Chapter 557: Better to hide one's light than to show off

The supply and marketing cooperative hadn't issued any task for reed bundles, and Li Long didn't ask much about it either. Anyway, for him, this job was neither here nor there. Right now, many people in the production team were nearly coming to blows over cutting reeds at the reed lake; he actually thought it was quite good that the reed bundle job hadn't come down yet.

Let these reed-cutters get anxious for a bit, let them cool their heels.

Otherwise, they could end up clearing out the entire reed lake, and it really would be possible for them to start fighting.

After all, if there really were a reed bundle task, whoever cut more reeds would mean earning more money.

Every time Li Long returned to the team, he would be asked if the reed bundle job had come down yet. He got so annoyed that he simply told his eldest brother and his old man, and decided not to return to the village for a short while.

When his second brother, Li Anguo, came to pick up Chen Li Rong and Xue Ping and Xue Qin, Li Long gave four hundred yuan to his second sister-in-law, Chen Li Rong, right in front of his second brother.

Chen Li Rong didn't want it; she knew her family had already received a lot of kindness from this younger brother-in-law.

"Second sister-in-law, everyone has it. I bought a bicycle for Li Juan and Li Qiang, and after my sister and the others moved to Shicheng, I also gave them money to buy a bicycle."

"You have your own courtyard now. My brother works during the day, and you have to take care of the two children. Take this money and buy a bicycle; it'll be more convenient for taking the kids around."

His second sister-in-law had two children, so giving an extra hundred yuan was something Li Long had calculated himself.

Li Anguo didn't try to dissuade him; since everyone had it, they might as well accept it. He also knew that his youngest brother had great ability and skill. He would take the money for now and find an opportunity to repay him later.

After sending off his second brother and sister-in-law, Li Long became a semi-shut-in at the county compound, occasionally going to the supply and marketing cooperative to check in and chat with Li Xiangqian.

Li Xiangqian wasn't always at the supply and marketing cooperative. As the procurement section chief, he had several procurement agents under him, and some ordinary procurement tasks were distributed to them.

For instance, most of the procurement tasks in the rural areas were handed over to Li Long.

Actually, Li Xiangqian had the intention of increasing Li Long's tasks. Regardless of how much money Li Long made from it, at the very least, he completed the tasks exceptionally well, and no one had come to the cooperative to complain about him.

More importantly, Li Long could also bring the supply and marketing cooperative a boost in reputation that no one else could.

On this point alone, no one could compare.

But for some important procurement tasks, he still needed to oversee them personally, such as going to Turpan to purchase raisins or to Hotan to purchase dates. He had connections in these places that other procurement agents didn't have; if someone else went, it really wasn't certain they could buy good goods.

Li Long was happy to be idle, planning to prepare for conception at home.

Tao Daqiang's child had already been born, and there was still no movement on his side—how could that be?

"I plan to go back to the team this weekend to see Yang Pingping and the child," Gu Xiaoxia said softly while lying on Li Long in bed at night after they had finished their activities.

A stove had already been set up in the room, making it as warm as spring.

That was the only downside to having a large room; even if the windows were open, it couldn't heat the whole room, so it was much colder than outside once late autumn arrived.

Li Long had used the tractor to haul back several loads of coal while in the space. The coal shed couldn't hold it all, so after filling the shed, he left quite a bit outside.

He put the small coal and coal dust in the middle, built a wall around it with lump coal, smeared it with mud, and covered the top with tree branches to prevent weathering.

Coal was most afraid of weathering; once weathered, it lost its potency and wouldn't have much heat when burned.

It was warm in the room, and people wore thin clothing, so it was easy to get restless.

With nothing else to do, they went for another round.

Yang Pingping had to observe the postpartum month; it was said that when she came out of the health center, she rode in a donkey cart covered with a quilt, and even wore a headscarf.

Regardless of how people in later generations argued about whether it was necessary to observe the postpartum month, people at this time still attached great importance to it.

Naturally, a man couldn't go to see the child before the full month. Liang Yuemei had gone, and Li Long had Liang Yuemei help bring brown sugar and millet.

These were benefits issued by the supply and marketing cooperative; he was essentially borrowing flowers to present to Buddha.

No matter what, Gu Xiaoxia was from the team, and besides, she was Li Long's wife. Going home for the weekend and stopping by to see Yang Pingping, who was observing the postpartum month, was perfectly normal.

Then, on Friday, Gu Xiaoxia gave Li Long a surprise:

"I... think I'm pregnant."

