Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Yang Yongqiang was sent back by Tao Daqiang in the evening. He was drunk and kept muttering at the end that he wanted to buy a bicycle for his sister to go to school immediately.

What a good brother.

They ate and drank in Li Long's room. Tao Daqiang was the most sober person in the room. Before leaving, he cleaned up the things on the table and put them in the kitchen. He also added coal to the stove in Li Long's room and lowered the fire, letting the coal burn slowly. He left only after all these were done.

People in northern Xinjiang are experienced in burning stoves, and there are ventilation holes on the doors, so there is no need to worry about people getting poisoned.

Li Long was dizzy and let Tao Daqiang clean him up. He took off his clothes, covered himself with a quilt, and fell asleep.

Li Long felt dry mouth in the middle of the night and woke up because of thirst. After waking up, he still felt a little dizzy. He got up, poured half a cup of boiling water from the thermos, added some cold water from the teapot, drank it in big gulps, and felt much better.

This wine is okay, at least it doesn't make you drunk.

He looked at the fire. The charcoal foam on the upper layer had not burned out yet, and the red charcoal below was not very obvious. Tao Daqiang was quite skilled in pressing the coal.

He put on his clothes, opened the door and walked out. A gust of cold wind made him shiver, so he quickly ran to the dry toilet and urinated in the snow.

Thinking of the time when he peed when he was just reborn, Li Long felt childish, so he waved his little brother and spread the letters "NB" on the snow.

It’s a pity that the urine was a little too little, and the last B didn’t close.

It seems that this boast is a bit empty.

Li Long shuddered after peeing, quickly tied his belt and ran into the house. He listened carefully at the door and heard Uncle Luo snoring. Then he went back to the house, closed the door and continued to sleep.

It’s good to be young. As soon as this thought flashed through my mind, I fell asleep in a daze. There is basically no such thing as insomnia these days.

When Li Long woke up again, it was already bright outside. The sun shone in through the window covered with plastic paper, and sprinkled on the table and the floor. From the head of the bed, he could see dust slowly floating in the sunlight.

Li Long was stunned for a moment before he rubbed his face and got up.

I put on my clothes, cleaned the room briefly, took the basin and went out to get some water to wash up.

The wild boars and deer in the pen were calling out when they heard the noise. Li Long looked at the sky and thought they must be hungry.

Uncle Luo was already making breakfast. When he saw Li Long getting up, he smiled bitterly and said:

"Drinking is a waste of time. We got up late. The animals usually eat by this time."

"Don't worry. It's no big deal to skip a meal." Li Long fetched some water to wash his face, then followed Uncle Luo to prepare.

The dishes cooked yesterday were basically eaten up, and this morning Uncle Luo was cutting pickles to prepare for cooking again. Li Long saw that he looked a little haggard, probably not fully recovered yet, so he took over the kitchen knife to cut the vegetables, while Uncle Luo went to cook porridge.

The two of them had a simple breakfast. After Li Long helped Uncle Luo feed the livestock in the pen, they went to his eldest brother's house.

The Li family had already finished breakfast and fed the pigs. At this time, Li Juan and Li Qiang were doing their homework, Li Jianguo was cleaning up the remaining fish and rabbits in the spare room, and Liang Yuemei was cleaning up in the kitchen.

"Brother, I have to drive the carriage out tomorrow." Li Long said hello to his sister-in-law and went to the spare room. While he and his brother were packing fish and rabbits, he talked about his plan. "We will take these things to Shicheng to sell them, and then get some food to the mountains. There is a shortage of food in the mountains now, and they don't want to pay for the sheep, so we can use the food to make up for it."

"Okay." Li Jianguo said, "They've been good to us, so we can't owe them anything. Bring more things. There's a lot of snow in this mountain. It's not easy for you to go in, and it's also difficult for them to go down the mountain. If you bring more things, it will save them some trouble."

This was settled, and Li Long and his elder brother loaded the remaining rabbits and fish onto the carriage.

There are still more than forty rabbits and two or three hundred kilograms of fish. It is worthwhile to go to Shicheng to sell them.

When the two men were packing their things, Jia Weiguo came over carrying two rabbits.

Li Long took the rabbit, weighed it and said:
"These are over three kilograms, three dollars each, I'll give you six dollars."

