Chapter 687: Returning to the Fourth Team

The wheat season ended in late July, and by around August 10th, there were no more black tiger-paw mushrooms.

After the wheat season ended, Li Long took the time to return to the Fourth Team.

Actually, Xie Yun Dong and the others were also waiting for Li Long to return. Yesterday, his father Li Qing Xia came to deliver fish and told Li Long that Xie Yun Dong and Liang Dacheng had both been to the house. This wheat season had ended, and they had earned a lot of money; keeping this money with themselves really made them feel a bit uneasy. However, they still had some work to do in the team, so they didn't come to the county, planning to wait a few days, and if Li Long didn't go to the team, they planned to come directly to the county.

Li Long had nothing to do, so he simply told Gu Xiaoxia and drove the jeep out of the large courtyard.

It was summer vacation time, and the children were either helping adults with work or playing outside. Li Long saw quite a few children playing in the water and catching fish in the reed ditch.

Seeing the arrival of the jeep, the children stopped playing in the water, shouting as they rushed onto the road to run after it, and some ran home; many people knew Li Long was back.

Large stacks of wheat straw were piled up by the threshing floor on the side of the road, and there were still wheat tails left in the middle of the threshing floor that hadn't been pulled away. For the next period of time, sunflower heads and corn cobs would also be piled up here.

If there were many things, it was possible that someone would set up a mosquito net on the threshing floor to watch the grain at night.

After all, this day and age hadn't reached the point where doors didn't need to be locked at night and things weren't picked up on the road.

Li Long had watched wheat on the threshing floor, voluntarily. Because he felt that sleeping on the threshing floor at night was quite comfortable—of course, the mosquitoes were also very fierce, and mosquito nets basically couldn't completely prevent this thing.

When the jeep drove into the courtyard, Li Long also heard Li Qiang and another child imitating lines from a movie and playing a game:

"—One-one-zero-zero-seven, one-one-zero-zero-seven, Bohai calling you, Bohai calling you, please answer if you hear, please answer if you hear!"

"... Yellow River, Yellow River, I am Yangtze, I am Yangtze, please answer if you hear!"

The two of them had sunflower heads on their heads, and after the heads were pulled off, the stalks were used as something like a microphone, slightly larger, similar to the head-mounted headphones of later generations; it sounded quite like the real thing.

As soon as the jeep entered the courtyard, the two of them stopped playing and came to the car. Li Qiang shouted loudly:

"Little Uncle, Little Uncle!"

Li Long turned off the engine, got off the jeep, patted Li Qiang's head, and asked:

"Qiangqiang, have you finished your homework?"

Li Qiang raised his head proudly:

"Finished!"

Li Long nodded. Actually, he also knew that with Li Juan supervising, it was impossible for Li Qiang not to finish his homework. School was about to start, and the children's playing could be considered the final madness.

At this time, Li Qing Xia had gone to Shicheng to sell fish. There wasn't much work left in the fields now. The Li family planted a lot; after the wheat was harvested, there were still five mu of oil sunflowers, five mu of corn, and the rest was watermelon.

Oil sunflowers were planted mainly for oil, of course, half of it needed to be handed over as public grain—handing over public grain didn't just mean handing over grain, but also oil crops. The oil crops planted by the Fourth Team were mainly flax and rapeseed in the past, and in the last two years, they slowly changed to oil sunflowers, mainly because the yield was higher than the other two.

Even forty years later, the yields of rapeseed and flax were still relatively low, and they were almost not planted on the northern slope of Tianshan. On the contrary, in the Yili River Valley, places like ZS County and NLK County planted more, and the area was also relatively large.

Later, the rapeseed flowers in ZS County also became a world-famous scenic spot, and coupled with economic crops like perilla, the colors were very beautiful, attracting many people.

Corn was planted mainly to feed pigs and chickens—of course, quite a few good ones would also be selected to be processed into corn flour, and the family would burn corn flour paste to drink.

