In the afternoon of the next day, Li Long drove his tractor back to the county with Gu Xiaoxia.
There is a tractor. Although Gu Xiaoxia’s butt hurts from sitting in the back, the speed is fast and she doesn’t have to pedal by herself, so it actually feels pretty good.
After returning to the yard, Gu Xiaoxia prepared dinner, while Li Long went to release the roe deer and fawns, clean the glass house, and add water and food to them.
While sweeping the yard, he saw the big hedgehog slinking past the wall toward the back of the house, holding something in its mouth. He didn't know if it was an earthworm or a centipede. Li Long guessed that it was most likely an earthworm. The centipedes in northern Xinjiang could not grow that big.
As long as you have something to eat, you can live well. Li Long thought it would be good to have more living creatures like this at home. Anyway, the yard is big, so it wouldn't be good if it was just the two of them.
The roe deer was playing happily in the yard, running around in a circle, making a lot of noise. Gu Xiaoxia poked her head out of the kitchen to take a look, then went back to continue cooking.
Li Long saw that these few people were having fun, so he rushed into the glass room. Li Long thought that when these roe deer got older and no longer fun, he would drive them to the old horse in the team, and then see how to use the glass house.
It would be nice to get some fresh vegetables to eat in the winter. Otherwise, you will get tired of eating the same thing all the time.
If possible, then you should live a better life.
"The meal is ready, come and eat." Gu Xiaoxia called at the kitchen door, and 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 tanned after being in the mountains for so long. It's time to take good care of yourself at home."
"I Isn’t it a normal skin color?” Li Long took a sip of the porridge and said with a smile, “Families in Europe and the United States are still under the sun. People tan themselves to this color on the beach, thinking it’s a healthy complexion.”
“I don’t care about them, we just want to look good.” Gu Xiaoxia has no desire for Europe and the United States, “If you tan yourself too much, you will get scars. , it won’t fall off later.”
“Okay, I’ll listen to you.” Li Long followed the rules.
This is how couples chat at home.
"I can't be idle all the time." Li Long said while eating, "I will go to the animal husbandry team's detention point when I have time. The yards of Harimu and Yushanjiang's houses are damaged, so I will bring a few people over to help repair them. The two of them went to the summer pasture to herd sheep, and only the women and children were left at home. I have to visit them from time to time."
"Yes, that's right." Gu Xiaoxia heard what Li Long said about his first pot of gold. I came here, so I am very grateful to Harimu and Yushanjiang. If it weren't for work, she would have gone to the mountains with Li Long to visit these friends.
"Who are you going with?" Gu Xiaoxia took a piece of meat to Li Long and asked, "Can you find someone?"
"Just recruit a few people from the team." Li Long said, "It's been two days since the farm break. I'll call Daqiang and the others. It's just a day or two of work. I'll put some mud on the house, trim the yard, and mend the wall. That's it. I'll go buy it. Let’s make a pot of sheep and eat them there. By the way, you can go if you have time.” Gu Xiaoxia shook her head, “In the next few days. We may need to go to various schools for inspections. The midterm exam is coming soon, and the bureau is paying great attention to it this year. We have to go to the rural schools in batches to check the situation.”
Gu Xiaoxia actually wanted to go, but she was really busy. She wouldn't be able to go back to the team for the next two weeks. If she had to go to a distant town for inspection, she might have to live there.
Li Long was a little regretful, but it was normal to think about it. Gu Xiaoxia is a national cadre, so she is naturally bound by the unit and discipline. He suddenly thought of something and said:
"Not only do you have to work, but you also have to actively get closer to the organization, write an application, etc. I remember You joined the troupe before in school, right?”< br>
"Yes." Gu Xiaoxia said with a smile, "I didn't expect you to be quite politically sensitive. I have already written an application, and Bureau Wang said that the organization will focus on examining me."
< br>If you want to make progress within the system, you must keep up with this.
After the two of them finished eating and washing, they went to the bedroom to watch TV and chat. Li Long thinks this is normal married life.
The TV series broadcast by CCTV is called "Wu Song". It was shot from a plot about Wu Song in "Water Margin". It looked very exciting. Gu Xiaoxia watched it very seriously, and Li Long stayed with her until she finished watching the credits before changing the channel.
