Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 164: Tired Li Long
Li Long was awakened by Liang Yuemei.

"Xiaolong, why did you fall asleep here?" Liang Yuemei said, "Go to the house and sleep. Haven't you cooked yet? I'll heat up some food for you."

Li Long rubbed his eyes, got up and said:
"I'm exhausted. Oh, by the way, I brought back some meat, as well as some from the Tao family. I'll have to send a leg to Daqiang's father later."

"Let's go after we eat." Liang Yuemei hurried to the kitchen. She saw the meat in the pot on the stove, took it out, washed the pot and heated up the rice.

At noon they had soup and rice, which heated up quickly. Liang Yuemei served Li Long a bowl and said:

"I'll get you another steamed bun. You can eat it to satisfy your hunger."

"Okay." Li Long walked into the house carrying the bowl, and seeing some chopped salted leeks on the kitchen chopping board, he put some into the bowl of soup and rice - the soup and rice here refers to noodle soup.

"The steamed buns are cold," Liang Yuemei said as she brought two steamed buns on a plate. "It's too late to steam them. You can eat them while soaking them."

"Just eat it like this." Li Long took the steamed bun and ate it in big mouthfuls. "I'm starving."

"Why don't you know to eat lunch before working?" Liang Yuemei said half complaining and half distressed, "If your elder brother knew, he would definitely scold you."

"Is my eldest brother coming?" Li Long asked while eating.

"It turns out that the team's sideline vegetable field was allocated to our family for five mu. I'm going to weed our grain field this afternoon, and your eldest brother is going to the fodder field over there to check on the sowing situation. The beets we've planted are about to sprout."

"Yeah." Li Long nodded. This matter had been discussed beforehand.

As it got dark, Li Long ate two large bowls of soup and rice, and two steamed buns before he felt full. As he cleared the bowls, he said to Liang Yuemei:

"I brought back half a wolf and half a roe deer this time. I sent a roe deer leg and a wolf leg to Wenyu at noon. I think Uncle Liang is in good health. I was in a hurry, so I didn't see Aunt. They should all be fine."

"You went over there?" Liang Yuemei was surprised. "No wonder... you ran back from the mountains and turned over there... No wonder you were so tired. Tell me... what can I say..."

"Don't say anything," Li Long said with a smile, "Okay, I'll take the meat to Daqiang's father first, and check on the situation at other families. Oh, and I'll cut a piece of meat for Uncle Luo, he's also short of meat."

Uncle Luo is used to living a hard life, so he certainly wouldn't be willing to buy meat.

Li Long carried the leg of a roe deer and a piece of meat and went to the stable first.

Uncle Luo was feeding the little wild boar. Seeing Li Long coming over, he smiled and said:

"Xiaolong, look at this little wild boar. It is much happier than a domestic pig. It runs all day long. It's only because this stable is big that it wouldn't be able to keep up with its activities."

"Uncle Luo, is there enough feed?" Li Long asked.

"enough."

"Okay, I'll bring some fish meal over tomorrow, and you can mix it with bran and feed it to the dog. This is the roe deer and wolf meat I hunted in the mountains today, and you can cook it when you have time."

"There's also wolf meat! Good, good! Xiaolong, you're the only one willing to give me meat to eat."

"That's because everyone's life is hard. When life gets better, you'll see more people sending you meat."

In the pigpen, the five little wild boars have grown a lot, and the one with the injured leg still looks a little inconvenient.

There is still grass in the circle. It must have been cut by Uncle Luo. He was very careful.

"Uncle Luo, I've got two fawns at my friend's place in the mountains. Can you raise them?" Li Long suddenly thought of the deer and asked.

"Of course you can. Deer eat grass. Just give them more grass. There's plenty of room for them to run around in this big yard."

"After a while, I'll have someone build a wall in the middle of the yard. Deer and other animals can run around on one side, and you can plant vegetables on the other side. When I bring the deer back, I'll also bring back some manure. It would be a bit uneconomical not to plant some vegetables in this big yard."

"You don't have to pull the manure. You can get a pile of manure from any corner of the stable with a broom." Lao Luo smiled and replied after hearing what Li Long said, "It's because we don't know how you plan to do it, so we haven't planted it yet. If you say it can be planted, then we'll plant it."

It turned out that Lao Luo had been waiting for Li Long to speak. This surprised Li Long. This Lao Luo was very strict with his rules.

The two chatted for a while, and Li Long left and went to Tao's house.

Tao Jianshe was feeding the donkey in the yard and was a little surprised to see Li Long come in.

"Uncle Tao, Daqiang and I hunted a roe deer today, and I'm sending you a leg. He's pretty good in the mountains, and he can weave a saddlebag very quickly."

