Li Long didn't stay at his eldest brother's house for long. After drinking two bowls of hot tea, he hurried away in his jeep.
It was already dark, so he turned on the headlights. The light was far different from the high beams of later generations, but at this time, it was enough to illuminate the way forward.
Lu Yingming arrived at Li’s house only after the jeep left.
He knocked on the window of the west room and shouted:
"Is Lao Li here?"
"Here, is Tietou his father? Come in quickly." Liang Yuemei shouted from inside the room.
Many families in the village made some money this year, and several of them bought TVs. Although they are all in black and white, you can still read them. Therefore, not many people came to the color TV set in Li Qingxia's house, especially at this time, when the weather was cold, people were reluctant to go outside.
It won’t become lively again until the Chinese New Year is approaching and the children have a holiday.
Lu Yingming entered the house and saw that the Li family were all there. The children were talking in the west floor. There was a smell of odor in the house.
"Your family is really busy today." Lu Yingming said with a smile, "That jeep looks so beautiful, that is..."
"Xiaolong drove it." Li Jianguo said, "The leader of the prefecture supply and marketing cooperative asked him to do things and leave the car to him to drive. It will be more convenient."
"Xiaolong drove it? Xiaolong can drive a car?" Lu Yingming was also surprised, "It's really beneficial!"
"Haha, the leader also believes in him." Li Jianguo smiled and said, "That work takes a long time, so So the car was left here. We went out to do errands, and Xiaolong took us back."
"It's a car," Lu Yingming was still shocked, "Xiaolong is. He’s really promising.”
“What’s the potential? He’s still a temporary worker.” Li Qingxia said with a smile, and then asked Du Chunfang to pat his leg.
Although she knew her wife was being modest, Du Chunfang still didn't want to hear bad words about her youngest son.
"Tietou's father, this is a yellow leg of lamb. His grandfather and his father went out to hunt together. You can bring it back to have a taste."
"That can't be done..." Lu Yingming came here to inquire about the news, not just for free. He waved his hand hurriedly, " I have meat at home, no need to use it..."
"Take it." Li Jianguo said, "We went to the no-man's land to the west to hunt. There were many yellow sheep there."
Lu Yingming couldn't refuse, so he had to take the yellow lamb leg.
This leg weighs five or six kilograms and smells bad, but since he often interacts with the Li family, Lu Yingming knows that as long as more ingredients are added, the mutton will be delicious.
After Lu Yingming returned, he told Sister Lu about Li Long driving the jeep given by the state leaders.
The next day, the whole village knew.
Even when Li Jianguo went to the team headquarters to return the gun, Xu Chengjun asked with a smile:
"Brother Li, your Xiaolong drove a jeep? That's awesome! This Are you comfortable riding in a jeep?”
"It's definitely more comfortable than a tractor." Li Jianguo said with a smile, "There is a canopy, so your face won't freeze in the winter, but there aren't many things that can be loaded."
"You went to hunt yellow sheep? Over there Are there many yellow sheep? When Xiaolong comes back, can you ask me, Brother Li, to fight again then?" Xu Chengjun is also interested.
There are guns and bullets now, but it is not easy to go to a place where there are yellow sheep.
"Okay, I'll ask when Xiaolong comes back." Li Jianguo said.
He also brought a yellow lamb leg to Xu Chengjun, and another one to Old Uncle Luo.
Of course, Li Jianguo doesn't call him Uncle Luo, everyone calls him his own.
Old Uncle Luo is considered to be the most carefree and comfortable among the older generation in the village. Although there are many animals to feed, he doesn't have to worry about fodder, as the feed is also transported.
He has meat to eat, wine to drink, and wages every day, just like the workers in the city.
Other old people of the same age are very envious.
Maybe future generations will feel comfortable if they don’t work. Things are different these days. People who are used to working will feel uncomfortable if they don't work.
Old Uncle Luo is very familiar with this job. Although there are quite a lot of animals now, more than when he raised horses for the team, he is quite happy and thinks this is good. Being able to raise more animals means that he is still useful. It still works.
This is much better than when I suffered before.
