Chapter 773: Changed living habits in advance

(Something came up today, only one chapter)

What Li Long didn't expect was that before preparing to go into the mountains, he suggested going to the Shicheng Department Store to shop, and the things Ha Ha Li Mu and Ta Lihaer bought the most were actually personal daily necessities like toothbrushes, toothpaste, and soap.

After the haircut, the two looked not much different from ordinary plain people—of course, except for their clothes. Ta Lihaer was pulled directly to the hospital by Li Long, and he hadn't changed his clothes. It was fine in the hospital, wearing a hospital gown, everyone was not much different.

But after leaving the hospital, the Zhongshan suit and the somewhat worn-out cotton coat he was wearing seemed out of place.

If it weren't for the haircut and shaving, I'm afraid people's gazes would have been even more strange.

This was also the reason why Li Long took them to get a haircut after coming out—the craftsmanship of the master in the state-run barbershop was impeccable. Getting a small flat-top like Li Long's, and then shaving the beard, made them look much younger.

Then Li Long took Ta Lihaer to buy clothes. Originally, he thought about buying a set of clothes for Ha Ha Li Mu too, but Ha Ha Li Mu firmly refused.

After changing clothes, Ta Lihaer's image changed a lot. He was clearly a handsome Kazakh young man, and his ethnic characteristics were even more handsome than Ba Tai in that Altai film from his previous life—speaking ethnically, after all, that actor himself wasn't Kazakh.

Ta Lihaer himself was quite satisfied after looking in the mirror, especially his teeth; he felt that brushing his teeth these past few days felt particularly good.

That's why he had the intention of going to buy toothbrushes and toothpaste.

Seeing Ha Ha Li Mu and Ta Lihaer buy such a large bag of daily necessities together, Li Long was also happy.

Does this count as changing the living habits here in advance?

To tell the truth, even in the Fourth Team at this time, many adults might not necessarily brush their teeth every day. For these small things, children were actually better at following them.

When Li Long drove Ha Ha Li Mu and Ta Lihaer and the others to the winter den, Ha Ha Li Mu's wife, children, and the old lady were all surprised.

"Dad, you look much more handsome!" Na Sen reacted the fastest, shouting and rushing over, hugging Ha Ha Li Mu's waist.

Sa Si Ken also followed.

They were discharged in the morning, and after buying things, drinking milk tea, eating naan, and getting a haircut, by the time Li Long sent them, it was already afternoon.

After drinking milk tea in the winter den, Li Long hurriedly went back. Ta Lihaer's horse was still at Ha Ha Li Mu's place, and it was estimated that he would definitely rush back today.

When Li Long returned to the big courtyard, the sun was almost setting. Sending Ta Lihaer back this time could be considered completing a major event, and Li Long himself felt it was time to have a good rest.

Ta Lihaer didn't stay long in Ha Ha Li Mu's winter den. Not long after Li Long left, he saddled his horse, took the things he bought, rode the horse, said goodbye to Ha Ha Li Mu and the others, and rushed home.

He bought quite a few things, so Ta Lihaer specifically bought a large black handbag. He put the black bag in front of him, carefully held the reins, and rushed home on horseback.

The snow was still very deep, the horse was very familiar with this road, and perhaps because it hadn't been home for many days, it was also quite excited. As it walked, whenever it encountered a flat road, it would habitually trot.

Whenever this happened, Ta Lihaer would pull the reins slightly—mainly because the doctor had reminded him in the hospital that movements should be smaller, not to affect the wound, and try not to let the wound tear again.

Ta Lihaer had truly learned his lesson from this injury. He decided that after going back, the first thing to do was to find his gun. He would still hunt in the future, but he would be very careful.

Ta Lihaer had communicated with Li Long while in the hospital bed, and the experience Li Long shared was very useful to Ta Lihaer—

When hunting, it's best not to get close if you don't have to.

It's not just that animals like wild boars, wolves, and black bears are dangerous; with a human body, even being gored by a red deer can easily cause serious injury.

Ta Lihaer took this point seriously.

Currently, in the whole tribe, he was the only one who hunted often in his spare time. He felt it was necessary to teach this to other young men when he had time in the future.

When he returned to the winter den, it was already dark.

Seeing Ta Lihaer return, the grandmother was truly very happy. She hugged her grandson and kissed him on both cheeks, celebrating his return.