As he said that, he put the rabbit on the car and took out a five-dollar bill and handed it to the other person one by one.

"Are you going to sell rabbits?" Jia Weiguo took the money, looked at the carriage and asked.

"Well, let's go to Shicheng tomorrow to sell these rabbits." Li Long said with a smile, "Otherwise they will smell if they are piled up in the house for a long time."

"Yeah." Jia Weiguo didn't know what he was thinking. He was stunned for a while, then helped Li Long and others load the rabbits and fish into the car, and then left.

Li Long advised him to go into the house and drink some water to warm himself up, but he refused.

Load the things on the carriage, prop up the shaft with a stool, cover it with plastic sheeting and tie it up with ropes, then you don't have to worry about wild cats causing trouble at night.

After entering the house, Li Long found a clean sack in an empty room - this sack was brought back from when he was carrying sugar residue. He planned to use this sack to carry a sheep in the big yard and give it to Li Xiangqian.

After everything was done, Li Long was planning to go back, but Liang Yuemei stopped him.

"Dinner is almost ready here, why are you going back? Lao Luo saw that you didn't come back and knew that we were eating here." She said, "It's time for dinner and you're still running away. You really don't plan to call this place home, right?"

After his sister-in-law said so, Li Long stayed. Li Qiang called Li Long from outside. After Li Long went out, he found Li Qiang was standing in the snow pile outside the door, trying to make a snowman.

"You can't make a pile of snow now." Li Long persuaded him back, "Wait until it snows. The snow now is loose and not sticky. When it snows, the snow will be sticky. That's the best time to make a pile, and it can be stored for a long time."

There are few people in the countryside, and everyone in the village knows each other. If they build a snowman, they will just look at it out of curiosity, but they will not destroy it. In his previous life, Li Long heard from his neighbors that they bought a house in the county, and every time it snowed, his grandson would clamor to go out and build snowmen under the trees in the community. The snowmen were of all sizes, and the children even found leaves, branches, coal balls, etc. to decorate them.

Then the snowman can only exist for one night at most, and then it will be destroyed by someone. I don't know whether those people think the snowman is scary, or they just have a desire to destroy and don't want beautiful and complete things to exist - if the snowman is big, the head will be kicked off and the body will be broken into pieces, and if it is small, they will just stomp on it.

Every time the child went to see the snowman happily the next day, he would cry.

Some people are really annoying.

Although Li Qiang was not very happy, he knew this was the fact, because he had tried to make a snowball with the scattered snow outside the courtyard wall for a long time but failed. Now he knew the reason.

Then let's wait for the snow.

The sun had already reached due south. Li Long squinted his eyes and looked around, wondering if there was anyone still digging holes in the ice to catch fish in the small lake.

Things really happened unexpectedly. In the afternoon, Li Long was going to go back to Mahao to have a good rest, and when he got up early the next morning, the second son of the Liang family came over with a bag of fish.

"Xiaolong, are you still going to take it?" He saw the covered carriage and guessed that Li Long was going to sell fish. Since he was going to sell fish, would he still take the remaining fish?
"Yes, I will buy it if you sell it." Li Long said with a smile, "How was your harvest today?"

"Not bad." Upon hearing Li Long collect, the second son of the Liang family smiled, "Two carps, one black carp, both weighing more than two kilograms, one silver carp, we kept it at home to eat, and some crucian carp, and the remaining dogfish are given to you."

"Okay." Li Long went into the house to get a scale, and came over to lift the scale together with Liang Laoer to weigh it.

"Twenty-six kilograms, 60 cents a kilogram, six hundred and thirty-six, two hundred and sixty-two, fifteen dollars and sixty-three." Li Long calculated quickly, put down the scale and bag, and took out the money.

"Fifteen, fifteen!" Liang Lao Er said hurriedly, "There's more than a kilogram of pike, which is a gift for you."

"Okay." Li Long readily counted out a Great Unity note and a five-dollar bill and handed them over, saying, "Here, take them."

"Hey, Xiaolong, you're doing really good business!" Liang Laoer took the money and put it in his jacket pocket with a smile, "We'll send it back to you when we catch you later!"

"Okay," Li Long said, "I'll take whatever you want. Let's go inside and have some water. I'll clear out the bag for you."

