Chapter 116 The Joy of Changing History
"Uncle, how are you now? Have you taken your medicine?" Li Long asked Tao Jianshe while standing at the head of the kang.
"I took it. Daqiang insisted that Lao Tian give me an injection. Why waste that money? Just take some aspirin." Tao Jianshe struggled to get up. Li Long quickly held him down. "Uncle, don't get up. I just came to see what Daqiang cooked for you these two days?"
"Yes, Daqiang was worried about me, so he didn't go anywhere. He just cooked for me and gave me medicine." Tao Jianshe sighed, "Dayong came over, and I have to take care of his family too, which is difficult."
Li Long was speechless.
This is quite biased.
But this was someone else's family affair, so he had nothing to say. After chatting for a few meaningless words, he left. Tao Daqiang came out, and Li Long took out ten yuan and stuffed it into his hand:
"Find Lao Tian and get your dad an injection to get rid of the inflammation first. Injections are quick, but who knows how long it will take to take medicine. The disease is most likely to recur during the winter-spring transition period, so we can't wait."
"...Okay." Tao Daqiang didn't have much money left, so he didn't refuse. It would indeed cost a lot of money to treat his father, but he spent the money too freely during the Chinese New Year and gave New Year's money to his nephew. As a result, now that his father is sick, he can't take out much money.
"If you have any difficulties, come to me." Li Long was somewhat surprised to find that the height difference between him and Tao Daqiang seemed to have narrowed. He didn't know whether it was because Tao Daqiang was hunched over or he had grown taller. He patted Daqiang on the shoulder:
"I won't go to the mountains these days. I'll stay at home."
"Then... Brother Long, are you still catching fish to sell?" Tao Daqiang asked with shining eyes. When he had no money, he realized how easy it was to make money with Li Long.
"Come and see me when your dad gets better. We can catch him twice more before the snow melts," said Li Long.
Tao Daqiang thought, twice will do. If I do it twice, I can pay back the ten yuan.
He held the ten dollars in his hand tightly. When the snow melted later and he couldn't catch any fish, he would have to live a tight life.
"When the snow melts, we'll go fishing. I've already bought a sticky net, but the water is cold in the spring, you see..."
"I'm not afraid of the cold!" Tao Daqiang couldn't wait to interrupt Li Long when he heard that he could continue to catch fish and sell them for money: "I'm not afraid! When it just snowed, I went to the reed lake to pick reeds. The icy water was waist-deep, but I wasn't afraid!"
"Okay then," Li Long nodded, "Wait until your father recovers, then we'll discuss it."
Watching Li Long leave, Tao Daqiang turned around and ran hurriedly to Lao Tian's house. He wanted Lao Tian to give his father an injection so that his father could get better quickly.
When Old Tian heard that Tao Daqiang was going to give his father an injection, he said:
"I told you, your dad's illness can only be cured with an injection. Those few cents of pills won't do much good. He's been coughing for so many years, doesn't he know what's going on? Wait for me to scald the needle and disinfect it."
There was a glass syringe in the aluminum needle box. Doctor Tian poured boiling water from the thermos into the needle box, and then took out a paper box of medicine. After a while, he took out the syringe with tweezers, poured out the water, put the needle back in, and put it into the medicine bag together with the medicine, and followed Tao Daqiang to his home.
Li Long was quite happy. In his previous life, Tao Jianshe finally survived the winter with a few painkillers and aspirin, but when spring came, a late spring cold snap made his condition worse, and he survived for another half a year, and died when winter was approaching.
In fact, Lao Tian said many times later that if Tao Jianshe had received an anti-inflammatory injection in time when he fell ill in the winter, his illness would not have worsened to that extent.
Although he was resurrected, Li Long was not a memory repeater. He could only remember many things when they came to the right moment, including Tao Jianshe's illness.
Now, Li Long has a feeling that he is about to change history, so he is very happy.
He had nothing to do in the afternoon, so after cleaning his small-caliber rifle, he took the gun, bullets, and a circle of thin wire sheaths and planned to go to Hongliu Beach.
