Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

The next afternoon, Li Long drove a tractor and returned to the county with Gu Xiaoxia.

With the tractor, although Gu Xiaoxia's butt hurt from sitting in the back bucket, the speed was fast and she didn't have to pedal, so it actually felt pretty good.

After returning to the yard, Gu Xiaoxia prepared dinner while Li Long released the roe deer and fawns, cleaned the glass house, and added water and food to them.

While sweeping the yard, he saw the big hedgehog poking its head out and running along the wall toward the back of the house, with something in its mouth. He didn't know whether it was an earthworm or a centipede. Li Long guessed that it was most likely an earthworm, as the centipedes in northern Xinjiang could not grow that big.

As long as there is food, it is good to live well. Li Long thinks it is good to have more living things like this at home. Anyway, the yard is big, and it would not be good if it is just empty for the two of them.

The roe deer were frolicking in the yard, running around and making a lot of noise. Gu Xiaoxia poked her head out of the kitchen to take a look, then went back to cooking.

Li Long saw that the roe deer were almost done playing, so he drove them into the glass house. Li Long thought that when the roe deer grew up and were no longer fun to play with, he would drive them to the old horse house in the team and then see how to make use of the glass house.

It would be nice to have some fresh vegetables in the winter, so that we don't get tired of eating the same old things.

If you have the conditions, then make your life better.

"The meal is ready, come and eat." Gu Xiaoxia shouted at the kitchen door. Li Long washed his hands and went to eat.

"You should have a good rest these days." Gu Xiaoxia said at the dinner table, "You have been in the mountains for so long, you have become tanned, it's a good time to recuperate at home."

"My skin color is normal." Li Long took a sip of the porridge and said with a smile, "People in Europe and America go out under the sun or on the beach to get themselves tanned to this color. They think it's a healthy skin color."

"Don't worry about them, as long as we look good, that's fine." Gu Xiaoxia didn't have any thoughts of yearning for Europe and the United States. "If you sunbathe too much, you'll get scars, which won't go away later."

"Okay, I'll listen to you." Li Long followed suit.

This is how couples chat at home.

"I can't just sit around doing nothing." Li Long said as he ate. "I'm going to go to the animal husbandry team's outpost when I have time. The yards of Halimu and Yushanjiang's families are in ruins, so I'm going to take a few people over to help fix them. They've gone to the summer pasture to herd sheep, so only the women and children are left at home, so I have to go check on them from time to time."

"Yeah, it's my duty." Gu Xiaoxia heard Li Long talk about how he made his first fortune, so she was very grateful to Halimu and Yushanjiang. If it weren't for work reasons, she would have followed Li Long to the mountains to visit these friends.

"Who are you going with?" Gu Xiaoxia handed a piece of meat to Li Long and asked, "Can you find someone?"

"Just get a few people from the team," Li Long said. "In a couple of days, when the farming season is over, call Daqiang and the others. It will only take one or two days to put up the mud, tidy up the yard, and patch up the wall. I'll buy a sheep, cook a pot, and eat while we work. By the way, are you free? You can come if you are."

"I'm afraid not." Gu Xiaoxia shook her head. "We may have to inspect various schools in the next few days. The midterm exams are coming up soon. The bureau is taking it very seriously this year. We will go to the township schools in batches to check the situation."

Gu Xiaoxia actually wanted to go, but she was too busy. She couldn't go back to the team for the next two weeks, and she might have to stay in distant towns if she went to inspect them.

Li Long felt a little regretful, but it was normal to think about it. Gu Xiaoxia was a state cadre, so she was naturally subject to the constraints of the unit and discipline. He suddenly thought of something and said:

"Not only do you have to work, but you also have to actively approach the organization and write an application. I remember you joined the group when you were in school, right?"

"Yeah." Gu Xiaoxia said with a smile, "I didn't expect you to be so politically sensitive. I have already written an application, and Director Wang said the organization will focus on my assessment."

If you want to make progress within the system, you must keep up with this.

After eating and washing, the two of them went to the bedroom to watch TV and chat. Li Long felt that this was a normal married life.

The TV series broadcast by CCTV was called "Wusong", which was based on a scene about Wu Song in "Water Margin". It was quite exciting to watch. Gu Xiaoxia watched it very seriously, and Li Long accompanied her until she finished watching the cast list before changing the channel.

