The Supply and Marketing Cooperative had not issued any reed bundle assignments, and Li Long did not ask further. One more job or one less made little difference to him anyway. Quite a few villagers were already on the verge of fighting over cutting reeds at Reed Lake, so he actually thought it was a good thing for the reed bundle work to arrive a little later.
Let those reed cutters stew for a while and cool their tempers first.
Otherwise, they could strip the whole of Reed Lake bare, and a fight really might break out.
After all, if there really was a reed bundle assignment, the more reeds a household cut, the more money it would mean.
Every time Li Long returned to the team, people asked him whether the reed bundle work had come through. He grew so sick of it that, after telling his eldest brother and Dad, he simply stopped going back to the village for a while.
When his second brother, Li Anguo, came to take Chen Lirong, Xueping, and Xueqin home, Li Long gave his second sister-in-law Chen Lirong four hundred yuan in front of his brother.
Chen Lirong refused it. She knew her family already owed her young brother-in-law a great deal.
"Second Sister-in-Law, everyone gets this. I bought Li Juan and Li Qiang a bicycle, and after my sister and her family moved to Stone City, I gave her money to buy one too.
"You have your own courtyard now. My brother works during the day, and you have two children to look after. Take this money and buy a bicycle. It'll make getting around with the children easier."
His second sister-in-law had two children with her, so he gave her an extra hundred yuan. That was Li Long's own calculation.