Rebirth of Bayi Fishing and Hunting in the Northwest

Chapter 1268 New Investment Directions and the Starting Point

After returning from the fourth team, Li Long called Gu Boyuan to tell him that Gu Xiaoyu had arrived and asked Gu Xiaoyu to speak with him.

After exchanging a few words, Gu Xiaoyu handed the phone to Li Long, and Gu Boyuan asked, "When are you coming over?"
"Around the 27th," Li Long said. "Xiaoxia is at work and can't take much time off. But after Xiaoyu goes there, you can show her around."

Li Long felt that Gu Xiaoyu must be feeling uncomfortable staying in Yanjing for a while, so it would be better for her to relax in Yili. Although the tourism facilities weren't as developed as they would be in later years, the grasslands of Yili in May and June were practically unbeatable.

"Alright, everything's arranged here anyway. You just need to come and have fun and participate in the ceremony," Gu Boyuan said with a smile. He just wanted his family to be able to attend his remarriage.

After hanging up the phone, Li Long went to tidy up the yard. By the end of the day, the little animals had left quite a bit of "trash" in the yard, all of which Li Long had to clean up.

But he was used to it.

After cleaning the yard, Li Long went to pick up Mingming and Haohao. When he returned and was waiting for Gu Xiaoxia, Gu Xiaoyu was playing with Mingming, Haohao, and the animals. Li Long then used the Geiger counter to check the contents of the cellar again and found that there were no problems, which put his mind at ease.

We might find different treasures in the future, so it's a good idea to have Liu Gaolou make a Geiger counter. At least we can keep any strange or unusual things we find at home with peace of mind.

When Gu Xiaoxia returned, everyone ate together and talked about various things. Gu Xiaoyu seemed to have let her true nature shine through after arriving in Ma County. She was the most talkative at the dinner table, mainly about how Liang Yuemei, the eldest sister-in-law of the fourth team, recognized the difference between the two sisters at a glance.

"Sister, I really didn't expect that my sister-in-law really understands you. No wonder my brother-in-law said that when you were little, my sister-in-law raised you like a daughter for a period of time."

“Back then…” Gu Xiaoxia rarely thought of things from her childhood. She said, “My dad raised me, a girl, and there were many things I didn’t understand. My dad didn’t know how to take care of me. Back then, my sister-in-law would often call me over to our house, and she would talk to me and take care of me…”

For about three or four years, well, you know, your brother-in-law was actually quite unruly back then, but I didn't have a bad impression of him, just because of the aura of being the eldest brother and sister.

"My brother-in-law was mischievous before?" Gu Xiaoyu seemed surprised, as if she had heard big news. "That...is that really possible?"

Li Long smiled wryly, realizing his past had been exposed. He then revealed his embarrassing side, saying, "I was ignorant back then. My older brother and sister-in-law treated me like their own son—Dad, I didn't mean anything by that."

I was only about ten years old then. After I came here, I became lazy and didn't do any work. I would fight with Juan and Qiangqiang for food. When we didn't have enough refined grains at home, my older brother and sister-in-law would go and exchange coarse grains for refined grains... Sigh, I was really ignorant back then.

Li Long's words silenced everyone at the table. Han Fang never imagined that her respected Uncle Li had done something so outrageous.

Mingming and Haohao seemed to understand, but didn't know what their father meant by coarse grains and refined grains.

Old man Li Qingxia remained silent. He was the one who made the initial decision; it was because his family didn't have enough food that he thought of sending his youngest son to the northern frontier to be cared for by his eldest son.

The younger son was spoiled at home, and his older brother took good care of him after they arrived in northern Xinjiang, which almost spoiled him rotten.

Sister Yang sensed that the atmosphere at the dinner table was off, and quickly said with a smile:

"Who hasn't been naughty when they were young? But things turned out well later, didn't they? Uncle Li, look at you now, who else is doing as well as you? And I see that you've taken good care of your older brothers, sisters, and even us."

“That’s right, I’ve benefited from it all,” Gu Xiaoyu said with a smile.

She remembered that when she was sleeping and chatting with her sister last night, her sister said that when she left, she would bring her a few sets of jade artifacts back with her so that she could keep them with her and exchange them for money if she needed them in an emergency.

Of course, keeping it might help it retain its value better.

