Chapter 543

Li Long remembered that in his previous life, other villages in the same township also grew Da-melons. Sometimes, when the melons were ripe and he wanted to go over and eat some, the landowners would be there, and he would feel a bit embarrassed to greet them.

Now that his own Da-melons were ripe, he finally understood the landowners' mindset. Having people come over to eat the melons was truly welcome; after all, it was equivalent to free labor. As long as they helped crack the melons open and saved the seeds, the more they ate, the better it naturally was.

With a slight shift in mindset, he felt a sudden sense of enlightenment. No wonder the landowners were so enthusiastic when he ate Da-melons in their fields in his previous life.

That was the reason.

Li Long had been a homebody in the courtyard for a while, living a carefree life of intimacy with Gu Xiaoxia. Estimating that the Da-melons were ripe, Li Long drove the tractor to the Supply and Marketing Cooperative to buy some things.

One of the two original sales clerks at the cooperative store had been replaced. Now, there was a middle-aged auntie and a young girl. Li Long vaguely remembered that the girl had just been assigned there after graduating from a specialized secondary school this year.

Li Long was a popular figure in the cooperative. He might not know everyone there, but basically, everyone in the cooperative knew him. Even if they didn't know him personally, they had heard his name, as Director Wei had earnestly organized all the cooperative staff to study his deeds by reading the newspapers, more than once.

So, when Li Long entered the cooperative store, the middle-aged auntie, Liu Xiumei, took the initiative to greet him:

"Comrade Li Long is here. What do you need today?"

"Hello, Comrade Li Long!" The new female comrade, Qin Xiulan, greeted Li Long crisply, her large eyes filled with curiosity.

"Hello, hello!" Li Long responded hurriedly. He hadn't expected the other party to be so enthusiastic, but he didn't intend to have much contact either; he just wanted to get things done as quickly as possible.

"I remember we have large pots in the store, the kind with a 1.2-meter diameter. Are there any in stock now?"

"Yes, there are," Liu Xiumei said, knowing the store's inventory very well. She smiled and asked, "Why are you thinking of buying such a large pot? What are you planning to do with it?"

"My brother's family grows Da-melons, and they are almost ripe now. I plan to buy three large pots to make a tool for cleaning the Da-melon seeds," Li Long explained simply. "Are there three?"

"There are two in the store. These large pots might not sell for two or three months at a time. I remember there might be more in the warehouse. I'll go get them for you."

"Then thank you, Liu Gong," Li Long said. "Do you need me to go over and help move them?"

"No need, no need," Liu Gong waved her hand hurriedly. "I'll just ask the warehouse keeper, He, to help me move them. That's his job. You just sit here."

Saying this, Liu Gong hurried out through the back door.

Now only Li Long and Qin Xiulan were left in the store, and the atmosphere was a bit awkward. Li Long took the initiative to break the silence:

"Comrade Xiao Qin, do you know how much one pot costs?"

"I... I'll check." Qin Xiulan really didn't know. Her face turned red, and she hurriedly flipped through the notebook she was carrying, turning several pages before reading:

"1.2-meter diameter large pot, wholesale price..."

"No, no, no," Li Long laughed. "You can't sell it to me at the wholesale price. You have to tell me the retail price. Otherwise, if you really tell me the wholesale price, what should I do if I try to haggle with you?"

In fact, how could one haggle in a state-run store at this time? It was the "take it or leave it" kind of situation.

Qin Xiulan originally hadn't treated Li Long as an outsider, after all, they were both employees of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative. Now, hearing Li Long say this, she realized she was a bit nervous, her face turned even redder, and she started stuttering:

"Retail... retail price is nineteen yuan and eight jiao..."

"Alright, I know now." Li Long knew he shouldn't tease the young girl anymore, so he nodded and stopped talking.

Three pots for fifty-nine yuan and four jiao; it wasn't cheap.

But thinking about how solidly made these large pots were, all iron, it really wasn't a loss.

Before long, Liu Gong and the warehouse keeper came in through the back door carrying a large pot. The warehouse keeper was somewhat familiar with Li Long, greeted him, and hurried back.

Li Long paid for the items, and Liu Gong and Qin Xiulan wanted to help move them, but Li Long waved his hand hurriedly:

"You don't need to move them. It would be troublesome if you strained your backs."

He stepped forward, lifted a large pot with both hands, turned around, and walked out, carefully placing it on the tractor's cargo bed.