When Li Long returned to the compound, it was completely dark. The jeep's headlights illuminated the road, which also startled the officers on duty at the police station. Then they remembered that the jeep was facing diagonally from the door, and their vigilance faded away.
I originally thought it was some leader who paid a private visit incognito.
Li Long entered the big yard, settled the jeep, and let out a sigh of relief.
Gu Xiaoxia was wearing a cotton coat and looked a little bloated and cute. She greeted Li Long to come in quickly.
Sister Yang made pimple soup and drank it to ward off the cold.
Li Long was holding an enamel basin and sipping the pimple soup. There are several old pots in the storage room. The pots are filled with soil, and the seeds of Chinese cabbage and Chinese cabbage are planted in the soil. Although it is a snowy day, the seeds in the pots have sprouted and grown, and they are now edible.
Put some shredded green leafy vegetables in the pimple soup, which tastes particularly delicious.
Li Long wondered if he could use the glass shed at the back as a greenhouse after two days. No matter how much you plant, at least you can eat some fresh leafy vegetables in the winter.
In fact, this is quite easy to do. The greenhouse itself was made of glass. There were a few cracks in the glass, but it was not broken. During the day, the sun was shining in and it was quite hot, and it snowed. Because the roof was sloping, the snow below could be cleared away at once.
If you put a stove inside and a long fire wall, or a long floor dragon on the north gable wall, you can warm the entire glass shed.
In accordance with the practice of later generations, a straw curtain was added to the shed, but Li Long felt it was not necessary. He didn't plan to do much, so he just planted some leeks, celery, green vegetables, so that he could eat some green things during the Chinese New Year.
In fact, at this time, some people had already covered the leek field with straw in early winter, and then used old quilts to cover it. When the Spring Festival came, they would peel off the snow on it, then peel off the quilt and remove the straw. , there will be leek underneath.
This thing is not cheap.
Li Long thought about these things while drinking pimple soup.
It's a bit late to think about it now, mainly because the soil is difficult to handle. If it doesn't work, just keep the ones in the storage room first.
In fact, it is not completely impossible. Although the soil in the fields around the county is frozen, the soil near the running water in the mountains has not yet frozen. It's easy to dig if you want.
Li Long was thinking about taking time to go to the mountains, deliver some things to the mountains, and dig some soil back.
Of course, we’ll talk about that later. He was not in a hurry to go out and just took his time to think everything over.
After this trip up the mountain, he planned to wait until the snow melted when he entered the mountain again. The main hunting in the mountains is deer, roe deer and wild boar.
He has all three of these things in his old horse account. Only the yellow sheep have not been raised yet, and I don’t know if they can be raised.
Next, Li Long actually stayed at home for a week, thinking about what to plant, or going to Gu Boyuan's agricultural supplies store to chat.
In the meantime, he went to Chen Hongjun’s buying station.
The buying station in winter is not as deserted as last year. Occasionally, people will send various leathers. When Li Long met, he saw that someone had brought rabbit skins, fox skins, and someone else had sent badger skins.
Li Long was considered a big businessman, and he suddenly sold out ten yellow sheep skins and one wolf skin, which shocked everyone else.
He also personally gave Chen Hongjun a leg of yellow lamb.
Chen Hongjun did not hide his acquaintance with Li Long at all. He greeted him and asked him to sell it last, while he would get rid of the things in other people's hands first.
Li Long sat aside and waited.
This leather is indeed expensive. Rabbit skin can be sold for three yuan, fox skin can be sold for thirty-five yuan, and badger skin is not big, but it is also the same price.
When Li Long arrived, none of those people left, wanting to see how much money Li Long, a big business owner, would get in the end.
They didn’t have many skins in their hands. Except for the one with rabbit skin, which had twelve pieces and sold for thirty-six yuan, the others were only one or two pieces.
The money I got didn’t even exceed 100.
Most of Li Long's skins were whole skins. Chen Hongjun looked through them one by one. The seven whole skins were collected at 70 yuan each, and the three residual skins were 50 yuan each. That one He paid a high price of eighty yuan for the wolf skin.
Seven hundred and twenty yuan.