"What?" Li Long was pleasantly surprised. He hadn't had his own children in his previous life, and he had actually been looking forward to it in this life. But hearing Gu Xiaoxia say this now, he simply couldn't believe his ears.

"I said, I might be pregnant," Gu Xiaoxia said, feeling a bit nervous and not entirely sure. "My period hasn't come this month... it's already several days late."

"Has there ever been a situation like this before?"

"It happened once when I was in the team, but after I started working, it never happened again," Gu Xiaoxia thought for a moment and said. "Only this time... it's been late for quite a few days, otherwise..."

Gu Xiaoxia didn't continue, but Li Long knew that their actions these past two days had been a bit absurd—of course, compared to the present, but compared to those people in later generations, it was far off.

Although he hadn't experienced it, he had heard of it.

"Then you won't go back this weekend," Li Long decided immediately. "If you really are pregnant, it wouldn't be convenient to go back and see her!"

Pregnant women and young girls shouldn't see someone observing the postpartum month; this was an unwritten local rule.

"Then I won't go back," Gu Xiaoxia said. Although she really wanted to go back, she thought that the possible child in her belly was more important.

Li Long and Gu Xiaoxia not returning to the team made some people in the team very anxious.

The reeds at home were piled so high. In early November, people would come to collect reed bundles and hairy reeds at this time in previous years. This year, some people had already come to collect hairy reeds.

Very few people were harvesting hairy reeds at this time; this stuff was used for papermaking, so the quality requirements for the reeds weren't high, and the reed fibers were still quite good, making them decent for papermaking.

However, the raw materials needed by paper mills were also limited. At this time, there was no large-scale cattle and sheep farming here, and the wheat harvested in the summer had all been sent to the paper mill as raw material.

So the demand for reeds was much lower.

Everyone still hoped to be able to make money by making reed bundles.

But Li Long was slow to return and didn't give them work—could they only wait?

Those who were anxious would go to the Li family to take a look from time to time, and those who were even more anxious had simply started tying reed bundles at home.

In their view, there would surely be such work eventually; otherwise, having these reeds piled up at home wasn't a good thing, so they might as well tie them into reed bundles directly.

Whether it was Li Long or people like Hu Lao Er and Hu Lao San from last year, they would give them to whoever was collecting.

So, some families who were idle had already started tying reed bundles.

Over the past two years, the Fourth Team had formed a winter "culture" completely different from other teams.

People in other teams would really just hibernate once winter arrived, with nothing to do. The young men would gather together to either play cards or gossip.

Those with energy might go out to chase a rabbit or something; there were also those who set rabbit traps, but not many.

The Fourth Team also had work to do in the winter. Right now, the ice wasn't thick yet, so it wasn't time to break ice holes to catch fish, but some people were constantly keeping an eye on the Big Haizi, not knowing if the Big Haizi would be drained dry like last year, revealing a reservoir full of fish.

If anyone thought that because the Big Haizi's fish were cleared out last year, there would be no fish this year, they would be wrong.

The Big Haizi was different from the Small Haizi. There were two upstream of the Small Haizi: one was floodwater, and the other was a small stream of canal water diverted from the Ma River.

Neither of these two streams was likely to bring in big fish; at most, there would be some small fish.

So Li Long had always tried his best to avoid the Small Haizi dam from collapsing, because he knew that once the Small Haizi dam collapsed and the big fish ran away, it would be impossible to have so many fish again.

The Big Haizi was different; upstream was the Mohe Canal, which was like a river, and downstream there were several large and small reservoirs.

These reservoirs were all public and connected to each other. If there were no fish here, there were fish in the downstream reservoirs. Those big fish would swim upstream during water releases and settle in the Big Haizi.

Therefore, the fish in the Big Haizi were inexhaustible, unless the upstream and downstream were completely cut off.

The scene from last year left too deep an impression on the participants, so many people were waiting.

Of course, more people were still dealing with reeds. Even the Li Jianguo family had harvested quite a few reeds. They had a tractor in their own courtyard, so most of the reeds were piled up in Li Long's courtyard.

Liang Yuemei and Li Jianguo would pull reeds whenever they were free, but unlike others, they didn't tie reed bundles. They had to pull the reeds out first.

In Li Jianguo's words, wasn't tying reed bundles a simple job? Pulling reeds was the troublesome part. As long as the reeds were pulled out well, the remaining task of tying reed bundles wouldn't be troublesome at all.

