Chapter 732: The Joys of Wintering: Wife, Children, and a Warm Kang

Zhao Hui had rushed over after receiving Jia Tianlong's call.

When Li Long opened the door, he saw that he was dressed quite thickly, carrying two bundled paper boxes in his hands. From Zhao Hui's expression, one could tell those boxes were quite heavy.

"Comrade Little Li, hello, hello!" After seeing Li Long, Zhao Hui put down the boxes, let out a sigh of relief, adjusted his glasses, and then shook Li Long's hand with both hands, smiling as he said:

"Long time no see, is everyone in the family well?"

Zhao Hui was quite enthusiastic, and Li Long was also a bit surprised, smiling as he said:

"All well, come in, come in quickly. It's mid-winter, it's cold outside... Come, I'll carry them."

The two boxes were about twenty kilograms each. Li Long bent down to pick them up and led Zhao Hui into the house.

The stove fire was roaring, warm as spring. Inside and outside the house were simply two different worlds; water vapor immediately appeared on Zhao Hui's glasses.

He took off his glasses, took out a lens cloth to wipe them, put them back on, and then sighed to Li Long:

"Although I've been in Northern Xinjiang for seven or eight years, I still can't quite adapt to the winter and summer seasons. As soon as October comes, I go back to my hometown. Although it's humid in my hometown, it's not this cold."

"Come, drink some water." Li Long placed the boxes beside the coffee table, then poured water and handed it to him, smiling as he said, "Then why did you come back?"

"I heard from Old Jia that you received a few good skins, and my heart is itching. So, I bought a ticket on short notice and ran over."

This time it was Li Long's turn to feel surprised. For a few skins, was it worth it?

"It's worth it, it's definitely worth it." Zhao Hui saw Li Long's thought and said with a bitter smile, "Don't look at Old Jia and me as if we look glamorous, but in reality, we both have our own difficulties, and he is even better off than me, at least he can receive medicinal herbs all year round."

"But me? If I want to get good skins, I have to run all over Northern and Southern Xinjiang. Sometimes I run for months and might not necessarily get top-quality skins."

"I heard there are many rare wild animals in the Northeast and Qinghai, and there are quite a few skins there too," Li Long poured himself a cup of tea and said while drinking, "You can run all over the country."

"Sigh, how can it be that easy?" Zhao Hui shook his head. "I can gain a foothold in Northern and Southern Xinjiang because I have an uncle who is in the Production and Construction Corps here, and he showed me the way. Within the scope of the Corps in Northern and Southern Xinjiang, he still has some connections. I rely on this path to stand firm. If I go to other places, what will happen?"

What could happen?

Question marks appeared over Li Long's head.

Whether it was his previous life or this reborn life, his scope of activity was relatively small. At most, he traveled around for fun, and what he saw was a prosperous age, nothing negative.

"Let's not even talk about the Northeast; that's not a place we can play in," Zhao Hui shook his head and said. "There is regional protection everywhere. There are people there who do this. If we rush in, that place is also vast and sparsely populated. To be honest, if you die in some desolate mountain or wild ridge, no one would know."

Li Long felt that this statement... at any rate, that was a major industrial base in the Northeast, with a population much larger than here. This statement would be more appropriate for the Northwest, right?

But thinking about those "Fourth Masters" and the like, it was also possible.

"Qinghai... let's forget it even more. Many people there have this in their hands..." Zhao Hui made a gesture, and Li Long understood immediately.

That Hualong or Longhua or whatever, not many people knew about it now; after all, information dissemination wasn't as developed as in later generations. But many materials declassified in later generations showed that the folk customs in some areas there were quite fierce, and they were exclusive.

It was normal that he couldn't run there.

Alright, so it turned out that everywhere one had to have a foundation, otherwise it was really hard to get things done.

Going to play was fine, but even if going to play, one had to watch the place.

Although a batch had been struck, not to say like bamboo shoots after a rain, but at this time, various orders were being re-established, and some chaotic situations still existed.

Otherwise, Yusufu wouldn't have encountered that kind of situation.

Li Long stopped talking. He had lived two lives. Although he didn't live very well in his previous life, at least it was in a peaceful era. In the Fourth Team, including the scope of Ma County, what he saw was a situation of national peace and people's security. In later generations, watching short videos, those fights in rural areas over homesteads, vegetable plots, and the like were basically never seen in the Fourth Team.