Gu Xiaoyu naturally declined. Besides buying gifts for her newlywed father and stepmother, she also bought things for her sister and brother-in-law. She gave Li Long an electric shaver and her sister a dress—a new style from Yanjing, which fit perfectly right now.

Although her salary wasn't much, it was enough to support her in Yanjing. After all, she already owned her own house, which was more than enough to take care of herself.

However, Gu Xiaoxia was quite insistent on this, because she felt that since her family was doing well, she should also make sure her family did well if she had the means—a decision influenced by Li Jianguo and Liang Yuemei.

After all, she felt that she was the older sister.

After dinner, Li Qingxia went back with his hands behind his back. Li Long felt that his father's back looked a little lonely, but he didn't know how to comfort him.

However, Dad is an open-minded and optimistic person, so he should figure it out quickly.

Over the next few days, Li Long drove to the fourth team during the day, taking Gu Xiaoyu with him most of the time, because she didn't want to stay in the courtyard alone.

So sometimes she would go with Li Long to the cotton fields to check on the farmland, and sometimes she would stay in the Li family courtyard to chat with Du Chunfang and Liang Yuemei.

There's less work in the fields now, so Liang Yuemei spends most of her time in the yard. More importantly, since the younger members of the Li family came from their hometown, they've basically taken over all the farm work, leaving Liang Yuemei with no opportunity to contribute, which makes her somewhat frustrated.

So he could only use his talents in the vegetable garden and yard.

Although Gu Xiaoyu was a student leader at the university, she was very approachable and quickly became close friends with Du Chunfang and Liang Yuemei.

The women in the village also learned that Gu Xiaoxia's younger sister had come, so they would often come to the Li family to see this female cadre who looked very much like Gu Xiaoxia.

On May 25th, Liu Gaolou arrived with a long convoy of cars, and Gu Xiaoyu finally understood how her brother-in-law Li Long made money.

There were at least twenty vehicles. The first ten were cars, and the vehicles behind were filled with various medicinal herbs, which looked like tree branches, as well as sacks of other things. The smell was quite strong.

Because there were too many vehicles to drive all of them in, they first drove in ten trucks loaded with cars and unloaded them.

Liang Shuangcheng had already called over some temporary workers in advance. Li Long and he were directing them, while Liu Gaolou ignored the matter and went directly to the reception room to rest.

It took almost half a day just to unload the supplies from those twenty trucks. At this point, Gu Xiaoyu noticed that besides the medicinal herbs, there were also antelope horns and hides that had been unloaded.

The antelope horns and hides were very fresh, some still had blood on them, and the hides had a strong smell.

Gu Xiaoyu was curious, so she followed along the whole time, and Li Long also directed the process. Most of the cars were unloaded in the front yard. Three cars that couldn't be unloaded were placed in the back yard.

The medicinal herbs and their bark were all unloaded in the backyard, while the truckload of antelope horns was unloaded in the main yard.

Gu Xiaoyu didn't know what the root-like medicinal material was, so Liang Shuangcheng told her it was licorice and astragalus.

These two medicinal herbs are not valuable to Li Long. He has enough of them, but the profit they can bring is limited.

However, Li Long wasn't picky, since he'd already gotten it cheaply. He figured Liu Shanmin's special status could continue for a considerable time after the collapse of the Soviet Union—because once the Soviet Union disintegrated, it would be much easier to obtain a large amount of intelligence, and some advanced equipment and parts that would be available to their country.

This matter will continue until at least the mid-to-late 1990s.

Liu Shanmin is clearly a very good lead. According to Liu Gaolou's vague mention, every time Liu Shanmin trades with Li Long, he is essentially completing a task assigned by his superior.

His superior was a subordinate unit of the Second Artillery Corps.

Given this situation, Liu Shanmin's importance should be even greater than Li Long's estimate.

Li Long guessed that there should be quite a few people with similar traits to Liu Shanmin in the Harbin area, or in the Horgos or Alashankou areas.

Therefore, Li Long accepted everything that came from that side. Moreover, the few things he could provide—sugar, cement, clothes, etc.—were in high demand there and were considered hard currency, which is why Li Long could obtain these things at low prices with a clear conscience.

After unloading everything, Li Long told Gu Xiaoyu and then took Liu Gaolou and the others to eat—Gu Xiaoyu didn't go, saying she was going to pick up Mingming and Haohao.

In the private room of Tuanfenglou, three tables were set up, including the driver.

