Chapter 633: Finally drinking tap water

April 3rd, Tuesday, sunny.

The third day of the third lunar month, auspicious for starting work and opening businesses.

Li Long drove the jeep to pick up Wei Zhuren and Li Xiangqian first, then went to pick up Ma Xiao Yan and Ye Laya.

Behind the jeep followed a large truck, and in the truck's cargo box was a whole truckload of water pipes.

Whether it was enough or not, they would use them first and see.

The date was set by Wei Zhuren, who had told Li Long a week in advance. Li Long also felt it was about right, only hoping it wouldn't rain on that day.

It was fine; the weather these past few days had been slightly windy and sunny.

The road to the mountains had dried, the snow in the mountains had melted, and tender grass, though not very lush, had grown on the turf near Halimu's winter quarters, which was quite pleasing to the eye.

The pine trees in the mountains had turned green, and clusters of new, tender pine needles had just emerged, growing on the old branches; the color was obviously different from the old branches, looking quite unique.

The first to bloom were the wild garlic and dandelions, tender yellow, goose yellow, and even carrying a little blood red—the middle stripe of the wild garlic was this color.

Li Long drove, Wei Zhuren sat in the passenger seat, and Ma Xiao Yan and Ye Laya sat in the back row.

Originally, Li Long had thought about letting Li Xiangqian sit in the back row, after all, the back row could seat three people, but Li Xiangqian insisted on sitting in the passenger seat of the large truck, the so-called "leading the vehicle."

Li Long didn't force it, driving the jeep to lead the way in front, heading all the way to Halimu's winter quarters.

Yesterday, Li Long had already told Halimu about this matter, so when Wei Zhuren and the others arrived, quite a few people had already gathered here at the winter quarters.

There were many men, women, old, and young. When the jeep and the large truck arrived at the winter quarters together, Halimu brought these people over to welcome them, their faces carrying sincere smiles.

The large truck not only had those pipes but also some daily necessities. This wasn't what Li Long said; it was Li Xiangqian's suggestion to Wei Zhuren.

Anyway, there were plenty of things in the supply and marketing cooperative, and comforting ethnic minority masses was also a very normal behavior; the superiors would not only agree but also praise it.

Rice, flour, oil, dried fruits, and honey were all very popular supplies.

When these things were moved down, the people behind Halimu couldn't help but cheer.

Ma Xiao Yan let Ye Laya hurry to take pictures, choosing good angles to better display the image of ethnic unity.

The people around Halimu were truly happy; these people coming to send them supplies at this time made them feel the other side's sincerity.

Halimu also said that they had come to send some water pipes, to connect water to the door of every winter quarter; this was such a good thing!

Under Li Xiangqian's command, the young men unloaded those water pipes.

Today, they had to bury the water pipes for Halimu's winter quarters; Wei Zhuren would follow the whole process.

Li Long had already guaranteed that it could be completed within a day, not delaying him from going home after work today.

Wei Zhuren was naturally satisfied.

"Halimu, let's divide the people into two groups, one group to prepare lunch, and one group to dig pits and bury pipes according to the predetermined route." Li Long discussed it with Halimu, and then told Wei Zhuren and Ma Xiao Yan about the plan.

Telling Wei Zhuren was to let him know where the day's workload was mainly used. Telling Ma Xiao Yan was naturally to let her understand this project, so as to facilitate writing a news report.

The main work was still done by the young men, and Halimu, Yushanjiang, and Li Long.

As soon as Halimu spoke, the young men had already taken iron shovels and started to dig the turf according to the positions Li Long and the others had agreed upon before coming.

The pit that needed to be dug was only one shovel wide, and the depth would not exceed thirty centimeters, so the workload was not large.

In winter, thirty centimeters might be frozen, but Li Long had studied this: as long as the water source upstream didn't stop, and the water below flowed continuously, it wouldn't freeze in the middle.

If the upstream water stopped, then even if it didn't freeze, there would be no water downstream, so there was no need to consider so much.

There were seven or eight young and strong men who came this time, plus Li Long, and each person's calculated digging work was only about ten meters. The places they chose avoided mountain rocks and were all turf; it was just that there was some sand and stone where they dug water pits near the stream, and Li Long handled this himself.

