Chapter 717

Li Long sent Li Qing Xia back to the Fourth Team on the morning of the second day.

Gu Xiaoxia was also quite happy to see Li Qing Xia when she returned home yesterday afternoon. Li Long had mentioned before that one of the important things his father-in-law did when returning to his hometown was to write their names in the genealogy.

Although Gu Xiaoxia, as a state cadre, didn't care too much about this aspect, she could appreciate that Li Qing Xia's move showed his importance to the women of the Li family.

No matter what, he was striving to have their names in the genealogy; doing this must have cost money, effort, and energy, so she was quite moved.

As a college student from the old days, Gu Bo Yuan's ideological concepts weren't particularly open, and he only admired Li Qing Xia's move, so he accompanied the old Comrade Li to drink a few cups of wine in the evening and praised him vigorously.

Li Qing Xia took out the genealogy at that time to show Li Long and the others, pointing to those names and saying proudly:

"After one trip back, taking a month or so, this matter is done, and my heart is at ease. Handing over the clan head position to Anmin can also be considered as living up to him."

Li Qing Xia knew that after he left, each branch, or rather his own branch, would always have people slowly studying the genealogy and then seeing his little actions, so contributing so much more money was actually to shut everyone's mouths.

It was said that the clan heads of the other branches contributed at most a few hundred yuan, and some even contributed the same amount as other clan members.

After all, this is a new society, and the clan head doesn't get more land than others, and the production teams aren't managed by the clan head; there are village directors and village party secretaries.

Being the only one like him, contributing so much money to get things done, he had to have some privileges.

After Li Long and Gu Xiaoxia saw those names and heard Li Qing Xia say that his commendation from the autonomous region had been written into the chronicle, they specifically flipped through it and saw it was indeed there.

The chronicle of the genealogy was recorded by year, and Li Long's matter was in 1983, the second to last entry on the last page of the chronicle.

Looking at this entry, both of them felt quite proud; although this wasn't an official newspaper or magazine, nor was it a county gazette, as a genealogy, Li Long could be considered to have left a good name.

As for how long it would last, that was hard to say.

This evening was basically spent chatting about the genealogy and Li Qing Xia showing Li Long and the others the old items he had brought back.

Among them was a pile of silver dollars, all bought by Li Qing Xia for a few yuan each. Li Long vaguely remembered that in later generations, some silver dollars had a small circulation and were quite expensive, but he couldn't distinguish them, so he just kept them.

There were also bronze mirrors, bronze incense burners, Buddha statues, and so on.

There was no large porcelain, but there were a few snuff bottles, which seemed to be made of jade, porcelain, and glass, and they looked quite beautiful.

There were no small copper coins, but there were about a dozen of the larger copper coins, which all looked like they were worth ten, a hundred, or a thousand; all in all, they weighed about ten kilograms, and it was hard for Li Qing Xia to bring them back from thousands of miles away.

They didn't touch the Liang family's genealogy; it was intact in a cardboard box, and Li Qing Xia specifically put a seal on it, mainly feeling that it was more appropriate for the Liang family to open it themselves.

After sending Li Qing Xia back to the Fourth Team, Li Long didn't stop much and drove the jeep to send the Liang family's genealogy over.

Liang Donglou was quite excited to see his family's genealogy; he originally wanted to let Li Long stay for a meal, but Li Long said he had serious business, didn't stop, and then drove to Qingshuihe Village.

Meng Hai and He Yuqing were waiting at Meng Hai's house, and as soon as He Yuqing saw Li Long driving the jeep, he revealed a smile.

After Li Long got out of the car, He Yuqing said with a smile:

"Comrade Li Long, you are really biased towards Old Meng; I guessed that as soon as you came, you would go to their house, so I was waiting here. Let's go, let's go, go to my house, the chicken is already slaughtered, today we'll use the method you mentioned last time, Comrade Li Long, and have a big plate of chicken."

During the previous meals, when the Meng family slaughtered a chicken, Li Long casually mentioned the method for big plate chicken, and both He Yuqing and Meng Hai remembered it; this time, when inviting Li Long to dinner, He Yuqing decided to make this.

Li Long drove the jeep and brought both He Yuqing and Meng Hai to the He house, where He Yuqing's wife was already stewing the chicken.

Big plate chicken needs potatoes, spicy skin, and onions. At this time, there was no bean paste for sale, so other seasonings were used instead.

At this time, every family raised quite a few chickens. This year, He Yuqing earned some money by weaving handles and tying big brooms, so these eggs and chickens were mostly eaten by their own family.

"Should we go and see the traces of the wild boars first?" Li Long asked, "It's not far, right?"

