Li Jianguo finally agreed to Li Long's idea, but he insisted on going with him.
"No need, big brother. I can haul more if I go alone. The Production Team's horses are already underweight. With another person riding along, wouldn't that mean hauling a few dozen kilos less wood?"
Li Jianguo actually had no answer to that.
"Then wait here. I'll go borrow a horse in a bit." Li Jianguo settled for the next best thing. He always treated Li Long like a child and felt things would be more secure if he handled them himself.
Even though he thought Li Long had a point this time, he still felt uneasy if he did nothing to help.
"The team leader might not lend us one just because we ask." Li Long sounded confident. "Big brother, leave this to me. I'll handle it."
"You'll handle it? How?" Li Jianguo found it hard to believe. This younger brother of his seemed like a completely different person now. He was going to handle something this important? How could he possibly pull it off?
"Xiao Long, do you think borrowing a horse from the Production Team is easy?" Li Jianguo asked Li Long. "Our team only has three horse carts, three horses, and two donkeys."
"If you want to haul wood in winter, you'll definitely need a horse cart. Those horses will be doing most of our plowing and hauling next year-we only have one tractor, and it can't cover everything. You know asking empty-handed won't work. Don't tell me... you're planning to give the team leader a Gugu Chicken?"
"We can't give away the Gugu Chickens. I'll get something else." Li Long stood up. "Big brother, sister-in-law, you two go ahead and get lunch ready. I'm going out for a bit. If I manage to get something this afternoon, we'll do it my way. If not, I'll see if I can catch some more Gugu Chickens tonight."
Li Long went to the East Room. Li Jianguo and Liang Yuemei exchanged looks.
"I think Xiao Long's time at the factory did him some good." Liang Yuemei had originally regretted the fifty yuan they had given someone to secure the job, but after seeing the changes in Li Long since yesterday, she felt it had been worth it even if he had lost the job.
Liang Yuemei saw nothing wrong with raising her young brother-in-law on her father-in-law's behalf. After all, Li Jianguo was the eldest son.
But if they were raising an ungrateful wolf, all their effort would be wasted. That was something she could not accept.
Before, Li Long had seemed like someone who would never appreciate what they did for him. But from last night until now, Liang Yuemei had truly felt the change in him.
He had learned to care about others, to dote on his nephew and niece, and to help ease his big brother's burdens.
Now that he had a sense of responsibility, Liang Yuemei felt there was nothing wrong with treating him as another son to raise.
Li Jianguo shook his head and said:
"Let's see what he does first. If it doesn't work out, I'll go ask myself. If need be, Xiao Long and I can go snare Gugu Chickens together tonight."
Having raised a pig they could not slaughter because of superstition, leaving the family without meat, had weighed on Li Jianguo's mind. When Li Long returned, he had also been worrying about charcoal for heating.
But now, it seemed as though none of those problems were really problems anymore.
Li Jianguo began to realize that as long as his younger brother grew sensible, they really could overcome all these difficulties.
Why had he never thought of going into the mountains to haul wood before?
He did not realize it was a matter of perspective. Even if the villagers knew in autumn that they would not have enough charcoal, they would only think of digging up Red Willow roots in the sandy hollows behind the village. It would never occur to them to haul windfallen timber from the mountains twenty kilometers away—apart from a handful of people familiar with the mountains, nobody knew what it was like up there.
So they instinctively feared the unknown and were unwilling to try.
Those willing to try, on the other hand, had prospered early on.
Wu Shufen returned home looking distracted.
Seeing her daughter like that, her mother, Wang Yuzhen, immediately asked:
"Shufen, did that Li boy refuse to break up? Is he still planning to pester you?"
"No. He agreed to break up."
"Then isn't that a good thing?" Hearing that the breakup had gone smoothly, Wang Yuzhen smiled. "Tomorrow I'll ask around for you. We'll find you a factory worker, so you can move to town and live on a state paycheck! I knew at a glance that Li Long wasn't cut out for city life. Sure enough, he came back!"