Wei Zhuren and Li Xiangqian also took iron shovels and symbolically worked for a while, and then were called by Yushanjiang to drink milk tea.

It was the driver who took the iron shovels they had been working with and continued to work, digging quite fast.

After Li Long reached the water source, he started to dig. He wanted to dig a water trough here that was deep enough and large enough, preferably clearing away all the floating sand above, so that after the water pipes were buried, it wouldn't be easy for sand to seep in and block the pipes.

He used an iron shovel to find several places near the spring eye, and finally, Li Long determined the location less than five meters away from the spring eye and started to dig.

There were still some other creatures in the water, all kinds of small insects, but Li Long didn't care. After digging for a while, a water pit about half a meter deep and about half a meter in diameter appeared.

The water quickly gathered, and then rushed downstream with turbid mud and sand.

Li Long started to dig a trough for the water pipes on the edge of the water pit.

Below the thin soil layer here were stones; fortunately, there was mostly sand and stone, which could be dug out, it was just a bit hard on the iron shovel.

It took more than an hour, with the iron shovel and pickaxe together, to dig a qualified ditch through the five or six meters of stone layer. Turning his head to look at other positions, everyone had basically finished digging the ditches assigned to them.

And they were still continuing to deepen it. Li Long remembered that when he was smashing the stone layer, he vaguely heard Li Xiangqian saying to dig deeper there.

Then dig deeper.

Li Long didn't; he went over and pulled the water pipes, first wrapping the head with several layers of gauze, and then burying the head at the bottom of the water pit they had dug at the beginning.

Li Long dug a deep trough near the north side of this water pit. At this time, the water flow had already flowed along the trough to the water ditch he had dug.

Li Long didn't care about that; he pressed the water pipe mouth tied with gauze to the bottom of the water pit, first using several stones prepared in advance to press the water pipe, and then placing some small stones at the water pipe mouth. The smallest one was half the size of the pipe mouth, because the shape was irregular, so it wouldn't drill into the pipe after the gauze was broken.

After burying the pipe mouth with these stones, Li Long used several large stones to press on these small stones, and didn't move further up.

This pit needed to be cleaned frequently, because the sand around it would slowly gather into the pit with the water flow, slowly blocking the pipe mouth.

However, this process would not be too fast; it might only need to be cleaned once every one or two years.

Ma Xiao Yan was holding a small notebook and randomly interviewing those herdsmen, and Ye Laya translated the parts she didn't understand. In the middle, when she was interviewing Wei Zhuren and Li Xiangqian, Ye Laya ran around taking pictures.

Ye Laya focused on taking several pictures of Li Long, all when he was bending over and working, and the side profile could be seen, looking very serious.

After Li Long buried the water pipe mouth, he started to straighten this long pipe. The pipe had been measured in advance and was three or five meters longer than the ditch they dug; these were reserved.

Water was already flowing down along the pipe, so Li Long started from his side, pressing the pipe into the ditch, pressing it for five or six meters, and then started to fill the ditch with soil.

Halimu not far away had already finished digging his ditch, and seeing Li Long start to fill the soil, he immediately came over to help.

One pressed the pipe and the other shoveled the soil from both sides into the ditch, and the coordination was very fast.

After the two of them buried the twenty-plus meters of pipe they had to dig, the people behind also started to straighten the pipes and bury them.

The water pipe was originally coiled into a circle with a diameter of more than one meter, and after being unloaded, it was still a bit twisted. If you wanted to straighten it and bury it, it would turn in circles, otherwise, the pipe would be disobedient.

The people behind turned the pipe to straighten it while pressing it into the ditch.

Li Long and Halimu stepped firmly on the places they had buried, and the turf they had just dug up was still pressed on the very top.

In this way, after a rain, these turfs would continue to grow, and it would soon be impossible to see that a ditch had been dug here.

"Water is coming, water is coming!"

A young man at the very end of the water pipe shouted.

The water had already flowed from here to there. The drop between the top and bottom was twenty or thirty meters, even greater than the pressure wells Li Long and the others dug in the team.

Therefore, the water flow was not small, and the flow rate was also very fast.

