Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

It was snowing heavily outside, but it was warm as spring inside.

There are less than five days left before the task of submitting 20,000 large reed handles, but Li Long is not in a hurry at all.

He, Li Jianguo and Li Qingxia sat on chairs near the fire wall, eating a piece of melon slowly in their hands.

"Mom, you eat too." Li Long invited Du Chunfang to eat the melon. Du Chunfang shook her head and said with a smile:
"Hey, this melon can last a long time. It can still be eaten in the winter, but it's not as delicious as in the summer."

"That's right. In the summer, we eat melons by smashing them open. If they taste good, we eat them. If they don't, we throw them aside. In the winter, any food, whether good or not, is fine." Li Jianguo also said while eating a melon.

This melon is pretty good, with yellow flesh and a sweet taste, unlike some with green flesh that make people feel greasy when eating.

The spare house in Li Long's yard became empty after Chen Lirong and her daughter moved out. Li Long simply didn't set up a stove and put more than a hundred melons in it, intending to eat them slowly.

Watermelons don’t last long. They’re basically all rotten by November and are full of water.

The melon is different. It has a thick skin and is durable in storage. It has a different flavor when eaten after the weather cools down.

"Wear a cotton-padded jacket in the morning and a gauze dress in the afternoon, and eat watermelon around the stove." Li Jianguo spat the watermelon seeds into his hand, then put them into the bowl beside him, and said with a smile:

"I never thought that I would live this sentence I heard before."

It was morning now, and the Li family had already tied up all the reeds, so there was no work. Wang Delong brought another cart of reeds the day before yesterday. Although it was not as much as the first time, the two times combined made Li Long feel that the task would be completed in a day or two, so he was not in a hurry at all.

The ones who are anxious right now are those who still have a lot of reeds at home but did not tie the reed bundles properly at the beginning.

"It's snowing now, I don't know if the small lake has frozen solid yet." Li Qingxia hasn't had a good time fishing for a long time, and now that winter has arrived, he can't wait any longer.

"No, we have to wait a few days." Li Long shook his head, "The temperature is not high enough, there should be ice, but it's not solid.

Those reeds are hollow, so they can let air into the water for a while. It's dangerous to break a hole in the ice now, and fish won't gather there either."

Li Qingxia was convinced by his youngest son on this point.

"What are you going to do after you finish with the reed bundles?" Li Jianguo asked Li Long.

Li Long picked up another melon. Normally, when it was in the field, it was really hard to eat. It was annoying to look at it every day. But now it is a good thing. After all, there are not many fruits that ordinary people can eat in winter.

Right now, there will definitely be people who will go to their own corn stalk piles to find the green stalks that have not yet dried and chew them.

He suddenly thought that there really were bugs in those green stalks. In the fields here, there was a kind of bug that was really dangerous. In cotton fields, it was called the cotton bollworm, in corn fields, it was called the corn borer, and in sunflower fields, they were still there.

It is quite powerful that the same kind of insect can harm more than three kinds of crops at once.

In his previous life, he also chewed corn stalks with others in the winter and found overwintering corn borers in them.

These things are taken home to be burned as firewood, so these insects don't have a good end. It's just that the eggs that fall on the ground are more disgusting. Once they hatch in the spring, they will start to harm the crops.

Fortunately, there were few bugs in the melons. If there were, the melons would have gone bad from the beginning and there would have been no way to preserve them.

"I plan to rest for a while after I finish harvesting the reeds, and then go to the mountains. Halimu and his men must have returned from their pastures. I don't know if they have come down the mountain. It's not easy to pull things on horseback, so I'll bring some supplies up the mountain for them."

This must be done every year.

In fact, Li Long can take some time off if he wants to, but there are still many messy things to do throughout the year. Some things can be done or not, while some things must be done.

There were voices outside. Li Qingxia stood up and looked out the window. He couldn't see clearly who was outside because of the plastic sheeting on the window, but he thought it must be someone delivering the reed handles.

Li Long threw the melon peel into the dustpan in the corner that served as a trash can, stood up, put on his coat, and walked out, saying as he walked:

"You come to deliver reeds so early in the morning. Do you have no money?"

When I went out, I saw it was Ma Jinbao's son Ma Chenyang.

Ma Jinbao was the one who deliberately slowed down. He failed to get the melon seeds from the Li family - of course, he did not admit that he lost the opportunity because of his suspicion, but just thought that the Li family was misleading him.

