Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 190 This method of catching water rats must not be learned by others!
Not long after lunch, Tao Daqiang rushed over. Li Long did not expect him to be so enthusiastic, but thinking about the value of water rats, Li Long picked up a shovel and went to the small lake with Tao Daqiang, taking the net and tire.

"Daqiang, I sold fish yesterday, here's five dollars." Li Long handed Tao Daqiang a five-dollar bill, "Here."

Tao Daqiang wanted to refuse, but Li Long said:

"Let's be clear. The last time I was a water rat, I settled your debt. You should take this money, otherwise it will be difficult for us to divide the money later."

Tao Daqiang then took the money, folded it in half, put it into the inner pocket of his clothes with a silly smile, and patted it to make sure it would not leak out.

"Let's put the net down first and then go look for the water rats." Li Long looked at the water and said, "Otherwise, I won't feel safe leaving the net here, and it won't be convenient to carry it with me."

"Brother Long, we'll do whatever you say!" Tao Daqiang naturally had no objection.

Li Long put the tire into the water, sat on it, picked up the bag, and rowed to the place where he first set the net when he came back from the mountains, and then started to set the net.

He only took six nets today, mainly planning to sell the skins and musk of the two water rats at the purchasing station after selling the fish tomorrow.

After the six nets were lowered, when Li Long rowed the tire to the shore, Tao Daqiang pulled him up and said:
"Brother Long, I don't think there are any more water rat holes on the east coast. Should we go to the north?"

"We can't go north." Li Long waved his hand. "That's the dam. Even if there are water rat holes, we can't dig them. If we don't dig them well, the dam will collapse and we'll be in big trouble."

Tao Daqiang understood and continued to propose:

"Then go south?"

"Go south. If there's nothing in the south, go west."

They found a nest of water rats in the reeds in the south. While they were digging, Ma Jinbao came over again.

"Hey, you guys are still digging." Ma Jinbao saw Li Long and Tao Daqiang, who were herding sheep to eat grass on the shore, and said, "What's so good about these water rats? Do you want to dig them up for the meat or the skin?"

"That depends on what the purchasing station wants them for." Li Long said as he looked at the hole in the water. "The ones we dug last time haven't been taken to the purchasing station yet. When I get there, I'll ask them and tell you."

Ma Jinbao didn't believe that Li Long didn't know about it. He also knew that Li Long wouldn't tell. However, it was troublesome to dig out the water rat. He saw with his own eyes that Xu Jianjun dug for a long time and got nothing.

Ma Jinbao didn't understand why Xu Jianjun didn't find it, so he wanted to find out what was going on.

Li Long knew what Ma Jinbao was thinking. He casually thrust a shovel into the water, blocking the hole that led the water rat into the water. Then he said to Tao Daqiang:

"Da Qiang, you dig first, I'll go find a stick."

There were quite a few wooden sticks on the shore of the small lake that were washed down from upstream by the flood, and Li Long easily found a suitable one.

Some of these sticks were already rotten, so Li Long waved them and slammed them on the ground twice to make sure they were strong enough, then he carried them back. When he came back, Tao Daqiang had already dug to the first nest.

"It's in!" Tao Daqiang shouted, and then quickly started to dig it out.

Li Long was standing there vigilantly, holding a stick.

The holes through which the water rats inside entered the water were blocked, and they were extremely anxious. Finally, they chose to break out.

When the first water rat rushed out of Tao Daqiang's hole, Tao Daqiang hit it into the mud with a shovel. The second one rushed out soon after, and Li Long hit the water rat on the head accurately with a stick, knocking it unconscious.

After a while, the third water rat did not come out, so Tao Daqiang continued to dig, while Li Long hit the two water rats with two more sticks before putting them into the bag.

"You two can do it," Ma Jinbao didn't think it was anything unusual. He didn't notice the role of Li Long's shovel. He thought that maybe the water rats were not in the nest that Xu Jianjun dug before, but happened to be in this one.

He could not help but envy the luck of the two people and said:

"You two are really good. Xu Jianjun dug a hole yesterday, but there was not a single water rat... You dug two holes and found them both. Li Long, you are lucky and have good vision!"

"You said that the hole on the east bank was dug by Xu Jianjun?" Li Long asked and looked at Tao Daqiang again.

Tao Daqiang continued digging as if nothing had happened.

"Yeah, he didn't let me say it. What's the big deal? It's not something shameful... But I heard that Xu Jianjun was beaten last night. He was covered with a urea bag and his body was covered with chicken shit. It smelled terrible. I heard that his wife didn't let him go to bed yesterday..."

