Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

After asking Li Jianguo and knowing that Li Long had no objection to selling fish, he set down ten to twelve nets every day. He would go out early in the morning to get the nets in a horse-drawn carriage, come back to select the fish, and then he and Li Jianguo would go to sell the fish while Liang Yuemei went to work and Tao Daqiang would pick up the nets.

The arrangements are well organized.

And because they arrived earlier, Li Juan and Li Qiang were able to go to school by bicycle, which made them quite happy.

The two brothers could earn dozens of dollars every day, and Li Jianguo's thinking gradually changed.

Why earn work points when you earn so much money a day?
All you have to pay is to get up earlier and shout a few times in the market.

The free market in Ma County also started charging stall fees one week after Shicheng did.

Unlike Shicheng Old Street, once stall fees were collected here, the number of stall owners suddenly dropped a lot.

According to Li Jianguo, those who did not want to pay simply moved their stalls eastward, out of the city, and set up their stalls on the side of the Wuyi Highway.

To be honest, the stall management fee is actually not high, even lower than that in Shicheng. It is basically one to thirty cents per stall.

But for ordinary people, let alone one cent, even five cents is still money and can be of great use at critical moments.

However, even though they moved the location, the flow of people did not follow the past - after all, the current market has been fixed for more than half a year, and it was transferred from the original black market. People in the county town have become accustomed to the location of the market. After the sudden change, although the goods there are cheaper, they are far away.

Not everyone has a bicycle. If you walk an extra kilometer or two, it will take more than half an hour to go back and forth. For people who go to work in the morning, this time may not be affordable.

So most people still buy things in the market here.

As there are fewer stalls in the market, the stall owners have to pay management fees, and the prices of the things they sell naturally start to rise.

"Several fishmongers came to me and wanted to ask me to raise the price of fish," Li Jianguo told Li Long at the dinner table. "I ignored them. They were carrying several kilograms or even dozens of kilograms of fish, so I just raised the price. My 60 to 70 kilograms of fish are not as delicious as the original Xiaohaizi fish. If I raise the price a little, no one would buy them."

"That's right. We don't need these few cents of management fee, so let's stick to the original plan."

"Many old customers still say that the fish was delicious. Some people still remember you and dad." Li Jianguo said with a smile, "I told those people that we are a family. They said that it is no wonder that the old saying 'brothers fight together and fathers and sons fight together' is true. I also told them that we will send fish from Xiaohaizi in a while, and now we need to rest there for a while."

"We really need to rest for a while," Li Long said. "In fact, there are still quite a few big fish in the lake. We caught quite a few medium-sized fish. It's time to water the winter wheat soon. The lake needs to be filled with water before then, so we may not be able to catch many."

The topic ended there. Although the fish sold in Dahaizi were not as expensive as those sold in Xiaohaizi, the quantity was large, and one catch was twice as much as that in Xiaohaizi. Li Long also saw this. Although there were many villages around Dahaizi, he was the only one who actually caught fish and sold them.

Every time I paddled in there to cast the net, I felt so lonely.

Time passed day by day, and soon the Mid-Autumn Festival arrived.

Mid-Autumn Festival is not a legal holiday at this time, and if it is alone, there is no holiday. But this year, Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day are combined together, so there is a holiday.

In the first two days of the Mid-Autumn Festival, the family has already started preparing for the festival.

"Xiaolong, there are those wooden sticks I picked up by the courtyard wall, and the pine branches you brought back that can't be used to make furniture. I tied them together, and there is also this bowl of noodles. Take it to the back East Village and give it to Grandpa Chai. Your eldest brother has already made an appointment with his family to let him help make pot cakes."

Guokui was originally a unique food in Gansu and Shaanxi. Most of the traditional Han people in northern Xinjiang came from Gansu and Shaanxi before the young people came to support the border areas. Of course, there were also people from further away, such as those who participated in the Small Knife Society Uprising or followed Zuo Zongtang and Lin Zexu, but that is another story.

The Han people who came from Gansu and Shaanxi settled here, bringing not only the Lanyin Mandarin language, but also the local specialty foods and living habits.

Grandpa Chai is a local farmer who has been here since before the village was built. His method of making Guokui is also quite unique. He puts the kneaded dough in a flat pan that is buckled together. Of course, ingredients need to be added to the dough, but Li Long doesn't know what ingredients are added.

Put two frying pans together in the middle, put a bucket on each side, and burn firewood in the buckets, because firewood is durable. Use the fire in the upper and lower buckets to bake the Guokui in the frying pan.

Of course, Mr. Chai couldn't help everyone, it all depended on the relationship. Li Jianguo still had the face, so after Li Long sent the things over, Mr. Chai readily agreed.

"Just come and pick it up tomorrow afternoon."

"Okay." Li Long responded, said goodbye to the vigorous old man, and went back.

