Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 186 Tao Daqiang is also petty sometimes

"Da Qiang, I know it wasn't you who did it." Li Long said with a smile, "If you did it, these water rats wouldn't be able to escape - you see, there are only traces of digging in this area, and there is no sign of catching water rats at all. The person who dug the hole didn't know that water rats have several holes, so in the end, they probably didn't catch anything."

Li Long did not doubt him, which made Tao Daqiang feel relieved. Then he became angry again:
"Who could it be? I was the first one to discover the hole..."

Li Long comforted him:
"Da Qiang, this water rat doesn't belong to anyone before it's caught. It belongs to whoever catches it. If you saw it, marked it, and then injured it, and it escaped from your hands and was caught by someone else, then you could say it was yours, but now it belongs to whoever catches it."

He recalled the time when Li Qiang caught fish. Li Qiang also felt that someone had betrayed him and took away the fish that he should have caught. But in fact, fish were considered wild resources at that time. If you didn't catch it, then whoever caught it would own it.

"It's a pity for this nest of water rats. Looking at these nests, there must be at least five or six."

"It's okay. This small lake is so large, there should be more." Although Li Long understood, he didn't plan to go back empty-handed today, so he pointed forward and said:
"Let's look forward and see if there is a hole ahead."

Tao Daqiang was still a little unwilling, and asked as he walked:
"We are catching water rats, how can others know? And you just dug the hole I saw..."

"It must have been heard or seen by someone else. That person only had a vague idea of ​​what a water rat hole looked like, and probably didn't even know if water rats were valuable..."

As Li Long was talking, he thought of someone.

"It should be Ma Jinbao..."

"Ma Jinbao? You said he dug it?" Tao Daqiang was a little unconvinced. "How could he do this? How could a man who doesn't even pick up weeds on the ground or use a broom at home dig this hole?"

"I mean, it should be Ma Jinbao who told others about our digging of the water rat hole, and someone with ulterior motives heard it and came here to dig it. I guess he thought we made a lot of money in the past six months and wanted to get some benefits, but he was too embarrassed to come and ask, and heard Ma Jinbao bragging, and then..."

Tao Daqiang can figure out the rest by his imagination without Li Long's explanation.

Alas, what a pity for that nest of water rats!

"No matter what, if I knew who it was, I would still want to beat him up!" Tao Daqiang seemed to have a clear distinction between love and hate at this time.

"You can't beat him openly," Li Long joked as they walked. "Get a sack and put it on him from behind when he's alone at night. He won't know who beat him... No, a sack won't work!"

"Why not a sack?" Tao Daqiang thought it was a good idea!

Li Long was actually joking, bringing some scenes he saw in the novel in his previous life into the present. Seeing that Tao Daqiang was so "eager to learn", he explained:
"In order to prevent mixing, the sacks of each family in our team are all marked with names. So after the beating, you can't take the sacks away, wouldn't it be discovered if you take them away? We use urea bags, which usually don't have names, but they are too small..."

The families in the team didn't have many bags. The sacks were usually distributed by the team or bought by each family. Because they held a lot of things, most of them had their family names or surnames written on them as a mark.

The team buys urea bags when sowing and fertilizing. When the fertilizer is used up, whoever works nearby can take the bags away. Sometimes they discuss it and each family has several.

So urea bags are usually not marked, because the team fertilizes a lot of land every year, and there are a lot of these things.

Li Long was just talking. He looked at Tao Daqiang thoughtfully and said quickly:

"Da Qiang, don't take it seriously. I'm just saying. We don't know who did it yet. Besides, he didn't get any advantage. Let's just focus on finding it first."

"Okay, I understand." Tao Daqiang began to look towards the water, and from time to time he used a shovel to pull the reeds by the water to see if there were any traces.

They had some experience after searching once before, so when they reached the corner of the east and south banks this time, Tao Daqiang was the first to find a large hole under a clump of reeds.

"Brother Long, look at this, isn't it?" Tao Daqiang used a shovel to cut the reeds, revealing the hole hidden by the grass below.

Half of the cave entrance is in the water. Because it is blocked by reeds, the owners of these caves don’t care. There are a lot of yellow and green feces scattered at the roots of the reeds, which look quite fresh.

"That should be it. But there are a lot of reed roots, so it should be difficult to dig."