I haven't set up the rabbit trap over there for a long time. This time I'll go over and see if I can get any harvest. If not, I'll set up a few more traps. Come and have a look tomorrow morning.
If you encounter an animal, it's a good opportunity to practice with a small-caliber rifle.
Maintaining a small-caliber rifle is a delicate job. He could tell that Li Xiangqian hadn't used this gun for a long time. The last time he maintained it, he used a lot of gun oil, so the oil on the bolt was a little condensed.
Without gun oil, he used the oil cloth in the holster to clean everything, including the bullet. The bullet, which looked like a thin pencil tip, was polished to a gleaming shine by Li Long. This thing has a caliber of , which is called a small caliber, but in fact it is not much different from the caliber of automatic rifles in later generations.
"Uncle, are you going hunting? Can you take me with you?" Li Qiang followed Li Long and asked when he went out.
"I'm going to walk a long way, can you keep up with me?" Li Long asked with a smile.
"Yes!" Li Qiang agreed immediately and looked at Li Long expectantly.
"Then go tell your parents and wear thicker clothes."
Now the snow outside has hardened, with a thick layer of crust on top and sand-like ice particles underneath, making every step difficult. Although Li Qiang plays outside every day as exercise, walking on this kind of road must be very tiring.
It's good to exercise.
Li Juan also wanted to go, but unfortunately school was about to start in a few days and she hadn't finished her homework yet, so she had to stay at home and do her homework.
Li Long and Li Qiang didn't go far when they saw Wang Caimi walking on the side of the road carrying a red willow basket, bending down to pick up something as he walked.
"Have you eaten, Brother Wang?"
"I've eaten. What are you going to shoot? What kind of gun are you holding? It looks so beautiful!" Wang Caimi's eyes lit up when he saw the gun on Li Long's back. As he said, there is no man who doesn't like guns.
"Small caliber, I'm going to see if there are any rabbits, just for fun. Are you picking up shit?"
"Well, it's almost spring, and my vegetable garden doesn't have enough fertilizer, so I need to use manure to improve it."
Wang Caimi watched Li Qiang leave and secretly sighed that this kid from the Li family was becoming more and more extraordinary.
This small caliber is not something that ordinary people can afford. Although every household in the team has a few rounds of standard bullets, not everyone has a gun.
Li Long saw a few more people on the road. Some were picking up manure like Wang Caimi, while others were like the Li family before. They were short of firewood and had to go to the Red Willow Beach to cut red willows every day to burn. The branches of this thing are far less resistant to burning than the roots. Cutting red willows in minus 20 degrees Celsius is also hard work.
When Li Long and Li Qiang followed the previous traces to Hongliu Beach, they found that some of the traps had been taken away by others.
At the edge of Hongliu Beach, Li Long found a total of three empty traps, and two of them had been picked up by someone. There were signs of something messing around at the locations, which must have been used to trap rabbits.
Li Long felt a little sorry, but there was nothing he could do. If he hadn't come for a walk for so long, it would naturally be a bargain for others.
He led Li Qiang to continue walking inside - it must have snowed a little when he went to the mountains some time ago, and the rabbits' footprints in the red willow beach had changed. Li Long planned to go deeper to take a look, and if he encountered any, he would shoot them, and if he didn't, he would set traps.
"Uncle, was the rabbit taken away by someone?" Li Qiang was very patient this time. He didn't even complain of being tired until here. However, he could see some clues from Li Long's paused movements.
"Well, it's possible." Li Long said, "Let's look inside, and you can also observe the surroundings to see if there are any living things."
Li Qiang nodded heavily and then looked around.
He hadn't walked more than ten steps when he suddenly saw a brown object moving beside the red willow tree. He immediately called out softly:
"Uncle, there is something there!"
When he shouted, the things that were originally near the red willow tree immediately jumped up.
Li Long immediately realized that it was a fox!
(End of this chapter)
