Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

After returning from the Liang family, Li Long carried fish to the county compound every day for the next two days. He was not in a hurry to kill the wild boar for the time being, after all, there was still time later, and in Li Long's opinion, it might be better to sell wild boar meat before the New Year. After all, by then everyone would be preparing for the New Year, and people in the city would basically want to cut some meat to go home and make dumplings.

Two trucks were delivered in the morning and one in the afternoon every day. After a few days, the delivery stopped at the weekend.

Because Daqiang is getting married this Sunday.

On Saturday, Li Long went to the Tao family to see if he could help.

The snow outside the Tao family's yard was cleared cleanly. The gate was the same as that of the Li family's, without a gate. It was just open. There were couplets pasted on the walls on both sides, which looked like they were written by Gu Boyuan.

Before he even reached the yard, he could smell a mixture of aromas. Li Long could barely smell the scent of fried meatballs, fried potatoes prepared for candied potatoes, etc., but nothing else could be detected in the cold air.

In the yard, Li Jianguo was discussing tomorrow's business with the two master chefs, Lao Gao and Lao Huang. When they saw Li Long coming over, they just nodded and continued talking about business.

As a village elder, Li Jianguo was once the chief steward of the canteen and the leader of the villagers' group. He was a veteran steward - before his death, he was basically the steward whenever people in the village got married.

The Tao family had decided on the people who would help with their wedding preparations more than a week in advance, and when they invited guests three days ago, Li Jianguo finalized the details at the Tao family.

In rural areas, wedding invitations are usually sent out more than a week in advance. Of course, the ceremony may be known about more than a month in advance, and formal invitations are usually sent out a week in advance.

In the collective era, people usually chose to get married on holidays like August 15th or National Day. Why? Because at this time, the team would usually slaughter pigs, sheep or cattle. If you wanted to get married at this time, you could tell the team leader and the team would leave a set of beef offal or a sheep to help the couple.

Of course, this benefit is not available at other times.

In order to officially get the business done at this time, the Tao family began to quietly prepare supplies a month ago. When they "invited guests", they invited master chefs like Li Jianguo, Lao Huang, Lao Gao, and the young men who came to help, to treat everyone to a meal in advance, but they also had a mission.

The manager will ask how many guests are to be entertained. Usually, all the team members, except for the mortal enemy, are invited. For example, if there are basically ten tables of guests in the team, then the number of guests who will be added is the number of people from the female side.

Because they are from the next village, it is convenient to travel, so there may be at least two tables of guests, which means there are twelve tables of guests. The two chefs, Lao Huang and Lao Gao, will prepare the menu according to the host's ideas, and show it to everyone on the day of the invitation to see if it is suitable. If it is suitable, the host will prepare the ingredients.

Of course, the preparation work is not just about the ingredients. The young people who help carry the dishes have to borrow tables and benches from every household nearby. After borrowing them, they usually write the original owner's name or surname on the bottom of the bench to avoid confusion when returning them. These are all arranged by the manager.

The butler not only has to arrange this, but also has to arrange which young men serving the dishes are responsible for which dishes on the table, who is responsible for serving which dishes, and so on.

Li Jianguo became the general manager when he was less than 30 years old, so his coordination ability was naturally extraordinary. In addition to arranging all these, he was also responsible for arranging which table to sit at, and the seats of some important guests were determined in advance.

When the team members who were attending the wedding came, the seats were arranged temporarily. After all, some people went with their whole family, while some only came with one or two people. The seats were decided on the spot.

Li Jianguo and Li Long said during a casual chat that these procedures have actually been simplified. After all, they have to follow the procedures in their hometown, which involve a series of explanations from the time of picking up the bride, and they are particular about the in-laws, the chef, and the guests. However, the procedures in Northern Xinjiang have been simplified.

Of course, even if it is simplified, it is still more complicated than in a hotel. In the previous life, even before Li Long passed away, at least half of the banquets in this village were held in the village, while the neighboring village or the general trend was to go to the hotel in the county, which was more convenient.