The Lu Yingming family next door followed suit. Many families were like this, only the more aggressive ones had already started tying reed bundles according to last year's standards.

Li Long didn't know about all this. He was earnestly confirming that Gu Xiaoxia only had a missed period and no other discomfort, only then did he feel relieved. It was hard to test right now, so he could only wait to see if her period came next month. If it didn't, then it was highly likely she was pregnant.

He had originally thought about staying at home to take care of Gu Xiaoxia, but he was teased by her.

"When do I need to be taken care of? You're too careful! There are people in my unit working while eight months pregnant, and there are teachers in school teaching students while seven or eight months pregnant. That person in our team was still working in the fields when she was about to give birth..."

Alright, women in this era really did hold up half the sky; of course, it was a bit excessive.

There were similar situations in later generations too.

Then Li Long was sent away by Li Xiangqian.

Li Xiangqian also saw that he was too idle, so he sent him into the mountains to collect honey.

The supply and marketing cooperative needed to store various materials, and there were too many types. In the market, or rather, in the entire Northern Xinjiang region, the supply and marketing cooperative's warehouse needed to have a portion of most local specialties.

For some materials not available locally, the quantity in the supply and marketing cooperative was usually in the tons.

There wasn't much honey produced locally. The Production and Construction Corps had beekeeping teams, and there were scattered beekeepers in various towns. Beekeepers from the interior would come when cars became more popular in later generations, but at this time, most of the beekeeping in the mountains was public.

Li Xiangqian naturally didn't let Li Long look like a headless chicken. He pointed out the location of a beekeeping team from a certain agricultural division of the Corps to Li Long, telling him to go and purchase a batch of honey.

!.

The price was set; the cooperative's purchase price was 1.3 yuan per kilogram.

Honey was still a rare item for ordinary people at this time. Although Li Long's family was already eating honey, and it was calculated by the year, most families didn't have this ability.

After all, at this time, some doctors still used honey as medicine when prescribing.

The output was low, and the price was high, so ordinary people could eat very little.

The reason he let Li Long go was, of course, because Li Long had a tractor.

The supply and marketing cooperative didn't have many cars. Right now, before winter, the cooperative had a large number of procurement tasks, and the cars were all sent out to purchase more important materials. Some were even on long-distance runs, so for this kind of distance that wasn't too near or too far, they could only wait, or let someone like Li Long, who had a tractor, go.

The procurement task was for Li Long to purchase two thousand kilograms of honey. At this time, a large amount of honey was packed in bags, just like the plastic woven bags used for forty kilograms of fertilizer, with a plastic inner lining to prevent the honey from leaking.

Li Long went to the Corps' beekeeping team to purchase honey according to Li Xiangqian's instructions. This kind of thing was already quite common at this time.

The honey from the beekeeping team was stored uniformly. At this time, the Corps was a large collective, and it was also a large collective in later generations, but the Corps had already reformed by the time Li Long had his accident.

Before the reform, all the inputs for the Corps' various companies, except for labor, were paid for uniformly by the Corps, and the harvest was also harvested uniformly, handed over to the Corps, and sold uniformly.

After the sale, after deducting expenses and fees that should be retained at various levels, the remainder was distributed to the Corps employees.

The beekeeping team was also like this at this time. The beekeepers handed over the harvested honey to the team uniformly, the team sold it uniformly, and the money obtained from selling the honey, after deducting the team's expenses and costs, was returned to the beekeeping households according to the proportion of honey handed over.

There must have been some drawbacks, so reforms were carried out in later generations.

This time, Li Long went directly to the team headquarters. This team headquarters had a large courtyard, and a huge printed slogan "Long Live Chairman Mao" was printed on the wall, which made people feel awe-struck.

As the tractor drove into the courtyard, someone immediately came out to look.

"I'm from the Maxian Supply and Marketing Cooperative, here to purchase honey," Li Long said directly to the person after getting off the tractor.

"Find our captain," that person pointed to a room.

Li Long looked over there; there was a team headquarters sign hanging on the door frame.

Li Long walked towards the team headquarters.

A person was smoking and listening to the radio at the desk in the team headquarters. The radio was playing Shan Tianfang's storytelling. After Li Long entered, he looked up, then stood up and asked with a smile:

"From the supply and marketing cooperative? Purchasing honey? Good, good, good, how much do you need?"

"Two or three tons," Li Long said. "Do you have it?"