Looking at the water flowing out of the water pipe, first it was a bit turbid, then it became clear. The people in front of the winter quarters cheered spontaneously. Especially those women, thinking that they didn't need to carry water to the bottom of the mountain every day later, how good this was!

They looked at Wei Zhuren, looked at Li Xiangqian, and the gaze on Li Long on the hillside changed again.

A beautiful life was brought by them.

The sheep had already been slaughtered, and experienced old people were cutting them up. Some were to be boiled, and some were to be roasted.

Before they came, the young people had already whittled red willow branches and dug roasting troughs on the ground.

It was just that they hadn't added charcoal fire yet.

At the moment, this water supply project was so smooth, it didn't even need a whole day, it was dug in less than half a day, and the water was diverted down. Next, they needed to dig a large pit at the end of the water pipe, mainly to store water, which was convenient for use.

As for when the water pit was full, the water flow would naturally flow down the mountain, and slowly it would wash out a ditch, no need for people to do it themselves.

Seeing the workload gradually decreasing, Yushanjiang called several young men to dig the roasting troughs.

Ma Xiao Yan and Ye Laya also took pictures of this scene and specifically asked the young people the reason for doing this.

Actually, Ye Laya could explain it herself, but she didn't say much, faithfully translating the conversation between the two sides.

【Missing text/p>】

It seems that life had taught her a lot.

Li Long and Halimu checked the buried water pipes all the way from the mountain top along the dug water ditch. By the time all the water pipes were buried, the roasting troughs here had been dug, and someone had already poured the red charcoal into the troughs, spreading it evenly with a stick.

Over there, the women who came to help were stringing the cut meat with red willow branches, and the young people took the strung skewers and put them on the troughs to roast.

The troughs were dug quite long, and the soil dug out was piled up and stepped on firmly on both sides, so the skewers were just right on top.

Two experienced people were specifically sprinkling salt, chili powder, and cumin powder on the skewers.

Li Long and Halimu walked to the head of the water pipe, looked at the extra section of pipe that was three or five meters long, and asked Halimu:

"Do you want to cut this off?"

"Halimu hesitated."

Li Long helped him make a decision:

"Better cut it off; it's inconvenient for the pipe to be exposed outside, just leave a small section. Otherwise, it's easy to freeze in winter, and after you transfer, if someone finds it and pulls this pipe away, it will be troublesome."

Halimu thought it was right, so he took his knife and slowly cut the water pipe.

Li Xiangqian walked up to Li Long and said with a smile:

"Originally, listening to your explanation, I thought we would be here all day, but looking at it like this, after lunch, we can go back."

"Yes." Li Long smiled. "I originally thought this ditch would be quite hard to dig, but I didn't expect that the soil below was all loose, and only my section was stone. If the ones behind were all like this, it would be much easier to work."

This small tribe had nearly twenty households of herdsmen. Li Long's plan was to pull water pipes in front of all the herdsmen's winter quarters, letting them use water nearby.

According to the previous plan, this work would have to be done until Halimu and the others transferred.

Now it seems that this time point can be advanced.

This way, Li Long would be much more convenient. After all, staying in the mountains every day was not convenient for him, and there was work to be done at the foot of the mountain too.

Moreover, Gu Xiaoxia was already seven or eight months pregnant, which was a critical period, and he didn't want to stay outside.

The aroma of roasted meat soon permeated, and the boiled mutton in the large pot also spread a faint mutton smell and a rich aroma.

Wei Zhuren drank two bowls of milk tea, chatted with reporter Ma Xiao Yan about the original intention of the supply and marketing cooperative doing this activity, as well as the supplies brought out and subsequent plans. After Ma Xiao Yan promised that she would write all these contents into the manuscript, he nodded with satisfaction.

Then he stood up and walked around on the grass.

There were some small mushrooms on the grass. After Wei Zhuren went to the pine forest to relieve himself, he picked some mushrooms.

He still recognized grass mushrooms, and after picking for a while, his hands were not enough to hold them.

He thought that it would be nice to take these wild mushrooms back and stir-fry them.

Li Xiangqian had already seen Wei Zhuren picking mushrooms, told Li Long about it, and then Li Long took a bag from the jeep's trunk and gave it to him. Li Xiangqian took the bag and gave it to Wei Zhuren.