But it’s less lively than before.

Tao Daqiang had told Li Long early on that he hoped he could go with him to pick up the bride, and Li Long naturally said that was no problem.

Because it was winter, a temporary shed was built on the yard. It was made of unqualified reeds dragged from the old horse. Although the light was dim, at least we didn't have to eat in the snow if it snowed. There were still fires in the two newly built high stoves, and there were pots on top. Most of the ingredients were almost ready now. Tomorrow, we just needed to fry them and heat them up, which could be regarded as pre-prepared dishes for the day. After all, it would be impossible to make them at the last minute.

Children were running in and out, grabbing handfuls of melon seeds from the table. Usually the seeds would be mixed with peanuts and hard candies, but now of course there were only sunflower seeds.

Li Long entered the room and saw Tao Daqiang sitting there in a Zhongshan suit, listening to what his father was saying. Tao Dayong and his wife were sitting next to him. When they saw Li Long coming, they all stood up.

"Xiaolong is here." Tao Jianshe was not wearing new clothes, but had a smile on his face. "I'll trouble you and Daqiang to go pick up the bride tomorrow."

"That's no problem," Li Long said with a smile, "It's just for fun."

Tao Daqiang stood up and said to Li Long:

"Brother Long, let's go and take a look at my new house." As he said that, he took Li Long to the new house on the other side.

The new house was decorated with lace, and although the walls had not been repainted, they had been carefully cleaned. There was a new satin quilt on the bed, and the pillows were also decorated with red double happiness. The washbasin stand and washbasin also had the word "happiness" on them. On the table was a plate of melon seeds, a plate of fruit candies, and a box of cigarettes.

The most eye-catching thing is, of course, a radio on the table near the window. In this era when flashlights can really be used as household appliances, having a radio means that this family is at least middle class or above at this time.

The radio was covered with a thin gauze to prevent dust from gathering, just like a few years later, when a small number of people had televisions at home, they would have a hand-sewn cover or gauze covering it.

At this time, people didn’t care whether the TV had good heat dissipation or not, they just hoped that it would not be covered with dust, which also showed the preciousness of this thing. Later, washing machines and refrigerators were the same, and the elderly in the family would insist on covering every valuable thing with a cloth.

The radio was not plugged into the socket - at that time, the sockets were still the black ones that could only accept one plug. There were also white ones that could be directly connected to the wire, but they were rare.

There was a brand new sewing machine placed against the east wall. Li Long could see that Tao Daqiang had spent all his family's savings on this marriage. After all, with the money he earned this year, minus the sewing machine, bicycle, radio, and the new furniture in the room, there was not much left.

"The layout is pretty good." Li Long said with a smile, "Are you nervous?"

"A little bit." Tao Daqiang smiled innocently, "I see him often, but thinking about picking him up tomorrow, I might still be a little nervous." Li Long smiled, and he took out a wad of money from his pocket and handed it to Tao Daqiang:
"I will give you five dollars as a gift tomorrow. It's not good to write more. I'll give this to you privately. We have been working together for almost a year, and you have helped me a lot. Your wedding is a big happy event. I originally wanted to buy something, but now I think it's better to just give you the money. You can take the money and buy whatever you need after the wedding."

"Brother Long, this money..."

"Take it." Li Long stuffed the big stack of unity into Tao Daqiang's hand without further ado. "After getting married, you are an adult. You have to take care of not only yourself, but also your family. There are many places to spend money, so take it with confidence."

Tao Daqiang could feel that it was one hundred yuan, not a small amount of money.

I only feel grateful.

The contrast is too strong.

Why? The elder brother and his wife next door came over to discuss with his father whether he could lend them the gift money he would receive tomorrow. They wanted to buy a radio.

Ugh.

"Okay, I see you guys are almost ready, what time will you pick me up tomorrow?"

"Ten o'clock in the morning." The days are short and the nights are long now, and it's almost dawn at ten o'clock, so it's not good to go too early.