Channel 9 is Shihezi Station, and it was broadcasting "Oasis News" at that time. Because there was less news gathering at that time, the review was more professional, and the recording of the program was very serious, so the news was new every week. After the broadcast on Monday, the news for the next week was replayed.

Many people are most annoyed by the news when watching TV at this time. Some children do not know that the news is usually of a fixed length, so they count how many are read by the host and how many are pictures, thinking that each news has a fixed number of items. Some children can even memorize the content of the news, but even so, they are unwilling to leave at this time, for fear that the news will suddenly stop and the TV series will be played directly.

At this time, TV shows featuring martial arts and gun battles are the most popular. Adults like family dramas, but more children still like dramas like "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" and "Wu Song". "Desire" is popular with adults because it is closer to life.

After all, this is a time to praise suffering, advocate patience, hard work and kindness.

Now Li Long likes to watch the news. The news contains a lot of information, not just current affairs.

Oasis News was broadcasting about the Corps. Li Long discovered that cotton had already been planted there. However, the cotton was not covered with film, so it should be upland cotton, and the yield would not be very high.

But this was the beginning of cotton planting in northern Xinjiang. No one could have imagined at that time that in the next few decades, in areas with conditions, the cotton planting area in each county would reach more than one million acres.

Quite a lot.

The next day Li Long rested and Gu Xiaoxia went to work.

On Monday, the leaders had to hold a meeting to confirm the work. There was not much to do in the offices, so a few women started discussing yesterday's TV series. Some people could watch it, but some could only listen.

Gu Xiaoxia was tidying up her desk. It was an old-fashioned orange-yellow desk with two drawers filled with daily office supplies. The fountain pen Li Long gave her was very useful. She unscrewed the ink bottle and prepared to absorb the ink.

"Xiao Gu, let me tell you, the performance of Wu Song was so good, the fighting was just like the real thing, and I was really scared when he killed someone..." An older sister was sitting next to Gu Xiaoxia. She turned her head and said to her, "I was sitting on a chair at the time and almost fell down... Oh, I forgot, Xiaoxia, you don't have a TV at home. Come to my house and watch it when you have time. It's very interesting!"

"I saw it." Gu Xiaoxia smiled and said while sucking ink, "Wu Song's blood was splattered on the Yuanyang Tower. When he stabbed it with his knife, blood splattered all over the wall. It was really real - if my husband hadn't said it was fake blood, I would have thought the red was splashed with real blood."

"Blood? Red? Isn't that black?" the older sister asked in confusion, "I also saw it splashed on the wall, so..."

"Xiaoxia is watching color TV, right?" Another colleague suddenly understood, "Blood is red in color TV."

"Xiaoxia, whose house did you go to watch the color TV?" The elder sister was stunned for a moment. "The only families in our bureau that have color TVs are Director Dong and Director Wang, right? You are..."

"No, I'm at home." Gu Xiaoxia sucked the ink, took out toilet paper to wipe off the excess ink on the tip of the pen, and said, "My husband is back from a business trip. He got a lot of bonus, so he bought a color TV."

"Wow, it's really good!" The older sister praised with a fake smile. Usually, when talking about TV at this time, the older sister is the center of attention in the office. After all, she is the only one with a TV at home, so everyone else can only listen to what she says. Some colleagues are her neighbors, and when they go to her house to watch TV, they have to curry favor with her.

Now, when I suddenly heard that Gu Xiaoxia's family had bought a TV, a color TV, I felt uncomfortable.

Gu Xiaoxia had no intention of taking the lead, but usually this elder sister would want to suppress her from time to time when they talked about TV in the morning. She usually thought that she would just endure it, but since there was a chance today, why should she endure it?
"Xiao Gu, what size TV did you buy? Twelve inches or fourteen inches? The small one doesn't look clear. Even if it's a color TV, a big one is better." The elder sister pretended to suggest.

"It's OK, it's 18." Gu Xiaoxia knew that she would be going to the countryside in the next two days. She packed her work bag and put pens, notebooks and other daily necessities in it. As she put them in, she said, "My husband went to Shicheng Department Store to buy it. I originally wanted to buy a bigger one, but unfortunately they didn't have it."

This time, the elder sister's face almost turned green. Her black and white TV was 14 inches, which was the mainstream size nowadays, and it was considered good. She thought that her own black and white TV would at least be bigger than Gu Xiaoxia's, but she didn't expect that the other person's TV was 18 inches!