"There are quite a few wild mushrooms here." Wei Zhuren said casually, "Life in the mountains is not as boring as imagined."

Li Xiangqian thought to himself, this is just staying for a day; if you were allowed to stay here for three months, you would know whether it's boring or not.

Why do people want to run to cities or big cities? Not only because of the various good conditions in the city, but also because there are many people there.

At this time, the mutton was already roasted. Halimu took a handful of skewers and distributed them to Wei Zhuren, Li Xiangqian, and Li Long.

"This meat is roasted really well!" Li Xiangqian took a bite and praised, "Hey, I haven't eaten such tasty roasted meat for a long time."

"That's right," Li Long smiled and said while eating, "Fresh mutton, just slaughtered, and just roasted, it's also ethnic flavor, original flavor, of course it's delicious."

"If it's delicious, eat more." Wei Zhuren had already finished one skewer, threw away the red willow branch, and was eating another one, casually saying an advertising slogan from later generations.

Li Long also ate two skewers and felt it was good. However, he still planned to eat some hand-grabbed meat and drink a bowl of mutton soup.

Li Long threw away the red willow branch, went to pull some wild onions, washed them at the water pit he had just dug, and prepared to put them in when drinking mutton soup later.

Green onions need to be sprinkled when the meat soup is out of the pot, otherwise there will be no flavor.

Seeing Li Long doing this, Li Xiangqian also went to pull a handful of wild onions. Li Long reminded him:

"Section Chief, you are a bit fat, you should drink less of this meat soup."

Li Xiangqian shook his head and said with a smile:

"Drink less what? How many days have we lived a good life? How can I drink less? Such delicious mutton soup, I can't drink it a few times a year. I'm not like you, who will come often later, I must drink to my heart's content today..."

Speaking of this, Li Xiangqian whispered to Li Long:

"Director Qian called yesterday to ask what you mainly do in the supply and marketing cooperative, and I said you mainly take tasks from our cooperative, organize people to weave carrying poles, tie big brooms, tie reed bundles, etc., and he said he knew."

Li Long nodded and didn't think too much.

Li Xiangqian looked at his expression and shook his head, feeling a bit of "hate that iron doesn't become steel."

This kid is usually so smart, why is he not enlightened at this time?

To be honest, Li Long is moving forward step by step towards his goal, and for the time being, he is quite satisfied with his situation. In his plan, some things can only wait until the time comes, otherwise they cannot be carried out.

And now his life focus is Gu Xiaoxia and the unborn child, so he really doesn't care much about other things.

Halimu and the others are different. Today they really saw the convenience of the water pipes being connected. Water is now in front of the winter quarters, and everything will be much more convenient. The most convenient is domestic water, and there is no need to run so far to wash anything.

Halimu is happy, and others have the same mood. Everyone knows how to install such a large roll of water pipes, and some people think about cutting a section now, so that they can dig it themselves when they go back.

However, Yushanjiang stopped them and told everyone to work together, otherwise the route would not be found well, and the water pipe mouth would not be handled well, it might be blocked, and that would be a waste of effort, causing a lot of trouble.

Yushanjiang's prestige in the army is still quite high, and everyone listens to what he says.

After the labor, the effect is obvious. At the moment, everyone's face is full of happy expressions. Some people have started to sing, and some people are dancing with the songs.

Ma Xiao Yan is eating roasted meat, and seeing this scene, she immediately hands the meat skewers to Ye Laya, takes out a notebook to record, Ye Laya looks left and right, calls a young man, asks him to help hold the meat skewers, and then raises the camera to take pictures.

Watching them dancing happily, Li Long feels that his mood is also as happy as theirs.

Wei Zhuren and Li Xiangqian truly felt that the water pipes they brought today gave these people help, and then made these people become so happy.

They were also infected, although they didn't dance along, the smiles on their faces obviously became more sincere.

Li Long looked at those herdsmen, then looked at Wei Zhuren, thinking that today's goal was really achieved.

Relying on his own strength alone, although he can change the living standards of this tribe, how can it be as effective as leading everyone to come together? (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 634 =====