So when I was collecting reeds, I wanted to put some pressure on them, not because I didn't want to make the money.

But he didn't expect that when two truckloads of reeds were delivered from Xiahai Village, he would be so panicked. Not only was he panicked, but his son was also panicked.

Their family had a lot of reeds, and while other families had almost finished tying up all the reeds, they hadn't even finished tying up a third of them. When they heard that Li Long's reeds were almost gone, they naturally became anxious.

They usually say they are afraid of the cold, but now it snowed, the Ma family no longer feel cold. They get up before dawn and continue working until dark.

Even when farm work was at its busiest, it had never been this busy.

Ma Chenyang cursed his father and blamed Li Long in his heart.

But when the respected people in the village went to talk about Li Long, they were retorted. He knew that even if he said it himself, Li Long would not care.

People want to make money. Do they have to smile while helping the village make money?
Although Ma Chenyang has a similar personality to his father, he is at least not stupid, so he works hard every day to make reed bundles, just to earn more money.

Li Long would not deliberately target his family. Those who are qualified will be qualified, and those who are unqualified will be unqualified.

"Xiaoyang, how many reeds did you pull today?" Li Long asked as he walked out of the door.

"Eighty." Ma Chenyang said, "You can check it. By the way, did you know that Xu Jianjun was captured?"

"Caught? Who caught him?"

"Tao Daqiang." One of the reasons why Ma Chenyang came so early today to deliver reed stalks to Li Long was that he wanted to pass on this news.

"Last night, Tao Daqiang went to his father-in-law's house to deliver something. He saw someone sneaking around in the reed ditch, so he went up to catch him. It turned out to be Xu Jianjun. Then Tao Daqiang beat him up, leaving him with a black eye and a swollen face. This morning, Xu Jianjun went to the team leader to complain, but the team leader scolded him back."

Ma Chenyang lives next door to Xu Jianjun, so he knew about this earlier. Xu Jianjun knew it was a scandal, so he wouldn't tell anyone about it, and Tao Daqiang had to take care of his wife, and he was an introvert, so he wouldn't tell anyone about it either.

I didn't even tell Li Long.

Li Long was also a little surprised that Tao Daqiang actually beat Xu Jianjun.

The most likely reason why Xu Jianjun dared to come back was because he knew that his family had repaid some of the money owed for the burnt reeds, and asked Xu Chengjun to help pay the rest.

Everything is fine now, so I dared to come back. I don’t know where he has been hiding these days.

Of course, the debt was paid, but the anger was gone. Li Long thought that Tao Daqiang beat Xu Jianjun up to help him vent his anger.

Xu Jianjun is barely 1.7 meters tall, while Tao Daqiang is 1.8 meters tall and 20 kilograms heavier than Xu Jianjun, and he is also young, so it is easy for him to beat him.

Li Long really didn't expect this.

He carefully checked the reed handles sent by Ma Chenyang and returned a dozen or so that were unqualified.

Ma Chenyang had no objection to pulling the donkey cart. After collecting the money, he said to Li Long:
"Li Long, I can send another batch tomorrow, and the day after tomorrow..."

Li Long calculated and said:
"Tomorrow will be enough. I will collect the last batch tomorrow night and will not come the day after tomorrow."

"Okay, okay, I got it!" Ma Chenyang immediately drove the donkey cart home when he heard what Li Long said. He wanted to make more as soon as possible.

A reed handle costs three cents, which is equivalent to a kilogram of flour!

Only a fool wouldn't do that!

Li Long put the reed bundle on the tractor and was no longer worried about someone setting a fire.

By lunchtime, we had collected reed bundles from several families, but they were not many, and the proportion of those that were qualified was not high either.

It seems that some people are really anxious.

Li Long was not in a hurry. After lunch, he took two melons to Tao Daqiang's house.

Tao Daqiang had already tied up the reeds at home, and he was breaking the coal in the coal shed. The coal brought in by the cart was large, and he had to break it into small pieces before bringing it into the house.

Seeing Li Long arrive, Tao Daqiang greeted him with a simple smile:
"Brother Long is here?"

"I heard that you beat Xu Jianjun? Are you okay?"

"It's okay, he didn't dare to fight back." Tao Daqiang didn't expect Li Long to know so quickly, and said with a silly smile, "If he dares to fight back, I will beat his nose until it swells."

