Chapter 716

Li Qing Xia had originally thought that the task of updating the genealogy would be finished in half a month, after which he would return to Northern Tianshan and just wait.

He hadn't expected to stay in his hometown for over a month.

Li Anmin finally agreed to Li Qing Xia's plan and added the names of everyone in his branch to the genealogy.

Just as Li Qing Xia had thought, everyone in the four branches—Spring, Summer, Autumn, and Winter—mainly looked at whether the genealogy updates within their own branch were correct; basically, no one bothered with the names added by other branches.

Why bother with so much? It wasn't their own branch, and to put it bluntly, they were already beyond the five degrees of mourning.

They were just under the same ancestor.

Li Qing Xia lived in his own house, and from time to time, he would receive notices from Li Anmin to attend meetings, mainly to discuss whether to accept other collateral branches into the genealogy—their four branches were the main line, but there were other collateral branches; some were on record and could continue to be added to the genealogy, while others came forward themselves, claiming to be Li family members from a certain generation who had moved away and put down roots elsewhere.

This was quite complicated. Some were considered lost population who had established a separate branch and later found their roots; others were recorded as deceased in the original genealogy, but then a collateral branch would come forward saying they hadn't died at the time. Such cases required meetings of all branches to discuss whether to admit them into the clan.

Li Qing Xia just played the role of a "nice guy" when he came; he basically didn't speak, and if people asked for his opinion, he would say whatever was fine.

He had already decided to hand over the clan head duties of this branch to Li Anmin anyway, so there was no need to show his presence at this time.

As long as the upcoming genealogy update was finished, he wanted to rush back.

Just think about how comfortable it was staying in Northern Tianshan: setting nets to catch fish in summer, breaking ice to catch fish in winter—if you wanted to work, you worked; if you didn't, you just stayed at home. How comfortable.

There was also a large river near Li Lou; it had been cleared in previous years, and quite a few human bones, rusted guns, and other miscellaneous things were pulled out. This lake connected to the Grand Canal, and in a few years, when cultural relics became valuable, people would drive boats on the Grand Canal using strong magnets to suck up things that had sunk in ancient times.

When Li Qing Xia and Li Jianguo were young, there were plenty of fish and shrimp in this river, but later they gradually decreased; after all, there were too many common people living along the river, and when food and clothing were scarce, everyone looked for things to eat in the river.

At that time, firewood was scarce, so things like clams were the most despised; finding wild duck eggs was best, catching some fish was also good, and if you couldn't catch fish, you'd get some river snails; the worst were clams, which were hard to boil and wasted firewood.

Thinking about it, another great advantage of Northern Tianshan was that as long as you went out, there was no shortage of firewood, and coal was cheap. Even thirty or forty years later, coal in Northern Tianshan wouldn't be that expensive, at most a few hundred yuan a ton, whereas in twenty or thirty years, the price of coal here in Li Lou would reach over a thousand yuan a ton, and it wouldn't even be as good as the coal hauled in Northern Tianshan.

Although he had lived here for most of his life, no matter how he felt, life over there was just better. He didn't know about the future, but at least for now, it was.

The genealogy update couldn't be finished in a short time, so Li Qing Xia couldn't leave. In his spare time, he would go to the market whenever he had nothing to do, buying some things if he encountered anything interesting.

At this time, people in the market started to get active, and anything could be brought out to sell. He collected quite a few old items, planning to take them back to Northern Tianshan when he returned to see if Li Long wanted them.

For now, this was the only pleasure left.

Updating the genealogy was not a simple matter; every branch had to be accounted for clearly, additions and subtractions had to be made, and after each branch finished updating, the chronicle of major events had to be recorded clearly.

Once, during a meeting, someone questioned the authenticity of the commendation Li Long received from the autonomous region as recorded in the chronicle. As a result, before Li Qing Xia could speak, Li Anmin said he had already called the county in Northern Tianshan to check, and it was a genuine commendation.

With official inquiries, the other side naturally wouldn't hide anything.

Li Qing Xia felt quite proud, but he still had some opinions about the branch that targeted him. If he hadn't intended to stop being the clan head, he would have really planned to retaliate—these were all considered minor matters.

After the meeting ended and the genealogy was finalized, the next step was engraving the stone tablets and printing. This was now just a matter of waiting.

This time, every family had to contribute money; after all, engraving stone was quite expensive. As the outgoing clan head of the second branch, Li Qing Xia set an example by contributing one thousand yuan himself.

This was truly a grand gesture—although the money contributed by the other branches combined was more than his, the most any single person contributed was three hundred.

Money was still very valuable at this time.

The four branches had agreed that each branch would contribute two thousand, which was the total printing cost. Li Qing Xia contributed half of his branch's share alone, so the amount the other clan members had to pay was much less, and everyone was quite grateful to him.