"I won't go in," Liang Lao Er waved his hand hurriedly, "I smell like fish all over, I'll go back and change clothes, you go pour the fish, I'll wait here."

Li Long couldn't pull him, so he took the fish to an empty house and dumped the fish on the plastic sheet. He felt a little magical when he saw some of the fish still moving. Thinking that Liang Laoer was still waiting, he quickly took the bag out. Liang Laoer took the bag, smiled and turned away.

Liang Laoer's steps back were obviously much lighter. This made Li Long happy. The three brothers of the Liang family also earned one or two hundred yuan from him and his eldest brother these days.

This money was not much for me, but for the ordinary people in the team, it was quite a lot. In less than half a month, three people could get about 40 to 50 yuan each, which was equivalent to the salary of a third or fourth grade worker. It was definitely enough to have a good year.

So, with more resources, there are actually many ways to make money. Just like Jia Weiguo, even if he is a little weak, if he catches two rabbits in the wild, it is equivalent to four or five days' wages for a worker. And it is winter now. Isn't it better to have this income in his spare time than to stay at home or play cards every day?
Li Long used to think that farmers in northern Xinjiang should be similar. It was not until the team organized a tour and visited many places that he discovered that the people in his village were actually very proactive in terms of their awareness of rights, ideas of making money, and action.

Not all farmers have the awareness to actively find ways to make money. Farmers in some places are really helpless. They can only see the small profits in front of them. They don’t know how to use the resources they have, and they don’t know how to fight for their rights. They only waste their time. They quarrel with neighbors over trivial matters, but don’t think more about how to live a better life.

After sorting the fish, Li Long picked out the pike, found a basin from the kitchen and started peeling it.

He divided the shelled pike into two portions, leaving one in the kitchen and taking the other back to the stable.

Uncle Luo was listening to the radio, so Li Long went to the kitchen and cooked some dog fish soup. He had been drinking a lot last night, so this dog fish soup was a good way to replenish his body.

There are no good ingredients in winter, so just fry the pike with oil first, then add ginger and water and simmer. The fish aroma will soon waft out. After simmering for half an hour, the pike meat is almost free of bones. Add some chopped green onions and dried coriander, and serve in a bowl. The taste is amazing.

Uncle Luo smelled the aroma and looked at the fish soup Li Long had made. He was happy and said:

"Xiaolong, this is fresh fish, right? It tastes so good!"

"Well, the second son of the Liang family sent it over, so I cooked it right away. It would be a pity to freeze such a good fish. It's a rare opportunity in the middle of winter! Uncle Luo, wait a moment, I'll make another dish here, it will be ready in a while."

The fish soup tasted delicious in the evening. Neither of us ate much, we just filled our stomachs out of habit.

"Xiaolong, I'm almost getting affluence diseases from eating with you." Uncle Luo said as he ate. "In the past, even in the summer when we worked, we only had two meals a day. How could we have three meals at night? At most, we would just chew a few bites of dry steamed bread. Now we have to eat three meals a day. It's hard to change this later!"

"What's to change? In the past, we Chinese only ate three meals a day. I heard that it was because the Tungus wild boar couldn't stand the good life of the Han people that he changed it." Li Long told Uncle Luo what he had heard from a short video in his previous life.

"What? Wild boar skin?" Uncle Luo was stunned for a moment and didn't understand.

Li Long began to show off the knowledge he had learned from the short video:

"It's the Manchu with long braids from the Qing Dynasty. The one called Nurhaci, which means wild boar skin. The place where they lived is called Tungus."

"Is that so?" Lao Luo was skeptical. "Xiaolong, I didn't expect you to know so much."

"Of course, I read books every day." Li Long joked, "There are so many things in the books!"

He remembered that his eldest brother's house had a book specifically about Nurhaci's "uprising", how he started with thirteen sets of armor, how he claimed to be the Qing Dynasty, and how he defeated the foolish and corrupt "Ming Dynasty". In the book, Fan Wencheng was a counselor like Zhuge Liang.

I didn’t think it was a big deal before, but when I compared it with my memory, hey!

Is it because the Xinhai Revolution was not thorough enough that people wrote such books?

Well, after showing off and cleaning up, Li Long went out to drain the water, put coal in the stove, then turned on the light and flipped through the "Wulin" magazine that he had bought this time.

