Chapter 762: Human Relations: There Are Times When You Get the Cold Shoulder

After Li Long left, Factory Director Du was thinking about whether the factory should produce tricycles or handcarts.

Thinking was useless; he planned to conduct some market research when spring arrived.

He wasn't too sure about other parts of the domestic north, but as far as Northern Xinjiang was concerned, once winter arrived, most units and enterprises entered a period of hibernation.

Because most units and enterprises had some outdoor work content, outdoor work in winter was truly arduous. The main thing was snow clearing, a task that would consume about one-seventh or one-eighth of everyone's time throughout the entire winter.

Then there was the cold; it was impossible to get anything done outdoors when it was too cold. Places like the textile mill were a bit better off, but agricultural machinery plants, tractor factories, construction companies, and the like couldn't work in winter.

Therefore, under normal circumstances, winter was for study, training, and doing more abstract work; most work plans were for after spring began.

Factory Director Du also planned to wait until after spring to conduct research on whether to produce tricycles or handcarts. With the current technical level of the agricultural machinery plant, building a tricycle or a handcart was no problem. As for individual key materials, they could just be bought.

Li Long and Song Ming drove the car to Li Anmin's house first to deliver the bezoars promised to Xueping and Li Xue Qin, and then returned to Maxian.

Factory Director Du had originally wanted to treat Li Long and his group to lunch, but it was a bit early and not yet mealtime, and Li Long was in a hurry to get back, so he didn't accept.

It was the same at Li Anmin's house; in fact, the meal was already cooked, but there certainly wasn't enough for them to eat, so Li Long left in a hurry and had Song Ming drive back.

His original intention was to eat some mixed noodles on the way, whether in Shawan or Anjihai would be fine.

Song Ming had no objections. He hadn't mentioned the shipping fee the whole time, but when they left Kuitun, Li Long brought it up to him.

"It's quite a distance from Maxian to Kuitun, so I'll give you fifty for a one-way trip," Li Long said. "How about one hundred yuan for the round trip?"

This price was very high. Although there were some fuel costs for the round trip, fuel was cheap at this time.

The main thing was that cars were relatively scarce, so shipping fees were higher. Song Ming naturally had no objections; he drove a large vehicle and could occasionally take it out, which wasn't to say it was without cost. He certainly had to grease the wheels in the transport section.

But regardless, this money was earned quite easily, and he was very happy.

At Anjihai, the roadside restaurant was open, and Li Long and Song Ming ate oil-splashed mixed noodles. They paid in advance; Song Ming insisted on treating, but Li Long wanted to pay, and in the end, they compromised.

Calculating from when they started hauling sugar dregs last year, Song Ming could get over a hundred yuan in shipping fees from Li Long every month. Saving up like this, in another while, he would be able to buy a courtyard in Shicheng.

Treating was nothing.

After eating the noodles, the car set off again, and Li Long closed his eyes to rest. After eating lunch, the blood went to the stomach to help with digestion, and his head felt a bit dizzy.

This was the first time Li Long had sat in a car so comfortably, without needing to be fully focused or thinking about when they would arrive where.

Suddenly, he heard Song Ming shout:

"Red deer!"

Li Long opened his eyes wide and looked out, then saw a herd of a dozen or so red deer galloping from north to south, twenty or thirty meters in front of the car.

The car's speed was extremely fast; he could feel that Song Ming was thinking about whether he could hit a red deer. In the end, when that red deer dashed across the road surface, it slipped, fell below the roadbed to the south, scrambled to get up, and then quickly ran south again, disappearing into the red willow thicket in a moment.

Damn it!

Li Long really wanted to curse!

Why hadn't he encountered this when he drove the small car himself several times? Especially last time, when he came back, he had specifically looked, but hadn't seen any red deer come so close.

"What a pity... Comrade Li, you say if it were your jeep, at such a close distance, you would definitely have been able to hit one or two," Song Ming shook his head with regret. "My speed is still a bit slow if I want to pick it up."

Li Long was even more regretful. Every time he came and went in the past, he carried a gun. This time, because he was sitting in Song Ming's car, he hadn't brought one.

And he just happened to run into something like this!