Of course, there were also brothers fighting over parents' land, or gambling away family property, but overall, under the grand order, as long as one didn't court death, one could live very well.

And there was no such thing as a village bully. If there were any problems, people in the village would think of going to the Xin-Guang public opinion hotline to report, or go to the county or Beiting to complain.

The channels were smooth, so at least in Li Long's view, those messy things really didn't happen around him. He had even laughed at those who didn't interact with neighbors because of building houses, or village bullies occupying others' homesteads.

How could that be? One mu seven per family, that was very clear. With such a large plot of land, no family would fight with others over such a small place. What was there to fight about?

Later he found out, not everyone had such a large plot of land like the Fourth Team. Land was expensive, and in some places back home, it really did exist.

With Zhao Hui saying this, Li Long nodded.

"Once this market opens up, everyone knows that doing this line of work makes money. Receiving a good skin is worth ten years of work for others. Think about it, are there many people who want to do this line of work? If I don't rush over, and someone gets the news and runs to you to collect the skins, wouldn't I be at a loss? In this day and age, this business is also not easy to do."

After Zhao Hui finished speaking, he sighed:

"To be honest, Little Li, I think you are still a person with great luck. Just take this year, I ran in Southern Xinjiang for half a year, and later heard from Old Chen in Northern Xinjiang that you had good skins here. I came over to take a look, there were indeed some, but you wouldn't sell them, so I felt it was a pity."

"But later Old Jia called me and said you got two more good skins. To be honest, I didn't quite believe it. There are old hunters in Southern Xinjiang; I've seen them, people who hunted tigers when they were young. But I've been collecting skins for several years, and the most he has had in his hands these years is a bear skin; the others are wolf skins and such. Like you, being able to get bear skins and snow leopard skins every year is truly rare!"

Li Long smiled, thinking to himself, I can't say that I have a good relationship with the tribe now, so I have my points in the deep mountains, and it's easy for me to get things they hunt, right?

"By the way, where are your two children? Last time I didn't bring anything for the children. This time after going home, I specifically found someone to forge two things." Zhao Hui took out a small cloth bag from his pocket. After opening it, inside were two silver bracelets.

Li Long said with a smile:

"Thank you, it was thoughtful of you to forge these bracelets for the two children." He wasn't dissatisfied because the silver bracelets Zhao Hui sent couldn't compare to the gold lock Jia Tianlong sent.

Jia Tianlong sent valuable things, a large part of the reason was his surprise; he didn't expect that stone really coincided with his wife's pregnancy, and he felt the Li family gave him good fortune.

Zhao Hui had no kinship with him, Li Long; people kindly forged silver bracelets, this was a sentiment. Li Long was naturally very grateful.

Sister Yang was inside accompanying the children. After Li Long said a word, he went with Zhao Hui to see the children.

The two silver bracelets were worn on Mingming and Haohao's hands. These bracelets could be enlarged or reduced in diameter. The two children were very curious, and after wearing them, they smiled and played.

Seeing Zhao Hui's heart wasn't here, Li Long said:

"Warm enough, right? Let's go, take you to see the skins. If they are suitable, you can take them away."

"Good, good, good." Zhao Hui was waiting for this sentence.

When going out, Zhao Hui pointed to the two boxes he brought and said:

"Inside here is cured meat and sausage made in my hometown, our local specialty, a gift for you to taste."

"This is really too embarrassing," Li Long said with a smile. "Sent from so far away... thank you!"

"Thank for what?" Zhao Hui saw Li Long didn't dislike it and felt relieved. "You can give me the opportunity to see such good skins, I should thank you."

He believed this business deal should be easy to conclude.

Li Long took Zhao Hui to the east wing room. What was placed here were all skins.

After Jia Tianlong left last time, Li Long tidied up the things here, putting the skins in one room specifically, to avoid revealing other things, which wouldn't be convenient.

After all, there were some tiger bones, North Mountain goat horns, and other things here.

Wealth shouldn't be revealed. Including the remaining many jades and the like, Li Long put them in another room. There were also some antiques and curios collected in recent years, as well as those brought back by his father from his hometown, and that strange statue obtained from those stone buildings in the mountains, all were here.