Li Long explained his purpose, and Tao Jianshe said with a smile on his face:
"How could he have the ability to kill a roe deer? It must be you who killed it, and then you take care of him. You see, there is no shortage of food at home..."

"Daqiang found it when he was cutting the strips. He pointed out the place to me, and then I hit it." Li Long explained, "By the way, the roe deer has antlers, and we each got one. I told Daqiang that the money your family owes me can be paid with antlers..."

"I've seen roe deer before, how big can the antlers be?" Tao Jianshe said hurriedly, "It can't be wiped off. Xiaolong, I know you are kind and can make money, but this is not the way to do it. It's the amount you deserve... Don't worry, I will definitely pay you back by the end of the year."

Li Long was a little surprised. Is this still the Tao Jianshe who was not satisfied with the frozen lamb leg he gave him and asked for more?

Why such a big turn?
Tao Jianshe saw Li Long's expression and knew what he had done before. He smiled awkwardly and said:

"Xiaolong, don't blame your Uncle Tao for being confused in the past. No one wants to live a poor life without meat to eat!

I have figured it out in the past few months. Evil ways will never last long. Daqiang has been with you for a short time, and we have a donkey and a car.

I was old and confused before, but I won’t be confused anymore. You don’t care about the past because you are magnanimous. I, your uncle Tao, will never hold you back again. But I still have my dignity, so I can’t take advantage of you anymore…”

Li Long was quite surprised by Tao Jianshe's change, but also quite happy. He didn't want to lead Tao Daqiang to make money with a shitty father. Now that Tao Jianshe's thinking has changed, he is naturally very happy.

The next step was to visit each family. Now the sun had set, and everyone had returned from work. The families of the people Li Long had visited were all there, and they were concerned about their families in the mountains.

These people's families were relieved when they knew that their families were living well in the mountains and had meat to eat. Basically, there was nothing to tell, just let Li Long tell the people in the mountains to work hard.

Finally, Li Long went to the home of the village director Xu Chengjun, who also asked Li Long to strictly manage the work and strictly control the quality of the work so as not to embarrass himself in the end.

"Xiaolong," Xu Chengjun said after hesitating for a moment after finishing talking about the sideline team.
"Let's just leave it at that regarding Gu Ermao. Although he falsely accused you, he lost his apprenticeship, and when he came back, he had your eldest brother beat up his family. Now Ermao feels ashamed, and I don't know where he ran off to. Let's just leave it at that. After all, you didn't lose much, and his family is almost broken up now."

Only then did Li Long realize that after Gu Ermao ran back, his family was beaten up by his eldest brother!
I never thought that my brother could be so impulsive!
However, he originally planned to come back to finish other things and go to trouble Gu Ermao himself, but he didn't expect that Gu Ermao ran away! It was a good thing for him! Otherwise, Li Long really wanted to break his leg!
"Okay, since you, the captain, have said so, let's do this." On the surface, Li Long agreed very readily. As a winner, he would naturally be more generous.

Of course, if I meet Gu Ermao in private, it’s hard to say what to do specifically.

When Li Long returned to the yard, Li Jianguo was unloading the horse carriage. The carriage was loaded with a lot of pig grass, and Li Juan and Qiangqiang were helping to carry the pig grass to the stove.

"Xiaolong is back." Li Jianguo greeted.

"Uncle!"

"Uncle!"

Li Juan and Qiang Qiang ran over and greeted them enthusiastically. Li Long smiled and touched the two children's heads. He found that Li Juan and Li Qiang had grown taller.

"Uncle, did you kill a wolf again? I saw the wolf's head! And its teeth were so long!" Li Qiang said hurriedly, "Is it easy to kill a wolf?"

"It's not easy to fight. Last night, they almost got me eaten!" Li Long threatened him, "So don't go into the mountains alone. It's much more dangerous!"

"Yeah!" Li Qiang now admires Li Long the most, and he has to listen to what he says.

Li Jianguo watched the interaction between the uncle and nephew with a smile, while Li Juan went to chop pig grass, with her ears perked up, listening to Li Long talking about things in the mountains.

"The team has already started laying wires, and electricity may be available in a few days." Li Jianguo suddenly said, "When Qiangqiang goes to school, he will be able to use electric lights, and he won't have to do his homework under the oil lamp."

He looked at Li Juan and said:

"Juan's school life is very hard, but it will get better later."

Li Juan smiled and lowered her head to continue chopping pig grass. Li Qiang ran over to help. Liang Yuemei came out of the house and handed two pairs of shoes to Li Long.