Now that the land has been distributed, each household has a dozen to dozens of acres of land. After a year's income, they may not be able to earn half of this money!
These people were envious and jealous, and some asked where they could get so many yellow sheepskins.
"In the sand nest to the north and in the Gobi no-man's land to the west, there are large groups of yellow sheep." Li Long also told the truth, "But you have to use a gun, and people will definitely not be able to catch up."< br>
It was not difficult to get a gun for hunting at this time. Obviously, these people had their thoughts on it.
After the others left, Chen Hongjun pointed at Li Long and said:
"You, this is tempting other people's greed." "I'm not trying to increase your performance. If they get the skin, they will sell it to you in the end." Li Long joked, "You still have to thank me. "
"Okay, okay, thank you." Chen Hongjun patted him, "It seems you have done something right. There are so many."
"There are indeed many groups of yellow sheep in the no-man's land east of Kuitun. If you can get there with guns, you will definitely be able to wait for the yellow sheep."
"It has to be able to run that far. You have a tractor, but others don't." Chen Hongjun didn't know that Li Long had a jeep. Li Xiangqian didn't tell anyone else about this.
After all, Director Qian said it should be kept secret.
Li Long chatted with Chen Hongjun again before returning home.
Seven hundred and twenty yuan is enough to spend this winter.
At least enough to buy supplies for the mountains.
In the next few days, Li Long will go out every day, or go to a medicinal company to buy common winter medicine; or go to the free market to buy some eggs - Kazakh herdsmen also eat eggs.
There are also potatoes, skin sprouts (onions), etc. You need to store them well, otherwise they will not be good if they are frozen.
For herdsmen, they mainly eat naan bread and drink milk tea. It is impossible for them to eat meat every day, not even the ordinary Mr. Bayi.
When the cows don’t produce milk, they drink tea. The main way to get vitamins is from tea.
So brick tea is a must. Like flour and salt, this stuff is a big consumer.
Since Li Long started transporting grain to the mountains, the herdsmen have eaten less and less coarse food. At first, Li Long transported corn flour to the mountains, but later he simply transported white flour.
Affordable.
Based on the skins and antlers that Harimu and the others gave to Li Long, he could afford it.
Li Long also needs to buy some batteries. Every family has less activity in winter, and the radio is basically turned on every day, so the battery consumption is also huge.
Some radios have been damaged.
So I still need to refill the radio for two days. There are more types of portable radios now.
Although the special effects and especially the industrial supplies in the border areas are not as comprehensive as those in the mainland, the two young industrial products have gradually become more abundant.
Just like this, another week passed. Li Long and Gu Xiaoxia said something and drove the jeep towards the mountains.
When people or cars in the county saw the jeep, they all moved to both sides to avoid it. Li Long drove out of the county and headed west to the intersection of Qingshui River. Going south, he found that the snow on the road was only in the middle. It had been run over, and there were traces of two rows of tractors, but the road had not been completely cleared.
He was a little worried about whether there would be any problems on the way into the mountain. After all, in Li Long's opinion, jeeps are not as good as tractors when it comes to driving on snowy roads.
Fortunately, after crossing the Qingshui River, he found that there were carriage tracks leading to the mountains. Li Long guessed that someone had gone into the mountains to pull wood. Once the snow was packed down, it was easier to drive the Jeep.
The car drove to a place two kilometers away from the mountain pass. The tamarisk bushes on the roadside were suddenly disturbed, and several animals ran hurriedly to the west.
Li Long was also startled and turned his head to look over. This seemed to be... some kind of animal similar to a yellow sheep.
Looking at the nose with very distinctive features, Li Long almost shouted:
High-nosed antelope!
It must be it!
Although Li Long, including in his previous life, had never seen the real thing, but just by looking at the big nose on the face like a large caterpillar, Li Long was sure that it was them!
Looking at the fur on their bodies, a certain memory suddenly flashed through, and Li Long suddenly realized that this was something that didn't look like a yellow sheep when he encountered it that day when he was hunting with his father and elder brother. ?
Still that group, or another group?
As soon as Li Long stopped the jeep, he ran out with his gun in hand.
