Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

After the Mid-Autumn Festival, before Li Qingxia came back, Li Long returned to the team and finally heard the good news he had been waiting for:

The superiors are preparing to build a road - the road from the fourth team to the township will be converted from the current dirt road into a gravel road.

The Fourth Squadron was the farthest village in the east of the township. To the northeast was a company of the Corps. The only way to the county was through the Fourth Squadron, and there was only a donkey track to pass through the other companies.

In later generations, there was a road from the Fourth Team to the southeast that went directly to the Wuyi Highway, which was considered the large ring road of Ma County, but it would take another 30 years to build this road.

It is very good to have a gravel road at present. After all, the dirt road is usually dusty and muddy when it rains, which makes it difficult to walk on.

According to the notice given by Xu Chengjun after he returned from a meeting in the township, the state would pay for the construction of roads in various townships and villages, which could be regarded as the earliest prototype of village-to-village roads.

What surprised Li Jianguo was that the road construction was no longer like the previous canal digging, which required labor from each village to provide public labor, nor did it require villagers to pay. Everyone just needed to wait for the road to be built and use it.

When Li Jianguo told Li Long the news, he said with emotion:

"When we were digging canals and building roads, we all brought dry food with us to work. We worked all day and were so tired that we didn't even want to eat dinner and just wanted to sleep. We only got one work point for that day. We didn't know how to save our energy when we were working. The blisters on our hands from the first day would break off the second day and appear again the day after that... It was really hard."

Li Long remained silent. He was still young at that time and didn't know anything about this. When he first came here, he just knew how to play around. Later, when he grew up, he ran outside every day and only went home when he was tired and hungry.

Now that I think about it, I really enjoyed a peaceful life.

After all, among his peers, like Xu Haijun, who didn't help his family with work when he was a teenager? He once helped work in Gu Ermao's fields for a day.

Is that guy about to be released now?

The road was built from the inside out, starting with Team 4. They first unloaded sand and gravel on the road, then flattened it with a bulldozer, and then compacted it with a roller.

After all, it's just paving a gravel road, there's no need to be so troublesome.

"Next year our team will drill another well," Li Jianguo continued, "and we plan to drill it right across from the Old Horse."

There are three settlements in Team 4. One in the southeast is where Li Jianguo and his team are located; one in the east is near Gu Boyuan's home; and one in the west is near the Weigou.

Lao Ma Hao is located in the middle of the three settlements, on the north side of the road. I think the main purpose of digging a well on the south side of the road is to make drinking water more convenient for the villagers - after all, according to the records of the superiors, the drinking water of the residents of the fourth team is mainly based on the well.

This kind of well water is usually only three or two meters deep and is very alkaline. Drinking it for a long time can easily make you sick.

They didn't know that in fact most of the families in Team 4 had dug pressurized wells, which were at least ten meters deep. The water quality was definitely fine and had no saline or alkali taste. The old people in the village all said that the water was really sweet.

Li Long didn't feel it was sweet, but at least it was much better than the original well water.

The infiltration layer is deep.

In the previous life, a well was dug in the past two years. At that time, the Fourth Team had not yet undergone the changes that it has today, and very few people dug wells. So after the well was dug, everyone drove donkey carts and horse carts to the well to draw water - of course, the time for drawing water was also fixed, one day every week.

Opening a well consumes electricity, so the water manager will notify everyone on a loud speaker when the well is opened, and then every household will go to fetch water.

Li Long was using a donkey cart at the time, and the gasoline was stored in a modified gasoline barrel - two donkey cart tires were clamped on both ends of the barrel to act as shock absorbers. The barrel was placed flat, with a square opening about the size of a book on it to facilitate pouring water in.

The original oil outlet was welded shut, so another hole was opened on one side of the barrel, and a steel pipe was welded to serve as a drain. A rubber tube was put on the steel pipe to extend its use.

Many families have such buckets. After the water is released from the well, each family takes turns to approach the well. The dumber ones will directly use buckets to collect water and pour it into their own buckets; the smarter ones will directly find a rubber tube and poke it into the well pipe mouth, and put the other end into their own buckets. This is convenient.