However, the aftereffects were also significant. Just think about how long his family had been in Northern Tianshan, and he could suddenly pull out so much money—what did that mean? It meant it was easy to make money in Northern Tianshan.

Quite a few people were restless, wanting to follow Li Qing Xia to Northern Tianshan to develop.

Li Qing Xia was rather vague at this time, neither saying yes nor saying no.

Li Junfeng actually regretted it quite a bit, but he didn't say anything for the moment; he would send some vegetables from his home to Li Qing Xia from time to time, and if Li Qing Xia had any difficult matters, he would hand them over to him to handle.

He also knew the thoughts of others, and quite a few people had inquired with him; he knew Li Qing Xia definitely didn't want to take anyone with him, so naturally, he couldn't say anything.

Although the household registration of Li Qing Xia and his wife had been moved, the land hadn't been taken back, and Li Junfeng was currently farming it. The ancestral graves of Li Qing Xia's branch were on this land, and Li Qing Xia also asked him to look after them.

If Li Junfeng wanted to go to Northern Tianshan, he could have gone himself, after all, he had been there once, but in the end, he decided not to go. His family had more land than others, and he had earned some money in Northern Tianshan, so his family foundation was more solid; both his and his wife's families were here, so he would just honestly stay here.

Li Qing Xia ran out from time to time, partly because he couldn't stay idle, and partly to go to the Liang family's side. They were also updating their genealogy, and after he found out, he called the team headquarters of Li Jianguo's side through Li Anmin to explain the situation.

Liang Donglou didn't come back, he just mailed one hundred yuan back. Li Qing Xia's intention was that when their genealogy was finished, there was no need to mail it; he would help bring it back.

Quite a few people here were waiting for Li Qing Xia to leave; at first, they were vigilant when they often saw him leaving home, but later, seeing him go out often without carrying any luggage, they relaxed.

They had no idea that the important things Li Qing Xia brought were kept with Li Anmin, and the two pots of wine were also given to him. Finally, he waited until his own genealogy was out and the Liang family's genealogy was in hand; he didn't even return to the team, but directly took the things from Li Anmin and went to the county town.

He left.

When those in the team who wanted to follow him to Northern Tianshan saw that Li Qing Xia hadn't returned home for two or three days, and went to inquire, they realized Li Qing Xia had already returned to Northern Tianshan.

This time, Li Qing Xia took the initiative to buy a sleeper ticket—he knew that if he came back to his hometown again later, it would probably only happen once every few years.

Most importantly, the things he was bringing back this time were very important; not to mention the four-volume genealogy of his own Li family, there was also a four-volume set of the Liang family's genealogy.

In his handbag, wrapped in old newspapers, were quite a few old items he had bought for Li Long, as well as a bag of sesame cakes, which were for his grandchildren to taste.

To prevent them from spoiling on the road, he specifically asked the baker to bake them until they were very dry and crispy, so these things couldn't be damaged. He just bought a sleeper ticket; anyway, he had the money!

Another important reason Li Qing Xia didn't want to take people from the team was that he didn't want to cause trouble for his children and grandchildren. If he brought people, he didn't have the ability to arrange for them himself, so he would have to let Li Long figure out a way. Wouldn't that be causing trouble for Li Long?

If it had been his first time back, he would have liked to show off that his son Li Long was capable and could settle people. But it was different now; since he had already decided to settle his home in Northern Tianshan, and his branch would basically take root in Northern Tianshan from now on, he had to consider things from that side.

When Li Qing Xia returned to Ma County, Li Long had just finished the work of reclaiming the saline-alkali land.

After the new horse pen, or rather the new cattle and sheep pen, was built, the villagers didn't need to help anymore. Li Long asked Wang Cai Mi to plow the remaining twenty-plus mu of saline-alkali land, and then opened two alkali-draining ditches on the west and north sides, while also having him plow a canal on the south side, leading to a main canal that went west of the production team's residential area to the farmland.

Li Long intended to give his twenty-plus mu of saline-alkali land a good watering when the team released water to irrigate the winter wheat, soaking the layer of alkali on top, and then see if he could plant something next year.

It wasn't about whether things could grow, but mainly that since the land had been reclaimed, it couldn't be left idle.

In fact, some people in the team didn't approve of Li Long reclaiming this saline-alkali land. Those with good relations with the Li family would openly find Li Jianguo or Li Long to persuade him to give up this plan; after all, developing this saline-alkali land was too difficult.

Those who didn't have good relations with their family were secretly waiting to see a joke.

Although Li Long had brought quite a few big, profitable jobs to the team over the past two or three years, benefiting almost every household in the production team, this didn't prevent a few individual households in the production team from feeling that Li Long's path was too smooth and wanting to see him stumble.

