Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

There were obviously more people in the Old Street Market than before. Li Long drove the carriage to the fork in the road but couldn't go in. He drove the carriage around the periphery and finally stopped on the other side of the road.

Li Long tied the horse's reins to a tree on the roadside. Seeing that the horse was not sweating much, he untied the rope on the carriage, took down the plastic sheet and spread it on the roadside, and then began to carry the fish down.

After placing the fish on most of the plastic sheet and separating the big and small fish and arranging them neatly, Li Long pulled down a dozen rabbits and placed them on the plastic sheet. He then took down the scale and started shouting.

The place is a bit remote, and when Li Long shouted, he pulled out a stick from the car. It was not appropriate to use a gun at this time. After all, there were market managers patrolling back and forth, and it would not be appropriate to use a gun.

After shouting twice, some people came to see. Seeing that Li Long had arranged the fish and rabbits neatly, some people asked about the price.

"A carp with five black stripes is one dollar per kilogram, and a crucian carp and silver carp is one dollar." Li Long said, "Big rabbits are four dollars, and small ones are three dollars." He also divided the big and small rabbits into two sides, using large plastic sheets to put them in piles. They looked very obvious and easy to distinguish, and also avoided disputes when choosing.

This made it very neat and tidy, and shoppers could see everything clearly. At that time, an old man smiled and said:
"These five black lines are great. Come, weigh one for me... that one!"

"Great!" Although the location is remote and already at the edge of the market, Li Long is still very happy that the business opened in less than ten minutes. He picked up the fish and weighed it, shouting as he weighed it, "Two kilograms for one dollar, two kilograms, two dollars and two cents, look how high the scale is..."

The old man took out his cloth wallet, counted out two dollars and twenty cents and handed it to Li Long.

Li Long had a bag on his waist. He said it was sewn by Gu Xiaoxia, with good stitching and made of grey fabric. He took the money and stuffed it into the bag, then continued to shout.

Maybe it was because the New Year was coming soon, and everyone started to stock up on food. Fish and rabbits were still very popular, and some people picked the big ones while others picked the small ones. Some people thought the big ones would bring more meat, while others thought the small ones would bring less money. Everyone had their own calculations.

Soon, the big fish on the plastic sheet were almost sold out, and there were still some small fish left. Li Long moved another bag and poured it down. When he saw that there were few people around, he quickly separated the big and small fish and arranged them.

Rabbits were easier to get. When someone bought them, they would pull a few off the carriage and put them on the stage.

When there were few people around, Li Long would pull some grass from the carriage and put it in front of No. 76 to prevent it from chewing on the tree bark.

When the administrator came, there were not many people around. He took three cents from Li Long as a management fee - saying that this place was too remote, and if there was a spot inside, he would help Li Long keep an eye on it.

Li Long was a little uncomfortable with the administrator's thoughtfulness. He looked at the things in the carriage and smiled and said that it was not necessary. After all, he had a carriage. If he wanted to enter the stalls inside, a carriage would take up at least three stalls, which was not easy.

Li Long was weighing fish for others when he heard someone calling him:

"Comrade Xiao Li, you're here!"

Li Long looked up and saw that it was Song Ming.

"Yes." Li Long responded with a smile. After weighing the fish on hand and collecting the money, he said to Song Ming, "I have stored some rabbits and fish these two days, so I came here to sell them."

"That's great. I was just thinking of asking you to get a rabbit to cook for me." Song Ming said with a smile.

"Here, take it back and eat it." Li Long said, pulling a big rabbit. "Thaw it before peeling the skin, and take out the internal organs as soon as possible after peeling the skin. By the way, if you don't want to eat the rabbit head, you only need to cut the skin at the neck with a knife and pull it down hard, and the whole skin can be pulled off. It's very convenient."

"Oh, I don't really understand." Song Ming felt as if he had suddenly realized something, and the others also found it new and interesting.

Then one of the people who bought fish hesitated and asked for a rabbit.

Song Ming was about to give Li Long money, but Li Long waved his hand hastily:

"You often have to help me, why do you want the money? Take it back and eat it."

Seeing Li Long's resolute refusal, Song Ming said:

"Okay, then I won't charge you. Will you still go to the factory later?"

