Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Li Juan was in middle school, so the parent-teacher meeting started early. Li Qiang was in primary school, so the parent-teacher meeting started late. After picking up Liang Yuemei and Li Juan, Li Long drove his jeep to the primary school, and then asked Liang Yuemei to attend the primary school's parent-teacher meeting.

What surprised Li Long was that Li Qiang also received a certificate for being an outstanding Young Pioneer.

However, when Liang Yuemei and Li Qiang came out together, Li Qiang was not very happy.

Li Long handed him the candied haws he had bought in advance and asked him why he was not happy, but Li Qiang didn't say.

"He's unhappy because he didn't get the title of Three Good Students." Liang Yuemei explained, "It's also good to be an Outstanding Young Pioneer. It's good to have a certificate. There are only two or three people in your class who can get a certificate."

"That three good students award certificate is so great..." Li Qiang explained while chewing on a candied haws, his mood obviously better.

"That depends on whether you can pass it." Liang Yuemei said as she sat in the car, "Your teacher said that you were careless in the final exam. Otherwise, you might have passed it."

At this time, when we say "Three Good Students", it actually mainly depends on studying. Once you excel in study, you will basically get the Three Good Students certificate.

Li Long knew that Li Qiang had a problem in studying. During exams, the harder the questions were, the higher the score he would get. Because the questions were difficult, he took them seriously.

The easier the questions were, the more mistakes he made. He would be careless when the questions were easy. So Liang Yuemei said that whenever Li Qiang said the questions were too easy after taking the exam, it would be troublesome because he would definitely not get first place.

"It's okay. This is only the last year. There are still many years to go. Remember not to be careless and study hard. Try to get the title of "Three Good Students" every semester!"

At this time, the three good students will be rewarded, a notebook or a pencil case.

Li Juan's reward was a pen. She showed it to Li Long just now. It was a red Hero pen with the words "Extra Fine Accounting Pen" on it. No one knew who bought it and gave it to students.

But to be honest, the reward was enough to make other students envious. At that time, families were not rich, and it was very good for each student to have a cheap Hero pen.

This special pen costs several dollars, and ordinary families can't afford it.

Li Qiang's prize was a hardcover notebook. Hardcover notebooks are not cheap these days, softcover ones are cheap, but usually not many people buy them. Students use exercise books, and some children from poor families will erase the writing on their exercise books and reuse them.

Of course, most families will still take care of their children's self-esteem and buy them the one-cent exercise books.

The nine-year compulsory education is free of tuition, but you still have to pay a few dollars for miscellaneous fees and books. You have to buy your own exercise books and pencils, and you can do it with just a little bit of grit.

The normal annual output of rural areas is basically from summer harvest and autumn harvest. There is not much income at other times, so some people go to borrow money, while others try to find other ways.

In his previous life, Li Jianguo had to farm a lot of miscellaneous items, such as various seeds, and raise pigs and sheep, all in order to cope with such daily expenses.

In an emergency, selling a sheep can help you get by. March and April are the lean season, so you can earn cash from the goats and sheep.

You can collect a bag of various seeds from the fields and sell them in case of emergency.

In short, unless you are very honest, everyone will try various ways to get some money during the lean period. The money for students to go to school cannot be delayed.

After picking up the people, Li Long drove the jeep back. Li Qiang was still leaning on the window and shouting his classmates' names.

The children don’t know how to be low-key. If the family has a nice car, they will naturally show it off.

Liang Yuemei scolded Li Qiang in a low voice and told him not to be so conspicuous.

Li Qiang didn't care about his mother's scolding, and sat down to eat the candied haws. He usually had money on him, but it was not easy to buy such things directly. One reason was that it was troublesome to eat, and the other was that he couldn't finish it in ten minutes during the break, and he couldn't bear to throw it away.

The second is that it is difficult to share with classmates. Li Qiang is not stingy now that he has money. Sometimes he would buy a small paper cup of melon seeds during class breaks and share them with his classmates. But it is difficult to share the candied haws.

When they were a year or two younger, it was okay for you to take a bite and I to take a bite, but now that family life has improved and they have paid more attention to hygiene habits, Li Qiang also knows that it is not good to eat like this, so he simply stops buying them.

Although greedy.

Although some people encouraged him to buy it, Li Qiang still had his own opinion.

So it tasted especially sweet today. He knew that it was a reward from his uncle for winning the certificate, so he was very happy while eating it.

Driving the jeep back to Li's yard, Li Jianguo did not go to Xiaohaizi, but cooked at home.

Usually it is the father who goes to parent-teacher meetings, while mothers like Liang Yuemei rarely go.