As for those gold flakes and some more valuable things, especially the top-quality mutton-fat jade, they weren't here, they were in the east room of the bedroom.

Zhao Hui entered the wing room, saw those skins, and immediately became excited.

There was no stove set up here, the temperature was relatively low, but Zhao Hui didn't feel it at all. He grabbed the snow leopard skin into his hands first.

Because the snow leopard skin hadn't been tanned, it had a somewhat stiff feeling, but Zhao Hui was an expert and knew this was a raw skin. He gently tugged at the fur on the skin, then opened his hand and found that the fur didn't fall off.

That fur felt soft and fluffy, with some coarse hair mixed in the middle.

This was a snow leopard skin from early winter; the fur was at its best. Winter skin was more expensive than spring skin, and the reason it was expensive was that there was a layer of down inside.

Why was Tibetan antelope skin so expensive? Wasn't it because those noble ladies wanted to scrape the down from it to make scarves?

"This counts as the best snow leopard skin," Zhao Hui sighed. "I've been collecting skins for these years, and I've collected several snow leopard skins, but not one was as good as this one... Sure enough, winter skin is good, and this snow leopard is not small in size. Looking at the fur, it's smooth, sigh... good stuff!"

He looked at Li Long and said:

"Three thousand five, how about it?"

Didn't he say three thousand before? Why did it rise again?

Li Long naturally didn't dislike money. He smiled and said, "As long as you don't lose money, I'm naturally willing."

Gu Xiaoxia didn't have any thoughts about snow leopard skins and didn't want to wear fur, so keeping these skins didn't have much meaning.

At present, these skins could still be sold openly, and no one cared.

A few years later, when there was an animal protection law, if these skins wanted to be sold again, it could only be done secretly.

Li Long had lived two lives and was always upright. He might hunt a bit in a few years, but he felt that for some things, if they could be sold, then sell them, to avoid being targeted.

Zhao Hui saw Li Long agreed, and his mood immediately improved. At least this trip, he was guaranteed to make a profit.

He picked up a bear skin to look at. The bear skin was much larger than the snow leopard skin. This bear skin he picked up was hunted by Li Long; the whole skin didn't have a single scar, and it was also a winter skin. Although this skin was a bit smaller than the one from Talihar, it won by being flawless.

Talihar's bear skin had two bullet holes on the belly and one on the left front leg. Although it wasn't very obvious, for a professional like Zhao Hui, this skin was definitely affected.

"This flawless one is two thousand two, this damaged one is one thousand eight, how about it?" After Zhao Hui finished looking at the skins, he discussed the price with Li Long.

"Fine." The prices were all higher than Li Long's expectations, so he had nothing to say.

"Those skins..." Zhao Hui looked at the other skins again.

Red deer skin, wolf skin, wild goat skin, roe deer skin, etc.

They weren't skins of livestock, and the quantity was sufficient.

Zhao Hui felt like a mouse that had fallen into a rice jar.

Although these skins weren't considered rare, they won by the quantity. And they were all uniformly winter skins, with good fur and good skin; they were all good stuff.

Adding these skins together, in the end, Zhao Hui paid Li Long ten thousand seven hundred yuan.

"Hey, I brought twelve thousand in total, this trip almost wasn't enough," Zhao Hui said with a smile. "Little Li, to be honest, I really didn't expect that in just this month or so, you would stir up so many good things... not bad, not bad."

!

Li Long collected that stack of money and said with a smile:

"How to say, I have good luck."

It was indeed good luck, otherwise, he wouldn't have met Halimu's family when he first entered the mountains, and then started this wonderful life later.

Of course, treating people with sincerity, his attitude also determined everything that followed.

Zhao Hui was eager to get these skins back, so he didn't stay long at the Li family.

With so many skins, they filled three gunny sacks, and Zhao Hui really couldn't handle them alone.

When Li Long drove him to the station, he said that someone would meet him in Wucheng, so he told Li Long not to worry.

On the way, Zhao Hui also asked Li Long if there would be so many skins every year in the future. If there were, he planned to open a processing workshop.

"These skins, if resold, I can make two or three thousand," Zhao Hui said. "If I process them into semi-finished products before selling, I can make ten thousand. If I have a shop that can make fur, then I can make even more. You don't know, at present in some places, wealthy women just like to wear all kinds of fur..."