"Are you riding a bicycle? Do you want me to ride my bicycle too? And let Junshan ride my brother's bicycle too?"

"Okay, but is it convenient?"

"That's certainly convenient." Li Long said with a smile, "We'll come over at ten o'clock tomorrow."

Li Junshan, Li Junfeng and others will come tomorrow. Tao Jianshe not only sent invitations to Li Jianguo and others, but also to the people from Lao Mahao. To be honest, for Li Anguo and others, that amount of money is not much. At this time, the money is basically 50 cents. One yuan is for those with good relationships. If a close relative can pay five yuan, he is a big spender on the gift list.

So when Tao Jianshe sent them the invitation, it represented his recognition of them, and they would definitely come.

Back at the Lao Ma, Li Long told the other side. Before Li Junshan could speak, Li Junfeng immediately said:
"I'll go, I'll go, I'll go pick up the bride! I've never seen a wedding reception like this before. Junshan, how about you go with your second uncle and the others to the banquet, and I'll ride my bicycle to pick up the bride?"

"Okay." Li Junshan smiled naively. He actually wanted to go, but since his cousin asked him to go, he agreed.

We are a family, so there is no need to be so fussy.

The next day, after having breakfast at Mahao, Li Long and Li Junfeng rode their bicycles to Tao's house.

In fact, there is a shortcut from Tao's house to the next village, which is to go through the reed ditch. Now the reeds in the ditch have been harvested, and people often pass through it, and a path has been trampled out in the middle.

But when picking up the bride, they naturally have to take the main road, so they won’t take the back road today.

When they arrived at Tao's house, several young men, including Yang Yongqiang, were already there. Tao Daqiang's bicycle was tied with a big red flower. When they saw Li Long and Li Junfeng riding their bicycles over, their sister-in-law immediately took out the big red flower from the house and tied it to the bicycles. Someone else brought a towel to wipe the bicycles again.

By comparing them, Li Long could see that his bicycle was the first one he bought and the one with the worst appearance among the three. He had not taken good care of it, so it was covered with a lot of dirt and some parts of it were even dented and had paint peeling off.

Then just walk at the back of the bicycle.

Seeing that the time was almost up, the chief steward Li Jianguo said:
"Let's go, now go pick up the bride."

He was the manager and was in charge of matters here. He appointed another person in the village to lead a team to pick up the bride and be responsible for communicating with the in-laws.

A group of people came out of Tao's house in a lively manner, and three bicycles were also pushed. After all, there were also some people walking, and they took the main road to the next village.

The sound of the firecrackers was there, and it immediately announced that today was a happy day.

It was the first time that Li Long went to Tao Daqiang's girlfriend, or his wife's parents' home. There were red couplets posted on both sides of the yard. When the wedding procession arrived at the gate of the yard, firecrackers were set off there.

The procedure is not complicated. The person in charge goes to the door and starts "negotiating", and soon the people on the other side make way. At this point the process is not that complicated. There are red envelopes, wedding candies for the children, and wedding cigarettes, but there is no such thing as laying out wine, blocking the door, etc.

After all, it is a happy event, and both parties hope to get the matter done in a lively and happy manner rather than creating any problems for either party.

The three bicycles with big red flowers tied to them, led by the groom, were very conspicuous. Although the Li family had two bicycles and rode them every day, there were no more than ten bicycles in the whole village, and the neighboring village did not have so many resources, so the number of bicycles was even smaller.

A set of procedures came, firecrackers were set off, and the bride, wearing new clothes and a red flower, sat on the back seat of the groom's bicycle. Li Long didn't have a deep impression of this girl. The bride lowered her head and her expression could not be seen, but seeing that she followed Tao Daqiang out, she should be quite happy.

There was a little boy following the bicycle. The bride pulled Tao Daqiang and signaled to the little boy. Tao Daqiang immediately reacted and handed him a red envelope. The boy took it and ran away happily. The bride then nodded.

The bride-picking team is heading back, and the bride's family is preparing to entertain guests. (End of this chapter)