When the three large pots were placed in the cargo bed and he entered the cooperative store again, both Liu Gong and Qin Xiulan had their mouths wide open.

These large pots were not light!

"Comrade Li Long, you have so much strength," Liu Gong said enviously. "If my husband had your strength, that would be great. He huffs and puffs for a long time just moving a table; he's far behind you."

"I'm young, after all." Li Long didn't want to attract any resentment, greeted the two, and hurriedly went out, driving the tractor away.

There were old mattresses prepared in the cargo bed. The three pots were nested together, with a mattress between each pot, so they wouldn't break if they bumped. The bottom of the cargo bed was also covered with thick sacks. Overall, it was quite stable.

"Look at him," Liu Gong sighed in the store. "He has so much strength! Which of the young people in our cooperative is like him? He knows how to earn money, has great strength, is polite, and is handsome too. Sigh, why did he get married so early?"

She turned her head and glanced at Qin Xiulan. Qin Xiulan's face turned red, and she hurriedly lowered her head, pretending to look at the prices of the goods.

Liu Gong shook her head. Qin Xiulan had just graduated from specialized secondary school and looked about nineteen; it was time for her to find a partner.

What a pity.

Li Long drove the tractor, carrying the large pots, toward the team.

It was already early September, and school had started. Students from the middle school were getting out of class, and the whole campus was filled with laughter. By the time he drove to the primary school, classes had already started, and the sound of reading could be heard.

Li Long vaguely remembered his older brother, Li Jianguo, saying that the place where he discovered the money cellar was not far south of the primary school. At that time, this whole area was considered part of the Fourth Team. Back then, the other teams hadn't divided the land yet, so the Fourth Team's area was very large.

Li Long thought that when he got old, he would buy a metal detector and come here to hunt for treasure and have some fun.

He didn't know if doing that would be illegal at that time.

It was estimated that quite a few old copper coins would still be left in that money cellar. Of course, he didn't know how many would be usable.

After all, according to Li Jianguo, many had rotted away and crumbled at a touch. They had hauled away five or six cartloads of usable copper coins, and even more had rotted.

Moreover, they were only unearthed while plowing the land at the time, and no complete cleanup had been conducted, let alone professional excavation by archaeology and cultural relic management personnel.

Therefore, Li Long felt that many complete copper coins should still be left there, and since this area was sandy land, they wouldn't have rotted away in the past ten-plus years.

Thinking about this, Li Long had already driven the tractor past the boundary, past the Third Team, past the Reed Ditch, and arrived at the Fourth Team.

No one else in the team used a tractor yet, so as soon as the "putt-putt-putt" sound started, people knew Li Long was back.

He planned to ask Li Jianguo if he wanted to buy a tractor after the Da-melon harvest. After all, they still had to harvest corn and do other work later. If his brother wanted to buy a tractor, he could sponsor some of it.

Since the last time Li Jianguo and Li Long caught Ma Long and Lu Tie Tou, it had spread throughout the village, and every family had warned their children:

"Don't go messing around in the Da-melon fields, or I'll whip you to death! Did you hear me? Ma Long from Ma Yinbao's family had his nose howling from his dad's whipping!"

Actually, the children still had curiosity, but at this time, when parents whipped, they really whipped. No teenager liked to try the taste of being whipped by a military belt again.

Thus, the Li family's Da-melons grew safely to maturity.

And the tractor became the dream of the adults in the village. Some families didn't even have a donkey cart, but that didn't stop them from dreaming that in a couple of years, they could buy a tractor and drive around "putt-putt-putt" just like Li Long.

Li Long drove the tractor into his brother Li Jianguo's courtyard. It was already noon, and Li Jianguo and Liang Yumei had returned from the fields. There were a few Da-melons in the courtyard.

Li Long turned off the engine, got out of the car, and asked:

"Brother, are these Da-melons ripe?"

"Ripe," Li Jianguo said with a smile:

"I opened two in the field, the seeds are all ripe, black and very plump, it's just that some are uneven and warped."

"What's wrong with warped ones? Don't they all sell by weight?" Li Qing Xia didn't understand and asked, "Can they be a different price?"

Li Jianguo had grown Da-melons for the team during the Great Collective era and knew about this:

"That's different. If there are many warped ones, the price is lower, and they can't be graded. Think about it, the roasted snack factory buys them to roast the seeds for people to eat. When you crack these seeds, is it easier to crack the flat ones or the warped ones?"