Wang Yuzhen had expected her daughter to be happier after breaking up with Li Long. But seeing Wu Shufen's unhappy face, she asked with concern:
"Shufen, breaking up with him is a good thing. Why do you look so upset?"
Wu Shufen could not help saying:
"When I went over, they were plucking Gugu Chickens. Mom, do you know how many Li Long caught yesterday? Five!"
She held up all five fingers:
"Five whole birds! And he never even thought of giving me one-even if we broke up, we could still be friends. Before, he would definitely have given me one. No, two! But he didn't even ask me to stay..."
If Li Long had heard Wu Shufen's words, he would immediately have realized that entitled princesses were not unique to later generations.
Some people were born believing the whole world owed them special treatment. They could buy a meat-stuffed flatbread and think a strange young man was a loser just because he did not pay for it!
Wang Yuzhen did not think that deeply about it. She comforted Wu Shufen:
"Shufen, don't dwell on those Gugu Chickens. His brother's family had that pig they couldn't slaughter because of superstition, so they only went after those birds because they had no meat. We slaughtered our pig. I'll stir-fry some pork for you at lunch!"
That pork was supposed to last them almost a year-the fatty cuts had already been rendered and stored under lard-but if her daughter wanted some, she would cook it.
"Mom, I want pork, but I want Gugu Chicken too..."
Wang Yuzhen turned and called to Old Wu, who was dozing on the heated brick bed:
"Shufen's dad! She wants Gugu Chicken. Why aren't you out catching one for her?"
"Like hell! Where am I supposed to catch a Gugu Chicken? I'd freeze half to death going out in all this snow. I'm not going!"
Wu Shufen pouted, unhappy.
After entering the East Room, Li Long found the pickaxe and pry bar, put them in a fertilizer sack, and left it by the door. Then he put on a padded hat and overcoat, pulled felt socks over his feet, and stepped into his rawhide shoes. These were cut from a whole cowhide, with holes punched around the edges and rawhide cords threaded through them. They froze stiff in winter, but with felt socks inside, they at least kept out the cold better than padded rubber-soled shoes.
He was going to Little Haizi to break through the ice and catch fish. Padded rubber-soled shoes would not do.
There were several pools near the village. In those days, any water with a fresh inflow held fish—mainly crucian carp, Slab Crucian Carp, and common crucian carp, along with carp, grass carp, and silver carp.
Little Haizi had been there for many years. According to Li Jianguo, it had already existed when they first arrived from different parts of the country, and its fish had never died out.
A few years later, a major flood would breach the embankment of Little Haizi, which by then had been converted into a reservoir, washing its fish downstream into Reed Lake. The village's able-bodied men all took homemade fish spears to catch them. The largest fish Li Long had seen was nearly a meter and a half long and weighed twenty or thirty kilos.
After that, Little Haizi never had any big fish again.
He estimated that the ice on Little Haizi was at least thirty or forty centimeters thick by now. Breaking a hole through it to catch fish would definitely take some muscle.
But if he wanted to impress people, he had to be prepared to suffer where they could not see. Nothing came without a price.
After stepping outside, Li Long went to the shed to get the landing net as well. Breaking a hole in the ice would take at least an hour or two. Usually, the fish would not come over as soon as it opened; he would have to wait a while.
Still, the ice was solid now, and Little Haizi held plenty of fish. Some reeds grew there and supplied a little oxygen to the fish beneath the surface, but not much. He figured that once he opened a hole, he might get some fish after a short wait.
The sound of Li Long opening the door alerted Li Qiang-or perhaps the little boy had been waiting all along. He ran out of the West Room, saw Li Long fully equipped, and immediately clamored to go with him.
"You can't come today. The snow is deep where I'm going, and I won't be able to look after you." Li Long refused him, then shouldered his equipment and headed south out of the village.
With such heavy snow in winter, people generally cleared only the village roads and the road leading to the township.
The path to Little Haizi, however, was buried under thick snow. Each step sank him in up to his knees.
His lone figure slowly disappeared into the snowy landscape.
(End of chapter)
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