The diameter of the well pipe mouth is 15 to 20 centimeters, and the water output is large. The water tower built next to it is used to filter sand. The water pressure is high, and it will directly flush out a big pit where the water falls, and then flow away along the canal.

Those who don't have time to fetch water can wait until the well is shut down and come back when they have time. If they need water urgently, they will also take water from this pit.

After all, the pit is surrounded by Gobi rocks and is often washed by water, so it is quite clean.

Li Long vaguely remembered an incident in which a mother and daughter from the village walked to the county. When they came back, they were tired and dirty. Seeing that there was no one around, they washed themselves by the pit. Then they were seen by the students who came back and told their parents about it.

The parents went to the mother and daughter's house and scolded them for almost an hour - because everyone assumed that the water in the pit was for drinking, and they would usually remind students not to play with the water in the pit or make it dirty when passing by.

After the news spread, that family was too embarrassed to face anyone for a long time.

Road construction will begin this year, and drilling of wells will begin next year. History is still moving forward along its original trajectory, but the lives of the people in the team have actually changed a lot.

Li Long guessed that there might be another task of reed handle this year, but it would be some time before that. Currently, he has nothing to do at home, and occasionally he will come back to help the team.

The rice has been harvested. Li Long bought a lot of new rice, some of which he left with his eldest brother and some of which he brought back to the big yard.

The team members harvested the remaining crops in the fields, and collected sunflowers and corn from the fields to the threshing floor, and finally put them into bags. Some of them were taken to the Grain Bureau to become part of the public grain payment, some were sold to dealers to become grain at a different price, and some were kept at home for their own use.

That day, Meng Hai from Qingshui River came over with a donkey cart and brought two yellow sheep to Li Long.

Li Long was a little surprised. While helping to unload the yellow sheep, he asked:
"Are there yellow sheep running over there?"

"Yes, a group of them. It just so happened that the township armed forces department recently asked us to check the guns in preparation for winter training, so we shot some." Meng Hai smiled.

Li Long guessed what was going on but didn't say anything.

"Recently, we discovered that wild boars have also come out of the South Mountain." Meng Hai said, "If I kill a wild boar in the future, I will send one to you. There are a lot of wild boar babies this year. They have grown to 30 or 40 kilograms since the beginning of spring, and their meat is very tender."

Li Long was quite happy. He didn't expect that he could eat wild game without going into the mountains.

Meng Hai came here to deliver the yellow sheep and to do other things. After delivering the sheep, he drank a sip of water, chatted with Li Long for a few words and then left.

The yellow sheep has been skinned, the skin and meat are still there, and the internal organs have been washed.

This is really full of sincerity.

Li Long looked at the meat, it was very fresh, it should have been caught this morning. It was morning now, so it was processed right after it was caught and brought here right after it was processed.

Not bad.

Sister Yang was looking after the children and feeding them milk. Li Long first cut the meat of one of the yellow sheep into small pieces, and then cut the meat and oil into small pieces to prepare the oil.

The bones are ready to be cooked - it seems that I have to find time to go to Wucheng and buy a refrigerator.

There are already refrigerators for sale in Wucheng now, but Li Long didn’t pay attention to it or think about it the last few times.

Another thing is that his jeep is not easy to pull.

I don’t know if there is one in Shicheng. I’ll have to go and see it when I have time.

After Sister Yang fed the two children milk and coaxed them to play, she prepared to make lunch.

Li Long turned to look at the child, and at the same time smeared salt on the meat and skin of another yellow sheep, intending to take it to his eldest brother's house after lunch.

When Gu Xiaoxia came home from get off work, she was a little surprised to see the dried yellow mutton hanging in the yard.

"They were sent from Qingshui River. There are two legs. I plan to take one to my eldest brother." Li Long said, "I will also send a leg to Uncle Luo."

"Okay." Gu Xiaoxia had no objection to this. There was no shortage of meat at home.

Gu Boyuan was very envious and even jealous of Li Long's current situation of "sitting at home and getting meat from the mountains", but he ate ready-made food, so he could only say good things.

At noon, we simply fried yellow mutton. Sister Yang is now quite skilled in handling this kind of wild animal, and it was very fragrant.

