Now that he had the money, Li Long paid no further attention to the woman's feelings. He had other things to take care of.
He drove the cart to the Department Store and asked Tao Daqiang if he needed to buy anything.
"No." Tao Daqiang shook his head. "I don't need anything."
"How about a pair of shoes?" Li Long pointed at Tao Daqiang's feet. "Those won't last another two trips. Let me buy you a pair of winter shoes with rubber soles."
"No, no, there's no need." Tao Daqiang shook his head vigorously and waved his hands.
"Don't buy them. Brother Long, I barely did anything on the trip. Just give me some timber later. It's good wood. I was thinking I could use it to make some furniture for the house next spring."
That was certainly a practical plan.
Most of the timber Li Long and Tao Daqiang had hauled back was Pinewood. Apart from a few branches as thick as an arm, most of it consisted of logs so thick it took both arms to reach around them.
Wood like this was easy to pick up in the mountains, but outside the mountains, it was excellent material for furniture.
Very few places sold ready-made furniture these days. Households had carpenters make their furniture, usually supplying the wood themselves.
Li Long remembered that in his previous life, his older brother, Li Jianguo, had set aside some pine boards early on, ready to make furniture for Li Qiang when he got married. Around here, pine was considered good-quality wood.
But once furniture factories sprang up in the nineties, even people in the countryside gradually began buying ready-made furniture. Those boards were still sitting in a spare room at his sister-in-law's house when Li Long died of a brain hemorrhage.
In these days, though, any family that could afford a full set of Pinewood furniture would definitely earn people's respect.
He hadn't expected Tao Daqiang to be thinking ahead like this. Not bad at all!
Tao Daqiang really wasn't stupid.
Li Long felt it was no big deal. A couple of extra trips would be enough to replace the furniture in his older brother's house, too. After all, all his brother had was a chest of drawers and a high-and-low cabinet. Both had been made more than ten years ago, and much of their paint had peeled off.
Having furniture made wasn't expensive right now, either. With a couple more trips into the mountains, he could cover the cost and perhaps even buy a sewing machine and a bicycle.
Inside the Department Store, Li Long first bought a kilogram of fruit-flavored hard candy at the food counter for Li Juan and Li Qiang. Then he bought two packets of sugar cubes and two jars of canned food.
All of that came to less than ten yuan. He then asked about bicycles and sewing machines. A heavy-duty, twenty-eight-inch Forever bicycle cost 167 yuan, and a sewing machine cost eighty-five. Both required coupons.
Li Long didn't have any. He remembered that the commerce bureau seemed to issue coupons to the commune every year, and each Production Team could get one or two. If he wanted a coupon, Xu Chengjun was the only person to ask.
Li Long had also wanted to buy some refined grains, such as wheat flour and rice, but he didn't have any grain coupons either.
He went outside and asked Tao Daqiang to wait, then hurried to the black market he remembered. It was on the outskirts of town and sold not only flour and rice but meat as well, from both domestic livestock and wild animals.
But when he arrived, there was nothing there except chicken feathers scattered over the ground.
Still, the footprints in the snow, the drops of blood, and the impressions left by things pressed into the snow told Li Long what he needed to know. People definitely traded here. It was probably an early-morning market-an extremely early one-and everyone had long since packed up and left.
He returned to the entrance of the Department Store and found Tao Daqiang looking a little anxious. With a smile, he said:
"Come on. Let's head home."
On the way back, Li Long said to Tao Daqiang:
"We brought back two sheep this time. I'll give you half of one..."
"No, no!" Tao Daqiang hurriedly waved his hands. "Brother Long, I really don't mean that just to be polite. If I take that mutton home, I won't be able to come with you next time.
"My dad... my dad wanted my older brother to come with you. I wouldn't let him. I told him you only wanted me along. Dad also told me to remember the route next time so I could go into the mountains with my brother..."
Li Long gave Tao Daqiang a surprised look.
What surprised him wasn't that Tao Jianshe had come up with the idea, but that Tao Daqiang had told him about it.
Still, he was pleased. He felt he had judged the boy correctly.
Tao Daqiang was stubborn about his principles. Since he felt Li Long treated him well, he wouldn't betray Li Long unless Li Long betrayed him first.
And why wouldn't Li Long take Gu Ermao along? Because after a single trip, Gu Ermao would ditch him the very next day and head into the mountains to haul things back on his own.
Still, when Li Long first started doing this, he had already expected that others might follow his lead.
"It's fine, Daqiang. You should still take your share of the mutton. I can't have you making these trips with me for nothing." Li Long thought for a moment. "Then I'll give you a leg instead. I'll save you some extra timber, too. How's that?"
"Sure, sure." Tao Daqiang smiled. "Brother Long, I'll keep coming with you!"
"All right." Li Long smiled and nodded.
The two drove the horse cart home. The people in the Production Team were also speculating about what they might bring back from this trip.
There was little entertainment to begin with these days. Li Long getting fired from the factory had been big news, and his breaking up with Wu Shufen the day after he came home had become another major story. The women in the team certainly had plenty of fresh gossip when they gathered to chat.
Now his trips into the mountains had become their latest topic. At first, everyone had said he wouldn't pull it off, just as the Lu Family's eldest daughter-in-law had. But once Li Long brought back timber and a sheep, those discussing him immediately split into two camps.
Li Long had gone into the mountains again today, prompting plenty of people to start guessing what he might bring home this time.
Even Ma Hongmei, the wife of team leader Xu Chengjun, was speculating:
"Do you think that Li Long boy will bring back timber this time?"
"Definitely." Xu Chengjun had led people into the mountains before. Although the mountain roads were difficult, he knew that Li Long's success in bringing timber back on his first trip meant the boy had found a workable route into the mountains.
He knew more about conditions in the mountains than many of the villagers, so naturally he knew that frozen sheep couldn't possibly have been something Li Long had simply "picked up." That meant the boy must already have contacts up there.
"Then do you think he'll pick up another sheep today?" Ma Hongmei was still thinking about that leg of mutton. Mutton wasn't as fatty as pork, but it tasted wonderful!
"Of course." Xu Chengjun nodded. "Maybe even more than one."
"Then will he give us another leg? Or half a sheep?"
"What are you thinking?" Xu Chengjun glared at her. "What kind of relationship do you have with him that he should give you so much? His family paid the work points for borrowing the cart, and he gave us a leg of mutton. What more do you want?"
"I just thought the Li family's boy was pretty considerate..." Ma Hongmei said sheepishly.
"If he's considerate, he'll know where to draw the line! A leg of mutton was a courtesy gift. A whole sheep? Why should he? When his family's pig died, why didn't you give them some of our meat?"
Ma Hongmei's face flushed crimson, but she still said quietly:
"I was just thinking... if we got some more mutton, I could take some to my dad."
"Then have your brother come over first thing tomorrow, hitch up the cart, and head into the mountains. If he gets something, he's lucky. If not, there's nothing to be done!" Xu Chengjun said as he rolled some Mohé Tobacco. "Don't just envy other people for eating meat. They have their own connections. We can't just sit around being jealous."
"But my brother doesn't know the way there," Ma Hongmei said helplessly.
"I'll take him." Xu Chengjun didn't even look up. "I know the way into the mountains, but I can't promise we'll get a sheep. Still, getting some timber would be good enough. The wood that Li boy brought back was all fine Pinewood. We could put it aside and have furniture made in spring!"
In fact, quite a few families were thinking along the same lines.
(End of chapter)
Before you continue