"That...isn't your wife?" Liu Gaolou asked now. "She looks a lot like her, but there are some differences."

"No, she's my sister-in-law," Li Long said. "She's a cadre at Yenching University. My father-in-law is getting married in a few days, and she's coming to attend."

“Yes, yes, Lao Gu is getting married, and I got the invitation too,” Liu Gaolou said with a smile. “You know what, your sister-in-law and your father-in-law do look a bit alike.”

That topic was dropped, and then Liu Gaolou started talking about the situation over there.

"The situation in Kazakhstan is even more chaotic now. People are feeling very anxious. My second uncle said that he has to take extra people with him when he goes out, and he also carries weapons with him, in case he gets robbed. In addition, he often changes locations, otherwise he is afraid that he will be ambushed at his home. Even his wife and children have gone to his father-in-law's house."

Li Long nodded. The time for the collapse of the Soviet Union was drawing ever closer. Those in the upper echelons there, being directly involved, were certainly feeling the effects more acutely. Therefore, they were more likely to be affected by certain events than he, an observer.

"By the way, my second uncle said he wants you to help him find a set of textbooks for first grade, just Chinese. He wants to teach his child Chinese; it would be a real problem if the child came back speaking only Russian and Kazakh." (For a considerable period, official communication between Kazakhstan and China was in Russian.)
“No problem,” Li Long said. “I’ll bring it to you tomorrow or the day after.”

Liu Gaolou and his group drank beer. Since they hadn't driven, and the journey had been tiring, they weren't drunk. Afterwards, they asked Li Long to take them to the county guesthouse.

The next day, Li Longcai and Liu Gaolou completed the financial handover. Li Longcai gave Liu Gaolou over 500,000 yuan for the medicinal herbs, hides, antelope horns, and cars alone, mainly because the price of antelope horns had increased.

Knowing that the price of antelope horns is rising domestically, there are quite a few people who want to get antelope horns from Kazakhstan, so the value of this item, which was originally not sought after there, is slowly increasing.

Of course, the main product is still the skin. Although it's spring skin, the advantage lies in the large quantity.

Due to numerous economic problems in the Soviet Union and persistent inflation, the currency depreciated. While the RMB also appreciated slightly due to inflation and its exchange rate with the US dollar, the difference was not significant, so in the end, the appreciation was not substantial.

After resting for a day, Liu Gaolou asked Li Long to take him to Section Chief Hu to buy white sugar.

Although we had twenty trucks, most of them were used to transport cement, so it was still fifty tons of white sugar.

When Liu Gaolou left, he asked Li Long if he wanted to go with them, since it would be safer for the convoy to leave.

"My wife hasn't gotten leave yet, let's set off later," Li Long said. "You guys go first."

Actually, only Li Long, the Gu sisters, and Mingming and Haohao will be going together, so one Volga is enough. Li Long thinks it's better for his family to go alone.

Liu Gaolou didn't insist and set off with the convoy.

Sugar prices rose again. After paying $10,000 for ten cars (each car cost $1,000), Li Long still had $50,000 left.

He currently has a lot of savings, so he's thinking about finding a way to spend it—after all, money only becomes money when it's spent, otherwise it's just paper.

The best solution is to develop drip irrigation tape manufacturing machines—machines that can mass-produce stable, low-cost ones. In two years, the Dushanzi Petrochemical plant will be operational, with a massive ethylene production capacity. Buying plastic granules won't be difficult; the main issue is that we haven't yet entered this market and don't know the prices.

As for the land leveling and renovation project, it would take at least another twenty years for the national project to be completed. He couldn't wait that long and thought he would get the cooperative settled first before starting his own project.

So we still need to ask Lao Du for help with this. Of course, if it works out, it will be good for Lao Du too. He's already been at the forefront in the fields of harvesters, snowplows, and pesticide sprayers; if he can make a drip irrigation tape production machine, he'll be very happy.

Li Long had seen this thing before. More than 20 years after his previous life, when the autonomous region started the land leveling and drip irrigation transformation project for the village, someone in the village set up a drip irrigation tape factory.

This factory not only sells drip irrigation tape, but also recycles old drip irrigation tape. The recycled old drip irrigation tape is then pulverized into plastic granules and remanufactured into drip irrigation tape.

Li Long had seen the machine before, and the principle behind it wasn't difficult, so he could explain it clearly.

As long as it can be explained clearly, I think Director Du should be able to find the technicians to fix it.