"You are now just like Li Long, like an outsider." Grandmother evaluated on the wooden kang.

Ta Lihaer laughed.

He opened the black bag, distributed the things he brought back from the city to his family, and demonstrated how to use them.

"Look at my face, look at my teeth, it will really be much better." Ta Lihaer felt he had to change his family's living habits.

It wasn't just a question of looking good or not; he had asked, and the doctors, nurses, and Li Long had all told him.

"Brushing teeth often can make your mouth not smelly, can make our teeth not easy to fall out when we are old, and can also make our teeth become whiter..."

At this time, Ta Lihaer was very much like a raw salesman from later generations. He converted what Li Long and the others said into his own language and told his family.

Brushing teeth is actually really easy to get used to—think about it, if you brush for a week and suddenly don't brush, the next day when your tongue licks your teeth, you feel a layer of dental plaque, and that uncomfortable feeling makes you want to brush immediately.

The family looked curiously at the toothbrushes and toothpaste Ta Lihaer handed them, watched Ta Lihaer demonstrate for them, and watched the white foam come out of his mouth, all laughing.

A small change unfolded from here.

Similar things were happening in Ha Ha Li Mu's family, but because Ha Ha Li Mu was the head of the family, he gave toothbrushes and toothpaste to his mother and wife, and let Na Sen and Sa Si Ken teach them how to use them.

Na Sen and Sa Si Ken were very active. Since they were small, adults had taught them how to do things, and now it was their turn to teach adults how to do things, which made them very excited, and they were very serious and active.

For a period of time after that, Yu Shanjiang's family also used toothbrushes and toothpaste—brought by Ha Ha Li Mu.

Not only their family, but when other families came to visit, they were also infected. After all, after brushing teeth, the breath and the whiteness of the teeth had changed, which was obvious—Li Long probably didn't expect that the next time he came, the thing everyone wanted him to bring the most would actually be toothbrushes and toothpaste.

The footsteps of the New Year were getting closer, and the weather was slowly getting warmer. The outdoor temperature went from the coldest daytime minus thirty degrees and nighttime minus thirty-five or thirty-six degrees, to slowly daytime minus ten-something degrees, and the sunlight was clearly warmer.

During this period, Li Long went to the collection station to slack off and clean up every other day. On one hand, it was those warehouses, and on the other hand, the snow in the backyard needed to be cleared, so it wouldn't flow all over the courtyard when it melted.

As long as the collection station was open, people could still come to sell things every day. Sometimes he could collect a sack, and sometimes he could collect more than half a sack.

Almost every day, Li Long had to pay out hundreds of yuan in cash. At present, one of the side rooms in the big courtyard was almost full.

This certainly wouldn't do. Li Long knew he had to find someone to help him collect things. The collection station's courtyard was not bad, the courtyard wall was also a brick wall, two meters high, and it wasn't far from the police station, so it was quite safe.

So when someone moved into this courtyard later, and it was renovated to open up a vegetable plot, it would also be quite good.

It just depended on who moved in.

"How about letting Dad and Mom come over." In the evening, after Mingming and Haohao fell asleep, Li Long discussed with Gu Xiaoxia, "Your dad has to look after the agricultural supplies store, so it's not easy to take care of both. Why not pick up Dad and Mom, anyway, it's just collecting things."

"Can Dad and Mom do this? Aren't they quite comfortable staying in the team?" Gu Xiaoxia didn't know if her father-in-law and mother-in-law were willing to come.

This kind of thing certainly had to be done by one's own people, but Gu Xiaoxia was working and couldn't look after the shop, and Li Long himself didn't want to be tied down by this collection station all the time.

At the moment, he actually regretted it a bit. If he had known, he wouldn't have bothered with this, and wouldn't have had to tie himself down.

The more things there were, the more troublesome it became.

"Or it's quite good to open it every few days." Li Long thought again, "Anyway, it's our own shop, isn't it just opening whenever we want?"

"You're relaxed, but what about those people? Those near the county are still okay. Those far away, like those on the edge of the sand nest, have to take a day to come over, and if you're not open, didn't they run for nothing?" Gu Xiaoxia considered the issue of customers.

Li Long wanted to refute, but he couldn't guard it every day himself.

But thinking about it, Gu Xiaoxia's analysis wasn't wrong. Since he wanted to open it, he should open it properly.