There was no help for it; human nature is like that.

!

According to Xu Chengjun's idea, since Li Long had slaughtered two pigs and treated most of the production team to several good meals, the meat he promised to distribute to the team could just be a token gesture, without needing to be so strict.

But Li Long declined the team leader's good intention, saying he planned to go into the mountains in a couple of days to hunt a few wild boars or roe deer, and then distribute meat to every household in the team in a substantial way.

When Li Qing Xia walked from the bus station to the large courtyard in the afternoon, Li Long was just talking to Meng Hai about the wild boars.

"Dad, you're back? You should have sent a telegram." Li Long opened the gate and saw Li Qing Xia, who was dusty and carrying a bag, and took the bag while speaking.

"It's not like I don't remember the way to my own home, and I didn't bring many things, so why send a telegram? You're all busy, and I'm not so old that I can't walk..."

The old Li family had a tradition: the elders didn't want to cause trouble for the children; as long as they could move, they would rather do things themselves than ask the children.

Upon hearing Li Long's address, Meng Hai knew this was the old master of the Li family, so he hurriedly came over to greet him and helped Li Long carry the things.

Yang Da Jie was watching the children, and when Li Long and the others came over, she greeted them, told Li Long to play with the children, and went to prepare food for Li Qing Xia.

"No need to cook, no need to cook, I ate sesame cakes on the road." Li Qing Xia hurriedly stopped her, "Let's not stand on ceremony."

Due to Li Qing Xia's strong request, Yang Da Jie didn't go to cook but poured tea for Li Qing Xia instead.

Seeing Li Long and the others settled, Meng Hai thought that since the old man was back, they would definitely want to talk, so he stood up to leave.

His trip to the county town this time was partly to handle business and partly to report something to Li Long.

According to Meng Hai, although the wild boar groups coming down the mountain to find food had decreased recently, there were still some. According to his observations over the past few days, there was a group of wild boars in the fields southwest of the village, active every day before dawn and leaving as soon as it was light.

Alfalfa was planted in that area, and that harvest had already been cut in autumn, but now it was sprouting again, and those wild boars were rooting it up by the roots to eat, effectively destroying the field.

Li Long had also discussed it with him, planning to drive over with people in the next two days to survey the terrain first, and if there really were wild boars, they would ambush them directly.

A major reason Meng Hai came to find Li Long was that the production team's guns had been sent back to the township armed department after a short period of inspection and maintenance.

At this time, the country was gradually starting to tighten the management of firearms—management was quite loose during the training period of the backbone militia, which was in winter. Now it was late autumn, and guns weren't allowed to be kept in the village for too long.

People like Li Long, who kept five or six semi-automatic rifles himself, were a very small minority.

Actually, Meng Hai had a gun himself, but it wasn't easy to take out. As the militia company commander, quite a few people were watching him. Especially this year, although he and He Yuqing had secured benefits for the villagers with the big broom job, the previous job of weaving handles was only participated in and profited from by a few people.

Some people didn't think about the benefits he brought, only about why they weren't called for the handle weaving job; if Meng Hai took a gun to hunt now, someone would definitely cause trouble.

Sometimes the moral upper limit of villagers is very high, but the moral lower limit of some people is also very low.

Having agreed with Meng Hai to go and take a look tomorrow, Li Long saw him out of the gate.

Only after Meng Hai left did Li Qing Xia ask:

"Xiao Long, what were you talking to him about? Hunting wild boars?"

"Yes, I plan to raise some cattle and sheep starting next year and sell meat in winter. I applied for land for a cattle and sheep pen from the team, and the team didn't charge me money, so I promised to get ten kilograms of meat for every household in the team."

Actually, in essence, Li Long still wanted to hunt. Now, even if he wanted to hunt, he needed a good excuse; he couldn't just leave his wife and children and say he was going out to play.

Yang Da Jie took good care of the two children, there was milk and milk powder at home, and Gu Xiaoxia had also started work, so Li Long felt he still needed to be busy from time to time.

Li Qing Xia originally thought he would go along, but later thought better of it. Li Long was going to handle serious business, so he would wait until winter to go if they were hunting Mongolian gazelles.

Li Long actually saw his father's intention, and he wondered if his father asked, would he agree or not?

Unexpectedly, Li Qing Xia said directly:

"Then I won't go this time. You can send me to the team in a little while; I've been back to my hometown, and with all this tossing back and forth, I need to go back and rest. When you go to hunt Mongolian gazelles in winter, I'll just follow along then."

Li Long naturally agreed wholeheartedly.

Li Long wasn't in a hurry to send his father away. Since he had finally come back, they had to chat, and Gu Xiaoxia would be off work in a little while; if he let his father leave like this, Gu Xiaoxia would scold him when she got back. (End of chapter)