"What? He was put in a bag and beaten?" Li Long felt it was a bit magical. "When?"

"Last night, I was drinking at Lao Zhang's store. He came over and I offered him a sip. After he finished drinking..." Ma Jinbao was too embarrassed to say that he had vomited all over Xu Jianjun, so he brushed the matter aside and continued:
"After drinking, he wanted to go home, but he was beaten at the door of Wang Caimi's house. What Wang Caimi's wife said today must be true!"

Li Long didn't look at Tao Daqiang. He already knew that it must have been Tao Daqiang who beat him - it couldn't be such a coincidence!
But think about it, beating Xu Jianjun for that water rat hole was just child's play.

But he couldn't say anything about this. At this time, Tao Daqiang had already dug to the end of the main road, and two water rats jumped out together. When Tao Daqiang hit one, the other one jumped into the water, but was picked up by Li Long's stick and fell into the mud, and then knocked unconscious by two sticks.

Four water rats were obtained.

Ma Jinbao was like watching a circus, wondering how these two people could be so powerful.

Li Long originally thought that there were no more, but he didn't expect that there was a largest water rat hidden in the last branch cave, which was half the size of the others!
This water rat was knocked unconscious by Tao Daqiang and almost flattened!
Five water rats, even if there is no musk, plus the four from last time, a conservative estimate is that Tao Daqiang can get forty dollars!
Since Ma Jinbao was beside him, Li Long didn't say anything. He carried the shovel and Tao Daqiang carried the bag as they walked towards the tire.

Ma Jinbao looked at the two men, and when they walked away, he said to himself:

"What Xu Jianjun said is true. Tao Daqiang really looks like Li Zai's lackey and henchman."

After they walked away, Li Long whispered to Tao Daqiang:

"Da Qiang, just for the skins and incense of the water rats from yesterday and today, you can get at least 40 yuan!"

"What? So many?" Tao Daqiang exclaimed, "How can there be so many?"

A worker’s monthly salary in two days, what does that mean?
"A hide is conservatively eight dollars. There are nine hides in total today and yesterday, plus the musk yesterday." Li Long calculated for him, "Even if there is no musk today, the total is almost ninety..."

"Then...then..." Tao Daqiang hesitated for a long time, being so excited that he didn't know what to say.

"It's a pity that the number of water rats is limited. We can only dig out two or three nests in our small lake at most." Li Long sighed, "I don't know if there are any in the big lake."

This makes money much faster than catching fish, and most importantly, it is not as hard.

Because of Ma Jinbao's presence, Li Long and his companions did not continue to go to the west bank, but went back.

There was no net cast today. The two returned to Li's house. It was still early, so Li Long started to skin the water rats. Tao Daqiang didn't dare to do it himself, fearing that he would damage the skin, so he helped Li Long. "Daqiang, when we're done, you help me. I plan to clean up a room in the stable and bring the furniture back tomorrow. You help me clean up and we can build the wall in the middle of the stable."

"No problem." Tao Daqiang said cheerfully, "It's nothing anyway."

It took more than an hour to skin five water rats. What surprised Li Long was that two of them had musk.

Two men scraped the oil off the leather, rubbed salt on it, then stretched it with wooden sticks and placed it in an empty house to dry.

Seeing that it was still early, Li Long took a few newspapers from an unoccupied room, picked up a broom and said to Tao Daqiang:

"Daqiang, come on, work with me."

Tao Daqiang took the big broom in his hand, and Li Long picked up a small broom. The big broom was made of Achnatherum splendens, and the small broom was made of sorghum stalks.

As the two of them left, Li Qiang came back from preschool and asked Li Long when he saw him:

"Uncle, what are you doing?"

"Go to the horse horn to work." Li Long touched Li Qiang's head, "You go home, your sister will be back soon, you can listen to the trumpet."

"I want to work with you guys." Li Qiang's eyes lit up and he said, "Can I go?"

"Sure, as long as you're not afraid of getting tired." Li Long said with a smile, "But you can't run away halfway through the work."

"I promise not to!" Li Qiang said loudly, and then followed Li Long happily. In Li Qiang's eyes, Li Long was omnipotent. He admired his uncle very much, and felt very proud to work with him. He took the small broom from Li Long, walked between the two people with his head held high.

Li Long took a piece of newspaper, tucked the rest under his armpit, and began to fold the hat.

"Uncle, what are you doing?" Li Qiang asked curiously, looking up.

