvester. That cuts the wheat and puts the grains directly into the storage bin; you don't even need to thresh it."

Li Qing Xia hadn't seen a combine harvester in his hometown and was a bit surprised:

"Is it that good?"

"Yeah, it's just that the wheat straw is wasted and can't be collected. I don't know if there will be more advanced machines in the future that can harvest the wheat and bundle the straw."

"That's impossible, right?" Tao Daqiang had seen a combine harvester twice and knew this thing was powerful, but an individual couldn't afford it. He felt that the combine harvester was already very powerful; could there really be anything more advanced?

Li Long didn't argue with him; the development of machinery changed with each passing day, and ordinary people couldn't imagine it at all.

Li Qing Xia found a bag to cover the harvester and specifically went over to tell Chen Li Rong to instruct the two children not to touch this big thing.

Chen Li Rong nodded hurriedly.

Li Qing Xia and Tao Daqiang took over mending the nets, while Chen Li Rong and Du Chunfang went to the kitchen to cook. The two women from the interior had now become proficient in making Xinjiang-style hand-pulled noodles. Blanched chives, meat fried with chili peppers, and blanched celery cut into small cubes—this kind of mixed noodle dish was quite popular in households in this area.

In the three eastern counties, Toksun mixed noodles were popular, while in the Ili Valley, the old-fashioned mixed noodles were popular. From Beiting westward, including Hutubi, Maxian, Shicheng, and even Kuitun, this kind of mixed noodle dish using blanched chives and celery as a side dish, plus a bowl of fried meat with chili peppers, was quite common. Even forty years later, there were still many self-service vegetarian noodle shops.

Li Long wanted to help mend the nets, but Li Qing Xia told him not to touch them. He wanted to go to the kitchen, but Du Chunfang chased him out too. Fine, Li Long felt he was just an idler now.

He added water to the tractor and went to peel garlic. Just as he was peeling, his big brother and big sister-in-law drove the horse cart back.

The horse cart was loaded with a cart of grass; these weeds and pigweed could be used as pig feed. Li Long had brought back quite a lot of sugar dregs, and Li Jianguo and the others were still quite frugal with them. Every day when they went to work and came back, they would bring back some pig grass or grass for the horses.

Helping his big brother unload the horse cart and stacking the pig grass by the stove specifically for cooking pig feed, Li Long told Li Jianguo about the situation with his second brother.

"Then after you eat, go tell Yongqiang's family too, so they don't worry," Li Jianguo said thoughtfully. "Yang Hua has asked me about it twice."

Li Long knew he had indeed been a bit negligent. He nodded, intending to go tell Yang Hua after eating.

Du Chunfang wanted to give the first bowl of noodles to Li Long, but Li Long pushed it to his father. Tao Daqiang rode his bicycle back before the food was ready; even when urged to stay, he wouldn't. Li Long didn't force him either; after all, he had a wife at home who was pregnant, which was normal.

Li Long used an enamel basin for his noodles, mixed in the vegetables, added garlic, poured in some vinegar, and wolfed it down, slurping it all up.

After finishing the noodles and drinking a bowl of noodle soup, Li Long put down his bowl, wiped his mouth, rode his big brother's bicycle, and went to the back.

When he arrived at Yang Yongqiang's house, Yang Hua and his wife had just finished cooking and were about to eat. Seeing Li Long enter the courtyard, a smile appeared on Yang Hua's face.

"Uncle Yang, eating?" Li Long greeted him.

"Yeah, want to eat together?" Yang Hua held his bowl, which was filled with noodles that looked quite thick.

"No, I just ate," Li Long smiled. "I went to Kuitun yesterday and saw Yongqiang."

"You saw him? How is he?" Yang Hua's eyes lit up as he asked.

Yang Yongqiang's mother also walked out of the room, holding her bowl without speaking, listening carefully.

"Yongqiang is doing very well over there and is about to become a regular formal worker. He looks a bit dark, but much fatter," Li Long said. "He said he plans to attend night school later to learn a skill and become a technician, so he won't be a worker but a cadre then."

"Heh, look at him!" Yang Hua laughed, but he scolded Yang Yongqiang's shortcomings. "With his grades, he wants to learn a skill..."

"Yongqiang is eager to learn. Now that he's working, he's much more mature and knows the importance of learning, which is a good thing," Li Long said with a smile.

"The team here should have received the letter of inquiry. The team will definitely handle this well. Next is becoming a regular. After becoming a regular, he said he'll ask for leave and come back.

He's still a temporary worker now, getting paid by the day, but once he becomes a regular, he'll have formal leave without pay deductions."

"Hi, just let him work hard there. How many days has it been? Less than three months, right? What's the rush?" Yang Hua said with a smile. "It's not bad; becoming a regular worker in less than three months... Little Long, thanks to you. When he comes back, I'll have him thank you properly!"

"Thank me for what? Yongqiang is like a brother to me; isn't this what I should do?" Li Long hurriedly waved his hand. "You guys eat in peace. It's tiring working over there, but there's a salary, a canteen, and the place to live is good. Once he becomes a formal worker, he can even queue up for a courtyard; it's pretty good no matter how you look at it."

"Good, good, good, we're not worried." Yang Hua nodded repeatedly. He had originally thought his son would be the same as everyone else in the team, but being able to follow Li Long and have the opportunity to eat commodity grain was already something to thank heaven and earth for; how could he complain about it being tiring? How many young people in the team wanted this opportunity but couldn't get it?

After Li Long left, Yang Hua and his wife began to talk and guess when their son would truly become a regular and come back. It was impossible to say they didn't miss him. Now that there was good news about their son's work, they were even more eager for him to come back and see what changes had actually taken place.

Li Long returned to the courtyard, drove the tractor to the horse stable, chatted with Old Uncle Luo for a while, and then returned to the county.

In the afternoon, he went to the Supply and Marketing Cooperative, and Li Xiangqian indeed told him about attending the county's commendation meeting.

"Get your hair trimmed in advance. You shave your beard quite diligently, which is normal, I guess, since you're a married man. But shouldn't you change your clothes? This is attending a county commendation! Director Wei will also represent the cooperative at the commendation; it won't look good if you're too shabby!" Li Xiangqian pointed out.

"What's wrong with it? As long as it's clean and neat, it's fine," Li Long expressed his own view. "If I wear something too new, what if I steal the leader's spotlight?"

"Heh, you're really shameless, wanting to steal the leader's spotlight? Haha, that won't happen." Li Xiangqian smiled and let the matter drop.

Li Long really started preparing for the meeting. He recalled in his mind the things he had told reporter Zhang Xin Hua. If someone really interviewed him or suddenly called him up to speak, he would still have to say a few words. (End of chapter)