Li Juan and Li Qiang would also ask to keep some, and when the person who popped popcorn came, they would pop some and keep it to eat.

Du Chunfang was picking tomatoes in the vegetable garden, preparing to make some sauce later. Of course, before making the sauce, she would squeeze out the seeds and dry them to keep for use next year.

There were vegetable plots back home in the past, but that little vegetable plot couldn't be compared with this one at all, and the vegetables planted weren't so abundant—when had they ever seen such endless vegetables?

Most of the vegetables in each family's vegetable garden couldn't be eaten, and now it was time for the preparation work of making sauce, drying vegetables, and pickling pickles.

Li Long patted Li Qiang to let him go play, and he himself went to help Du Chunfang carry a basket of tomatoes out of the vegetable garden, asking while carrying:

"Mother, where are my big brother and sister-in-law?"

"Went to the watermelon field." Du Chunfang smiled and followed Li Long out, saying while walking, "The watermelons have started to bear fruit, they went to spray medicine, a piece of land has insects."

Big brother and sister-in-law had high hopes for the watermelon field. The harvest from the watermelons last year allowed Li Jianguo to buy a tractor directly, and that was only ten mu of land. This year, twenty mu, it would definitely be more than last year's harvest.

Therefore, Li Jianguo and Liang Yuemei would be more dedicated.

Li Long carried the basket to under the shed, put it down, and prepared to help Du Chunfang wash the bottles for the tomato sauce.

"Don't worry about it, go do your own thing." Du Chunfang didn't want Li Long to do these chores; she stubbornly believed that these chores were for women to do, and men shouldn't interfere.

Li Long smiled and planned to go to Xie Yun Dong's house to take a look.

He hadn't even started the jeep when the sound of a tractor came from outside.

There were only a few families in the Fourth Team with tractors. Li Long walked to the door and saw that the one driving the tractor was Liang Dacheng.

Li Long pointed forward, and then walked toward his own courtyard in front.

Liang Dacheng slowed down the tractor and entered the courtyard with Li Long.

After the tractor turned off, Liang Dacheng jumped down and said to Li Long with a smile:

"Just heard the neighbor's kid say your jeep was driven back, so I thought you had arrived."

Li Long opened the room door, took out two small stools from inside, handed one to Liang Dacheng, put one by the door himself, didn't sit down, but went to the vegetable garden to pick a tomato, eating while asking:

"How about it? Harvested quite a bit this year, right?"

"Hey, Brother Shuangcheng and I harvested more than three thousand mu, nearly four thousand mu this wheat season!"

"You two can really fight!" Li Long was startled listening; last year he seemed to have harvested more than two thousand mu, and even that had tanned him into a black charcoal head.

But thinking about it again, they were brothers taking turns, so it was normal to harvest a bit more.

"Hey, that's right! Xie Yun Dong harvested about three thousand mu, and Tao Daqiang too. Your big brother harvested quite a bit too; adding our team and the Third and Fourth Teams, it's almost three thousand mu. If it weren't for the fact that the First Team also had a harvester, your big brother might have harvested even more."

It was indeed an era of profiteering. Li Long calculated that the cost of harvesting wheat was just oil money and labor costs. As for the depreciation of the harvester and tractor, that basically didn't count for much.

Calculating this way, in one wheat season, these people earned an average of four or five thousand yuan—after all, oil was cheap these days.

Earning a tractor in one wheat season; if this matter were to be said out, it could shock people's eyes all over the floor.

It could make many people envious to death.

"Did you ever think money was so easy to earn?" Li Long said with a smile while eating the tomato.

"Yeah." Liang Dacheng said with emotion, "In the past, when catching fish to sell, earning ten or twenty yuan a day, I felt this money was enough, much stronger than those workers in the factory.

Now suddenly earning so much, it really feels a bit uneasy... I don't know..."