"Hat, we'll be cleaning later and there's a lot of dust, so let's all wear hats, otherwise it'll be hard to wash the dust off our heads."

"What does this hat look like?" Li Qiang asked.

"Did you see the Soviet soldiers in the movie? They were wearing those boat-shaped hats." Li Long explained. In fact, the most vivid image was the hats of the Kuomintang female officers in war movies. However, for the young people of this era who had clear likes and dislikes, they did not want to have anything to do with the reactionaries.

The boat-shaped hat is easy to fold. Li Long folded one, opened it and put it on Li Qiang's head. Li Qiang took it off with both hands, looked at it curiously, and then put it back on his head, very happy.

Li Long broke two more, one for himself and one for Tao Daqiang, and then came to Laomahao.

Lao Luo was feeding grass to the deer. Seeing the three people coming over, he smiled and said:
"Xiaolong, are you here to clean the house?"

"Yes." Li Long said, "Clean up early and move the furniture in early." He walked into the house and saw that it had been simply cleaned. He asked in confusion:

"Uncle Luo, have you cleaned it?"

"I just swept it simply. You have to do the real work." Uncle Luo said with a smile.

Li Long and his friends started cleaning, while Uncle Luo went to feed the wild boars and deer.

Li Qiang had no patience when working. After working for a while, he ran to see the little wild boar and then the little deer. He even mischievously climbed into the deer pen, wanting to get close to the deer.

The deer screamed in fear, then knocked over the unsuspecting Li Qiang.

Li Qiang's cry attracted Li Long and his friends. Seeing that Li Qiang was knocked over by the deer, Li Long smiled and said:

"Qiangqiang, you'd better come out. That deer is very strong."

He saw a small bump on the head of the fawn that knocked Li Qiang over, and guessed it might be a male elk calf.

The house in the horse house was quite dusty and smelled of old manure. Li Long and Tao Daqiang spent more than an hour cleaning the spider webs on the roof, the dust in the corners, and the stains on the walls. They also sprinkled clean water on the ground - there was an artesian well not far from the horse house, so it was quite convenient to use water. This was specially dug for feeding the horses at that time.

Seeing that it was still early, Li Long and Tao Daqiang left the house and started building the wall in the middle of the yard.

Because there was no mud, for the time being I heard it was piled up with lumps of earth and broken bricks picked up by Uncle Luo.

"When everything is free in the morning in a few days, I'll collect some dirt," Tao Daqiang said, "and mix it with mud to build a wall here."

"You can't do it alone?" Li Long said with a smile, "Catch fish for another two days, I'll go into the mountains to see if I can catch a wild boar, and then I'll call some guys in the team to help me."

"That's great!" Tao Daqiang's eyes lit up, "There must be a lot of people in the team who want to do this!"

Although the production quotas were assigned to each household, it was impossible to increase income all at once. Now if each household wanted to eat some meat, they could only catch some fish in the canal. It was no wonder that Tao Daqiang took the meat of the water rat back home for the first time.

Li Long's family was the only one in the whole village who had no shortage of meat, not to mention the whole team. Even the head of the commune or the village could not eat like this.

Before dark, Li Long and Tao Daqiang managed to build a half-meter-high wall in the middle of the Mahao courtyard.

Li Long was a little discouraged. This wall was actually useless. With the deer's ability, he could easily jump over it.

Then take some time to go hunting, and then come back to cook meat and entertain people.

"Uncle Luo, we are leaving." Li Long simply brushed off the dust on his body and said to Uncle Luo, "I will ask someone to come over and build a wall in a few days. Let the deer stay in the deer pen for a few days. Sorry to bother you these days."

"What's the trouble? We have meat and fish to eat every day. Feeding pigs and deer is not a big job." Old Uncle Luo waved his hand. "It would be too formal if you say anything more."

"Then I'll give you the salary." Li Long took out money from his pocket. "I won't give you a high salary, twenty a month, what do you think?"

"Of course!" said Laoshu Luo with a smile, "I'm very happy to get such a high salary - but you have to get me some more things to support me, otherwise I will burn my wallet with this money."

"Okay, wait until I get into the mountains and see what I can catch. If I catch anything, I'll send it back to you."

"Good good."

Li Long took Li Qiang home, and Tao Daqiang also returned to his own home. Because they had to get up early the next morning to surf the Internet, and they were also very tired from cleaning the house, they went to bed early.

In the dream, Li Long lived in a building - yes, in the dream, the house in Mahao became a small second floor, like a villa, so beautiful! And this is his and Gu Xiaoxia's new house - that feeling, hey!

(End of this chapter)