It is the same as "no matter how rich or poor you are, you should get a haircut for the New Year". Since we have to celebrate the festival, we should basically do what we can. We should prepare a big watermelon, at least enough for the whole family to cut and eat. Usually, we prepare a thick-skinned and sandy watermelon weighing more than ten kilograms early.

Apples are not that expensive at this time, so you need to prepare them. If you have money, buy a few kilograms and eat them on weekdays. If you have less money, just buy a few and put a plate of them on the reunion night.

Of course, the most indispensable thing is mooncakes. They are also sold in the brigade and township stores, starting from the Mid-Autumn Festival and lasting until the New Year. As for the shelf life and whether they will go bad, no one cares.

It’s sold out once it’s sold out.

So often during the Chinese New Year, you can still see a paper bag of mooncakes on the wooden counter of the store. They are usually very cheap, you can buy one for 10 or 20 cents, and later it became 50 cents. I don't know how old they are. Because they use a lot of sugar, they are usually not easy to spoil, at most the oil inside becomes rancid.

Li Long looked down on the mooncakes. After selling fish in Shicheng in the morning, he went to Shicheng Department Store to buy mooncakes.

Many people bought mooncakes, the kind wrapped in paper and tied with ropes. There were also imitations in later generations, and they looked quite similar. There were eight mooncakes wrapped inside, and a piece of red paper was pasted on top, which was quite festive.

Li Long counted and bought six boxes of mooncakes. At this time, the mooncake fillings were not limited to five nuts, which made Li Long a little happy.

Li Long bought all kinds of snacks, including five-nut snacks, lotus seed paste, red bean paste, and jujube paste.

Six cartons of mooncakes is considered a big customer. The salesperson quickly packed them together, tied them up with a rope and handed them to Li Long:

"Comrade, you have it."

Li Long carried the mooncakes and went to the fruit area.

"How much?"

"Ten kilograms of apples." Li Long said, "Pack four bags, three kilograms each, and the last kilogram in one bag."

The big apples from Yili - at that time, it was not easy to transport the Red Fuji apples from Aksu to this place, after all, the Duku Highway had not yet been opened, and it was very difficult to transport things from southern Xinjiang to northern Xinjiang. This was also the reason why Li Long tacitly allowed Yusup to sell the few cents of things from the farmers to him for a few dollars - it was too far.

"Ten kilograms? Are you sure?" The salesperson was surprised. People who came to weigh apples usually weighed half a kilogram or a kilogram, and two kilograms was considered a lot. Li Long directly weighed ten kilograms, which was definitely a big customer!
"Yes." Li Long paid the bill. "Please pack it."

Ten kilograms of apples were not light. Fortunately, Li Long had prepared a clean sack in advance. He put all the apples in it, then went out carrying the sack and the mooncakes.

This matter alone can be discussed for a long time in the eyes of the salesperson.

After all, there is too little entertainment news nowadays, and gossip is not easy to talk about.

Li Long rode his bicycle carrying the things back to the county town, put them in the yard, and seeing that Gu Xiaoxia had not returned yet, he went to the free market.

Li Jianguo had already sold the fish and went back. What surprised Li Long was that Yang Xiulan and Han Fang were still pushing the cart and selling soup and rice.

Yes, it was rice and soup. This surprised Li Long even more.

Yang Xiulan was also surprised to see Li Long, and Han Fang's expression was even more pleasantly surprised. She smiled and waved at Li Long:
"Hello, uncle!"

Li Long pushed the cart over and saw that the pot on their cart was filled with noodle soup slices with green vegetable leaves floating on top, which was quite tempting. There were two piles of bowls next to it, one pile was relatively clean, and the other pile was obviously eaten and not washed.

"How's business?"

"It's great." Yang Xiulan said with a smile, "It will be sold out by noon, and we can still sell half a pot in the afternoon." "Come again in the afternoon?" Li Long was a little surprised, "Is anyone buying?"

"Yes, not much in the afternoon, but it's better than staying at home."

Not bad, he works hard. That's good. It's worth it for Xiaoxia and I to help him.

"Well...uncle, I'll give you this month's rent first." Yang Xiulan didn't know how to address Li Long. After hesitating for a moment, she said, "My mother and I have earned some money in the past half month. It's enough for the rent..."

"You can take it first. I'll take it back after I earn enough money for the rent and the tools." Li Long waved his hand, "Keep the money. I don't know if there are any thieves in this market."

"I know." Yang Xiulan hurriedly put the money back into her pocket and fiddled with it for a while. Li Long guessed that the pocket might be difficult to take out.

"Okay, you guys continue, I have something else to do." Li Long said, "I wish you a happy Mid-Autumn Festival in advance."

Since the mother and daughter can now live a normal life, Li Long does not plan to have too much contact with them and just return to a normal relationship between tenant and landlord.