"Not going today." Li Long shook his head. "We have to go into the mountains today. The sheep belong to my friends in the mountains. I have to go and give them some food."

"Oh, okay. Just come find us later." Song Ming raised his hand while holding the rabbit, then turned and left.

After an hour and a half, Li Long sold all the fish and rabbits in his cart. He heaved a sigh of relief, put away the plastic sheet, and led the cart to find Keyum.

What surprised Li Long was that the milk tea shop was closed.

Is there something wrong at home or at the store?
Li Long didn't get to drink the milk tea, feeling a little regretful, and led the carriage into the city.

It would take more than two hours to get back to Shicheng, so he planned to have lunch in Shicheng before going back.

At that time, there were few restaurants selling food in Northwest cities, big or small, and most of them were state-owned restaurants. Whether the food was delicious or not was another matter, as was the service attitude, but at least the food was authentic.

It's not easy to have technology and work hard these days.

In the Red Flag Canteen, Li Long was carrying a gun bag on his back, and the carriage was tied outside. He put all the other things in the carriage into the bag and brought them into the store. After all, this thing can be very useful in this day and age. If you are not careful while eating, someone might steal it.

After ordering a bowl of fried pork noodles and two more sides, Li Long poured himself a bowl of hot tea and drank it slowly.

It was already past lunch time and there were not many people in the cafeteria. Li Long sat alone at a table, and his noodles and dishes were served quickly.

It was similar to the fried pork noodles in Ma County, but with a few black fungus in the dish, which made it worth the price of 1.6 yuan - and there were food coupons.

Li Long was also hungry, so he poured the vegetables into the noodles, mixed them, and started eating them in big mouthfuls.

"Hello, give me a bowl of soup!" Li Long took a bite and felt even hungrier. He reached out for a bowl of noodle soup and continued eating.

After eating one bowl of noodles and two extra noodles and drinking the soup, Li Long wiped his mouth contentedly, took a rest, then got up and went outside, wrapped his coat, untied the reins, got on the carriage, waved the whip, and went to Ma County.

He is now in the city and can walk to the Maha River Bridge from here. He does not need to cross the poplar forest and can take another road.

Therefore, Li Long, sitting in the carriage, was relatively relaxed, planning to return to Ma County. If it was still early, he would go directly to the compound to pull the sheep, send them to Li Xiangqian, and then go buy food.

If we can finish these preparations today, we can drive the carriage into the mountains early tomorrow morning and come back in the evening without any delay.

It's a beautiful thought.

As he was thinking about it, he suddenly heard a noisy sound in front of him. He opened his eyes, sat up straight and looked over there, and saw two groups of people arguing in the small square on the south side of the road.

One group had fewer people, about four or five, and the other group had more people, about a dozen, all young people, about seventeen or eighteen to twenty years old. These people were arguing with each other, and the two leaders who were confronting each other in the middle were quite calm, talking to each other. Mainly, there were a few people in the larger group who looked quite excited, pointing and talking, holding steel pipes in their hands, and waving them from time to time, as if they were ready to start fighting at any time.

Li Long had never been involved in a group fight, but he had seen it in movies and TV shows. The two leaders of these people actually wanted to resolve the situation peacefully, but the younger brothers liked to shout and act like they were the best in the world and were going to kill them right here today.

As a bystander, Li Long took a quick look and then paid no attention to the situation. However, he did not fall asleep again. Instead, he picked up the gun bag and held it across his chest. No. 76 moved forward steadily like an old dog and paid no attention to the two gangs at all.

Li Long originally thought that he was just going to enjoy the scenery, but he didn't expect that when he walked forty or fifty meters forward, a roar, loud scolding and noise suddenly erupted from the small square. Occasionally, he could hear someone urging people to calm down, but more scolding was heard. Li Long wondered if a fight was about to break out.
Sure enough, he heard screams and then the ground shook. He turned his head and saw three people rushing out from the small square and running towards this side, with a dozen people chasing them. The people behind them were cursing as they ran, asking the people in front to stop, otherwise they would be hacked to death.