This can be considered as gaining an early advantage. Of course, the investment is huge, but Li Long wanted to enjoy the advanced technology of the later period of his previous life in advance, so as to make cotton planting more efficient. Although this increased the cost, it also increased the yield of cotton per acre.

Even if we can't reach 500 kilograms in 30 or 40 years, 300 kilograms would be fine.

As for how it will be introduced into the cooperative, we'll discuss that later.

If all else fails, we can contract other land to conduct drip irrigation experiments. Anyway, we have a high-horsepower tractor, so leveling the land won't be a problem.

Moreover, there is a lot of wasteland now, and clearing it is too easy!

Without hesitation, Li Long called Factory Director Du to inquire about the situation. Before he could even speak, Director Du was already boasting about his achievements:

"Comrade Li Long, let me tell you, so far this year, we've sold nearly three hundred sprayers—now, sprayer production has surpassed harvester production in our factory, becoming the mainstay machinery." "That's really good," Li Long asked. "Are the spray tanks sufficient?"

"It's enough. We order from factories in China. Once this product is produced in large quantities, the price won't be too high."

That makes sense. At that time, although the Dushanzi Petrochemical Plant hadn't been built yet, plastic drums weren't expensive in China. Think about the sulfuric acid drums used by the Production and Construction Corps to burn cottonseed; after they were used, the workers would take them to store water.

At that time, people in the area, like the fourth team, didn't use plastic buckets to hold water much, mainly because they would become brittle over time. Families who didn't have their own hand pumped wells had to fetch water from the team's well, using water containers made from converted oil drums.

The water tank is a diesel drum laid flat, with two trolley tires hooped around both ends for shock absorption. A square opening about the size of a book is cut at the top for water to enter, and a hole is drilled at the back for welding a 15-centimeter-long, 2-centimeter-diameter steel pipe as the water outlet.

Normally, a rubber hose is connected to the steel pipe at the water outlet, which is used to put water into the bucket.

Such water jugs would fit snugly on carts pulled by horses and donkeys. The production team's well was usually only operated one or two days a week, during which time villagers who hadn't drilled their own wells would rush to fetch water after being notified by the loudspeaker.

Of course, sometimes the well would be left open for a long time, mainly to irrigate the nearby vegetable fields, because the canal connecting the vegetable fields of one of the residential areas did not pass through Xiaohaizi, so only well water could be used.

However, transporting these medicine containers from the mouth is quite troublesome. Considering that if I were to develop my own drip irrigation system, the raw materials would have to be transported from the mouth for at least several years, I hesitated.

But since I've already called, I might as well say so now.

So Li Long shared his thoughts.

"Comrade Li Long, your mind is always full of ingenious ideas!" Director Du first affirmed Li Long's thoughts. "I have heard of this drip irrigation machine. It seems that Israel in the Middle East and Germany are developing this technology, since they are short of water."

Li Long hadn't expected that Director Du actually knew this, which made things easier, so he said:

"Actually, I'm not doing this just to save water. At least for now, the agricultural water supply in our northern Tianshan economic zone is still guaranteed. My main goal is to increase cotton yields—"

"Think about it," I said, "if I dissolved fertilizer in water and used drip irrigation to precisely drip it onto the seedling roots, wouldn't the utilization rate be higher? The seedlings would grow stronger, and they would produce more peaches?"

Actually, Director Du praised Li Long earlier as a prelude to what he was about to say.

To be honest, in the northern border region, in Director Du's opinion, this thing is really not very useful.

What's the situation in Israel? Water is more expensive than oil, so they're using drip irrigation to save water.

Why do we need to do this here? Every year when the snowmelt from the Tianshan Mountains melts, a lot of it just flows into the Gurbantünggüt Desert to the north and is completely wasted.

Therefore, there is no need to conserve water at all. At this time, very few people can imagine that forty years later, due to farming, groundwater will be extracted in large quantities, to the point that wells will have to be dug to a depth of sixty or even one hundred meters to find clean water.

At that time, the number of wells had to be limited, and cotton planting also began to be restricted.

But when Li Long mentioned that fertilizer could be dissolved in water and precisely dripped onto the seedling roots, Director Du couldn't help but pay attention.

The current method of watering crops is flood irrigation.

Fertilization is done by hand, just like for crops such as sunflowers and corn. When the stalks grow taller, each person takes a basin of fertilizer and puts a handful at the base of each seedling.

