Chapter 592

The afternoon sun was bright. Walking westward, the sunlight was slightly dazzling, but Li Long didn't feel much of it.

In the mountains, seeing snow every day, he hadn't gotten snow blindness; it could be considered a special blessing.

The Wuyi Highway was considered a major road in Northern Tianshan. There were quite a few vehicles going back and forth, packing the snow on the road very firmly. If a sled were pulled behind a car, it would definitely follow along at high speed.

At this time, children going to school, especially those in higher grades, if they were bold enough, would grab onto the rear gate of a tractor's bucket when they encountered one and slide along, which felt very exciting.

There weren't many households on either side of the road. Occasionally, one could see flat-roofed houses with smoke rising, most of which were illegal structures. However, nobody cared about that at this time.

Some people built them and lived in them for over a decade; if nobody cared, it was equivalent to having property rights. When centralized cleanup happened, they simply got the certificates processed, and when demolition happened later, they could even get a sum of compensation.

With the Reform and Opening-up, various laws and regulations were slowly being perfected. In the process of this perfection, many people found loopholes.

Li Long's hunting could also be considered one of those.

Once the Wildlife Protection Law came out, hunting like this wouldn't be possible. Of course, at the beginning, it wasn't strictly enforced. The wild boars here never formed a disaster like they did in the interior, and nobody really managed wild boar hunting until the early 21st century.

Because everyone knew that whether this thing could maintain biological balance was unknown, but it was definitely harmful.

There were many wild rabbit tracks in the ditches on both sides of the road. These wild rabbits reproduced extremely fast; in summer, they could have a litter in a month. Li Long remembered someone who once raised rabbits; at the beginning of the year, there were two pairs, and by the end of the year, there were already over two hundred.

And they had eaten quite a few in the meantime. What was even more disgusting was that the entire courtyard was riddled with holes dug by these things.

Fortunately, this wasn't Australia; there were natural predators for rabbits here. Foxes, wolves, and eagles were all experts at eating rabbits.

Of course, when pelts were valuable, some people hunted rabbits specifically, which could also be considered one of their natural predators.

Driving the jeep for nearly two hours, he returned to Maxian. Li Long didn't go directly back to the compound; he parked the jeep outside the Supply and Marketing Cooperative and took some items out of the trunk.

He had collected quite a few things from the State Supply, and Li Long didn't plan to keep them all for himself. He felt he should share some with Li Xiangqian.

Whether they were valuable or not was another matter. Since they were brought from the state level and the connection was made through Li Xiangqian, it was only fair to share.

Putting a portion of the items into a bag, Li Long carried them into the cooperative.

Entering the office, Li Xiangqian was already packing up to get off work. Winter was a slow season, and although the Supply and Marketing Cooperative still had sporadic procurement tasks, he assigned them casually and didn't find it tiring himself.

Seeing Li Long enter, Li Xiangqian was a bit puzzled and asked:

"What, did you catch the fish?"

"It's not that fast," Li Long said with a smile, placing the bag on the table. "I went to Beiting today. The State Supply distributed some New Year benefits, and I brought some over."

"If they gave them to you, just keep them. Do you need to share them with me?" Li Xiangqian said with a smile.

"Without you, I wouldn't have been able to get into the State Supply," Li Long joked. "The state benefits are really good; they gave out quite a lot. I won't give you the firecrackers and such, but you take these seafood items. Alright, Section Chief, I'm leaving; I'm quite tired."

Li Long greeted Li Xiangqian and then turned to leave.

Li Xiangqian was a bit stunned, then looked at the items and smiled.

Was he lacking these things? Certainly not. Which employee who went out to haul goods or procure items wouldn't give him some local specialties?

But someone like Li Long, who thought of him whenever he got something good, really made him quite happy.

At the very least, it showed that Li Long had already made a connection with Director Qian but hadn't forgotten him, his leader.

When Director Qian called, he had also expressed the idea of wanting Li Long to join the State Supply. Li Xiangqian naturally wouldn't stop Li Long's progress. But he also knew that Li Long wouldn't leave.

Li Long drove the jeep back to the compound. The sun had already set halfway. Sister Yang was cooking dinner. She opened the gate, and seeing Li Long drive the jeep in, she was about to go to the kitchen to get busy when Li Long hurriedly stopped her and then moved the benefits down.

Most of these items needed to go into the kitchen, so Li Long put them there first.