"That's nothing!" Tao Daqiang immediately became alert when he heard that this was a water rat hole. He was holding back his anger just now, so he immediately dug down along the hole, and said to Li Long while digging:

"Brother Long, please look around and make sure the water rats don't run away from anywhere else."

Li Long was already looking for other caves at this time.

He was not in a hurry. Water rats are usually active from the afternoon to dusk, and at this time they are most likely sleeping in their holes. There is usually more than one such hole, and if they run out, there will be movement, and they will not go out of a radius of five or six meters, so they can be found no matter what.

He held the shovel and looked at the water surface vigilantly. The water here was sloping and gradually deepened from the shore, not like the newly built dam that went straight up and down, so the hole was easy to find. In less than a minute, Li Long identified two targets. The two small holes were in the underwater reeds, and it was really not easy to find them without careful observation.

While Tao Daqiang was digging, water was oozing out of the two seemingly small holes. Li Long guessed that could it be that the two holes were branch entrances of the water rat?

Li Long took two steps towards the water, then picked up the shovel. This thing cost only five or six pieces of leather, it would be bad if it ran away.

Tao Daqiang had already dug out the first grass nest of a group of rats. He shouted as he dug:

"Brother Long, I saw some water rats crawling in..."

Before he finished speaking, Li Long saw a water rat coming out from the hole on the right side of the water. As soon as it stuck its head out, Li Long used a shovel to shovel the thing out.

Although the skin of water rats is thick and the shovel may not break the skin since they are underwater, Li Long still does not want to take the risk. If the shovel is damaged, it will be worthless.

The water rat was shoveled out by Li Long along with the soil. It somersaulted in the air and landed on the ground, then clumsily crawled back into the water. The water rat on the shore moved very slowly, and Li Long slapped it with a flat shovel, knocking it still.

He immediately continued to look, and then he saw a larger water rat coming out of another hole. Only its paddle-like tail was still in the hole. Its entire body had already entered the water, and it began to swim towards the deep water along the bottom of the water.

Li Long didn't care about his wet shoes. He jumped into the water and took a shovel to shovel the big water rat. The shovel stirred its hind half and tail. The huge force of the water flow pushed the water rat out of the water. It struggled hard to get back into the water. Li Long used the shovel again to pump it and the water to the shore.

Then Li Long saw a water rat come out of the previous hole and swam into the deep water.

I can’t catch up, so I can only take care of this first.

Tao Daqiang also screamed:

"Hey, hey, hey, hey - a water rat came out..." He took a shovel and tapped the dug hole hard, then picked out a fat water rat.

Li Long had also knocked the big water rat unconscious on the spot.

The two men continued to work together and finally dug the hole completely. They caught a little water rat and the hole was finally open.

"One or two escaped." Li Long said, "This guy has two underwater holes and can't handle it. One more person will be enough."

"That's enough. These four water rats, our skins can probably be sold for at least 10 or 20 yuan." Tao Daqiang was very satisfied. Isn't this better than farming?

"Okay, pack the bags and let's go set the nets." Li Long nodded, tidied up and filled the soil back, and the two of them went to the place where the nets were set.

Although Xiaohaizi is smaller than Dahaizi, that is relative. The water surface is at least several hundred acres. One third of it is covered by reeds and water plants, and the rest is where you can cast your nets.

With the tire, Li Long could choose the place to cast the net at will. He chose a trough that was far from the shore. He originally wanted to be closer so that it would be easier to retrieve the net tomorrow. But the incident of the water rat hole being dug made him realize that he should not think too highly of the people on his team. There are good people everywhere, and there are bad people everywhere.

The net is far out and the water is deep, so those who want to cause damage or take advantage of others must at least consider whether they can afford the possible losses before they get involved.

Li Long paddled the tire to lower the net. Tao Daqiang looked at him enviously and then began to practice casting the net by the water.

After casting the net three or five times, Li Long had already reached the reeds about thirty or forty meters from the shore and began to demonstrate his special skills in casting the net.

He sighed. He couldn't even cast a half circle by casting the net, let alone lowering the net with his mouth. Even if he tried to pull the net in with a tire, he would be thrown into the water by a big fish.

If I hadn't followed Brother Long, wouldn't I have been a waste?

He suddenly thought of the guy who dug a rat hole and harmed others without benefiting himself.