Zhao Hui was a bit conflicted, but Li Long didn't dare to guarantee it to him. This Tianshan wasn't his own backyard; how could he often hunt these good things?

Meeting them was luck; not meeting them, Li Long wouldn't be disappointed either.

Sending Zhao Hui to the station, and helping him buy a ticket, sending him onto the car—mainly because of those few gunny sacks, Zhao Hui definitely couldn't look after them alone.

Li Long helped him move the gunny sacks onto the luggage rack on the roof of the car and tied them up before coming down, then watched the car drive out of the station, only then driving the jeep back.

A space was cleared in the wing room, but there was more than ten thousand yuan in hand. It was hard to say which was more valuable, but Li Long definitely didn't regret it.

In winter, people's scope of activity was much smaller. Li Long insisted on traveling back and forth between the Fourth Team and the large courtyard every week. People in the village didn't really move much either. At present, the ice on Little Haizi wasn't very solid yet. Li Qing Xia, having nothing to do, called Tao Jian She, including Li Jianguo and Tao Daqiang, to smash ice holes, but they didn't catch many fish.

The ice surface had only been frozen for a short time, and there was still plenty of oxygen in the water. The fish weren't lacking oxygen, so they didn't gather much at the ice holes.

The fish caught weren't many, not enough to sell, but enough for their own family to eat.

Li Long also followed them to fish once, and when he returned, he brought some fresh fish and stewed them for a meal.

In late November, when Li Long returned to the Fourth Team again, Xu Chengjun came to find him.

Gu Xiaoxia was playing with the two children in the front yard room, Li Juan and Qiangqiang were accompanying them, and Du Chunfang was sitting on the side watching with a smile.

Li Jianguo, Li Long, and Tao Daqiang were chatting in the east room. When Xu Chengjun rode his bicycle over, they were discussing what to plant in the fields next year besides grain.

At this time, wheat, corn, and oil sunflowers definitely had to be planted. After all, the public grain delivery continued until 2006. Although in the early 21st century, people were already not planting grain, and the public grain delivery was bought, at least until the end of this century, grain still had to be planted.

Even if you persuaded them, it was impossible. It had only been a few years since they were full and eating fine grain every meal. If you told the villagers at this time not to plant grain and only plant cash crops, it would be strange if everyone didn't call you a fool.

With grain at home, one's heart wouldn't panic. At least at this stage, this sentence was deeply rooted in people's hearts. Every household planted grain, and besides delivering public grain and selling negotiated-price grain, they had to leave enough grain for the whole family to eat for a year.

Until later, when grain slowly became more abundant and what was sold on the market became cheaper, people in the village slowly began to change all their land to cash crops.

The phenomenon of buying grain to eat, at least for the ordinary farmers of the Fourth Team at present, was no less than a fantasy.

Li Jianguo had already decided to plant flower sunflowers next year. Although the price of flower sunflowers on the market wasn't as high as watermelon seeds, they won by having a large demand, and not many people planted them. The income might not be as good as the watermelon seeds of the first two years, but it was still better than planting grain.

Li Long was prepared to plant sugar beets in those twenty mu of saline-alkali land. He believed that even if the sugar factory didn't collect the sugar beets produced, he was raising so many things, and using them as feed would be no problem; at least he wouldn't lose money.

Tao Daqiang, Xie Yun Dong, and the others were all hesitating; some were still thinking about whether to plant watermelon seeds, while others were thinking about whether planting flower sunflowers was better or planting sugar beets was better.

In the past, following the Li brothers was fine, but now that they were planting separately, they didn't know how to do it.

Sugar beets were easy to plant and manage, but digging them up was troublesome. Flower sunflowers were easy to harvest, but they didn't know how to sell them when the time came.

Just as they were discussing, Xu Chengjun knocked on the door and came in.

"You are all here?" Seeing everyone cracking melon seeds and chatting, Xu Chengjun was a bit surprised, smiled and said: "It's good that you are all here, I'll say something."

Li Long stood up, found a stool, handed it to Xu Chengjun, and handed the plate filled with flower sunflower seeds to him: "Come, Captain, crack some melon seeds."