"Why so many? Did you buy all these?" Sister Yang asked suspiciously.

"No, they were distributed," Li Long said after putting the items away. "Put them here for now; there's no rush to handle them. They can be frozen anyway, so we can process them slowly."

"Alright, alright, where were these distributed from?" Sister Yang was also a bit curious.

"From the state level," Li Long said. "Tell Xiao Fang to study hard. Once she gets into a technical secondary school and gets assigned to a good unit, she'll have benefits like this in the future too."

Sister Yang said with a smile:

"With her grades, what can she get into? I'll be satisfied if she doesn't end up illiterate."

Although she spoke modestly, Sister Yang still had this aspiration. In fact, Han Fang's academic performance had been catching up slowly. The young girl had a streak of determination and also knew how to utilize her advantages; if there was something she didn't understand, she would go ask Gu Xiaoxia on weekends, and her grades were improving rapidly.

"You shouldn't underestimate Xiao Fang; I believe she will definitely succeed in her studies," Li Long replied with a smile, then went to handle the other items. For example, things like firecrackers needed to be put away first.

The jeep also needed to have its water drained; that was the only troublesome part.

After he finished tidying these things up, he went to the glass room in the back to take a look. Feeling the temperature was a bit low, he added another stove of charcoal and covered it with coal dust to let it burn slowly.

The room was large and had a chimney, so there was no fear of coal smoke or anything.

Coming out of the glass room, Li Long returned to the bedroom, washed up simply, and changed his clothes. When he came out again, Gu Xiaoxia had already returned on her bicycle.

She was afraid of the cold, so she was dressed very thickly, wearing leather gloves and that kind of fluffy hat with cat ears on her head.

These "pieces of equipment" were all designed by Li Long and then made by his sister-in-law Liang Yuemei and Sister Yang.

There were ready-made pelts at home—rabbit skin and yellow sheep skin. Li Long actually wanted to use wolf skin, but Gu Xiaoxia felt that wolves were a bit scary, and secondly, wolf fur was a bit hard and prickly, so they didn't use it.

Not only did Gu Xiaoxia have them, but Li Juan, Li Qiang, and Han Fang had them too.

Gu Xiaoxia still felt they were a bit childish, but since they were warm to wear, she couldn't help but use them, and the effect was truly good.

Li Long smiled and helped Gu Xiaoxia prop up her bike, took the items down, and asked:

"How was it today? Was it warm in the office?"

"It was very hot; I took off my coat as soon as I got to the office," Gu Xiaoxia said while following Li Long into the house. "I've been busy with paperwork lately. Director Wang knows my situation and assigned me lighter work."

"That's good." Li Long looked at Gu Xiaoxia's slightly protruding abdomen and said, "I'll take you to and from work from now on. The streets are very slippery, and I'm worried you'll easily have an accident riding your bike."

"I'm not that delicate; I get off when the road is slippery," Gu Xiaoxia wouldn't let Li Long take her. She said while changing her clothes, "My colleagues are already making fun of me for this."

"Why bother with them? As long as we're comfortable ourselves, that's enough," Li Long had always felt that most people who made snide remarks were jealous at heart, so there was no need to pay attention to them.

"That won't do either; we still have to be mindful of the influence," Gu Xiaoxia said with a smile, linking arms with Li Long as they walked out together.

"I know you care about me, but I'm not a porcelain doll; I'll be careful."

Gu Bo Yuan entered the courtyard and saw his daughter and son-in-law linked together. He coughed lightly. He didn't have any objections, just felt it wasn't very good for the children to see.

Han Fang had already returned and was helping in the kitchen after washing her hands.

"This is better," Gu Xiaoxia said with a smile. "It's lively with more people. Before, it was just the two of us, sometimes just me alone; living in such a big courtyard felt quite scary."

"You should be content," Gu Bo Yuan complained to her. "Such a big and good courtyard, many people want to live here but can't."

Li Long smiled and didn't speak.

This was the happiness of daily life.

The following days were all sunny, and the temperature got lower and lower. Especially after the Winter Solstice and the start of the "Nine Nines," the daytime temperature was below minus twenty degrees, and at night, it had already started dropping toward minus thirty degrees.

There were ice flowers on the room's glass. Every morning when he got up, the temperature in the room was very low, and Li Long had to add an extra stove of coal every night.

There was enough coal at home, and buying more wasn't a problem. Although the price was a bit higher than in summer, it wasn't a big issue for Li Long.