"Yes, yes, yes, two or three tons, that's not much," the captain pointed to the warehouse next to him and said, "What price can you offer?"

"One yuan, I want so much," Li Long wouldn't be fooled by him, directly opening with a price. "Two or three tons is not a small amount. Ordinary families or shops at most have a few hundred kilograms. What I want is not a small amount."

In this day and age, a deal of two or three thousand yuan was really big. Those beekeepers in the mountains who occasionally sold honey basically sold a few kilograms, and that money could be put into their own pockets.

But returning to the beekeeping team, the honey was handed over, and it was really hard to say how much money they could get at that time.

"One yuan? Isn't that too cheap?" The captain shook his head upon hearing Li Long's quote and said, "Higher, higher. Yesterday, someone from the Shawan Department Store came to collect honey and offered 1.15 yuan."

"How could they collect as much as I do?" The department store could collect five hundred kilograms of honey at most at one time; Li Long wouldn't easily loosen his grip.

"Little comrade, how old are you?" The captain suddenly asked.

"Twenty-two," Li Long casually reported a number. "Why?"

"First time coming to collect honey?"

"Yes."

"I can tell you have no experience." The captain looked outside, then pulled Li Long to sit on a bench and whispered:

"Look, we're all working for the public, why be so serious? How about this. You're collecting honey for the supply and marketing cooperative. When the time comes, you write 1.2 yuan on the invoice, and I'll sell it to you for 1 yuan. How about we split the extra money?"

Hey! This captain could think like this?

Li Long was a bit puzzled, but calculating it this way, it was equivalent to him actually collecting the honey at a price of 1.1 yuan. The supply and marketing cooperative had already set the price at 1.3 yuan. If he could negotiate the price down, it would naturally count as Li Long's own.

1.1 yuan was also acceptable.

Li Long then said:

"Fine, let's do it that way. Is your honey from the mountains?"

"A portion is from the mountains. Why, do you like mountain honey?" Actually, at this time, most people didn't care where the honey was from; it was good enough to have it.

"Of course, I like mountain honey." Li Long naturally wanted good honey. Thirty or forty years later, the price of mountain flower honey would be ten or twenty yuan more per kilogram than ordinary honey.

"Fine, then I'll pack all mountain honey for you." Seeing Li Long was so sensible, the captain was naturally very easy to satisfy.

First inspect the goods, load the truck, and finally issue the invoice and pay.

One bag of honey was fifty kilograms, two tons was forty bags. This tractor's cargo bed definitely couldn't hold it all, so Li Long made an appointment with the captain to haul twenty bags first, paying in batches.

The captain was naturally satisfied; money in the pocket was peace of mind.

Selling honey once, he got two hundred yuan, which naturally made him very happy.

Li Long hauled twenty-one bags the first time. He planned to keep the extra bag for himself and distribute it among the families. This stuff was good. Right now, all his elders, including his eldest brother, smoked, and honey was good for the throat and pharynx; drinking it often had no downsides.

He had to pay the money first. Under the captain's guidance, the beekeeping team's accountant issued him an invoice, with 1.2 yuan written on it.

Of course, this invoice was torn up by Li Long after leaving. It was better not to keep this stuff.

After one trip, he went to the supply and marketing cooperative's warehouse to put it in storage. The warehouse keeper inspected the goods and issued an invoice. Li Long went to the finance department to get the money, and then went back to the beekeeping team to haul another truck of twenty bags of honey.

The captain and Li Long cooperated very happily. He felt that this young man was very sensible and told Li Long that he hoped he would come to buy honey again next year, and he could give him a discount then.

Li Long just smiled; maybe it really would be him coming to buy honey again next year.

The supply and marketing cooperative had many procurement tasks, but most were distributed to the formal employees of the procurement section. Li Long was a special case. First, he was considered a favorite of Li Xiangqian and even Director Wei, so he could take on several big jobs.

Second, the jobs he completed basically had no problems, and the quality was very high, so the superiors were very satisfied, and the leaders were willing to hand the jobs to him.

But he wasn't willing to get involved in too many procurement tasks.

First, it would affect the stability of the procurement section. After all, everyone knew that one could get kickbacks from going out to procure. If Li Long took it all for himself, others would inevitably have opinions.

Second, Li Long wasn't familiar with some fields and was easily deceived, so he felt it was better to be cautious.

After all, it's better to hide one's light than to show off.

That's what Xiang Shaolong said. (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 558 =====