It is still a little difficult to make a grown man cry, but this also shows Tao Daqiang's determination.

"Bring two melons for you." Li Long said, "Your wife can't eat them, but you and Uncle Tao can have some. The house is very dry in winter when the stove is burning, so you can eat something cool."

Tao Daqiang was holding an iron scoop in his hand and couldn't help with scooping the melons, so he hurried forward, lifted the cotton door curtain, pushed the door open, and let Li Long in.

In winter, when it is cold, every family will take out old quilts and sew them into cotton door curtains to keep out the wind. After all, the current doors are not airtight, and without door curtains, the heat in the house will leak out.

Tao Jianshe was making shoes in the west room. That's right, Tao Jianshe was making shoes—he was currently making soles. Since the children had no mother, many things had to be done by him as a father. Although his work was not very good, at least he could support the two children so that they would not have to go barefoot.

Shoes are easy, but clothes are not. I can only ask my neighbors to help me make them.

Now that Tao Daqiang has a child, Tao Jianshe can't rest. Although his daughter-in-law is out of confinement, it's impossible to ask her to do too much work. Just taking care of the child takes up most of his time.

Although it is relatively easier to supervise the child at this time, the child must be at least six months old to be able to sit.

In fact, children in rural areas are now raised by each family. When the big pot meals and collectives were in place, a sister-in-law would be asked to take care of many children from several families in the same group.

Li Jianguo said that when Li Juan and Li Qiang were young, when there was a lot of farm work to do in the group, both he and his wife had to go.

At that time, Li Juan was a little older and it was better, but Li Qiang was too young, less than one year old. He was put in a big basket with a group of other children who were less than one year old or over one year old. Whoever cried would be fed a spoonful of steamed bun soaked in boiling water and white sugar.

Unlike other places, sugar beets can be grown here, so at least sugar is not so scarce, and there are many places to make money. Although the children work very hard, at least they don't starve.

But it was only at this time. When you grow up, it is not easy to eat fine grains, and everyone knows the disadvantages of the big pot, so reforms will be carried out in the end.

Things got better and better later, but that’s another story.

"Uncle Tao is making shoes? Is your eyesight okay?"

"It's fine." When Tao Jianshe saw that it was Li Long who came in, he smiled and put down his shoe soles, and put away the awl and needle to avoid pricking anyone.

After sitting down and chatting for a while, Tao Daqiang suddenly said:

"Brother Long, I want to buy a tractor!"

Li Long looked at Tao Daqiang's determined eyes and asked:
"Have you collected enough money?"

"enough."

"Then let's buy it next spring." Li Long thought for a moment and said, "It's too troublesome to deal with this thing in winter, and it will depreciate a little if it is left at home in spring. It's better to buy it in the spring, when the snow melts and we haven't started working yet, so that we can use it by then."

He has a tractor, so he knows how troublesome winter is. Not only do you need to bake it in advance, but you also need to drain the water in the water tank at night. There are also some skills in baking, so as not to soften the pipes.

Others see how impressive he is driving a tractor, but they don't know that driving a tractor also has its hardships.

Tao Daqiang is a person who listens to advice. Even his father couldn't persuade him, but Li Long persuaded him with just one sentence.

Li Long knew that Tao Daqiang was too eager to show off and to compete for the position of being the second one with a tractor among the four teams.

Tao Jianshe still lived a hard life with his two sons, much harder than Gu Boyuan's.

Since he was a child, Tao Daqiang has been looked down upon by many people because he doesn't talk much and is considered stupid and foolish.

Later, he gradually got better, but he was not satisfied. He had suppressed so many grievances in the past, and now he was just thinking about how big a wave he could make.

Tao Jianshe actually tried to persuade his son, but Tao Daqiang was too stubborn and he could not persuade him.

Unexpectedly, Li Long made Tao Daqiang change his mind with just one sentence.

Tao Jianshe didn't know whether to be happy or unhappy.

Li Long went to the east room to check on Yang Pingping and the child again. He had been here once before and gave the child a red envelope of ten yuan as a gift for the meeting. Tao Daqiang did not refuse and took it.

After talking for a while, Li Long left the Tao family and went to Laomahao.

The snow on the road was not much cleared, and this was one of the few times that Li Long walked around the team. In the past, he either rode a bicycle or a tractor, so walking was rare.