Li Long and Gu Xiaoxia didn't come to a result. Actually, Sister Yang was also a suitable candidate, but at present, Mingming and Haohao still needed someone to look after them, and she couldn't leave either.

Li Long planned to go to the team tomorrow to see. It was already February, and it would be the Little New Year soon. He would go to see if his eldest brother's family had prepared things for the New Year, how they were prepared, and see what could be brought back.

Like hemp leaves, fried dough twists, and such, if they were fried, Li Long would definitely bring them back.

A very natural thought, he was used to it, and that was his home too.

Going over naturally meant taking Han Fang along. After these few trips back and forth, Han Fang and Li Juan had become very good friends. Last time Ta Lihaer was hospitalized, Li Long slaughtered all the roosters and hens sent by Meng Hai. Han Fang saved many beautiful chicken feathers and made three shuttlecocks. She planned to give one of them to Li Juan.

The copper coins were given to her by Li Long. Quite a few copper coins had been collected during this period, and their condition was quite good, not the kind just dug out of the soil, at least there wasn't much green rust, so they should be the kind stored in the house.

Li Long also collected some that were dug out of the ground, which were green on the surface, but could be brushed off with a brush, and most were from the Qing dynasty.

Those that were rusted through and broke when bent, Li Long directly rejected—this stuff was completely useless.

Han Fang was quite excited along the way. She hadn't seen Li Juan for about half a month, and she missed her quite a bit.

"Little Fang, have you finished your homework?" Li Long asked while driving.

"Finished." Han Fang said obediently, "I even memorized all the lessons in the language book!"

Truly impressive! Li Long felt ashamed of his own inferiority.

At the moment, the two girls, Li Juan and Han Fang, were studying very well, and Li Qiang's grades were also slowly improving, which was truly very good.

"You haven't started learning English yet, have you?"

"No, Auntie Xiaoxia said we'll learn it when we're in junior high. Sister Juan said it's very easy to learn, just memorize more."

"Oh, then study hard, and get into a good school in the future."

The jeep arrived at the Li family courtyard. There were no children playing soccer on the open space in front, and Li Qiang was practicing his soccer skills in the courtyard. It was almost New Year, and every family was busy. Some children were rushing to finish their homework—school would start after the New Year, and most children hadn't finished much of their homework.

Except for Li Qiang, with Li Juan watching, his homework didn't need Li Jianguo and the others to worry about.

So at the moment, he could only play soccer alone.

Hearing the sound of the jeep, Li Qiang immediately picked up the soccer ball, ran a few steps forward, and then moved to the side.

The jeep stopped in the courtyard. Li Qiang rushed to the gate to open it and shouted into the room at the same time:

"Dad, my Uncle is back!"

When Li Long got off, both room doors opened. On that side, Du Chunfang walked out slowly, and on this side, a fragrance of fried food drifted out of the room first.

Liang Yuemei was wearing an apron, holding chopsticks, and was frying hemp leaves.

She looked at Li Long and said with a smile:

"You came just in time, they're fried today, take some back."

"Then I really came at the right time. Sister-in-law, you close the door first, it's cold outside, I'll go chat with Dad and Mom." Li Long responded with a smile, and then went to greet Du Chunfang.

Li Long helped Du Chunfang into the room. Li Qing Xia was listening to the radio in the room. Seeing Li Long arrive, he asked with a smile:

"Why are you free?"

"There's nothing going on in the county, so I came over to see."

"Nothing going on? Then did you bring your gun?" Li Qing Xia's eyes lit up when he heard Li Long say there was nothing going on, and he asked.

"Brought it, why?"

"Daqiang's dad told me that his neighbor has a relative in the sand nest to the north, saying there are groups and groups of Mongolian gazelles there. Do you know how to go there? Is it far?"

"It's not considered far, it's about..." Li Long said, "The road isn't very good, it'll take two hours by car."

"Only two hours, then should we go there?" Li Qing Xia hadn't gone to smash ice holes these past few days, mainly because there were too many fish, and it wasn't worth it to sell them in the county, they wouldn't sell for much money, but going to Shicheng was too far.

Riding a bicycle was also very strenuous. If it wasn't for survival, but just to make money, the kind of icing on the cake, Li Qing Xia really didn't want to go.

Taking a car was about the same.

But starting the tractor in the middle of winter was really a bit strenuous.

Staying at home was boring, listening to the radio to pass the time was far worse than going out.

That's why he incited Li Long, wanting to go north to see.