He took the time to haul another tractor load of coal to Gu Bo Yuan's courtyard. The small courtyard on the south side was no longer occupied; Li Long would occasionally go over to sweep the snow and clean it up.

Until December 31st, the "Second Nine" began. Li Long ate his meal early in the morning and drove the jeep to the team.

Today was Saturday, and Gu Xiaoxia would be resting tomorrow. Tomorrow was also New Year's Day of 1984, so they would be on holiday.

At this time, if New Year's Day fell on a weekend, they would just celebrate them together; there was no such thing as a compensatory holiday.

Li Long drove the jeep to the team. When he entered his eldest brother's courtyard, his brother and sister-in-law both came out, and behind them was his mother, Du Chunfang.

"Where's Dad?" Li Long took out some items from the trunk. He had also shared a portion of the benefits distributed by the State Supply and brought them here.

For example, the kelp, the shrimp in the ice tray, and the yellow croaker—they would share them.

At this time, many seafood items were frozen directly in ice trays. If you wanted to eat them, you would break off a piece, let it thaw, and then clean it for cooking. "Dad went to the Little Haizi; he can't sit still and went to catch fish with Daqiang," Li Jianguo said, taking the items.

"Did he break the ice?" Li Long asked. "Can he catch fish?"

"Yes, but not many," Li Jianguo said. "He went when the 'Nine Nines' started. The ice was half a meter thick then, and it's gotten thicker these past two days.

Those two days, they could only catch about ten kilograms a day; these past two days have been better, catching twenty or thirty kilograms."

"It's not just the two of them, right?" Li Long entered the house and asked.

"Of course not. Since you previously said you'd collect fish at one yuan per kilogram, there are many people catching fish. The Liang brothers went very early, and the Zhao family, the Zhang family... now there must be over ten ice holes broken in the Little Haizi."

It was a good thing that people were catching them. After warming up, Li Long put on his coat and hat and went to the Little Haizi.

Li Jianguo had nothing to do, so he followed along.

A path had already been trodden from the residential area to the Little Haizi, and one could still see traces of sleds and plastic bags being dragged.

The sunlight was quite dazzling, but it wasn't warm.

!.

Although there was no wind, the temperature was very low. His ears and hands were protected and fine, but his nose felt frozen and sore, giving him the urge to have a runny nose.

Everything was a vast expanse of white. The reeds in the reed ditch to the west had been cleared, and occasionally one could see a row of bare white poplar trees standing on the edge of the land.

The only sound was the chirping of sparrows in the trees. These little guys were resident birds and stayed all winter. Later, when cotton was planted on a large scale and pesticides were used heavily, sparrows were rarely seen.

It wasn't until later, when cooperatives emerged and drip irrigation was used, that the use of pesticides decreased, and the sparrows returned.

It was just that Li Long felt in his previous life that the later sparrows seemed different from the old ones.

The reeds that originally grew in patches on the Little Haizi had also been cut down, leaving only scattered patches of hairy reeds that hadn't been hauled away.

Standing on the north dam, one could see at least six groups of people digging ice holes. Soon he saw his father, Li Qing Xia, and Tao Daqiang.

They were still at the same spot on the south side as last year. There was a pit where the water was deep, and many fish gathered there.

Twenty or thirty years later, because nobody had cleared the silt, the Little Haizi became an above-ground reservoir with too much mud, and it couldn't hold much water anymore.

At this time, the function of the few deeper places was revealed. When the water was drained, only these places still had fish surviving. They were waiting for floods or for the upstream to release water, and then they would swim to other places.

Therefore, deep-water areas like this gathered the most fish in winter.

At this time, the water level in the Little Haizi was still quite high, and there wasn't as much silt as in later generations, so fish could swim around underwater. However, in the current low temperature, the fish weren't very active.

The ice was frozen too thick, and the reeds were also frozen solid, so the amount of air that could penetrate downward was becoming less and less. Only by breaking ice holes could one catch fish.

Occasionally, one could hear people cheering; that was when they had caught a big fish.

Li Jianguo went directly toward Li Qing Xia and the others, while Li Long looked at one ice hole after another.

He was no longer the young man who had just started catching fish the year before last. At that time, in order to earn a few or a dozen yuan, and to let his family eat better, Li Long had been full of spirit.

At that time, he knew there were massive amounts of fish in this Little Haizi, resources that could make his family's life better.