"Is this true? Eighteen is not cheap!" The eldest sister obviously didn't believe it. Gu Xiaoxia came from the countryside, and the county only started the household contract responsibility system last year. Her husband is a temporary worker. How much can he earn?

"It's indeed not cheap. It was 2,400 last year. The one I have is placed in the village and shown to my parents-in-law. This year's one is cheaper, 2,100." Gu Xiaoxia was telling the truth.

The more she told the truth, the more upset the lady felt. The price was not bad, the money was already stated, how could it be false?
The other two colleagues obviously leaned towards Gu Xiaoxia and said with a smile:

"Xiaoxia, it's an 18-inch TV, right? What brand?"

"Panda's."

"How about letting us see it when you have time? We've never seen such a big color TV!"

"Sure, just get off work this afternoon."

"Can't I go at noon?" "I don't go home at noon, so I don't have time to cook. My husband found a lady to cook for me." Gu Xiaoxia said, "It's not far from the workplace, and I can take a rest after eating. It's too much trouble to go home to cook and then run here."

Her words really made many people jealous. Most of her colleagues were married, and many of them did not live with their parents. They had to rush home to cook after work, and they did not even have time to clean up after eating, and then they had to rush back to work.

Now when I hear Gu Xiaoxia say that she doesn’t even have to cook by herself, this treatment really makes people jealous.

Fortunately, the leader finished the meeting and came over to assign work, otherwise some people would have really been thrown off guard.

Li Long went around the market and saw Sister Yang selling food. He greeted her and then walked around again and found several people from the team selling fish there.

He went over and chatted with them for a while, and learned that they were now going to the big lake to catch fish. There was a flood in the small lake, so it was difficult to cast the nets for fear that the nets would be washed away.

"Is there not much work in the fields recently?"

"Nothing, just weeding. I have two days off now, so I caught some fish to sell. I also want to earn some money from selling fish so I can buy a bicycle and go to Shicheng to sell fish and earn more."

Now everyone in the village knows that they can earn more by selling fish in Shicheng, and no one is shy about it.

"That's great. Catch more and sell more. It will add up quickly." Li Long encouraged with a few words and left.

Since there is no work in the team, you can do what you are going to do.

During lunch, Gu Xiaoxia told Li Long that two colleagues wanted to come to her house in the afternoon to watch the color TV. Li Long smiled and said:
"Sure. I'll go back and clean the house and put some fruit on the table." Since Gu Xiaoxia's colleague was coming, Li Long had to take it seriously. No matter what, he had to improve his wife's reputation.

He also told Gu Xiaoxia that he planned to go to the team to find Tao Daqiang and a few others tomorrow to see if he could finish repairing Halimu's house in the next two days.

The two of them chatted about family matters. Sister Yang basically didn't say anything, but just ate with them, smiling.

She is very satisfied with her life now. She can earn money every day and her daughter is in school. The only regret is that she has not found a husband yet. If she can find a husband, her life will be perfect.

She had already sent a telegram to her hometown, asking them to send her the address if they received a letter or telegram from her husband, but there has been no news yet.

After dinner, when Li Long was about to leave, Sister Yang came out of the house with a bag and said to Li Long:

"Uncle, these are the Fritillaria you asked me to collect last time. I washed them and hung them up to dry. I wanted to collect more with the remaining money, but I found that they were not for sale in the market. The money is still here."

"Take the money, big sister." Li Long waved his hand, "Put it into your food allowance. Buy more meat, eggs, etc., don't save money. I'll take the Fritillaria. If you have any problems, please let us know in time."

Li Long does not plan to sell this bag of Fritillaria for the time being. The dried goods are less than ten kilograms, and there are some left at home. He will pick some out and put some in each household for future use.

Of course you won’t need that much, just think of it as a bottom pad for the box.

After returning to the yard, Li Long cleaned up a bit. He thought that Gu Xiaoxia's colleagues were coming over, so he had to cook in the evening and prepare two good dishes.

The big hedgehog was stealing vegetables in the vegetable garden. When it heard the noise, it hurried to the wall. Li Long ignored it and let it go. Maybe after a while, it will not be afraid anymore and can come and go freely.