Channel 9 is Shihezi Channel, which is broadcasting "Oasis News" at this time. Because there were relatively few news collectors at this time, the control was relatively professional, and the recording of programs was very serious, so the news was new once a week. After the broadcast on Monday, the news for the whole week was rebroadcast.
The most annoying thing for many people watching TV at this time is the news. Some children don’t know that news is usually of a fixed duration, so they will count how many items are read by the host and how many are pictures. I thought there was a fixed number of news items in each issue. Some children can even memorize the news content, but even so, they refuse to leave at this time, for fear that the news will suddenly be interrupted and the TV series will be played directly.
At this time, martial arts and gunfight TV are the most popular. Those with short-tempered parents are popular with adults, but more children still like TV shows like "The Legend of the Condor Heroes" and "Wu Song". "Desire" is because It is closer to life, so it is popular with adults.
After all, this is the time to celebrate suffering, advocating patience, hard work and kindness.
Now Li Long likes to watch the news. The news contains a lot of information, and it is not just about current affairs.
The Oasis News broadcast was about the Corps, and Li Long discovered that cotton was already growing there. However, looking at the video, the cotton is not covered with film. It should be upland cotton, and the yield will not be very high.
But this was the beginning of cotton cultivation in Northern Xinjiang. No one could have imagined at this time that in the next few decades, in areas with suitable conditions, the number of cotton-growing plots in each county would reach more than one million acres.
Quite a lot.
The next day Li Long had a rest and Gu Xiaoxia went to work.
On Monday, the leaders had to hold a meeting to confirm the work. There was not much going on in each office, and a few elder sisters began to discuss yesterday's TV series. Some people can see, some can only listen.
Gu Xiaoxia tidied her desk. The old-fashioned orange desk had daily office supplies in two drawers. The pen Li Long gave her was very easy to use. She unscrewed the ink bottle and prepared to absorb ink.
"Xiao Gu, let me tell you, the performance in "Wu Song" was really great, the fighting was just like the real thing, and I was shocked when he killed people..." A The eldest sister was sitting next to Gu Xiaoxia. She turned to Gu Xiaoxia and said, "I was sitting on the chair and almost fell down... Oh, I forgot, Xiaoxia, you don't have a TV at home, do you? Come and see it at my house, it’s very beautiful!”
“I saw it,” Gu Xiaoxia smiled and said while absorbing the ink, “Wu Song’s blood splattered on the Yuanyang Tower. When the knife went down, the blood splashed all over the wall. It’s really real - if my friend hadn’t said it was fake blood, I would have thought the red ones were splashed with real blood.”
"Blood? Red? Isn't that black?" The elder sister asked in confusion, "I also saw it splashed on the wall, so..."
"Is Xiaoxia watching a color TV?" In addition A colleague suddenly understood, "The blood in the color TV is red."
"Xiaoxia, whose house did you go to watch the color TV?" The elder sister was stunned for a moment, "Our bureau has a color TV. people , that’s Director Dong and Director Wang’s family, right? You are..."
"No, I am at home." After absorbing the ink, Gu Xiaoxia took out the toilet paper and handed over the excess ink to the tip of the pen. He wiped it out and said: "My wife came back from a business trip. This time she got a lot of bonuses, so she bought a color TV."
"Oh, it's really good!" The eldest sister praised with a fake smile. Usually when talking about TV at this time, the eldest sister is the central figure in the office. After all, she is the only one with a TV at home, and others can only listen to what she says. If a colleague is a neighbor of hers and goes to her house to watch TV, he has to fawn over her.
Now I suddenly heard that Gu Xiaoxia's family had bought a TV, a color TV, and she suddenly felt uncomfortable.
Gu Xiaoxia has no intention of showing off, but usually this eldest sister wants to suppress herself from time to time when talking about TV in the morning. She usually just wants to endure it, but since she has the opportunity today, let's do it Why should I endure it?
"Xiao Gu, what size did you buy? Twelve inches or fourteen inches? It's not clear from the small one. Even if it's a color TV, it's better to have a bigger one." The eldest sister pretended to suggest .
"It's okay, I'm eighteen." Gu Xiaoxia knew that she was going to the countryside in the next two days. She packed her work bag, put pens, notebooks and other daily necessities in it, and said as she put them away, " My family went to Shicheng Department Store to buy it. I originally wanted to buy a bigger one, but unfortunately it was not available.”