If they really encountered a group of Mongolian gazelles and hunted them, wouldn't that be beautiful?

Li Long was also a bit tempted, but he still asked:

"Then we don't know the specific location, do we? We can't just go there and fumble blindly, right?"

"Heh, I know. I wrote down the name of the village in that place. Find that village, ask someone, and wouldn't we know?"

It seemed the old man trusted the people here quite a bit, believing that as long as he asked, he would be able to find out.

He actually also wanted to go there to look around, mainly wanting to see the Mongolian gazelle groups there, to see if he could get some small Mongolian gazelle babies.

If he could get them, bringing them back to raise would be fine.

The ewes in the old horse corral were already starting to give birth to lambs one after another. Thinking about it, the Mongolian gazelles in the sand bags to the north that hadn't migrated south yet should also have lambs, right?

At this time, Li Jianguo just happened to push the door and enter.

Just now he and Liang Yuemei were working together to fry hemp leaves, and now that he was done, he came over to see.

"What are you chatting about?" Li Jianguo asked while handing some hemp leaves to his mother who was leaning against the fire wall.

"They said they were going to the sand nest to the north to hunt Mongolian gazelles." Du Chunfang took over the conversation and said, "Sixty or seventy kilometers, your dad is also going crazy from boredom, to be able to think of running so far to hunt Mongolian gazelles!"

"Heh, I've been there!" Li Jianguo laughed when he heard this, "To tell the truth, there should really be quite a few Mongolian gazelles there. When I was a logistics officer in the Corps unit, the company commander took the staff to hunt Mongolian gazelles to improve our lives, and we hit quite a few!"

"Then let's go, Little Long just happened to come today, we have a car, and you, you know the place, what are we waiting for?" Li Qing Xia was excited.

Li Long didn't quite understand, was his old man waiting for him to come?

Li Jianguo had no objections, let's go, anyway, the main work for today was done, but was this a bit rash? He looked at Li Long.

If Li Long had nothing to do, then let's go, anyway, there's no time like the present.

"Alright." Li Long also had no objections, anyway, his old man liked it.

"We won't call Xiaoxia's dad today, he came over yesterday, let's scout the path first, and if we have a harvest, we'll call him." Li Jianguo said as such.

Then let's go.

Liang Yuemei knew they were going north, and didn't say anything. It wasn't mealtime yet, she just let them bring some food, otherwise, it would be troublesome if there was no place to eat.

The jeep drove out of the Fourth Team, drove to the township road, and when they reached the township, they turned north, all the way north. In the local dialect, "Just poke straight down, and you'll arrive."

Actually, that wasn't entirely the case. A few kilometers north was the later Hu-Ke Highway, which was the S201 provincial road, but it hadn't been built yet. Most of the roads at this time were dirt roads, but fortunately, there was snow on them, and the road surface was frozen solid, which made it easier to walk.

The further north they went, the fewer traces on the road surface. There were some traces left by horse-drawn carts or donkey carts, but the traces of wild animals were increasing, and occasionally they could see wild rabbits running in the wild.

The human presence along the way was getting less and less. At first, they could still encounter a few villages, but the further they went, the fewer the villages, the greater the distance, and the vegetation in the snow was slowly decreasing.

"Before, when doing things between units, we had to carry a stick." Li Jianguo looked outside and sighed, "It was just to avoid being surrounded by wolves."

"Didn't you have guns then?" Li Qing Xia asked curiously.

"Ordinary staff doing their own business, how could they carry guns? Unless it was official business for the unit..."

"There aren't as many wolves now as there were then." Li Long said while driving, "Most of them are in the sand bags and mountains. With more people, there are fewer wolves."

In the distance, undulating sand bags had appeared in the field of vision. Red willows and saxaul grew on the sand bags, which were among the few plants that could survive in the desert.

One point where the Gurbantunggut Desert differed from the Taklamakan Desert to the south was that the sand dunes here basically didn't move, and were considered fixed sand bags, and there were even oases of various sizes, as well as vegetation, in the desert.

Although it was also a desert, there were far too many traces of life here than in the south.

Then, Li Long and the others saw a group of running animals—wild donkeys?

PS: I saw someone on the internet dumping lead-acid batteries into the Yangtze River. This should be illegal, right? How can these people be so bad? According to the news released by that person, they even want to dump them at the source of the Yangtze River. This really isn't human. (End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 774 =====