It was really exciting when I watched it before, but now that I'm watching The Legend of the Condor Heroes from the beginning, I feel like there are so many traps in it... I feel like cursing.

Is this a generation gap, or a lack of understanding?
Forget it, I'll just read it slowly. When Li Long was flipping through other novels, he even had the urge to write something himself.

Of course, it's just a thought. It's a common problem to have high expectations but low skills.

I fell asleep unconsciously.

Because I went to bed early, when I woke up the next day it was not yet eight o'clock and it was still dark.

Li Long got up and found that the light was on in the kitchen. Uncle Luo was already cooking.

I mentioned last night that I was going to the county today, and Uncle Luo took note of it.

"I'm old and can't sleep that much." This is the explanation of Lao Shu Luo. "There are advantages to getting up early. I can finish things one by one, and I can do whatever I want in the remaining time. I can also listen to the radio well and continuously."

Well, old people always have their reasons, and even though he was helping Li Long, he wanted to use a reasonable excuse.

After breakfast, Li Long dressed neatly, carried his gun holster and went to his eldest brother's house. Liang Yuemei was preparing breakfast at Li Jianguo's place. Seeing Li Long coming over, she asked:

"Have you eaten yet?"

"Sister-in-law, I've eaten." Li Long said, "You guys go about your business. I'll feed No. 76 and then I'll hitch the carriage and leave."

"Your eldest brother has been fed this morning, and he should be drinking water now." Liang Yuemei said, "He will be fine in a while."

Li Long went out to the stable and saw Li Jianguo coming out with a bucket. In the morning, warm water was needed to give the horses water, so they had to be careful because they had to hurry.

The two men harnessed the carriage, and Li Long said something to his eldest brother before driving away.

It was not very bright outside, but both Li Long and No. 76 were used to it. He drove the carriage for a while, and when he saw that the road was okay, he sat on the shaft and gently whipped the whip, and No. 76 sped up.

The road was very quiet. When we arrived at the old village, we could see smoke rising from some houses, while others were still very quiet. Occasionally, a dog would bark, but it would stop after one or two barks. Then, there would be another dog barking in the distance, like a relay.

After crossing the reed ditch, Li Long counted silently and realized that he had already passed one kilometer.

It was very boring on the road. I couldn't sleep and couldn't sleep, so I could only count the distance to pass the time.

Then I couldn't help but let my mind wander. Although it wasn't the Chinese New Year yet, the tasks for this stage were completed. I had a summary dinner with Gu Xiaoxia, then reminisced about the past with my eldest brother's family, planned the farming for next year, and imagined the future with Tao Daqiang and Yang Yongqiang.

The feeling of the New Year has begun. From now on, a new stage has started and we need to cheer up and work hard.

Buy a tractor, buy a color TV, and build a house.

None of them is easy to accomplish. A tractor costs 6,000 to 7,000 yuan, an 18-inch color TV costs 2,800 yuan, and building a house -

Ok, seems to be ok?
As Li Long was thinking this, the carriage had already arrived at the village. He could see people on the road, some riding bicycles, some walking, and some driving donkey carts and horse carts. However, he only saw one person every few hundred meters or one or two kilometers. They were all going to the county.

When Li Long arrived at the county town, half of the sun had finally risen in the east.

He drove the carriage to the big meat canteen, bought two buns, drank a bowl of hot water to relax, and then drove the carriage to Shicheng.

Tao Daqiang and Yang Yongqiang were not allowed to follow when selling fish and rabbits this time, mainly because they had to go to the mountains later and it would be difficult to let them follow them back.

Besides, the work at that stage is finished and the bill has been paid, so whether to take them along later is another matter.

The two of them didn't come to the stable last night, but they knew it in their hearts. Besides, they have been busy for a while, so they also need to rest.

There are more cars going to Shicheng, probably because it is the New Year. There is a horse-drawn carriage from time to time, as well as buses and trucks carrying goods.

It was quite lively. Li Long looked at it and felt that there was finally some New Year atmosphere.

Otherwise, it’s no wonder that my second brother and brother-in-law would say that this place is not popular because the population is small.

As I was thinking about this, the carriage unknowingly crossed the Ma River Bridge, passed the poplar forest, and then the old street was right in front of me.

The shouts of the vendors came over, getting louder and louder.

It was a lively scene and Li Long smiled.

I am here! (End of this chapter)