The eldest sister’s face turned green this time. Her black and white TV is 14 inches, which is a pretty good size for today’s mainstream sizes. I thought that my home was black and white, at least in terms of size, it would be bigger than Gu Xiaoxia, but I didn't expect that the one they used in their home was 18!
"Is it true? Eighteen years old is not cheap!" The eldest sister obviously didn't believe it. Gu Xiaoxia came from the countryside. This county only started household responsibility system last year. Her husband is a temporary worker. How much can he earn?
"It's really not cheap. Last year it was 2,400. I put my set in the village and showed it to my parents-in-law. This year's one is cheaper, 2,010." Gu Xiaoxia told the truth.
The more she tells the truth, the more uncomfortable this eldest sister becomes. The price is not bad, you have already paid for it, can it be fake?
The other two colleagues obviously leaned towards Gu Xiaoxia and said with a smile:
"Xiaoxia, is it an 18-inch TV? What brand is it?"
"It's a panda."
"How about we show it to you when you have time? We haven't seen such a big color TV before!"
"Okay, just get off work in the afternoon."< br>
“Can’t you do it at noon?” “I won’t come back at noon. I don’t have time to cook at home. My family hired an eldest sister to cook for me,” Gu Xiaoxia said, “It’s not far from my work, so I can take a rest after going home to cook. It’s too much work. "
When she said this, many people were really upset. Most of my colleagues are married, and many of them do not live with their parents. They have to rush back to cook after work. They don’t even have time to clean up after eating, and then they have to rush to the work again.
Now I hear Gu Xiaoxia say that she doesn't even have to cook by herself. This kind of treatment really makes people sour.
Fortunately, the leader came over to distribute work after the meeting, otherwise some people would have really broken their guard after a while.
Li Long went around the market and saw Sister Yang selling food. He said hello and walked around again and found that several people from the team were selling fish here.
He went over to chat for a few words and found out that now they were going to Dahaizi to catch fish. There was flood in Xiaohaizi and it was difficult to lower the net for fear that the net would be washed away.
“There’s not much work in the fields lately, right?”
"Nothing, just hoeing. I have two days of free time, so I catch some fish to sell. I also want to sell fish to earn some money to buy a bicycle. Then I can go to Shicheng to sell fish and earn more."
< br>Everyone in the village now knows that they can earn more by selling fish in Shicheng, and they don’t shy away from it.
"It's a good thing. The more you catch, the more you sell, the less you add up, the more you add, it's faster." Li Long gave a few words of encouragement and left.
Since there is no life in the team, you can do what you plan to do.
During lunch, Gu Xiaoxia told Li Long that two colleagues wanted to come over to watch color TV at home in the afternoon. Li Long said with a smile:
"Okay. I'll go back later to clean the house and put some fruits on the table." Now that Gu Xiaoxia's colleagues are here, Li Long must take them seriously. No matter what, he has to improve his wife's face.
He also told Gu Xiaoxia that he planned to go to the team to find Tao Daqiang and others tomorrow to see if they could finish the house of Harimu and his family in the next two days.
The two of them just chatted about daily life. Sister Yang basically didn’t talk and just ate together with a smile.
She is very satisfied with her current life. She can make money every day and her daughter is also in school. The only regret is that she has not found her husband yet. If she can find her husband, then her life will be complete.
She has already sent a telegram to her hometown, asking her hometown to send her the address if she receives a letter or telegram from her husband, but there is no news yet.
After dinner, when Li Long was about to leave, Sister Yang took a bag out of the house and said to Li Long:
"Uncle, these are the fritillaries you asked me to collect last time. After I took it back, I washed it and hung it up. I thought about collecting some of the remaining money, but found that it was not sold in the market and the money was still here."
"You take the money. Come on, sister." Li Long waved his hand, "Just put it into the food expenses. Buy more meat, eggs, etc. Don't save money. I'll take the fritillary and tell us if you need anything. "
This bag of Fritillaria Li Long does not plan to sell it for the time being. The dry goods are less than ten kilograms. I still have some leftover at home. I will pick them up when the time comes and each family will keep some for later use.
Of course you won’t use that much, just use it as a base for the box.
Back in the yard, Li Long cleaned up, thinking that Gu Xiaoxia's colleagues were coming over and had to cook and prepare two better dishes in the evening.