Liang Dacheng stopped mid-sentence. Li Long knew what he wanted to say and said with a smile:

"Don't worry, we earned this money cleanly and within the scope allowed by the state. Not robbing, not stealing, and not breaking the law, there won't be anything wrong."

Liang Dacheng nodded.

Li Long said with a smile again:

"If there really was anything wrong, that Wang the Money-Grubber would have had an accident long ago, it wouldn't be our turn."

Once Wang the Money-Grubber was mentioned, Liang Dacheng laughed. That's right, Wang the Money-Grubber was the first in the team to use a tractor to work and collect money; if there really was anything wrong, it would definitely be him first.

There were people like Wang the Money-Grubber in every production team. If they didn't have accidents, then Liang Dacheng and the others definitely wouldn't either. "Compared to them, the money you earned really isn't much." Li Long gave Liang Dacheng another reassurance, "Think about our team, plowing, sowing, harrowing, leveling, how much money is that in a year?"

Turning it over in his mind and calculating it again, Liang Dacheng was finally completely relieved this time. Compared to Wang the Money-Grubber, although he saw this money as big money, it was far worse than the other person's.

"Relieved now?" Li Long smiled.

"Relieved, relieved. By the way, this is the money I should give you." Liang Dacheng took out a schoolbag and handed it to Li Long, "There are four thousand inside. Once you take this money, we will be completely relieved. Although the tractor has been driven for more than half a year, to be honest, I only feel a bit steady now."

Previously, Liang Dacheng said that the two brothers harvested nearly four thousand mu of land, so it was less than four thousand mu, counting seven thousand and less than eight thousand.

After deducting costs, this money was left with about seven thousand yuan.

Liang Dacheng was equivalent to giving most of the profits to Li Long.

Li Long wasn't polite either, took the money, and didn't count it. He said to Liang Dacheng:

"Next year, just give me half of what's left after deducting costs."

He counted this as original investment and should take the big share, so Li Long wouldn't show off by being generous and taking less.

Without the tractor and harvester he bought for Liang Dacheng, Liang Dacheng would have had to work for at least two years to get into this profitable job, and it was hard to say whether he could still earn money like this by then.

No errors in the content, take a look!

The point was that even if Liang Dacheng bought a tractor by then, whether he could buy a harvester, or whether he could see that harvesters made money, was hard to say.

Seeing Li Long take the money, Liang Dacheng said with a smile:

"We'll talk about next year. To be honest, with a clear conscience, even if I gave you another thousand, it wouldn't be a loss. But we were thinking about buying some other things, and we still have to buy medicine for my father and mother, so we kept a bit more."

A big reason why Li Long chose Liang Dacheng and Xie Yun Dong was that they were trustworthy and had a conscience, and knew how to be grateful.

Otherwise, with the kind of profit-sharing agreement he had with these two people, if they cheated him behind his back, he would have no way at all.

At least for now, Li Long's eye for people was still quite accurate, and he hadn't picked the wrong person.

Earning four thousand without doing anything in one wheat season, this was proof...

Of course, it wasn't just four thousand; Xie Yun Dong still had some there.

Tao Daqiang was the first to follow him, and Li Long didn't split the money he earned; it was all Tao's.

But this was what Tao Daqiang deserved. After all, when many people felt Li Long was unreliable, it was Tao Daqiang who followed him and supported him without hesitation.

Liang Dacheng handed the money to Li Long, chatted with Li Long for a few more sentences, and then drove the tractor away.

Although it wasn't the busiest time now, there was quite a bit of work in the fields, so he still had to drive the tractor to the fields.

Li Long carried the bag containing the money into the room and took the quilt from the room out to dry.

The sun in August and September was still quite poisonous, and it was just the right time to dry quilts and such.

The vegetables in the vegetable plot here were mainly chili, tomatoes, celery, carrots, etc., and things like yardlong beans and cowpeas were already out of season.