After dinner, the two children took a nap, and Li Long drove the jeep to the team to deliver yellow mutton.

Large trucks have started pulling sand and gravel onto Team 4's road. The materials are piled on one side of the road, leaving half the space for vehicles to pass.

The road had been expanded and excavated on both sides of the reed ditch, and Li Long saw some yellow broken boards. After the jeep drove out for a while, he realized that they were the coffin boards from the past.

Li Long didn't care. Although this place is remote, it has been inhabited since ancient times, but the population is relatively small, so when Li Jianguo and his team came to develop it, it was like a wasteland.

In fact, there have always been people living here.

He first went to Uncle Luo's place, put down a leg of lamb, and chatted with Uncle Luo for a while. Uncle Luo let Li Long admire the bags of dried sugar residue drying in his warehouse, and told Li Long that he was using this stuff to mix with grass to feed the deer and roe deer.

There were several piles of wheat straw next to the Lao Ma Hao, all separated. Li Long guessed that Uncle Luo was afraid of causing a fire, so he separated them.

Li Long was thinking about getting a crusher later, otherwise if he raised more cattle and sheep, the grass would be too wasteful if he ate it the way he did now. If he used a guillotine, it would be too tiring and troublesome.

After leaving Lao Ma Hao, when Li Long went to his eldest brother's house, he happened to meet Yang Xuebing from the same village. Not only Yang Xuebing was there, but his daughter Yang Yuhong was also there. However, Li Long saw at a glance that Yang Yuhong's face was red, her breathing was rapid, and she was in a bad mood. It was obvious that she had a fever.

"What's wrong?" Li Long took the meat down and put it in the kitchen and handed it to his sister-in-law Liang Yuemei. When he came out, he asked, "Why do you have a fever at this time?"

Although the weather is a bit cold in the morning and evening in this season, it is not cold enough to freeze people. How can you have a fever?

Yang Xuebing is less than 40 years old and has a son at home, with the same family structure as Li Jianguo.

Yang Yuhong and Li Juan are one year apart in age. They have a very good relationship and often come to Li's house to play.

"I don't know either. I was fine after school yesterday. I ate, played for a while, and then went to bed.

Something was wrong when I woke up this morning. I had a fever and a stomachache. I couldn't tell why. Your brother gave me an injection, but it didn't seem to help..."

Li Jianguo was just a barefoot doctor. If you have a fever, you either take medicine or get an injection. But the injection didn't work, so he didn't know what to do.

That's not taught in the book, and my father-in-law never mentioned such a situation.

"If it doesn't work, go to the village." Li Jianguo said, "A baby's fever is no small matter, we can't be careless. This is also very strange, didn't your family find anything else wrong?"

"No." Yang Xuebing patted his thigh, "I was fine last night... Nothing happened at home, the food was fine, and I slept well under the quilt so I didn't catch a cold."

"Could it be that something happened on the way home from school?" Li Jianguo asked.

Yang Xuebing shook his head.

Li Long said:

"Come on, I'll take you to the village..." He then asked Yang Yuhong:
"Yuhong, what did you do when you came back from school yesterday afternoon?"

Yang Yuhong opened her eyes, looked at Li Long, then closed them and shook her head.

Du Chunfang next to him suddenly said:

"Did he run into something unclean? Back home, a child went to play in a cemetery and came back with a fever. It's the same thing..."

Li Long suddenly thought of the coffin board in the reed ditch, and asked again:

"Yuhong? Did you play in the reed ditch yesterday?"

Hearing Li Long's question, Yang Xuebing was a little confused.

Li Long did not wait for Yang Yuhong to speak, and explained:

"When I came back, I saw that they were repairing a road in Weigou, and they dug out a lot of coffin boards in that area."

At this time, Yang Yuhong nodded and said "hmm".

Du Chunfang said with an expression that said, "I knew it would be like this," "Just find a maid to yell at her."

Yang Xuebing seemed to understand something, and immediately picked up Yang Yuhong and hurried away.

Li Jianguo shook his head: "Scared."

Liang Yuemei was a little worried:
"Juan and her are so good, there won't be anything wrong, right?"

Li Long was also a little worried, so he thought about waiting for Li Juan to come back and check on the situation.