"Sister-in-law, are you making shoes for me again?" Li Long took the shoes and looked at them with some surprise, "These shoes look different from the ones you used before."

"I didn't make these for you. Xiaoxia made them for you. One pair is for you and the other is for her dad." Liang Yuemei said with a smile, "Xiaoxia came to our house a few days ago and said that she hadn't seen you for a few days and didn't know if you were in the mountains, so she put the shoes here for you to wear or take with you when you come back."

"Xiaoxia did it?" Li Long was a little surprised. Gu Xiaoxia didn't say anything today. Was she planning to give him a surprise?
"You didn't even see it. Before Xiaoxia came that day, Sister Lu said that Xiaoxia would be a government employee in the future, and that she was no longer suitable for you, and might not be interested in you. But as soon as she finished speaking, Xiaoxia came over, and left two pairs of shoes there. Then Sister Lu..."

Liang Yuemei smiled and turned her head to look at the Lu family, then said:

"Don't mention how embarrassed you are - Xiaoxia is a good person. She doesn't forget her roots. She is a good girl."

Li Long took the shoes and put them in the east room, then came out to process the wolf skin and roe deer skin. He also didn't know how to tan the leather, so he had already applied salt to it. The next step was to stretch the leather as much as possible to facilitate selling it later.

After finishing the work, Liang Yuemei's evening snack was also prepared. Li Long went to the vacant room to get the dried fish that had been dried earlier and placed it by the stove to simmer slowly. After a while, the dried fish became hot and golden brown. Li Long handed the dried fish to Li Qiang:

"Qiangqiang, go share some with your parents and sister."

Li Qiang happily took the dried fish and distributed it to everyone.

"There are two left." Li Qiang took one of the remaining dried fish in one hand and said to Li Long.

"Both are yours, take your time to eat." Li Long kept one for himself, which was also stewed. He broke off the fish head, blew off the ash, put it in his mouth and started chewing it with a crunching sound.

The dried fish is a bit salty and is quite dry from being sun-dried. In addition, it is stewed very well, so the bones and thorns inside are all burnt, so it tastes very crispy and you can chew it up and swallow it even with the thorns.

The whole family ate the dried salted fish slowly, occasionally drinking a sip of porridge, and it felt really good.

After dinner, Li Jianguo, Liang Yuemei and Li Long cut the meat into smaller pieces. Liang Yuemei asked Li Long to go back and rest while she and Li Jianguo braised the meat. Li Long then returned to the east room and took the shoes to try them on.

Gu Boyuan was not as tall as himself, and his feet were not as big as his, so his shoes were naturally a small size. Li Long tried on the large size shoes and was surprised to find that they actually fit him quite well.

Xiaoxia is a very attentive girl. When did she know her shoe size?
Li Long walked out of the room putting on his shoes. He saw Li Jianguo also sitting by the stove in the yard smoking. He was a little surprised, but then he sat over there.

"Brother, did you beat up the Gu family?"

"Well, Gu Ermao bullied you twice. He wasn't joking. He wanted to put you in jail. How could I tolerate him?"

Li Jianguo's words were calm and light, but there was murderous intent between the lines:
"It's just that he runs fast, otherwise..."

Li Jianguo didn't continue speaking. Li Long guessed that the next words would be full of blood.

"In fact, I was thinking of coming back to give him a good beating, but I didn't expect him to run away... Besides, we have Juan and Qiangqiang at home..."

"What's there to be afraid of?" Li Jianguo didn't say what he was worried about at the time. He took a puff of Mohe cigarette and said, "I was going to send Juan to school the day after the fight, but he ran away. What a coward!"

Li Long smiled. In fact, his elder brother was also afraid. He probably beat up the Gu family on impulse after hearing the news that he was sued.

His protective character has never changed.

"Brother, our family is doing better now. Do you think we can bring our parents over to live with us for a while?"

Li Jianguo turned his head and looked at Li Long, he was a little surprised.

Although Li Long grew up with his parents until he was in his teens, he has never been very close to the people in his hometown, including his parents.

Now suddenly they are asking to bring their parents over. This is quite a big change.

"I remember that in the past two years, there were still people in my hometown who didn't have enough to eat, unlike here, where we can eat meat every day." Li Long said with emotion, "Although my father said he didn't care about me anymore and handed me over to you, he is my parents after all. It's hard for them in my hometown because of the environment. Now that our life is more comfortable, isn't it right for them to come here and live a good life?"

"Okay, after I finish working in the fields in a couple of days, I'll telegraph home and see what they think."

Li Jianguo was actually quite happy that his younger brother had such an idea.

(End of this chapter)