"Good." Xu Chengjun wasn't polite either, grabbed a handful, sat down, and while cracking, said, "The township sent a notice; in two days, militia training will begin. Tomorrow I'm taking people over to pull the guns back. Little Long, are you participating in this militia training?"

"Not participating," Li Long waved his hand. "I have other things. There are many young people in our team; the core militia doesn't lack me, so I won't participate."

"That's fine. By the way, this year I'm thinking of going to the no-man's land in the west to hunt, are you going?"

"Going, I'll go over and take a look in a few days. After the two heavy snows, much of the grass has been covered. The yellow sheep in the sandbags to the north are probably going to run to the Southern Mountains again," Li Long said. "Anyway, there's nothing to do in winter, I definitely have to go over and take a look."

Not only did he want to see, Li Xiangqian actually asked Li Long two days ago when he was going to the west.

Actually, they could go over themselves, but Li Long had a jeep and was relatively more skilled at hunting than them, so Li Xiangqian felt it was better to go over with Li Long and the others.

Tao Daqiang definitely wanted to participate. Xie Yun Dong didn't need to participate; he was over thirty, and there were plenty of young men in their twenties in the team, so there was no need for people over thirty to go on the field.

It wasn't that they weren't needed, but Xie Yun Dong and these people had participated in militia training for more than ten years, they were old hands. To be honest, if they participated in training, they might have a counter-productive effect.

On the contrary, those young men were easier to manage, so Xu Chengjun didn't ask Xie Yun Dong and the others.

After the militia training matter was finished, everyone's focus was on winter hunting.

Usually, besides those like Li Long who originally had guns at home, everyone could only take guns for live-fire training during this month.

Being able to take guns to hunt openly, whether it was Xu Chengjun or Tao Daqiang and the others, they all liked it very much. After all, at present, besides the Li family, other families hadn't achieved meat-eating freedom yet. Being able to eat meat without spending money, they were naturally willing.

"Captain, how about getting me more bullets when the time comes?"

"Fine, pull more when pulling guns tomorrow," Xu Chengjun didn't care about this request. "I still have some face in the township; I'll pull some bullets and say it's for training, no problem."

Li Long knew that in a few years, the training of the core militia wouldn't be organized by the village but by the township uniformly. By then, wanting to get bullets would be difficult.

At present, accumulating more was better. Not only did he need to use them, more importantly, after the herdsmen migrated, Halimu and the others needed to use them on the mountains.

Otherwise, where would those dozens of skins come from?

In the past, at this time, the Southern Mountain state-run pasture had already begun to collect weapons from the herdsmen's families in each pastoral team. It was just that this year it hadn't started yet, and judging from the current situation, even if it started, these herdsmen wouldn't hand them over for a while.

In the past, there were guns but no bullets; without anyone supplying bullets, keeping the gun was not as good as a stick. Now that there were bullets, not only could they kill the wolf packs threatening the sheep flocks, but they could also use the skins of the hunted prey to exchange for the daily necessities they needed. How could they hand them over?

Waiting until the strict gun ban in the mid-nineties, by then they would have to hand them over even if they didn't want to.

There was still a long time.

"There should be quite a few yellow sheep this year," Xu Chengjun was also thinking. If they could hunt more, the team members could share some meat, and then send some to the township armed forces department. In this way, the sentiment would be established, and it would be convenient to ask for more bullets next year.

After the hunting matter was finished, the conversation naturally turned to planting next year. Xu Chengjun didn't intend to leave; he also wanted to hear what others were planting next year.

The Li family had already clearly expressed in the team that they wouldn't plant watermelon seeds next year. He believed Li Jianguo and the others wouldn't lie.

But having tasted the sweetness of planting watermelon seeds, Xu Chengjun also wanted to know what to plant next year to make money—it wasn't easy to make money planting grain, and planting cash crops was too unstable.

He felt that Li Long was the person who had seen the most of the world in the Fourth Team. Listening to him should be correct.

Although there weren't many people in the team with this idea, there were still some.

"Still have to be willing to use chemical fertilizer." Although Li Long wasn't planting, regarding this concept, he hoped to make everyone clear about it. "Use more chemical fertilizer, only then can the fields produce more crops. Otherwise, the yield is low, and whatever you plant is in vain." (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 733 =====