If I really find out who it is, I will definitely go there in the middle of the night and beat him up using Brother Long's method!
Li Long cast all eight nets and rowed back for forty minutes. He saw Tao Daqiang still practicing casting the nets. There were a few fish jumping on the ground, mostly crucian carp, so he said:
"Da Qiang, you can take this fish back later. My family won't eat fish these days. We have to stop eating it for two days."

"My family won't eat it either." Tao Daqiang waved his hand, "We haven't finished eating the big carp yet."

"Well... you take some and decide who to give it to. Give it to your brother's family. I'll give some to Uncle Luo." Li Long thought for a moment and said, "Let's go back and skin the water rats."

The two men returned to Li's house, put down the net and tire, and began to skin the water rats.

Of the four water rats, the largest one had the best skin and a sachet—only it had it, the other three didn’t.

This incense bag is larger than the two incense bags that Li Long had cut off before. It feels granular when you pinch it, as if it is filled with a lot of pebbles.

"Apply salt first, and when it's completely dry, sell it," Li Long said. "It only takes three to five days."

"Okay, Brother Long, I'm going back. I'll come back early tomorrow morning."

After Tao Daqiang left, Li Long smeared salt on the skins and hung them up, then took the remaining fish to Laomahao.

Uncle Luo was feeding the fawn grass, and Li Long heard the cry of a wild boar from a distance.

Fortunately, the old horse is located in the middle of the three settlements, otherwise, someone would probably cause trouble for Li Long. After all, the wild boar cub's cry is too unpleasant, and it is full of energy, and it can cry for most of the day.

"Xiaolong is here - why are you carrying fish again? I feel a little guilty about this." Uncle Luo said with a smile as he looked at the large and small fish skewered with Stipa sphenanthera in Li Long's hand.

"Just eat without worry. There aren't many other things in the lakes, big or small, but there are a lot of fish."

"Okay, I won't be polite. By the way, Xiaolong, this little deer has been a little listless these past two days, I don't know why."

Li Long went to take a look and found that the size of the two fawns did not seem to have changed much. In the small cage where the fawns were kept, there were alfalfa, reeds, gray strips and other wild grasses in the trough, as well as some feed mixed with bran, but they did not move much.

The small cubicle was very clean, and there was not even any feces to be seen, and there was no peculiar smell. Li Long looked at the deer, thought for a moment, and said:

"Uncle Luo, these deer probably still aren't used to our environment. Let's let them out and let them run around more."

"Okay, let them run around outside more often from now on." Uncle Luo nodded readily. "The yard is big, so I'll plant vegetables in a small area, and they'll all grow. I'll use the waste soil from outside to build a wall in the larger area, and let them run around in that area."

"When I have some free time in the next two days, I will bring some people over to build the wall." Li Long said, "Oh, and I need to clean up a room over here. My parents are coming over soon, and my eldest brother's place can't accommodate me, so I will live here."

"That's great." Uncle Luo was happy when he heard it. "Then I'll have company. There are many houses here. Although no one lives in them usually, I'm looking after them. Which one do you want to live in? I'll clean it out for you first."

Li Long looked at the row of bungalows, a total of five rooms. Lao Luo lived in the one near the door, and also guarded the gate, so he pointed to the middle room and said, "I'll live there."

"Okay, that room is the biggest, so there's plenty of room for anything. Xiaolong, how are you going to get the furniture?"

"I made a new set. I pulled a lot of wood from the mountains, but it was a waste to burn it as firewood, so I made furniture out of it."

"New furniture, Xiaolong, tell me the truth, are you getting married soon?" Uncle Luo joked, "Who is your partner?"

"Gu Xiaoxia." Li Long did not hide it. "It will take another year or two before we get married. We are not in a hurry. She has just started working, so we have to be careful about the impact."

"Okay, okay, the girl from the Gu family is a person who lives a normal life, not like... ahem, you just need to know." Old Uncle Luo said with a smile, "I feel that after this winter, you have changed a lot, work hard!"

When Li Long was watching the little wild boar in the old stable, Tao Daqiang came back home. Tao Jianshe was feeding the donkey at home. Seeing him come back, he hesitated for a moment and said:

"Daqiang, I just went to the store to buy vinegar, and I heard Ma Jinbao talking there, saying that you guys dug up water rats? And then he said Xu Jianjun went with them?"

"Who? Xu Jianjun?" Tao Daqiang was squatting on the ground to catch fish, but when he heard this, he stood up suddenly!

(End of this chapter)