Uncle Luo was clearing the snow in the yard and was very happy to see Li Long coming over.

Li Long found a wooden shovel and followed Uncle Luo to clear the snow while asking:
"Uncle Luo, are the things here enough?"

"That's enough. There's rice and flour, meat, and plenty of cooking oil. How much can I eat by myself?"

After Chen Lirong and her two children moved out of the old horse shop, Uncle Luo cooked less often. Li Long occasionally came over but was always in a hurry. Uncle Luo was really happy to be able to work with him today.

Li Long and Uncle Luo cleared the snow in the yard and then went to check on the livestock in the pen.

The wild boars were still wild and untamable, and kept grunting when they saw people coming. The red deer and roe deer held their heads high, probably looking for food.

Li Long took a look, turned his head and asked:

"Uncle Luo, are those two red deer and one roe deer about to give birth?"

"Yes." Uncle Luo said with a smile, "Xiaolong, I thought that when the sika deer gives birth, I will grab the fetus and freeze it, and you can take it back to Xiaoxia to eat.

Deer fetus is good for women. When Xiaoxia gives birth, she will lose a lot of energy, and this is the only thing that can make up for it."

Li Long knew this, but he had never thought about it. Now that Uncle Luo reminded him, he felt that this was really feasible.

In my previous life, I heard people say that people with chronic diseases like tuberculosis and those who are weak for a long time can get better by eating placenta.

Deer placenta is a great tonic, especially for women.

This is definitely possible!
I just don’t know if Gu Xiaoxia is willing to eat it?

But it doesn't matter. Get the stuff, dry it on a tile stove, grind it into powder, mix it with food and eat it.

For the sake of my family's health, it's okay to hide it.

"Okay, okay, I heard that after a deer gives birth, it will turn around and eat the fetus. So, Uncle Luo, please let me know when the deer is about to give birth. I will be here to guard it. This way it will be safer."

"Okay." Uncle Luo was willing. He was also worried that it would be troublesome if he couldn't keep an eye on the calf if it was born in the middle of the night.

Uncle Luo said it would take more than ten days for the elk to give birth, so Li Long was not in a hurry. This was enough time for him to hand in the reeds and then go to the mountains to deliver food.

After returning from Laomahao, Li Long found that someone had sent him reed handles again.

He roughly calculated that he would have collected most of the money by tonight.

But since I've told others, I'll come back tomorrow. As soon as I close tomorrow, I'll just go to the supply and marketing social to buy the last batch of goods.

Reeds take up space, so Li Long has already sent 15,000 reeds to the supply and marketing cooperative, where there is plenty of space and it is easy to store them.

Before the sun sets, Li Long drives his tractor to the county. If he doesn't leave soon, the tractor will be full.

After returning home, Li Long thought about it and decided to tell Gu Xiaoxia about the deer fetus.

What he didn't expect was that Gu Xiaoxia didn't object!

"I know that deer fetus is a good thing." Gu Xiaoxia said as a matter of course:
"I also know that you won't harm me. If I really give birth to a child, I have to raise him, so my body can't be weak. I think... my sister-in-law is quite weak, and she seems to have suffered from postpartum disease.

Although Juan and Qiangqiang are both doing well, my sister-in-law is suffering.”

Li Long thought about it and said:

"Well, there's more than one deer fetus anyway, so we can get one for my sister-in-law. We have so many deer, and now it seems they are finally useful."

It was quite surprising that Gu Xiaoxia still had no signs of pregnancy at this time.

I went to the county hospital for a check-up and it was officially confirmed that I was pregnant.

However, the prenatal check-up at that time was not as complicated as it is in later generations. After the confirmation, the doctor gave them some precautions and let them go back.

At that time, medical technology was not so advanced and there were not so many instruments. Many fetal diseases could not be detected at all, or they were simply not known in hospitals of this level.

So even if Li Long wanted to check it in detail, he had no idea where to start.

For example, Down syndrome screening.

The next day, Li Long went to the team again and collected reeds for half a day. Then he told the whole team through Xu Chengjun's loudspeaker that they no longer needed to collect reeds.

Li Long drove his tractor and left the team, heading towards the county.

Ma Chenyang looked at the pile of reeds in the yard and wanted to curse but couldn't.

There are many people who share the same mood as him.

PS: (I feel dizzy and my daughter has a fever, so I don’t have time to write. I will only update once tonight.) (End of this chapter)