Now, his family's life had already improved, but he wasn't content. This thing was just like studying; if you slack off, someone will immediately catch up.

"Dacheng, you've been breaking this ice hole for a few days, right?"

"Yeah, I came over the day after I chased the rabbits. But there aren't many fish right now; it's not as easy to catch as last year," Liang Dacheng said. "I have over twenty kilograms of the big fish you mentioned. When do you want them?"

"When you have time, haul them to my courtyard. If you don't have time, I'll go to your door to collect them."

"That works. After I go back and eat at noon, I'll haul them over to you."

Being able to earn money by catching fish while sitting at home, Liang Dacheng was naturally very willing. Some people in the team went to the county or Shicheng to sell fish, but Liang Dacheng didn't have that idea.

Not only was it far to run, but it was also tiring. With that effort, he could catch more fish right here in the Little Haizi.

He only regretted why he hadn't followed Li Long when he was catching fish the year before last. If he had followed him then, just by catching fish, he could have earned a tractor.

After Li Long finished looking at the three Liang brothers' side, he continued to walk to other places.

Everyone was quite polite to him; whether they were familiar or not, at least they had to give him this much face.

Over the past two years, Li Long had brought big business to the team every year. Just for the sake of earning this money, they couldn't help but show a smiling face.

After looking around, Li Long confirmed that the big fish in the Little Haizi had indeed decreased.

When he first started catching fish the year before last, he could catch at least forty or fifty kilograms every day. Carp, Amur pike, and silver carp weighing three to five kilograms could be caught every day.

As for those weighing one or two kilograms, they were the main force, and small crucian carp couldn't even be counted as the most numerous.

But now, at the few ice holes, small crucian carp were the most numerous, especially those under ten centimeters; there were a particularly large number of them.

On the contrary, there weren't many of the one or two-kilogram fish he needed.

He estimated that each household caught about twenty kilograms a day.

And adding everything up, he could only collect thirty or forty kilograms a day that met his standards.

However, except for one family that didn't plan to sell to Li Long and wanted to sell in the county themselves, the others were very willing to sell the one or two-kilogram fish directly to Li Long.

This was very good.

When Li Long arrived at his father Li Qing Xia and Tao Daqiang's spot, he was happy.

Sure enough, this place was a treasure trove. The fish caught by Li Qing Xia and Tao Daqiang were the most among all the ice holes in the Little Haizi.

Big and small fish had been separated, and there were five or six fish weighing one or two kilograms.

At this rate, they could get about twenty kilograms a day.

The task should be completed.

Li Long was very optimistic.

"Xiao Long is here? Come, come, you come and scoop a few times." Li Qing Xia had just scooped up a net of small crucian carp—there were about ten or so, very active, still jumping a few times on the ice.

It might be because they hadn't caught any big fish after several tries, so seeing Li Long come over, Li Qing Xia wanted to switch people and take a break.

Li Long smiled, took the net, lowered it halfway into the ice hole, and after inserting the scoop net, he didn't move but waited slowly.

Over the past year, all his senses had improved significantly compared to before. After putting the scoop net down, he could roughly feel the size of the fish's strength from the slight vibrations.

There were definitely fish below. After all, with such a large water surface frozen so solid, the oxygen level below was extremely insufficient.

Although they knew there was danger at the ice hole, these fish still risked their lives to come over, wanting to take a few breaths of fresh air filled with oxygen.

A slightly stronger collision let Li Long perceive that he knew this fish was definitely bigger than the small crucian carp.

As for how big, that was hard to say.

He didn't move.

"Why aren't you scooping? Do you need to wait?"

"The fish were scared away by you just now, so I have to wait," Li Long said with a smile. "How is it over at Daqiang's side?"

Two ice holes were opened in this area, about ten meters apart. The ice surface of the Little Haizi was covered with thick snow. At this time, a small path had been trodden out in the snow, and Tao Daqiang was scooping continuously over there.

"Few big fish, many small fish. Small fish are also good," Li Qing Xia said. "Fish soup is very fresh when stewed!"

Li Jianguo came over from Tao Daqiang's side and said:

"Daqiang has three fish weighing over a kilogram, and the rest are small."

Li Long felt a collision stronger than the last one again. He decisively turned the scoop net, scooped directly in the direction the strength came from, and then pulled the scoop net up.

It had weight! (End of chapter)