"No rush, no rush, after tying these big brooms, it's not easy for you to come here, so you must eat before going to see. Don't worry, we won't drink alcohol at noon today, it won't delay things." He Yuqing had finally managed to invite Li Long to a meal, and his focus was on this.

The chickens raised at home could run and jump, so the meat was usually quite tough and not easy to stew until soft, but it tasted good. Before eating, He Yuqing talked about some of the situation in the village, which was nothing more than the fact that after tying big brooms this year, several families bought bicycles, and some families added donkey carts, etc.

Needless to say, more than half of this was thanks to Li Long.

Li Long didn't take credit for this, and he said with a smile:

"Let's not talk about this anymore. You earned money, and I completed the task and got a reward; this is a win-win. I'll promise here that as long as there are similar jobs later, I will definitely prioritize you."

With these words from Li Long, both He Yuqing and Meng Hai were excited.

"Comrade Li Long, you don't know, the people in the next village don't know how much they envy us. Although everyone has divided the land to the households, we farmers rely on this land, and we don't worry about food, and we can finally eat our fill of fine grain."

"But if we talk about getting rich, the other village teams really don't have any particularly good ways. If it weren't for you, our team wouldn't be any different from the others."

"That's right." He Yuqing said with emotion, "If we don't compare, we don't have much feeling, but comparing with other teams, just this big broom tying job alone puts our village ahead of the others. Each family can earn a few hundred yuan more, which is more than the entire net income from the land."

Both of them were telling the truth. At this time, the output from the land had to be handed over as public grain, and the price of public grain was set by the state. After leaving enough food and seeds, the money obtained from selling the negotiated grain averaged a few hundred per family.

It really wasn't as much as the combined handle weaving and big broom tying—some of those who were good at tying big brooms earned even more than selling grain.

It was equivalent to doubling their income, so the contrast was very obvious.

Li Long hurriedly waved his hand and said:

"Alright, alright, you also sent me jade and meat, which I have already thanked you for, so let's skip this; I can already smell the fragrance of the meat..."

Knowing that Li Long didn't want to hear these words, He Yuqing and Meng Hai looked at each other, both feeling that Li Long was a down-to-earth person who didn't want others to nag about the good deeds he had done; no wonder he was commended by the autonomous region.

The topic turned to wild game.

"We are close to the mountains here, not only wild boars and Mongolian gazelles, but occasionally we can see roe deer, and we can also see those with horns that are like sheep, with strange noses..."

"Saiga antelope." Li Long said, "Those horns are good things."

"Hmm, I've seen them twice, but they run especially fast, and we can't catch up at all..."

Li Long smiled and said:

"Last winter, in the place close to the mountains above you, I hunted two."

"Hey, it seems Comrade Li Long, you really like hunting." Meng Hai said with a smile, "It's good to have a gun."

It was the same old saying; because eating meat every day was still a luxury, being able to hunt meant having more opportunities to eat meat than others, which was still very enviable.

Besides, hunting wasn't just about looking at animals; you had to know how to ambush, how to track, etc.

Li Long was also a layman who entered the trade; he ambushed more than he tracked, and after his rebirth, his physical strength, endurance, and five senses were greatly enhanced, which gave him the foundation to hunt prey easily.

Otherwise, he would have been clueless.

Hunting wasn't as simple as poking through a window paper, but with the blessing of his physical fitness, Li Long really did easily poke through that layer of thick cowhide paper.

"We also had that kind of bear that can stand up, not as tall as me, but it's quite scary; looking at it from afar, it's just like a person." He Yuqing continued, "If it weren't for a group of dogs in the village chasing it away, it might have bitten someone!"

"Not as tall as a person?" Li Long was puzzled, "A small bear?"

"Doesn't look like it, it should be an adult, right? It runs quite fast, don't know what it eats, it's about the size of a half-grown boy..."

Li Long immediately understood; since it wasn't a small bear, there should be two kinds of bears in the mountains.

One was this kind of black bear, smaller than an adult, brown-black; the other was that kind of big guy over two meters tall, which was a brown bear, or called a grizzly bear.

Of course, for hunters, both were good things—Li Long was actually looking forward to encountering this one, which was also quite good.

While chatting, He Yuqing's wife had already stewed the big plate chicken and brought it up.

It was indeed brought up on a large plate, filled to the brim, pointed, and very fragrant.

The three of them ate at a small low table in the courtyard; Li Long greeted He Yuqing's wife, but she didn't sit at the table, eating in the kitchen herself, saying she would let the men chat and eat.

Big plate chicken is served with belt noodles, which are wide noodles. At this time, women in Northern Tianshan basically know how to pull noodles; wide noodles are easier to pull than round noodles, no need to roll them round, just pull them open directly.