How do you use this stuff? You apply fertilizer before watering. After applying the fertilizer, you water it, and the water dissolves the fertilizer, allowing the crops to absorb it.

As for the utilization rate of chemical fertilizers?

It's hard to say—it's definitely not high. After all, a lot of water seeped into the uncultivated land and even flowed out.

If, as Li Long said, fertilizer water can be precisely dripped to the roots of crops through drip irrigation, then the utilization rate of fertilizer will double, saving fertilizer and promoting plant growth—a win-win situation.

Oh, and it also saves water.

“However, this drip irrigation machine is not easy to get started,” said Director Du. “I’ve only heard about it; I’ve never even seen one in person.”

In Li Long's memory, before his rebirth, cotton was planted using embedded patch drip irrigation tape, which required connecting capillary tubes—connecting capillary tubes was one of the few manual tasks in the later mechanized cotton planting.

The cotton plant uses a one-film, three-pipe, six-row cotton system, mainly using wide film, which facilitates machine harvesting and is very effective in water and fertilizer integration and in suppressing salinity.

As for drip irrigation tape machines, he had seen them before. They were produced by Tianye in Beijiang. The drip irrigation tape produced by the factory in the village supplied the cotton fields throughout the township, and the output was not low.

The factory manager told me that they could produce 450 meters of drip irrigation tape per minute, which was very fast!
However, the machine was quite complex overall, and Li Long could only remember the general outline.

Seeing that Director Du seemed interested, Li Long said:

"I'm still paying close attention to this. Professor Yang from the College of Agriculture has been researching cotton cultivation here these past few days, and I've talked to him quite a bit about it. He plans to have our township's agricultural extension school's experimental field plant drip-irrigated cotton next year."

"Growing drip-irrigated cotton? Drip irrigation tape isn't cheap these days, is it?"

"It's really not cheap. The domestically produced ones aren't even out yet, and the imported ones are a dollar a meter." Li Long exclaimed, "This is highway robbery! In later generations, they'd charge by the kilogram, but now they charge by the meter!"
"So, if this technology becomes widespread, wouldn't making drip irrigation machines be quite profitable?" Director Du suddenly became enthusiastic.

"Definitely. This isn't something as small as a pesticide sprayer. A complete drip irrigation system would cost at least tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, right?"

"That's quite complicated—unfortunately, I don't know how to handle it here, I'm completely clueless." Director Du said with some worry.

He had no doubts about Li Long's suggestion. While harvesters, tillers, and snowplows were readily available and in high demand, a pesticide sprayer was something completely unavailable on the market. Li Long's invention of it led to huge sales, which greatly excited Factory Director Du.

When Li Long mentioned that it could integrate water and fertilizer for drip irrigation, Director Du already knew that this thing would definitely become popular!

The next question is how to produce it.

“I can design a rough sketch,” Li Long said. “Take a look first. Then, I’ll use my connections to see if I can import a set of used equipment. If so, we can bring it to your factory for further study.”

“Great, that’s wonderful. By the way, we can also get involved in the imported equipment business. Although we don’t have much of a connection in this area, as you know, our collaboration over the past few years has resulted in several machines selling very well, and the factory still has some capital.”

Li Long was genuinely pleased with Director Du's sincere attitude towards cooperation. This at least showed that Director Du didn't expect to get his work for free and really wanted to get this thing done.

Of course, this also stems from his trust in Li Long.

"Let me find out first, and then we can discuss the details," Li Long said. "This kind of production equipment is a complete set, which requires a relatively large factory building."

However, in my judgment, drip irrigation for water conservation and fertilizer retention will be the major trend in the future. Therefore, if you can produce this, at least for a considerable period of time, even if all other production tasks in the factory are suspended, this one alone will make the factory a leader in agricultural machinery manufacturing in northern Xinjiang and even the whole country.

Hearing Li Long's words, Factory Director Du was immediately intrigued. To be honest, the factory's production was currently booming, resulting in good profits and potential for further development.

But in Director Du's view, these were all small-scale operations and couldn't compare to the Shicheng Tractor Factory.

He also dreamed of owning a large machinery factory.

But there was no suitable direction for a breakthrough. What does Northern Xinjiang need? Large tractors? There are already two factories producing those. What else is needed? Although Director Du frequently conducted research in the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps and local agricultural areas, to be honest, he couldn't come to any concrete conclusions.