He picked another small, slightly sandy tomato in the vegetable garden, eating while carrying the money bag toward the backyard. Originally, he thought that since Liang Dacheng knew he was back, Xie Yun Dong should know too.

But after waiting for a while, Xie Yun Dong didn't come. Li Long guessed he should have gone to the fields to work.

So he dismissed the idea of going to his house and prepared to go to the backyard to do some chores.

Before lunch, Li Jianguo and Liang Yuemei drove the tractor back, and not long after, Xie Yun Dong also drove the tractor over.

One could feel that Xie Yun Dong had just returned from the fields; there were still a few stalks of long wormwood grass stuck to the side of the tractor's rear bucket.

Before eating, Li Long led Xie Yun Dong to the front yard to talk.

"Little Long, you finally came." Xie Yun Dong got off the car, also carrying a cloth bag in his hand, "If you didn't come, we would have gone to the street to find you—we were worried."

Xie Yun Dong gave Li Long three thousand five hundred yuan. Li Long didn't decline either and said to Xie Yun Dong what he had said to Liang Dacheng.

Li Long could feel that Xie Yun Dong was quite at ease and content now. Perhaps in his heart, this tractor finally truly belonged to him now, right?

At least even if he returned the tractor to Li Long now, he could afford a new one.

Of course, this couldn't be done.

After lunch, Li Long was driven back to the county by Li Jianguo—Li Long originally wanted to go to the watermelon field to help, but Li Jianguo's meaning was that it wasn't needed, and he should just take good care of his wife and children.

The next day, Li Long waited for Liang Wenyu in the large courtyard. He brought Li Long five thousand yuan, which was the money for buying the tractor.

Li Long wasn't polite either—originally he left money for the Liang family to buy a tractor, later because he went to the tractor factory, he simply bought the tractor together, and at that time the Liang family returned the cash to him; now it counted as giving the tractor money too.

It could be seen that although Liang Wenyu was a bit darker, he was obviously much more confident.

"How much did you harvest this wheat season?" Li Long asked.

"Three thousand eight." Liang Wenyu gestured twice, "How about it?"

"Really not bad!" Li Long praised sincerely, "Last year I harvested less than three thousand mu of land."

"Hehe, this year more people are willing to use harvesters, and besides, my father and I take turns, so we harvest more."

This was a good thing. Only when more and more people were willing to accept harvesters to harvest wheat would such mechanization become more popular in the future.

It could also promote the process of mechanization in reverse.

Li Long only hoped that the large tractor could be developed and introduced as soon as possible; that was what made money.

Think about the machine plowing fee of seven or eight yuan per mu, a large-horsepower tractor harvesting four hundred mu in a day and night, that would be...

Okay, no need to calculate.

A crazy era!

After Liang Wenyu left, Li Long packed up the last batch of black tiger-paw mushrooms drying in his courtyard and took them to the purchasing station to sell.

The income for the wheat season was twelve thousand five hundred yuan. Although it didn't completely recover the investment in the tractor, it was close. Next year it would basically be pure profit.

In the wheat season, Li Long didn't drive the harvester himself, but the black tiger-paw mushrooms he picked this season and collected from Sun Jia Qiang also sold for nearly four thousand yuan, plus the forty-something harvesters sold from spring until now, about ten thousand yuan; in this regard, the account had twenty-six thousand five hundred.

He felt that money came much faster this year than last year.

For the next period of time, Li Long still went into the mountains for a turn almost every day. Sun Jia Qiang had already left the small wooden cabin and returned home.

Mainly because after the black tiger-paw mushroom season ended, there was nothing good to do in the mountains during this period. The Codonopsis season was still until October, and he couldn't wait and wanted to go home early.

Li Long entering the mountains was mainly waiting for Halimu and the others; after all, he still planned to drive the tractor into the mountains to harvest pasture for Halimu and the others when the time came.

Of course, he also wanted to see the expressions of Halimu and the others when they saw the changed winter nest and the sheep-washing pool. (End of chapter)