If he had brought a gun, just now, as long as Song Ming braked, he wouldn't even need to get out of the car; he could just roll down the window and aim at those red deer, and he would have been able to hit one or two!

Well, maybe he shouldn't have had this thought of hunting at the beginning of this year.

It was still a bit regrettable.

The car continued to move forward. Li Long didn't sleep this time and looked left and right from time to time. Song Ming saw his actions and said with a smile while driving:

"Comrade Li, are you trying to see if there are any more red deer and Mongolian gazelles? Actually, this also depends on luck. Sometimes you run the whole way, just like when we came this morning, and you don't see any the whole way, and sometimes you might run into several waves in one trip."

"It's a pity I didn't bring a gun."

"Bring a gun... that's true. If you had brought a gun, just now, if we had stopped early, maybe we could have brought one down."

Song Ming was also a backbone militiaman, but his marksmanship was okay for stationary targets; he had no experience in hitting live targets, so he didn't dare to guarantee it.

Li Long had practiced his marksmanship well in practice over the past two or three years, so he was truly confident.

But it didn't matter anymore; he hadn't brought a gun anyway.

After they passed SW County, they ran into another herd of Mongolian gazelles, about thirty or forty of them, on the snowy ground forty or fifty meters to the north of the road, just watching the car, neither running nor moving.

They were probably waiting for the car to pass before they went to the south side of the road.

Li Long had nothing to curse even if he wanted to at this time; he could only say that these gazelles were not meant to belong to him.

The car arrived at the large courtyard at about 4:30 in the afternoon. Li Long got out of the car and opened the large gate. After Song Ming drove the car in, the two of them unloaded the car together.

This trip, Li Long brought back ten harvesters. He had long since cleared a space on the north side of the east wing room, by the courtyard wall, to lay down boards and place the harvesters.

Although these harvesters were almost entirely made of metal, because the structure wasn't particularly complex, one unit weighed only a hundred kilograms or so.

Li Long could move one over by himself. He let Song Ming just move the harvesters toward the rear carriage board while on the vehicle.

"Hey, Comrade Li, you really have a lot of strength." Song Ming looked at Li Long moving a harvester to the wall and putting it down without much effort, and exclaimed in admiration.

Li Long could feel that since his rebirth, his strength had been continuously increasing. At the moment, moving something weighing one or two hundred kilograms really wasn't very difficult—it was far stronger than an ordinary person.

It wasn't just strength that was enhanced, but also his senses; his hearing and vision had all been enhanced, including his coordination ability.

Was this a benefit of rebirth?

"Hi, I used to do farm work," Li Long said without blushing. "I practiced by carrying eighty or ninety-kilogram sacks."

Well, Song Ming believed him.

In fact, given Li Jianguo's "doting" on Li Long, how could he bear to let him carry such heavy things?

The ten harvesters were moved down quickly.

Sister Yang only took a look when the car first came in, and after seeing it was Li Long, she went back in. With the two children there, she couldn't spare her hands.

After the harvesters were placed, Song Ming didn't even drink any water and left in a hurry driving the car. He still had to rush back to tidy up the car and then get a good rest, as he had to go to work tomorrow.

Li Long arranged the ten harvesters, found a large plastic sheet to cover them, and used bricks to press down the corners before going into the house to wash his hands.

The only thing left to do before the New Year now was to deliver some meat to the connections in Wucheng and Beiting, and then he could relax before the New Year.

For the first experiment, this matter of fattening sheep could be done. By October 1985, according to the pen-rearing capacity of the new Ma Hao, getting three hundred sheep would be no problem.

The first batch of fattened sheep was almost entirely digested by the various factories and basically didn't enter the market. At the moment, the only things left in the pen that could be slaughtered were a few cows, which could definitely be dealt with before the New Year.

For the second wave of fattening, if the number of sheep was increased and the number of cows decreased, the profit should be over eight thousand if slaughtered before the Spring Festival.

After all, if the sheepskins were added, the profit from the first batch was already approaching five thousand yuan.

Of course, if he wanted to fatten them like this, he would need to continue hoarding sugar dregs.

Anyway, this stuff could be stored for a long time after being sun-dried or oven-dried, and it wouldn't spoil easily.

For fattening cattle and sheep, if you want low input and quick results, this has to be it.