But Li Jianguo was willing to let his wife go. He was the most important person in the village and at home. He was the one who was always approached for help. He was also the one who showed off his talent.

At this kind of parent-teacher meeting, Li Juan and Li Qiang had good academic performance and it was also an opportunity for parents to show up, so Li Jianguo asked Liang Yuemei to go.

Parent-teacher conferences at that time were not like those in later times, where the privacy of children had to be protected. In these days, teachers would openly tell parents who had good grades, who had won awards, who studied hard, who had a good future, etc.

The original intention is to make parents pay attention to it.

Liang Yuemei was also happy to go. There were not many opportunities to be praised, so this was her highlight.

When children do well, their parents will naturally be proud.

Because the two parent-teacher conferences lasted a long time, Li Jianguo cooked. Li Qingxia felt that it was boring to stay at home, so she went to Xiaohaizi.

Li Long looked at the time and thought his father would be back in half an hour, so he said he would go and pick him up.

"What do you want to pick up? He will be back soon." Du Chunfang thought that Li Long must be tired from driving the jeep to pick someone up, so she let him take a rest.

"Nothing, I just went over for a stroll so that no one would think I was uneasy if I didn't show up."

"Who wouldn't be at ease?" Du Chunfang asked in confusion, not knowing the twists and turns.

"Those fishermen in Xiaohaizi." Li Jianguo interrupted. He was rolling noodles and eating pulled noodles for lunch. It was still mutton with spicy noodles, fried potato shreds, and fried pickles.

"Why are they in such a hurry?"

"If Xiaolong doesn't show up, they worry about not being able to catch any fish," Li Jianguo said with a smile. "Only when they see Xiaolong can they feel reassured."

"Hey, it's true..." Du Chunfang understood, but still couldn't understand it.

Li Juan and Li Qiang posted the award certificates on the wall and came over to follow Li Long to Xiaohaizi. Li Long agreed and asked them to wear something thicker.

Li Jianguo did not stop him. Du Chunfang smiled as she saw that her youngest son had a good relationship with his grandchildren. After they left, she muttered that Xiaolong doted on them too much.

"That's right. Xiaolong has been pampering them since the year before last." Liang Yuemei heard this and said with a smile, "He gives them more pocket money than we do. I'm afraid he's spoiled them."

"That's impossible." Du Chunfang was unwilling to listen to Li Long's faults and denied it directly.

"It's true. The two children have always done well in their studies and are very close to their uncle." Liang Yuemei said with a smile.

Happy to see it come to fruition.

Li Long took his two children in cotton-padded clothes to Xiaohaizi. The sun was too bright, the sky was particularly blue, there were no clouds, the field was a little empty, and there was no wind. The sun at this time was slightly warm and quite comfortable.

The two children followed Li Long, jumping and skipping, and sometimes they deliberately didn't take the traversed path and insisted on jumping into the snow to catch something.

I didn't care that my rubber shoes were filled with snow. Fortunately, I was wearing thick wool socks, so I didn't feel cold at that time.

The wool socks were knitted by Liang Yuemei using the wool she had saved after she finished her work in the fall. Everyone in the family has them. Although they are not good-looking, they are really warm to wear.

At that time, rural women had mastered a lot of skills. If they were to travel through time, their ability to survive would definitely be stronger than many young people forty years later.

When he arrived at Xiaohaizi, Li Long saw that in this reservoir of about one square kilometer in size, there were already seven or eight "groups" fishing for fish in the ice holes.

Thanks to his large-scale collection of reed stems in early winter, there are no longer large patches of reeds standing on the ice surface of Xiaohai Lake, so people who dig holes in the ice to catch fish can see them all at a glance.

The reason why Xiaohaizi is called a semi-reservoir is that before Li Jianguo and his colleagues built the village, it was a natural puddle, between a lake and a swamp.

Li Jianguo and his group built a dam on the north side of the puddle to store the water. One of the original water conservancy projects, a large canal running from west to east leading to another village, was also included in the puddle. The water in the canal first gathered in the puddle, and over time, a small lake was formed.

At present, Xiaohaizi looks a bit desolate, but in summer, it is full of vitality with lush reeds, flocks of water birds, and occasional water rats.

Much better than Dahaizi.

When Li Juan and Li Qiang saw someone fishing, they ran over immediately. Liang Dacheng and Tao Daqiang, who were more familiar with the place, ran over to take a closer look, while those who were not familiar with the place just passed by and finally came to Li Qingxia.

Li Long was also greeting people as he walked, and by the time he arrived at Li Qingxia's place, more than ten minutes had passed.