Because he was not wearing a cotton coat in the jeep, he ran extremely fast.
Those antelopes naturally ran faster than him, but the snow was extremely thick and the antelopes' legs were thin. They would sink in every step they ran. Although they were slowly opening a distance from Li Long, the distance was not much.
Li Long opened the safety while running, pulled the gun and loaded the bullet. He was panting and waiting for the opportunity. There were seven or eight antelopes in the group, and he was staring at the three horned males among them. .
It’s okay to just hit one.
However, the distance was still getting wider step by step. After all, these antelopes are animals that are very good at running. When encountering danger, their potential is beyond what Li Long can match.
His physical strength and endurance are far beyond those of ordinary people, otherwise he would have been left behind by now.
In fact, we are now seventy or eighty meters away from those antelopes, but the bushes here are much more numerous and denser than in no-man's land, so there are not many opportunities to shoot.
Li Long chased the antelopes for two or three kilometers. He felt that smoke was coming out of his throat. The antelopes in front suddenly seemed to be frightened by something, and their running direction suddenly changed from west to west. Turned southwest!
The opportunity is here!
Li Long immediately squatted down and aimed his gun. At this time, the antelope left him with most of his body instead of his butt.
This is just like the naval fleet in World War II fighting to seize the T-letter. You can use your own cannons to hit the enemy's hull.
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
"Bang!"
Li Long fired three shots in a row, and one of the antelopes fell down. Li Long held the gun and quickly ran over.
A minute later, he passed by and saw the killed male antelope, but he did not stop, but continued to chase the antelope herd.
Because not only did he kill one, he also injured one!
The injured antelope ran with the other antelopes with blood, but it ran slower and slower, more and more blood flowed, and there was blood foam in its mouth.
The bullet hit the edge of its lung lobe, leaving it with a not very fatal injury.
If you can stay quiet, you may live for a while.
But how could it be allowed to rest while it was running for its life in a hurry?
Li Long was chasing after him with a gun. He already had a chance to fire another shot, but Li Long did not fire and chased for dozens of meters. The injured antelope finally couldn't run anymore and lay in the snow. He kept coughing up blood and froth.
Li Long stepped forward, and the antelope struggled to get up, but failed in the end.
Li Long put away his gun, pulled out his knife, and wiped its neck to give it a happy ending.
Both antelopes are male. It can be seen that this one is older and the spiral pattern on the horns is heavier.
The one that fell just now is younger.
Li Long waited for the antelope's blood to drain away, and he was almost rested, so he picked it up and walked back.
He had no choice but to drag the other antelope back.
I was so excited when I ran here that I didn’t care at all, but when I ran back it was really difficult. When dragging the antelope in the snow, he would occasionally hit a tree stump or stone under the snow, and he would pull Li Long back.
When he finally carried it to the jeep, Li Long felt that smoke was already coming from his head.
He hurriedly got into the jeep, took out his cotton coat and put on his cotton hat, otherwise he would catch a cold today.
Looking at the two antelopes, Li Long thought for a while and just opened their bodies to vent the heat inside. Anyway, the blood has drained out, so I don’t have to worry about it smelling bad anymore.
After resting in the jeep for a while, after the antelopes were half-hard from the cold, Li Long put them into the car and continued driving into the mountains.
Now is not the time to dispose of it. The main reason is that there are a lot of things in the trunk of the jeep. Now that the antelope has been disposed of, there is no place to put it.
In this way, the two antelopes had to be placed on the front seat.
Let’s wait until Harimu’s house to deal with it. Anyway, his skinning skills are definitely better than mine.
The snow path dug by the carriage turned into a ditch when it reached the third level of the mountain.
There are acres of snowy forests there, and Li Long knows that.
Then the jeep will have to cover the road by itself.
Fortunately, the snow in the mountains has been blown thick and thin by the wind. In some places, it has almost been blown out of the soil, so it is better to press it down.
Not long after, Li Long saw Halimu's winter nest. The winter nest was emitting smoke, indicating that the owner was inside.
Before Li Long's jeep stopped, there was a dog barking from over there.
Then, Harimu bent down and walked out of the winter nest. (End of this chapter)