"Of course, the flat ones are easier to crack. With flat ones, you get the whole seed kernel when you crack it; with warped ones, the seed kernel you crack out is all broken." Li Qing Xia understood immediately. Then he worried:

"Then what should we do?"

"That's fine, there's a way later," Li Long laughed. "Our family has many people, and we work in a chain. I bought three large pots. I, my brother, and Dad will find a few young fellows, and we'll press the Da-melons together to squeeze the seeds out.

Sister-in-law, you and Second Sister-in-law find some boards, pick out the warped seeds, and press them flat directly while they are still wet from the melon."

"Can they be pressed flat?" Li Qing Xia was skeptical and didn't quite believe it. "Yes," Li Long nodded. "Da-melon seeds are still wet when they just come out of the melon. At this time, pressing them won't break them. It won't work after they are dried in the sun; they will break. It's best to press them while they are still wet."

"Hey, Xiao Long is so smart!" Du Chunfang listened to her youngest son talking eloquently from the side, and the more she listened, the happier she became, feeling that her youngest son seemed to know everything.

In her eyes, Li Long was the best, and no one could compare to him.

Not even his older brother.

In fact, this method was often used by roasted snack factories in later generations. After all, if the black melon seeds of these Da-melons were collected, washed, and roasted directly, the warped seeds would not yield complete kernels when cracked, which would affect the taste.

If the taste was affected, customers would likely not repurchase. To solve this problem, roasted snack factories usually collected the seeds, soaked them, pressed them flat with machines, and then roasted them.

So this was why the roasted black melon seeds bought in the first few years were "original shape," with both flat and warped ones, while later they were basically all flat.

Of course, some factories would press them, and some wouldn't; it depended on which kind they liked.

Li Long had learned this by chance in his previous life because he occasionally cracked Da-melon seeds and sometimes took an interest in agricultural machinery, and then he saw this kind of machine for pressing melon seeds.

There was no machine now, and manual pressing might be time-consuming and laborious, but it was worth it if they could be graded as premium when sold later.

!.

In the eighties, to be honest, manual labor was really not worth much. If they could earn money by putting in effort, everyone would do it.

The problem was that many times, even if you wanted to sell your labor to earn money, there was nowhere to sell it.

With a clear division of labor, everyone knew what they should do. The Li family still had quite a few wooden boards.

Liang Yumei and Chen Li Rong cooked, while Li Long, Li Jianguo, and Li Qing Xia divided the wooden boards right there.

"These two pieces are heavier and longer, use them directly to press the Da-melons."

"These two pieces are wider and flat. Once the Da-melon seeds are scooped out, pick them out and press them."

"When pressing, it's best to put large stones in the middle on both sides."

"Hmm, there aren't many stones at home..." Li Jianguo thought.

"What's wrong with that? When the tractor goes to the fields to work, just pick up a few on the side of the road," Li Qing Xia wasn't worried at all.

In fact, it was all alkaline beach land now; where would there be so many stones?

"I'm going back to the county tonight, and when I come over tomorrow morning, I'll pick up a few from the river dam," Li Long said. "Don't worry about this."

This was the right way, Li Jianguo nodded. There were quite a few stones along the river dam (Mohe Canal), both large and small.

After lunch, Li Long originally intended to rest for a while, but since everyone wanted to see how to squeeze Da-melon seeds, the whole family, including Du Chunfang, got on the tractor and drove together to the Da-melon field.

In the Da-melon field, some melon vines were already curled and withered, while others were still green. There were fine thorns on the leaves, which didn't prick the hands much but stuck to clothes. Looking across the field from the edge, one could see round Da-melons densely packed, and occasionally one could see late-growing ones the size of a fist.

If this were in later generations, once the machine started, it would be like harvesting wheat, finishing in minutes. The Da-melons would be crushed in the machine, the seeds separated, and the melon skin and pulp spat out and scattered in the field as fertilizer.

There were no such conditions now, so they had to do it manually.

Li Long carried a large pot and walked twenty or thirty meters into the field from the edge, found a suitable place, put the pot down, and then pressed down hard while turning in circles.

He had great strength and soon pressed the pot down to create a nest, and the pot was stable.

Li Qing Xia and Li Jianguo each carried a wooden board over. Li Long took the one from Li Qing Xia's hand and placed it flat on the large pot, and Li Jianguo placed the other one horizontally in a cross shape on top.