After stewing big plate chicken, you have to leave some soup; the best way to eat it is to pour the vegetables into the basin (plate) containing the noodles, let the soup soak the noodles first, eat the meat and potatoes at this time, and when the noodles are covered with the vegetable soup, pick up a pair of chopsticks and put them into your bowl, eating them like mixed noodles; that taste, hey! It's very satisfying!

To stew the chicken meat until it's flavorful, it takes a long time, and after a long time, the potatoes put in are basically stewed until they have no soul, and there is sandy potato powder in the soup, semi-pasty; this state of eating noodles is Li Long's favorite.

"Comrade Li Long, eat more meat." He Yuqing greeted, "Don't just eat noodles, this chicken was slaughtered this morning, not an old rooster, it's from this year, the taste is very good!"

Li Long said with a smile while eating:

"I know, I know, it's all delicious, it's all delicious."

"This dish made with the method you mentioned, Comrade Li Long, is really good. When winter comes, my family will eat chicken like this. Before, I only knew how to stir-fry chicken with chili, or boil it, or braise it; eating it like this is satisfying!" Meng Hai said while eating.

The meal lasted for thirty or forty minutes; after the three of them finished eating, they drank a bowl of noodle soup to digest, and then walked to the edge of the field, just to digest.

Large tracts of land had already been plowed, some were sown with winter wheat, some were left for other crops next year, and individual plots were not plowed. Meng Hai led the way, walking about seven or eight hundred meters, and came to the corner of a large field, where there was a patch of alfalfa.

Alfalfa grew unevenly in the field, and many pits were rooted out in the field; some alfalfa roots were dug out and broken, and some alfalfa buds were also eaten.

There were hoof prints by the pits, and some feces that looked quite fresh.

Li Long recognized at a glance that these were indeed the hoof prints and feces of wild boars.

He observed for a while; this was a group of about twenty wild boars, half of which were those small wild boars born in early spring this year, which were now about twenty or thirty kilograms.

However, for such small wild boars, the meat is the most delicious, not yet at the time of being smelly, and the meat is tender.

Hunting is definitely possible, but if it were just himself, he could hunt at most one or two. For such a large group, if he wanted to hunt a few more, he would have to call more people.

"How is it? Comrade Li Long, is it recent?" Meng Hai asked.

"Yes, these are today's traces." Li Long said, "I plan to come and ambush at five or six tomorrow morning..."

"That's too much trouble, you just stay here today and come in the middle of the night. You have to travel so far in the middle of the night and then come to ambush, won't it delay time?" Meng Hai said directly, "What, do you think our team can't accommodate you?"

"That's not it, I have a hunting gun at home, and I want to bring that over to hunt together... To tell you the truth, I have a task for hunting wild boars this time..."

!

Li Long explained the agreement with the team, Meng Hai looked at He Yuqing, and said with a smile:

"What's that? You just stay at ease, I'll figure out the gun matter. If you weren't here, it wouldn't be easy for me to handle, but since you are here, I have a reason, and the gun is easy to get; I'll accompany you at night, and if you think it's not enough, I'll find two more militiamen.

Don't worry, as long as there are wild boars, we'll ambush well, and hunting a few more is definitely no problem."

Since he said so, Li Long thought about it and agreed.

Anyway, he had already told Gu Xiaoxia the day before that he wouldn't be back today, so she should understand that he was handling this matter.

"That's fine, Old He, you accompany Comrade Li Long first, I'll go back and arrange this matter first, but Comrade Li Long will stay at my house tonight—let's agree first, you treated lunch, tonight it's my turn."

After Meng Hai finished speaking, he turned around and walked quickly towards the village.

He Yuqing called him twice, but Meng Hai pretended not to hear.

"This Old Meng, he's afraid I'll stop you from going to his house tonight." He Yuqing smiled, and then said to Li Long, "Comrade Li Long, let's go, I'll take you to see our surroundings."

Qingshuihe Village is not far from the Southern Mountains, located in an old river valley. Or rather, there used to be a river here, but now the upper reaches are dry, and this area that was once washed by the river has become a good place for people to settle and farm.

It's called a river valley, but in fact, the difference in height from the surrounding terrain is not great; this area has some undulations, and closer to the Southern Mountains in the south, the terrain is relatively flatter.

There is another small river next to the village; the fish Li Long ate at the Meng family earlier were caught in this small river. There are willow and elm trees by the river, and you can see people grazing in the grass beach in the distance.

When the two of them turned back to the village, everyone they met would take the initiative to greet them.

The villagers in the village were already slightly familiar with Li Long, knowing that he brought everyone the job of tying big brooms, and everyone had a smile on their face when greeting Li Long.