The big hedgehog was eating vegetables in the vegetable field. When he heard the noise, he hurriedly ran to the wall. Li Long didn't care about it and let it go in a hurry. Maybe after a while it won't be afraid anymore and can come and go freely.
We wanted to eat something lighter in the evening, so Li Long planned to make porridge, pluck some vegetables from the vegetable patch and mix them cold, steam the dried meat, cut it into a plate and get some dipping sauce. It was still early now, so I saw that there were not enough steamed buns, so I just put them on top, preparing to bake some dough pancakes and scramble some eggs later. When eating, you can roll the pancakes with eggs or meat, no problem.
Given the current per capita living standards, this is considered a good meal.
On the noodles, blanch the vegetables over high heat, squeeze out the water, add green onions and coriander, add some chili oil, pour vinegar and mix it, it is very refreshing.
Steam the air-dried meat. The original cooked meat is cooked. Steam it for twenty minutes. Take it out, let it cool, slice it and put it on the plate. Prepare the dipping sauce.
Fry the eggs for a while, check the dough, and then prepare the pancakes.
He used the method of baking Xibo pancakes. The fire was not too high or too low, and one side was slightly yellowed before turning it over. It felt a little undercooked to the touch, but in fact it was already cooked and was sizzling. , very delicious.
The flatbread must be thirty centimeters in diameter. Cut it into four pieces and put them on the plate. The rest is to cook rice porridge and scrambled eggs.
After finishing it, looking at the time, Gu Xiaoxia and the others hadn't gotten off work yet, so Li Long went to let the roe deer out, letting them out for a while, so that they wouldn't have to scream when people came later.
But what Li Long didn't expect was that as soon as he released these guys, the door was pushed open, and Gu Xiaoxia pushed the bicycle and led the people through the door.
Seeing that things were going badly, Li Long hurriedly went to catch the roe deer, but he didn't expect that Gu Xiaoxia's two colleagues saw that there were still living animals in the yard. They were startled at first, and then they were attracted by the cute little deer. His big eyes were attracted.
Deer and roe deer are not afraid of Gu Xiaoxia. When they saw her coming in, they went forward to smell her and barked from time to time. Her two colleagues were extremely envious.
"Xiao Gu, is this your family's animal? What is it? A deer?"
"Well, there are deer and roe deer." Gu Xiaoxia didn't expect to see it as soon as she walked in. This is what I arrived at, but it was nothing. Seeing Li Long preparing to drive the little thing back, he pointed and introduced:
"That's my lover Li Long. Li Long, these are my two colleagues, this is Su Ningning and this is Tao Min. We both work in the same office."
Su Ningning is slightly older than Gu Xiaoxia, and the second one is Su Ningning. She looks fifteen years old, has short hair, and looks very capable; Tao Min is about thirty years old, and has the feeling of an intellectual woman, somewhat similar to Gu Xiaoxia's teacher Wang next door in middle school.
"Sorry, sorry, I thought I would let them out before you guys came, otherwise they would scream loudly later." Li Long explained hurriedly, "I will drive them in now, you guys Come in."
"No, no, it looks cute. Did you raise this? It's really good...did you buy it?" Suningning asked.
"No, they were caught in the mountains." Li Long explained, "When I went on a business trip to the mountains, I caught some of them and some friends gave them to me."
"Hey, that's great." Suningning looked envious. Tao Min didn't say anything. He glanced around the courtyard and then landed on the antenna in the corner of the main hall.
To be able to buy such a big yard, a color TV, and a tractor... This family is really amazing.
After watching Suningning and the others for a while, Li Long drove the deer and roe deer back.
"You just got off work, right? The meal is already prepared. Do you want to eat first or watch TV while eating?" When Li Long returned to the front yard, Gu Xiaoxia and the other three were chatting in the yard. Two colleagues looked at Li Long and asked quietly something.
Li Long saw that they were silent when he came over, so he asked.
"Li Long, can you cook?"
"That's awesome!"
Su Ningning and Tao Min were both a little surprised.
These days, not many young men like Li Long can cook well.
"It's home-cooked food. You guys can try it and give me some suggestions." Li Long said with a smile, "How about eating while watching?"
"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 looked at the TV, and the room, and suddenly said to Tao Min:
"Sister Tao, I didn't feel that before, but now I feel small." Gu is happier than all of us. I envy her."
Tao Min didn't say anything, but she had the same thought.
Who wouldn’t envy such a life? (End of this chapter)