When Li Juan came back with Li Qiang on her bicycle, Li Qiang complained:
"Dad, Mom! My sister's bike is always wobbling. She's made me fall twice today."

After hearing this, Li Long also became worried. I hope nothing happens to Li Juan?
But then I heard Li Juan retort:

"There are so many stones piled up on the road, and the reed ditch is so dug. If you just sit in the back and twist your body, how can you not fall?"

Seeing that Li Juan was much more normal, Li Long was relieved. Then he heard his sister-in-law Liang Yuemei ask:
"Juan, do you know where Yuhong was playing yesterday?"

"I know. Qiangqiang went home first yesterday, and I brought Yuhong all the way back." Li Juan parked the bike, put on her schoolbag and prepared to go into the house, and said at the door.

"What were you doing in the reed ditch?" Liang Yuemei's expression suddenly turned bad.

Li Juan was afraid of Liang Yuemei because her father was reasonable and her mother would resort to violence.

"It's okay, tell me." Li Long said from the side, "Your mother doesn't want to beat you, she just wants to know what's wrong. Yuhong has a fever today."

"You deserve it..." Li Juan said subconsciously, and then immediately explained to Liang Yuemei, "Mom, that's not what I meant. She picked up a human skull yesterday and asked me to help pry open the upper teeth. I didn't do it, because I thought if I did, the lower teeth would bite me. Then she pried off a tooth and put it in her pocket."

"What?" Liang Yuemei's eyes widened, "What else?"

Li Long saw that Liang Yuemei was ready to find a police officer, so he quickly stepped in and said:

"Juan, just finish what you said. As long as you didn't do it, it won't matter."

"She also asked me to bring the bone back. I said if I did, my mom would beat me to death, so I refused. But she ended up bringing it back and told me to hide it..."

Liang Yuemei ran out before she finished listening. Li Long guessed that she must have run to the Yang family.

"This unlucky child..." Du Chunfang muttered beside him, "Can you touch this thing?"

Li Long didn't know whether to laugh or cry when he heard this. It was really the ignorance that was fearless. These two kids were really brave!

He asked Li Juan again:
"You really didn't touch it?"

"No." Li Juan knew that her uncle was good to her, and said seriously, "I knew that thing couldn't be touched, so I didn't move it at all."

"That's it." Li Long knew that this was a hit and miss case.

After listening to this, Li Jianguo shook his head:

“Scared.”

Well, anyway, big brother Li Jianguo definitely doesn’t believe in those messy things.

Li Long is different. He has been reborn. What else is there to not believe? Anyway, the end of science is metaphysics. This thing is hard to explain. It may be a magnetic field, an epidemic, or...

Endless possibilities.

When Liang Yuemei came back, she said:
"Yuhong had a tooth in her pocket, a bone, which she hid in a corner of her spare room."

Li Juan said with a sad face:
"She must know that I was the one who snitched, so she won't play with me anymore."

"Don't worry." Li Long said with a smile, "She will thank you later. This fever is not fun. She is feeling very uncomfortable now."

"Much better." Liang Yuemei said, "Strangely enough, once that thing was taken away and buried, Yuhong's spirits suddenly improved a lot."

"That's because I was scared." Li Jianguo believed in his own judgment even more. "The things are gone, so I'm not scared anymore."

Well, this explanation is barely plausible.

Seeing that Li Juan was fine, Li Long drove the jeep back. When passing by the reed ditch, he could vaguely see some bones.

There is also a pottery jar placed on the side of the road with a red willow growing inside.

It is said that red willow can also ward off evil spirits, but I don’t know if it’s true or not.

After returning home, Li Long told this matter to Gu Xiaoxia as gossip, and Gu Xiaoxia didn't know how to explain it.

After all, as an educator, she should believe in science, but this... science is difficult to explain, at least for now.

But deep down, Gu Xiaoxia made a note that when the children are a little older, they should not be allowed to come into contact with these things.

Li Long thinks that boys should be bolder. Bold people are more likely to have positive emotions and will not run into any messy things - this can also be explained by magnetic fields, right?
But I didn't expect that Li Juan was such a fierce kid. She wasn't afraid at all. (End of this chapter)