Li Long was still a little unaccustomed—people in the Fourth Team were familiar, and even if everyone was grateful to Li Long, they usually wouldn't show it too much on their faces, but it was different here.

After returning to He Yuqing's house, Li Long finally relaxed.

Not long after, Meng Hai came over and drove Li Long back to his house in the jeep.

He Yuqing had other things to do, so he didn't participate anymore.

"I found four guns, two five-sixes?"

"That's no problem." Li Long had already determined the wind direction and the ambush position while surveying the terrain, "Let's go early, we might have to lie down for a while."

"What's there to be afraid of, it's not winter, although it's a bit cool at night, just wear more. I told them to bring their coats, spread them on the ground to lie down, and prevent dampness. I've prepared one for you too."

"Good."

Meng Hai thought very thoroughly, and Li Long was also very satisfied.

Arriving at the Meng family, Li Long saw the guns he had prepared after getting out of the car.

Five-six semi-automatic, looking even newer than Li Long's own.

The other guns were in the hands of others, Meng Hai said he let them wipe and maintain the guns.

"No matter what we hunt today, I'll let you take it all away." Meng Hai said with a smile, "Don't worry, even if we don't hunt enough this time, Mongolian gazelles and such will come near our team later, and I'll tell you then."

Li Long smiled and didn't speak; he definitely couldn't really take everything away. It's just that if he stated his thoughts now, Meng Hai would definitely refute them, so it's better to wait until they hunt something.

Maybe the wild boars won't come tonight, then it would be a blind shot.

He ate his fill at noon, and at night, Meng Hai's family stewed fish and pasted cakes, and Li Long still ate quite a bit.

The Meng family didn't have a TV and went to bed early; Li Long's biological clock was good, and he planned to get up at five.

Meng Hai and the others agreed on this time too, and if someone didn't arrive, he would go and call them.

Li Long slept in the east room of the Meng family, which was originally for the children, and the children were with their parents today. At this time, don't be particular about anything.

Li Long woke up on time at five, and when he was dressed, Meng Hai's knocking sounded.

"I'm up," Li Long carried the gun to open the door, "You got up quite early too."

"Hey, my wife didn't sleep much, the child ate too much at night and was tossing." Meng Hai whispered, "Then shall we go?"

"Good."

The two of them went out wearing coats, and it was still quite cool outside. When they reached the gate, there were voices of people walking over on the road.

Li Long had good eyes and could see two people together, one carrying a hunting gun and one carrying a five-six submachine gun, both wearing coats, chatting in low voices about something.

Of these two people, the one carrying the hunting gun was about forty years old, about one meter sixty-five tall, medium build, and the one carrying the submachine gun was less than thirty years old, thin and tall.

"Qin Hongbing, Qiao Haiyang." Meng Hai introduced, "This is Li Long, you all know him, where is Ma Dazhuang?"

"Went to take a shit, will be here in a while." Qin Hongbing explained.

"Hey, lazy donkey on the mill—let's walk over there." Meng Hai said.

Saying that, he led them towards the edge of the field.

When they walked out of the village, someone hurried over from behind; Li Long guessed it should be Ma Dazhuang, he wasn't tall, his figure was a bit thin, but his movements looked quite agile.

Don't know why he's called Dazhuang.

"Dazhuang, is your stomach uncomfortable?" Meng Hai asked.

"No, it's just a habit to take a shit in the morning." Ma Dazhuang replied with a smile.

Li Long didn't speak, and the group quietly walked to the alfalfa field, and then Meng Hai looked at Li Long.

"Right here, in the northeast corner, those pits rooted by the wild boars, we'll ambush." Li Long arranged it without hesitation, "Find your own positions, I'll tell you when to shoot later, and the direction each of you should shoot, don't mess up the targets."

Five guns, if everyone aimed at the same target, it would be a waste of bullets, so Li Long knew that this designated shooting field was very important.

When the others heard this, they obediently went to find places to lie down first.

There was a slight northwest wind, so they lay in the northeast direction, which was convenient for ambushing the wild boars coming down from the Southern Mountains and was also downwind, making it difficult to be discovered.

The first to find a position was Meng Hai; his position was on the far left, so Li Long let him aim at the target on the far left first, based on small pigs or easy-to-hit ones.

He trusted Meng Hai's marksmanship.

After Li Long set the targets for the other few people and just lay down, he heard movement from the south.

The ground began to shake, and those wild boars rushed out from the red willow bushes in the Gobi desert to the south like a charge, heading straight for the alfalfa field here!

Obviously, they were already very familiar with this plot of land, knowing that coming early meant eating good things.

Li Long took a deep breath, gripped his gun, and prepared to aim.

The timing was such that it seemed like these wild boars were rushing up to die.

Then let's give them a quick end! (End of chapter)