Chapter 737: This Path Can Still Be Walked

The team members had been clear about Li Long being able to toss this matter for the past two years.

Everyone was almost a beneficiary. If he couldn't toss, the Fourth Team couldn't have more funds than other small teams, and the villagers couldn't be richer than other small teams.

Even trapping rabbits, chasing rabbits, and smashing ice holes to catch fish in winter were all caused by Li Long.

No profit, no early rising. If Li Long hadn't caught fish to make money, and also collected rabbits and fish, the scope of activity of these people in the team in winter wouldn't be as large as it was at present. Basically, they would be at their own homes, or within the scope of their own residential points.

After all, it was cold and the snow was thick. Running far away wouldn't consume heat?

Because Li Long had been here for these two years, everyone had the motivation to smash ice holes to catch fish and trap rabbits.

Can make money!

Although Li Long didn't collect fish and rabbits this year, everyone had already formed a habit. Running outside to get some rabbits and fish counted as net income, which was better than losing money playing cards, right?

To be honest, because the income of the villagers of the Fourth Team was higher than that of other small teams for these two years, gamblers had already targeted this place.

Those people couldn't do serious things. If you let them think of some crooked ways to make money, they were really one after another.

Li Long adding to the old horse corral and plowing out saline-alkali land, originally many people were watching the joke.

Human nature is complex. They benefited from Li Long and were also grateful to Li Long, but it didn't prevent them from laughing at Li Long's behavior, which they considered relatively stupid, when their quality of life wasn't as good as Li Long's.

Just like building an old horse corral to raise cattle and sheep, and reclaiming saline-alkali land.

What can grow in saline-alkali land? Artemisia, reed grass, white thorn.

In saline-alkali land, even the unkillable reeds couldn't grow tall, so what else could grow?

After a rain, the alkali in the saline-alkali land of the Fourth Team was white, and one step down, it was a crunching sound, a thick layer.

This thing, crops basically couldn't grow.

Let alone raising cattle and sheep. Like Ma Jinbao, who had been herding sheep for more than ten years, he hadn't seen him get rich. Cattle and sheep were caught in autumn and raised until winter. In three months, could they really grow a few more kilograms of meat?

Not enough for the feed cost.

In this regard, Ma Jinbao had the most say. He was also the one who laughed at Li Long the most in the retail department gossip group.

After all, he had been raising sheep in the team for the longest time and had a say.

Everyone also felt it should be like this.

So everyone had already treated this matter as a joke in a semi-public state.

In the retail department, as long as it wasn't the Li family, including those families who had a good relationship with him, almost every day someone would take this matter out to talk about it, to show their foresight.

By the way, complain about Li Long, saying that he could make things lively, but in terms of farming and raising cattle and sheep, his experience was too little.

It was floating, it was money burning.

However, after the news that Xu Chengjun would invite the professor from the Agricultural Academy to improve his twenty-something mu of saline-alkali land next year spread, everyone stopped talking.

People could even invite the professor and expert from the Agricultural Academy, what else was impossible?

But this Li Long's energy was also too big, right? Even the professor from the Agricultural Academy could be invited!

At this time, expert wasn't a word with a complex meaning. An expert was an expert.

It was different

Everyone stopped complaining about Li Long's act of reclaiming the saline-alkali land and instead became somewhat expectant.

After all, there are several thousand mu of saline-alkali land within the scope of the Fourth Team; if it could really be improved, wouldn't everyone be able to follow suit and reclaim some wasteland as well?

There are policies now for reclaiming wasteland; although there are no subsidies, at least for the first three to five years, there is no need to pay taxes or public grain, and what needs to be paid later is also relatively little.

After getting a taste of the sweetness of land belonging to themselves, no one thinks they have too little land.

The starting contract for reclaimed wasteland is fifteen years, so everyone feels that if crops can be grown in the saline-alkali land and there is a harvest, then reclaiming it is not impossible.

As for raising cattle and sheep, that goes without saying. Since he might even be able to overcome the salinity, just wait and see about the cattle and sheep.

Then some people would come to the Old Horse Pen from time to time to take a look, and they discovered that his way of raising cattle and sheep might really be different from others.

It's not like they were blown up like balloons, but in just three or five days, the cattle and sheep really changed; they were obviously fatter and heavier.

How long has it been? Less than a month, right?

If they gained weight in this short time, wouldn't they gain another ten kilograms or so by the Spring Festival?

It turns out he is the real expert!

These ten kilograms of meat must be worth at least ten yuan or so, right?

That's for one sheep, what about two hundred sheep?

I heard the sugar dregs Li Long brought back were free, and the price of wheat bran is also low, a few cents per kilogram.