But after thinking about it, he said to Han Fang as he pushed the cart away:
"There are some books in that room. You can read them if you have nothing to do. It would be best if you can continue to go to school in the future."

After speaking, he left.

When he returned to the compound, Li Long saw that Gu Xiaoxia had already returned.

"We can take a day off early in the afternoon. Let's go back together." Gu Xiaoxia said to Li Long.

"Okay, then don't cook." Li Long said, "Let's go to the big meat canteen to eat, and bring some to your dad after you finish eating. I bought mooncakes and apples here, and I'll go to your house tomorrow."

"Yes." Gu Xiaoxia was a little shy, but agreed very straightforwardly. The rule here is that children usually go to their uncle's house during the Mid-Autumn Festival. If there are no children, then usually the daughter and son-in-law go back to her parents' home together.

"We've also distributed mooncakes. You can bring some back for your brother, sister-in-law, and the children to try."

At this time, most units have some benefits, and the Education Bureau is no exception.

Li Long celebrated the traditional reunion festival in advance, so Gu Xiaoxia was shy.

Tomorrow I will definitely have to bring more than just these two things, I also have to bring wine, sugar cubes, and canned food. These are relatively common gifts, and Li Long bought them all in advance.

The two rode their bicycles back to the team. Gu Xiaoxia went to Dongzhuangzi to go home, while Li Long carried the things back to Li's house.

Tao Daqiang was there too, and Li Long handed him a box of mooncakes, a kilogram of apples, and ten yuan:

"Da Qiang, tomorrow is a holiday, so we won't go fishing. Let's take a day off and talk about it after the holiday."

"This money..."

"It's a holiday, so we need at least some holiday money." Li Long said with a smile.

Tao Daqiang touched his head, not understanding what this holiday allowance meant.

But since Brother Long gave it to me, I’ll just take it.

Li Long planned to keep one bag for himself for the remaining three bags of apples, take one bag with Li Jianguo and his friends when they go to Liang's house tomorrow, and take one bag with him when he goes to Xiaoxia's house.

Of course, there’s also Uncle Luo’s portion of mooncakes, and you can just pick out a few apples.

Li Long brought the few large crucian carps that he had specially left in the morning to Mr. Chai's house. The old man was sitting at the gate smoking, and when he saw Li Long coming over, he smiled and said:
"Xiaolong is here? Your pot cake is ready."

"Well, excuse me, old man. I caught these fish this morning. Please cook them for me."

"Sure, sure." The old man grinned, revealing his missing front tooth. "Big crucian carp, good fish, good fish."

Li Long wrapped the two big steamed cakes with cage cloth, picked them up, said hello to the old man, and walked back.

The Guokui was still warm and smelled fragrant. Li Long had taken a closer look when he took it just now. There were patterns on the Guokui made with needles. In later times, it would be considered a semi-artistic work of art, but at this time, it was just a rare food.

When Li Long returned to the yard, Li Jianguo and Liang Yuemei had already finished work, and Li Juan and Li Qiang had also returned. Seeing Li Long holding the pot cake, Li Qiang clamored for food.

"What are you eating? This is for tomorrow's festival." Liang Yuemei rejected it directly, "If you eat it today, you will be short of food tomorrow. Is that okay?"

Li Qiang fell silent.

Li Long put down the Guokui and said with a smile:
"Instead of eating pot cakes, let's eat moon cakes. Tomorrow is the festival, so we can eat moon cakes in advance. I bought a lot, so let's each have one to try today."

Li Long was his brother-in-law, so since he had said so, Liang Yuemei could not object. She just said to Li Qiang:

"Only eat one piece, no more!"

"Okay, okay! Let's eat mooncakes!" Li Qiang didn't care what the conditions were at this time, he would definitely nod and agree.

Li Long took a bag of mooncakes, unwrapped them and said:
“It has the name of the filling written on it, pick it yourself.”

Li Jianguo happily watched Li Juan and Li Qiang carefully recognizing the words on the mooncakes.

"This five...what?" Li Qiang looked at all the mooncakes and could only barely recognize the word "five". After all, he was only in the first grade and didn't know many words.

"Five-nut ones." Li Juan knew and told him, "Five-nut ones, lotus seed paste ones, jujube... paste ones? There's also red bean paste ones..."

"I'll eat the one with red bean paste!" Li Qiang snatched the one with red bean paste, smiled and ran to the side.

Li Juan asked Li Jianguo:

"Dad, what do you eat?"

"Give me the five kernels."

"Here. Mom, what filling do you want to eat?"

"I'll have the lotus paste one."

"Uncle, where are you?"

"You pick first, and I'll talk after you've picked."

"Yes, here are two pieces of jujube paste, one with five kernels..."

"Then give me some jujube paste."

Li Long took the mooncake handed over by Li Juan and took a bite. It was really good! (End of this chapter)