Xu Chengjun returned home leading his horse-drawn cart, covered in reed fluff.
When the team's property was divided by drawing lots, he had not drawn a horse from the team stable. But one household that had drawn one had no money, so he had bought the horse along with the cart.
With Xu Chengjun's financial resources, buying the team's tractor would actually have been no problem either, but he could not buy it. For one thing, he did not know how to drive it; for another, it would have been too conspicuous.
He had been thoroughly unwilling when Wang Tiancheng from the township came over to arrange this Reed Bundles work, because Wang Tiancheng had not given the job to the team—or rather, had not given the team a share of the money. He had only paid Xu Chengjun fifty yuan personally to help spread the word.
Section Chief Li Xiangqian of the Supply and Marketing Cooperative had also called him looking for Li Long, but Li Long was in the mountains. How could he be that easy to find? It had been urgent at the time, and there was no time to go into the mountains to find him, so Wang Tiancheng could only handle the matter.
The job belonged to someone else, and there was nothing Xu Chengjun could do. But he could not block the team members' chance to make money either, so he had followed Wang Tiancheng's wishes, called in the leaders of the villagers' groups, and let Wang Tiancheng and Hu Lao'er explain things.
Ten fen per reed bundle was not actually a low price. It had been about the same in previous years.
But judging by his experience working with Li Long those last two times, Xu Chengjun knew Wang Tiancheng must have been