Even if it takes three kilograms of wheat bran to grow one kilogram of meat, it's still worth it.

Too worth it!

In the past, many people followed Ma Jinbao in mocking Li Long for his wishful thinking, but now it seems Ma Jinbao doesn't know a damn thing about raising sheep!

Such a good way to get rich, and he, someone who has been raising sheep for over ten years, actually didn't know it!

Some families in the village raise two or three sheep; if they don't have time to graze them in the summer, they put them in Ma Jinbao's flock, paying one or two yuan a month for boarding fees per sheep.

It's the same in winter; they don't have warm pens at home, so they put them at the Ma family's place, waiting until the New Year to slaughter them for meat.

As a result, the sheep were as thin as ever when the New Year arrived.

The Ma family's sheep were the same, so there was nothing to talk about.

Now it seems Ma Jinbao is just purely lazy and doesn't know how to raise sheep at all!

Later on, there were more people cursing him in the gossip group at the store.

The old man doesn't raise sheep properly and even says others don't know how to. Look at his sheep, fat and strong, with coats as smooth as oil, and his? They don't look like they are in the same league; it's like the fat son of a landlord versus the stinky brat of a poor peasant!

Some people already have plans. Next year, they will find time to build sheep pens and buy some sheep to raise in captivity when autumn comes.

Although sugar dregs are hard to haul, wheat bran is easy to buy.

And it's cheap too.

Not to mention raising many, just raising ten or so to earn one or two hundred yuan—anyway, since they are idle, why not?

Some people are thinking of imitating Li Long's fattening of sheep next year, while others are thinking that since they have some spare money at home, should they partner with someone to buy a fattened sheep from the Li family before the New Year?

Sheep are delicious only when they are fat. Decades later, everyone wants to eat sheep raised on grass in the grasslands, but right now, everyone wants to eat fatter sheep.

It's the same principle as wanting to eat meat now, while decades later most people eat more vegetables.

Fat sheep are good; there is oil that can be rendered, so it lasts longer.

Li Long didn't know that his reputation in the eyes of the villagers was changing from time to time. He came out from his sister Li Xia's place, and amidst her complaining yet exhorting farewell, he drove the jeep further west.

From Shicheng to Kuitun, one has to pass through the 143rd Regiment, Wulanwusu, Shawan, and Anjihai.

These places are inhabited, but the area in between is basically an uninhabited zone. Many lands have not been reclaimed yet; one location is separated from another by ten or even dozens of kilometers, and the uninhabited zone in between is a paradise for wild animals.

Unlike later generations, twenty or thirty years later, the areas between these relatively close locations were all reclaimed. Only by continuing west, past Wusu Gaoquan, in the area between there and Jinghe, and the places west of Jinghe, are there still large tracts of uninhabited zones.

After passing Wulanwusu, in an uninhabited zone near Shawan, Li Long saw a group of Mongolian gazelles far away to the south, which quickly fled toward the Nanshan direction upon seeing the car.

Further south, there are large tracts of red willow; these Mongolian gazelles ran into the red willow thickets and soon disappeared.

Although he didn't hit any Mongolian gazelles, Li Long was quite happy because at least the Mongolian gazelles were still there.

He didn't slow down; there were still dozens of kilometers to Kuitun, and he had plenty of time and large areas in between to observe whether there were still Mongolian gazelles nearby.

However, until he drove past Shawan, Li Long didn't see any more Mongolian gazelle herds, but he did see bloodstains in the snow nearby.

The heavy snow had only stopped a few days ago; seeing bloodstains on the side of the road, along with large hoof prints and footprints left by people, it goes without saying that someone had been hunting here.

Li Long thought to himself that this matter... he had no way to complain.

Nature belongs to everyone; he can hunt, and others can naturally hunt too; there is nothing to say.

It's just that what he couldn't figure out was that after these people hunted here, they cleared away the traces, but they didn't skin the sheep or anything nearby; they just hauled the things away directly.

!

And looking at the hoof prints, there didn't seem to be many.

Li Long parked the car and rummaged through the snow nearby; there were a few shell casings, also 56-type rifle rounds. It seems they were similar to him, using similar firearms. The production date on the bottom of these casings was from the fifties, and they were already expired.

I don't know which smart alecks came here to hunt.

Li Long continued driving forward. After passing Anjihai, just as he was about to reach Kuitun, when he was almost about to be disappointed, he saw—wolves.

He didn't see Mongolian gazelles, but in the Gobi desert to the south, he saw wolves patrolling in the snow; there were three of them.

The three wolves were more than a hundred meters away from the Wuyi Highway, preparing to surround a lone red deer.