Liang Yumei and Chen Li Rong followed, and Du Chunfang also walked over slowly with her bound feet, wanting to watch the excitement.

"Come, let's try it." Li Long knew everyone still had doubts, after all, they hadn't seen it before.

He had seen it and knew this method was very useful, so he said:

"Brother, you pick a ripe one."

"What's there to pick, they are all ripe," Li Jianguo laughed and picked a Da-melon the size of a basketball from the side.

Li Long took it and placed it on the wooden board—the horizontal board had been pushed aside by him.

"Come, brother, let's press it together, one on each end." Li Long placed the Da-melon inside, put it in the center of the board below, and then used the board above to press the Da-melon down.

The family gathered around, wanting to see what would happen, and also to watch the excitement.

"It can be pressed out," Liang Yumei was used to farm work and could see the principle at a glance. "It's just that I don't know if the melon seeds inside can be pressed clean. If they can't be pressed clean, they still have to be scooped out."

"That's still better than just scooping them out!" Du Chunfang didn't care if it was right or wrong, she was going to defend Li Long anyway. This idea was Li Long's, so she thought it was good.

"That's true." Liang Yumei smiled. She knew her mother-in-law favored her brother-in-law, and she had no objections. After all, Li Long had changed too much in the past two years and had helped the family too much, and she was also quite grateful.

"Come, brother, use force together," Li Long said.

Both of them had great strength. Without using much force, the Da-melon was crushed directly, and they watched as the melon juice and seeds flowed out together from the cracked seam and fell into the large pot.

"It came out, it came out!" Unexpectedly, the first to shout was Chen Li Rong. She really hadn't seen Da-melons grown in her hometown, nor had she seen how to get the seeds out.

This was the first time Li Long and Li Jianguo had pressed them in this life, and they were afraid the seeds wouldn't come out completely, so they kept pressing until the melon couldn't be pressed anymore before relaxing.

"Come, let's see if there are any seeds left inside." Li Long lifted the board and put it aside, then pushed the board below so that his brother Li Jianguo could reach it.

Li Jianguo looked at the Da-melon that had been crushed into a pile and simply didn't take it down. He lifted the melon skin on top to look, and then reached out to stir the melon pulp a few times, making a sound of surprise: "Eh?"

In his view, with this method, no matter what, some melon seeds should be left in the melon pulp. However, after stirring it almost completely, he only saw two or three melon seeds in the pulp.

Almost all the melon seeds had been squeezed out!

"Hey, this method is good!" Li Qing Xia was excited. "Xiao Long, this method of yours is good! How much effort this must save!"

Li Long laughed. Okay, verification successful!

"I'll try, I'll try!" Li Qing Xia bent down, picked a Da-melon, and placed it on the board. He wanted to try it too.

Li Long cooperated.

The two of them pressed it. Li Qing Xia also had great strength. With this press, the Da-melon juice and seeds flowed out, and there were more melon seeds in the bottom of the pot.

"There really are some warped ones." Chen Li Rong had sharp eyes and saw that there were indeed quite a few warped melon seeds. "They have to be pressed."

"It's fine, they are soft when soaked in melon juice, and they will be fine once pressed," Li Long said.

Li Qing Xia personally inspected this Da-melon, and sure enough, there weren't many melon seeds left inside.

He picked up those few melon seeds and threw them into the pot, then said:

"Should we press them like this from now on?"

"We can pull the melons back to press them," Li Long said. "The pressed melon skin and pulp can be fed to the pigs."

"That's fine." Li Jianguo laughed.

At this time, someone from the village passed by, walked into the Da-melon field, and shouted to Li Jianguo:

"Uncle Jianguo, can I eat a melon?"

"Yes," Li Jianguo said with a smile, "Eat as much as you want, just leave the melon seeds in the melon."

That person happily found a Da-melon and started knocking on it.

Eating Da-melons was quite casual; the skin was thick and the pulp was sparse, so usually, it was "grab a handful," meaning just pick up the piece of pulp in the middle and eat it, and leave the rest.

Because there were too many Da-melons, it wasn't considered wasteful.

The person who came was Chen Qingfu, ten years younger than Li Jianguo, but he still called him uncle.

In this day and age, children calling others by their parents' full names was considered cursing.

The rules were very strict. (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 544 =====