After lunch, Li Long drove the tractor back to the wheat fields in East Gully. Before he had even unhitched the trailer, Xu Chengjun came after him on his bicycle.
"Xiao Long, I heard from Daqiang that you finished cutting over there this morning, and did his family's fields too? Nothing to do here now, right? Still a while before all the sheaves are tied? Come on, come cut my fields. I thought it would have to wait until tomorrow, but today is even better. I've rounded everyone up. Come cut my fields now, and I can get the wheat tied up today."
"Sure." Li Long readily agreed.
"My family has thirty-five mu in all. Two yuan a mu, right? I'll pay when you finish," Xu Chengjun added, then rode west. His fields were not in East Gully, but in another large stretch of strip fields. The strips there were longer, though the yields were lower.
Li Long unhitched the trailer. Li Jianguo and the others went on tying wheat, while he drove the tractor with the harvester attached after Xu Chengjun toward his fields.
The winter wheat had all been planted around the same time, and it was now ripe. Some families had already begun cutting by hand. One field beside Xu Chengjun's belonged to Ma Jinbao. He was out herding sheep, while his wife and children cut the wheat.
The Xu Family members Xu Chengjun had called over, including his wife Ma Hongmei, were all waiting at the edge of the field. Bundles of reed ties lay there, along with sickles and wooden forks. Apart from someone going over to shovel away the ridge, nobody was doing anything.
Ma Jinbao's family did not know Xu Chengjun had hired Li Long to cut his wheat with the harvester. Seeing