The dinner should be light, so Li Long planned to make some porridge, pick some vegetables from the vegetable garden and mix them together, steam the dried meat, cut it into a plate, and prepare some dipping sauce. It was still early, and seeing that there were not enough steamed buns, he simply made some leavened bread, prepared to bake some leavened bread later, and scrambled eggs. When eating, you can roll the bread with eggs or meat, it doesn't matter.

I think this is a pretty good meal considering the current per capita living standard.

When the dough has risen, blanch the vegetables, take them out and squeeze out the water, add green onions and coriander, add some chili oil and vinegar and mix. It is very refreshing.

Steam the air-dried meat. What you get back is cooked meat. Steam it for twenty minutes, take it out, let it cool, slice it, arrange it on a plate, and prepare the dipping sauce.

Fry the eggs later, see how the dough rises, and then prepare the pancakes.

He used the Xibe pancake baking method, with the fire neither too big nor too small, and turned it over when one side turned slightly yellow. It felt a little undercooked when touched, but it was actually cooked, and it was very delicious.

The pancake is about 30 centimeters in diameter. Cut it into four pieces and put it on a plate. The rest is to cook rice porridge and scrambled eggs.

After finishing, seeing that Gu Xiaoxia and the others had not yet finished get off work, Li Long went to release the roe deer to let them out for some fresh air in order to prevent these guys from shouting in a hurry when people came later.

But what Li Long didn't expect was that just after he let these guys out, the door was pushed open, and Gu Xiaoxia pushed a bicycle and brought people in.

Li Long knew something was wrong and hurried to chase the roe deer away. However, he did not expect that when Gu Xiaoxia's two colleagues saw that there was a living creature in the yard, they were startled at first, and then they were attracted by the deer's cute big eyes.

The deer and roe deer were not afraid of Gu Xiaoxia. When they saw her come in, they actually walked forward to sniff her and called out from time to time. Her two colleagues were extremely envious.

"Xiao Gu, is this your pet? What is it? A deer?"

"Yes, there are deer and roe deer." Gu Xiaoxia didn't expect to see this when she entered the door, but it was nothing. Seeing Li Long preparing to drive the little thing back, she pointed and introduced it:
"That's my wife Li Long. Li Long, these are my two colleagues, this is Su Ningning, this is Tao Min, we are in the same office."

Su Ningning is a little older than Gu Xiaoxia, about 25 years old, with short hair, and looks very capable; Tao Min is about 30 years old, an intellectual woman, a bit like Gu Xiaoxia's neighbor Teacher Wang in middle school.

"I'm sorry, I was thinking of letting them out for some fresh air before you guys came, otherwise they'll start barking loudly later." Li Long explained hastily, "I'll drive them inside now, you guys go inside."

"No, no, it looks cute. Is this what you guys raised? It's really nice... Did you buy it?" Su Ningning asked.

"No, I caught them in the mountains." Li Long explained, "Some were caught by me when I was on a business trip to the mountains, and some were given to me by friends."

"Hey, that's great." Su Ningning looked at it with envy. Tao Min said nothing, but scanned the yard and then landed on the antenna in the corner of the main hall.

To be able to afford such a big yard, a color TV, and a tractor... this family is really amazing.

After watching Su Ningning and the others for a while, Li Long drove the deer and roe deer back.

"You just got off work, right? Dinner is ready. Do you want to eat first or watch TV while eating?" When Li Long returned to the front yard, Gu Xiaoxia and the other two were chatting in the yard. Two colleagues looked at Li Long and asked something quietly.

Li Long saw that they were silent after he came over, so he asked.

"Li Long, can you cook?"

"It's awesome!"

Both Su Ningning and Tao Min were a little surprised.

Nowadays, there are not many young men like Li Long who can cook well.

"It's a home-cooked meal, so it's a good opportunity for you to try it and give me some suggestions." Li Long said with a smile, "How about we just watch and eat at the same time?"

"Okay."

The small dining table was brought to the bedroom, the lights were turned on, the TV was turned on, and Li Long and Gu Xiaoxia served the food together.

Su Ningning looked at the dishes on the table, then at the TV and the room, and suddenly said to Tao Min:
"Sister Tao, I didn't think so before, but now I feel that Xiao Gu is happier than any of us. I envy her."

Tao Min didn't say anything, but in fact she had the same thought.

Who wouldn’t envy such a life? (End of this chapter)