Will the spoon stop at this time?
Li Long was originally walking in the middle of the road, but at this time he pulled the reins to the left - those people were running on the south side of the road, which was Li Long's right side, and he didn't want to be caught in the crossfire.

The three people in front ran very fast and soon surpassed Li Long. Li Long was worried that they would use him as a cover, or steal his carriage and run away, because the two people who were running slowed down and looked at him.

Only one person ran very fast. He looked back as he ran. When he saw that the other two were slow, he cursed:
"What the hell are you looking at? Run! Don't even think about having no asshole!"

The two men immediately sped up and ran. The three of them had long hair, and the Lei Feng hats couldn't hold it down. The people behind ran over in a mess, and the ones in front desperately chased after them. The ones behind suddenly stopped and surrounded Li Long's carriage.

"Use your carriage and take us to catch up with that bad guy in front!" One of them raised a steel pipe and hit the carriage, his tone full of threats and self-righteousness.

In their opinion, they had more people than Li Long, so they had no choice but to give in.

Li Long didn't say anything and directly pulled out five or six halves.

These people obviously knew each other, and they were suddenly shocked as if they were struck by lightning, and moved at least one meter away from the carriage.

"Get out!" Li Long spat out a word and continued to move forward.

There was a man in front holding the reins, and he was so scared by the gun that he didn't let go.

Li Long took off the safety, pulled the bolt to load the gun, and then aimed at the one pulling the reins.

The man suddenly woke up from his dream. He was so scared that he quickly let go and turned to run. Then he suddenly fell into a snow ditch on the side of the road and was covered in snow.

Although these people were a little unconvinced, when they saw Li Long pulling the bolt to load the gun, they knew there was most likely a bullet in it, so they didn't dare to move. But they were unwilling to give up and just followed behind.

The people in the front chased and found that there was no one behind them, so they turned around to see what was going on. As a result, they saw that the leader was furious, pointing at the people behind and cursing:

"Do you guys really want to die? This is originally a matter between us and Heizi, but you have to drag outsiders into it, right?"

Li Long ignored the man, drove the carriage past him and continued moving forward.

Obviously, these people could not catch up with the three people in front.

There were four people in the square just now, and three of them are running now. Was the other one knocked down, or is he an undercover?
This thought only flashed through my mind, and then I forgot about it. What does it have to do with me?

In an alley on the side of the road, the three people who were previously being chased hid beside a house, secretly watching the situation on the road.

"Brother Heizi, how great it would be if we had a gun! At least if we run into that guy Shitou, he won't dare to speak loudly to us!" One of the two who were planning to move Li Long's carriage said enviously, "This gun... is it real?"

"It must be true! Didn't you see the bayonets? It is said that those three bayonets are poisonous!" The other one also had a face full of envy.

Heizi didn't say anything. He watched Li Long's carriage passing by on the road. He watched Li Long sitting in the carriage carrying five or six and a half items with a calm look on his face.

It was impossible not to envy him. But he was one or two years older than the others and much more sensible. After Li Long walked over and saw that the people had dispersed, he said:
"What are you envious of? Believe it or not, if we had a gun, let alone trying to scare Shi Tou and the others, as long as we showed it, the police would come and take us away the next day! It's okay for us to play with steel pipes and daggers, but playing with guns is courting death!"

"I heard that there's a dragon crossing the river in the old street, and he actually has a gun, but it's a double-barreled sand gun." Someone spoke up.

"That's all old news. It was said that the man wanted to rob someone else and had that person take the gun away." Another one showed off the new information he had obtained.

Heizi interrupted their argument:

"Okay, let's go, let's go back."

Originally, I was planning to divide the territory with Shitou and the others, but now I'm being chased like a dog.

This is not possible!

Heizi is also thinking of a solution.

For Li Long, this incident was just a small episode in his life, which made him realize that things in Shicheng were not peaceful either, but it had nothing to do with him.

After driving the carriage out of Shicheng, there is a three-way fork leading to the Mahe Bridge. There are not many people walking on this road, but the snow has been flattened by cars and is easier to walk on.

After crossing the Ma River Bridge, Li Long drove to the courtyard. It was not yet five o'clock in the afternoon, and the units had not yet finished get off work, so Li Long hid his gun in the house, put a sheep's claw in a prepared bag, put it on the carriage, and drove out of the courtyard.