This stuff would have to wait several years before the sugar factory would attach importance to it and then recycle and process it into feed. So Li Long still had a few years of dividend period.

It wasn't just this; the carrying poles could also be done for a few years, and the harvesters as well.

When these items became sunset industries, Li Long felt that new opportunities could begin.

At that time, it wouldn't be like the small-scale tinkering of today. A new type of wheeled tractor could plow nearly four hundred mu of land in one day and night. The plowing fee per mu was eight yuan around the year 2000.

And in 2010, it was twenty yuan.

Two people taking turns could earn over three thousand yuan a day—of course, after deducting labor, fuel costs, and wear and tear depreciation, it would still be over two thousand a day.

And in the era of large cotton pickers, the yield of drip-irrigated cotton per mu was about four hundred kilograms, and the machine picking fee per kilogram started from one mao and went up to about four mao later, and later it became per mu, about one hundred and sixty per mu.

A cotton picker could pick several thousand mu of cotton in one cotton picking season, with a gross income approaching one million.

Of course, it might not reach that much in reality; after all, once outside the local area, going to other places to pick cotton, plots needed to be contacted, and there was travel time in between.

But even so, a minimum of two thousand mu was guaranteed.

Thirty or forty years later, the largest farmer in the township had contracted ten thousand mu of cotton fields himself, with three cotton pickers; just think about that income.

These thoughts and information only flashed in Li Long's mind; those were all for the future. For now, let him do the current things well first.

He teased Mingming and Haohao in the house for a while, and Sister Yang went to busy herself with her own affairs, and then prepared the evening meal.

After Li Long waited for Mingming and Haohao to fall asleep, he went outside and began to take the meat out of the wing room and pack it up, and then there was that Mongolian gazelle skin.

He didn't know anyone in Maxian who was good at tanning skins; this matter had to go to Beiting or Wucheng. Since it was to make a fur coat for his mother, he had to tidy it up well.

In the evening, after Li Long waited for Mingming and Haohao to fall asleep, he told Gu Xiaoxia about going to Beiting and Wucheng.

"Do you want to rest for a few days before going?" Gu Xiaoxia said with some worry. "You basically haven't stopped these days; you ran to Kuitun twice, slaughtered sheep and cows in the team, and ran to Shicheng twice; can your body take it?"

Northern Xinjiang in the eighties was different from thirty or forty years later. Running the hundred-plus kilometers from Maxian to Kuitun was a very long distance in the minds of ordinary people.

After all, walking would take many days, and the bus might not even make one trip a day.

Although Gu Xiaoxia worked at the Education Bureau and had become a state cadre, her business trips were basically just to a few distant townships in the county. Kuitun was very far for her, and of course, Wucheng was too.

"It's fine, I'll just run a round trip in one day; it's not far." Li Long had lived two lives; in his previous life, the trip from Maxian to Kuitun didn't take an hour if he drove fast on the highway, and going to Wucheng was only an hour or so drive; it really wasn't anything.

Although the road conditions now weren't as good as before, there were few cars on the Wuyi Highway, and the jeep still ran very fast.

"Then wait, check the small car before running. Running so many trips in a row, the car can't take it either." Gu Xiaoxia still hoped Li Long wouldn't be so anxious.

Li Long agreed. It had been some time since the last maintenance of the jeep, and he didn't know how to repair the car himself; it would be quite troublesome if this car really broke down halfway.

Seeing Li Long listen to her suggestion, Gu Xiaoxia was also quite happy.

She was still a bit afraid that Li Long would be unhappy, so she explained:

"I mainly thought that going to Wucheng and Beiting to handle affairs, besides Huxian, there aren't many stopping points in between. If you have any situation on the road that is difficult to handle, it's better to solve the potential hidden dangers before leaving. I'm not saying that you or the car will definitely have any trouble, but it's better to prevent trouble before it happens."

"What you said is right," Li Long smiled. "I know, it was also my negligence; this car is second-hand after all, so it needs to be maintained from time to time."

Both of them laughed.

The next morning after eating, Li Long unloaded the meat from the jeep again, left a leg of lamb, and drove to the transport company.

He found the captain, delivered a leg of lamb, and asked him to find someone to help him maintain the car well.