"Wow, Dad, we've caught a lot today!" Li Long was a little surprised when he saw the two piles of fish his grandfather had caught.

"Hey, that's it!" Li Qingxia said with a proud tone, "Your elder brother didn't come today, so I took turns fishing in these two ice holes, and the fish kept coming."

Li Long could sense that the old man was also very tired, so he took the scoop net and started fishing there.

But he didn't fish for a long time. Seeing that the time was almost up, he packed up his tools and fish and went back.

Li Qingxia had gained a lot and kept talking. After hearing that Li Juan and Li Qiang both received certificates, he took out two and a half yuan from his pocket and gave each of them one:
"Here, this is a reward! Take the money and buy whatever you want as long as you don't spend it recklessly!"

Li Long wanted to laugh after hearing this. Isn't it a bit contradictory that not spending money recklessly and buying whatever you want?

But it doesn’t matter. It’s a good thing that dad loves his grandchildren.

After returning to the settlement, Li Long was somewhat surprised to see a horse-drawn carriage at the gate of his yard. His elder brother Li Jianguo and Lu Yingming from the opposite side were both there.

The person pulling the carriage was an unknown middle-aged man, not tall and looking a bit honest. When he saw Li Long and the others coming over, he grinned.

"Tietou's father said that this man was watching you in the yard, so he came over and told me." Li Jianguo explained, "He said he wanted to sell you fish, you see..."

Li Long looked at the plastic sheet covering the carriage and understood a little.

Perhaps the news of his fishing trip had spread, so he asked:
"Where are you from?"

"The one in the new lake in the north."

"Where is this fish from?"

"We caught the fish from the Baitukeng Reservoir by breaking holes in the ice. They are all good fish." The man smiled and lifted the plastic sheet.

"What a big fish!" Li Qingxia exclaimed.

On the carriage, what caught the eye were several large fish that were more than one meter long.

Most of them are silver carp and bighead carp, mixed with two or three grass carp.

The small ones weigh three to five kilograms, and there are also many that weigh one or two kilograms.

"How's it going? Isn't our fish good? I heard you buy fish. My fish is cheap, 80 cents a kilogram. Do you want some?"

"Eight cents, sure." Li Qingxia was tempted and looked at Li Long.

Li Long took a look and laughed.

If I hadn't lived my life over again, I would have been deceived by this man's honest expression!
"My fellow villager, this fish of yours is not from a white clay pit, right?" Li Long shook his head, "You are lying."

Baitukeng is the name of a reservoir. From Dahaizi down to the depths of the Gurbantunggut Desert, there are several reservoirs in a row, and Baitukeng is one of them, and it is also quite famous.

In later generations, there were not only fish, but also shrimps and snails, and just like the Dahaizi in later generations, crabs were raised there.

But now there is only a fishery there, and it is a public fishery. That is, the reservoir is managed by someone, but fish fry are not often released, and people catch fish every year.

There is no shortage of fish in this kind of public reservoir. In the hot summer, the wild fish can reproduce on their own.

The water areas of these reservoirs are much larger than those of Xiaohaizi, at least more than three to five square kilometers.

However, the fish are not as delicious as those in the small lake, because there is no grass in the reservoir, and those fish simply eat plankton in the water.

Li Long had been a fisherman for decades in his previous life. He knew all about wild fish, farmed fish, and fish in various reservoirs.

"How could it not be?" the little man argued, "I'm not from the Baitukeng Reservoir Fishery. This fish was caught from the canal downstream of Baitukeng. It's real, not a lie at all!"

"Really? I think it's really fake!" Seeing that this person was still so stubborn, Li Long didn't show any mercy. This person was obviously trying to trick him. He pointed at the fish and said:

"Don't say your fish isn't from the Baitu pit. It wasn't even caught from the reservoir."

"Then where do you think I got this fish from? If it's not from a reservoir, where else can such a big fish be raised?" The little guy was not convinced and said stubbornly with his face raised and his neck straight.

"Do you really think I don't know? This fish of yours came out of a sewage pit! It can only grow so big in the sewage pit placed downstream by the county leather factory, right? It's a good thing you can run so far to catch fish in the pit!"

"What? Fish in a sewage pit?" Li Qingxia was a little surprised. "How can you raise fish there?"

"Of course," Li Long sneered, "If you don't believe me, go and smell it. Even though the fish has been washed many times and some of its scales have been washed off, the stench in the sewage pit cannot be washed away!"

Both Li Jianguo and Lu Yingming changed their expressions.

Previously, they also thought that this fish could be accepted, but if what Li Long said was correct, then it would be a real disservice to the adults if they accepted this fish!

The guy who brought the fish here is really heartless! (End of this chapter)