No. 76 was a little reluctant. He thought he could rest after entering the compound, but he still wanted to go. Li Long couldn't speak horse language, so he could only force him to move forward and cracked the whip to make No. 76 understand what he meant.

When the carriage arrived at the supply and marketing cooperative, goods were being transported out. Li Long saw Li Xiangqian directing the reversing in the yard. He greeted the guard, pulled the carriage in, and came to Li Xiangqian.

"Section Chief Li." Li Long addressed him formally in front of others. "Are you busy?"

"Yes, you are here. I just happened to need you for something. Please park the carriage and wait in my office. I will be right there."

Li Long then drove the carriage to the carriage shed and tied it up, then carried the bag of sheep to Li Xiangqian's office.

The office door was half open. Li Long opened it and saw a strong smell of cigarette smoke. He leaned the bag against the desk and poured himself a glass of water and drank it slowly.

Seven or eight minutes later, Li Xiangqian strode in, watched Li Long drink water, and said with a smile:
"Of course, I'm not shy at all."

"I'm being polite to you. I'm afraid you might have an issue with this." Li Long joked, "Section Chief, these are sheep from the mountains. I've taken good care of them."

"Okay, I won't be polite." Li Xiangqian sat down, picked up the teacup on the table, took a sip, turned his head and spit out a piece of tea leaves, then said:

"I have something important to talk to you about. A leader at the state commune knows that you can hunt, and wants to order some game from you before the New Year. Roe deer would be best, but a yellow sheep would be fine, and if that doesn't work, a wild boar would be fine. Same price as yours before, whole. I also told them that the meat would go bad if the internal organs were not removed, and they agreed. Remove the internal organs, but keep the skin, head, horns, etc., and it will be two hundred yuan per piece. Wild boars are one hundred and fifty yuan, and deer are more expensive, depending on the size, two hundred and fifty to three hundred yuan, how about it?"

"It just so happens that I'm going into the mountains tomorrow," Li Long said after taking a sip of water, "but I can't guarantee that I can catch one. After all, this thing depends on luck in winter. If I come across one, I'll bring it back. Do you want one?"

"The more the better." Li Xiangqian said with a smile, "At least one."

"Okay, I'll try my best." Li Long said, "Is there a time limit?"

"Not really," Li Xiangqian said as he lit a cigarette for himself, "You can do it before the New Year. Of course, don't wait until New Year's Eve, or they will definitely not want it."

"Then I know. I'll try my best." Li Long had nothing else to say. He finished the water in the cup, put the cup on the table, and said, "Then I'll leave first. I'll go buy some food for my friends in the mountains and leave early tomorrow morning."

"Take this with you." Li Xiangqian opened the drawer and took out two things, one was two packs of bullets, the other was a stack of food coupons. He pushed the things to Li Long and said, "I have a lot of coupons here. You will definitely need coupons when you go to buy food. Take them and use them. The bullets are what we left over from the militia training. Since you are going into the mountains to hunt, you can't be without these."

Li Long didn't hesitate to take it, put it in his pocket, and then left.

Li Xiangqian leaned forward and opened the new bag. He looked at the clean sheep's eggs inside and nodded with a smile:
"This kid is pretty good."

Li Long drove the horse-drawn carriage out of the supply and marketing cooperative compound and went to the nearby store, where he bought four bags of coarse salt at wholesale prices.

After buying the salt, he went to the grain store. He originally planned to go to the city to see if he could buy grain at a high price. Now that he had grain coupons, which were quite a lot, Li Long planned to buy grain directly from the treasury.

After loading three bags of rice and three bags of flour onto the cart, Li Long led the carriage back to the courtyard with satisfaction. He propped up the carriage with a stool and led No. 76 to the backyard to rest and eat. Li Long closed the gate and breathed a sigh of relief.

The preparations are done, and the next step is to gather our strength and go into the mountains to work hard tomorrow.

As the sky got darker, although Li Long was not very hungry, he had to prepare dinner for Gu Xiaoxia because he cared about his own people.

When Gu Xiaoxia came back and saw the unlocked courtyard door, she laughed happily. (End of this chapter)