The captain was very happy, let Li Long drive the car to the workstation, called two old drivers, and then let Li Long leave, saying to come and get the car in the afternoon. He would maintain the car well.

When Li Long went to get the car near the end of the shift in the afternoon, he found that his jeep had been wiped, looking brand new.

"Changed the oil, and the gasoline is filled up for you too." The captain said proudly, "The places that needed maintenance have all been maintained for you. The leader's car was just done a few days ago, and the remaining materials were all used on yours."

Li Long said a few words of thanks and then drove away.

He didn't know if it was a psychological reason or if it was indeed well-maintained, but he felt that the car was truly much easier to handle when driving it now.

Driving the car back to the large courtyard, Li Long moved the meat up again, and he laughed while moving it.

This meat had been moved back and forth to work many times; he hoped it wouldn't be tossed around again this time. After all, he had always felt that there would be nothing to do after this trip. Moving it back and forth like this, although the meat wouldn't have any problems in winter, he was annoyed.

Fortunately, there were no problems until the next morning. Gu Xiaoxia came home late in the evening and didn't notice, but the next morning she was a bit surprised to see the jeep, praising that the car was well-maintained, looking as new as new after being wiped, even newer than the county leader's car.

Li Long suddenly felt a bit emotional; this car in his hands felt a bit wasted. At any rate, given the current situation, this kind of car was something only county-level leaders could afford to sit in.

And the drivers who drove this kind of car must be very careful and cherish the car; they certainly wouldn't be like him, using the car to load all kinds of wild game, saddles, grain, medicine, etc., after using it.

It seemed like a coolie, doing everything.

Of course, it was just a feeling; Li Long didn't intend to change. A car, for people, is just a means of transport.

In the short videos of later generations, some bloggers say that novices shouldn't do this or that when driving, making a car look like a master.

Isn't a car bought to be driven? It's enough to be decent. If it's really that troublesome, it's better to walk or take a taxi.

Li Long drove the car first to Wucheng, intending to deliver the meat to Professor Wu and Professor Luo directly, and then deliver meat to Director Qian on the way back.

However, when he rushed to the Agricultural College, he found that it was already on holiday!

The guard's answer to him was that the teachers had all left, and Professor Wu and Professor Luo were not there. The place where they lived was not in the college's family courtyard; although it was in the city, the guard didn't know the specific location either.

Li Long was stumped this time.

He regretted it a bit; if he had known this, he should have come earlier, at least he could have found them before the holiday.

He vaguely remembered that Professor Wu seemed to have told him where he lived, but without a specific location, it was hard to find.

As for Professor Luo, he had only met him once, so it was even more impossible to inquire—he had wanted to go into the family courtyard to find a teacher to ask, but the guard wouldn't let him in.

Li Long drove away from the Agricultural College in low spirits and then went to the Jade Carving Factory.

Since the two professors were not there, let's see Liu Gong.

The Jade Carving Factory was also much quieter here. Wucheng didn't have as many high-rise buildings as later generations, and many places that were quite prosperous in later generations were currently Gobi Desert or small low hills. Li Long arrived at the shop by the side door of the Jade Carving Factory and found that it was different from the last time he came; there were no customers here at the moment.

He parked the car not far away, got out of the car, carried a leg of lamb from the trunk, and walked to the display window. Through the window, he saw Liu Gong wearing glasses and carving under the light inside.

In Northern Xinjiang, plastic sheets were generally pasted on the outside of the windows in winter to prevent cold air from getting in. Here, because things had to be sold, the window glass wasn't pasted, so he could see in, but it must be colder inside.

Li Long saw the young man who was there last time carefully watching by Liu Gong's side, probably observing and learning, so he waited for a while.

The main thing was that he was afraid of disturbing Liu Gong's carving; what if he messed up a knife and the material was ruined?

After a while, Liu Gong finished carving a small piece and turned his head to explain to the young man, and only then did Li Long knock on the window.

It was bright inside and dark outside, so Liu Gong and his apprentice couldn't see the person outside clearly, and the young man hurriedly came over to open the window to ask about the situation.

Once the window was opened, Liu Gong saw Li Long and hurriedly stood up:

"Yo, Little Li is here, come in, come in!" (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 763 =====