Yes, not a Mongolian gazelle, but an old, weak red deer that had been abandoned by its herd.

Red deer are animals that live in a relatively wide area. They are different from Mongolian gazelles; Mongolian gazelles usually only live in the Gobi desert and rarely go into mountain forests; occasionally going there is only in the outer mountains.

Red deer are different; they are in the deep mountains, in the jungles, and also on the Gobi desert.

And their distribution range is very wide; the Gobi desert in Gansu, the deep mountains of the Tianshan, and the grasslands of the Ili River Valley all have their footprints.

Li Long immediately pulled the jeep to the right and stopped. He reached for the 56-semi-automatic on the passenger seat, took off the gun case, and had already pulled the bolt and chambered a round when he got out of the car.

Carrying the gun, he walked south across the road, pre-aiming ahead as he walked.

The distance of over a hundred meters was completely within the effective firing range for the 56-semi-automatic. Li Long looked up at the sun; there was a glare. Seeing that the wolves didn't seem to care much about him, he stopped, squatted down, took out his lighter, pressed it, and used the soot to smoke the front sight.

The front sight turned black, and the effect of the glare was not so great anymore.

Li Long put away the lighter. When he aimed with the gun again, the three wolves had already formed an encirclement around the old red deer. One of the gray wolves lunged forward and bit the red deer's right hind leg.

The red deer felt the pain and kicked the gray wolf hard with its left hind leg. The other two gray wolves also surrounded it, wading through the snow to attack the red deer.

The red deer was taller than the gray wolves, and it was actually easier for it to wade through the snow. The pain and the threat of death made this red deer explode with its body's potential; it lunged forward a distance, kicking away the gray wolf that was biting it while also dodging the attacks of the other two gray wolves.

However, this lunge also consumed the strength it had been saving for a long time. The thirty or forty-centimeter-deep snow had a huge impact on their movement. The red deer slowed down, and the three wolves rushed over from behind again to surround the red deer.

The snow almost covered their bellies; moving in the snow was also quite a difficult thing for the gray wolves.

Li Long looked at the gray wolves and the red deer in the distance. He hesitated for a moment, stopped, and raised his gun while half-squatting.

Li Long was looking for a suitable opportunity.

When the three wolves lunged at the red deer again, with a "Bang," Li Long's gun fired.

As soon as the gunshot rang out, two gray wolves immediately abandoned the red deer by their mouths and fled south desperately.

One gray wolf and the red deer were spurting blood; the target was large, and Li Long had shot through both.

He slightly shifted the muzzle and aimed at the other gray wolf—these two gray wolves were also exploding with potential at this moment, running desperately into the distance.

Although there were red willows on this stretch of Gobi desert, they were not tall and were very sparse; the gray wolves' figures were difficult to be completely blocked by the shrubs.

Li Long squinted his eyes and aimed for several seconds before firing again; one gray wolf collapsed into the snow.

The other gray wolf was already gone.

Li Long looked for it again but couldn't find it, so he put away his gun and walked toward the red deer.

Walking to the red deer and the first gray wolf, Li Long took out his knife and bled the two pieces of prey.

He opened the bellies and let out the gas.

Li Long didn't even skin them; he went over and dragged the gray wolf over as well.

With the gun slung over his back, Li Long dragged the three pieces of prey with both hands all the way back to the jeep.

He checked the time; it was already noon, and he was a bit hungry, so he gave up the idea of skinning and processing them here. Anyway, the bellies were already opened. He found a bag in the car, put the two wolves inside, but the red deer was a bit too big to fit, so he simply spread the bag on the back seat of the jeep and stuffed the red deer in—that is, this red deer was weak and not very large, otherwise it wouldn't have fit—even so, it still broke the red deer's lower leg.

In just this short while, the blood on the red deer and the wolves had frozen.

When he drove the jeep to Kuitun City, it was two o'clock in the afternoon. Li Long thought that if he went to his second brother's house now, they should have already eaten, so he found a state-run restaurant and had a meal of mixed noodles before driving to his second brother's house.

The Construction and Installation Company didn't have much work at this time, so Li Anguo and the others were staying at home.

He was also a bit surprised when Li Long came over. Chen Li Rong, who had just finished eating and hadn't cleaned up yet, was anxious and prepared to prepare food for Li Long again, but Li Long hurriedly waved his hand to say he had already eaten.

He was anxious to unload the two wolves and one red deer, so he started cleaning them right in Li Anguo's courtyard.

Li Anguo also hurriedly stepped forward to help, and Chen Li Rong busied herself boiling water.

The liveliness in the courtyard immediately attracted the attention of other families.

This Li family really is not ordinary. (End of chapter)