Now that Li Long has said this, he realizes that it really is true.

The nation aims to achieve the Four Modernizations, and agricultural modernization is inevitably one of the pillars. Like the agricultural development in Northeast China, the level of mechanization in northern Xinjiang will continue to rise.

Which agricultural machines will continue to be used?
Besides the high-horsepower tractors that Li Long mentioned before, is the drip irrigation machine needed for the new planting technology also one of them?
Factory Director Du was clearly interested. Although this matter still needed further investigation and research, at least for now, he felt it was a feasible possibility.

After explaining the situation, Li Long said goodbye to Director Du and hung up the phone.

He returned to the courtyard and quickly drew out the drip irrigation equipment from his memory.

While drawing, Li Long wondered why he hadn't looked into it more carefully or read the instructions.

He only knew that the drip irrigation machine was divided into several main parts, what its general shape looked like, and what each part was used for.

However, the specific details are not very clear.

Gu Xiaoyu didn't know what her brother-in-law was doing, but since Li Long was doing this in the bedroom, she didn't want to go over and watch, so she just played with the animals in the yard.

The newly brought-in antelope horns had a strong odor, mainly a bloody smell and some foul smell, clearly taken from the heads of freshly slaughtered antelopes.

Gu Xiaoyu wasn't morally fastidious, so she didn't have any thoughts about the neighboring country slaughtering large numbers of wild animals. She was just roughly estimating how much money she could get if she sold these antelope horns.

She has now discovered that not only is there the chubby jade doll in the yard, but the dusty stones piled up in the corner are also jade. There's also a large object covered in something in the backyard, which Mingming Haohao also said is a large piece of jade. This is the several-ton piece that Li Long found when he was repairing the road.

In the end, Gu Xiaoyu was more interested in those tiny, prickly hedgehogs.

The little hedgehogs, about the size of a fist, followed behind their mother. They were all very timid and would stop every now and then, unsure of where to go next.

This spring, while plowing and planting, Li Junfeng and his friends caught a few more hedgehogs. Some of them were so interesting that they killed them, wrapped them in mud, and cooked them. Others were put into an iron bucket by Li Junfeng, which he then handed to Li Long when he came over.

“If we put them in my yard, one of my kids would have died from playing with them.” This is how Li Junfeng explained to Li Long, since his child was also mischievous.

So the hedgehog army in the courtyard had some new guests, and soon after, some hedgehogs gave birth to baby hedgehogs.

The group of animals in the yard has grown quite large. The happiest ones are Mingming and Haohao, who even brought their kindergarten classmates to visit.

However, he soon stopped caring too much about it—Li Long had also said that these little guys were timid and would hide if they were seen by others.

After that, the family stopped paying attention.

On May 26th, Professor Yang and his group finished their month-long investigation in the cotton fields, and Li Long drove them to the bus station.

Before leaving, Professor Yang said that they would come back in July or August when the cotton buds form to check on the flowering and budding situation.

The day after they left, on May 27th, Li Long's family, including Gu Xiaoyu, set off for Yili.

As soon as the Volga car left the county town of Ma County, Gu Xiaoxia couldn't help but speak:
"Finally, I'm out of here... It feels like a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders!"

"What's wrong?" Gu Xiaoyu had never seen her sister so excited before.

"What else can I do? I haven't taught students for several years. Now I'm the Party Secretary, and this is a real headache—why are the elementary school kids so naughty?"

Gu Xiaoyu laughed and said, "Sister, let me tell you, it's not so bad for elementary school students now, but it's college students who are in trouble."

College students aren't as cautious as we were when we were in college. They genuinely care about national affairs, but having grown up in an ivory tower, they are easily led astray.

Elementary school students are mostly just playing around; a fight might be the least of their worries. But college students are a different story. The trouble they cause is unimaginable!

"I really can't imagine that." Hearing her sister say that, Gu Xiaoxia laughed. "So it's alright on my end. At least for the past two months, the things that students at school can cause have been mostly within expectations, it's just that there have been too many."

Li Long wasn't surprised. Gu Xiaoxia had been working in the government office for a long time, usually only dealing with a few colleagues. Now she suddenly had to face hundreds of teachers and students from the entire school, so it was normal for her to feel overwhelmed.

So this leave of absence can also be considered a relaxing trip for her.

P.S.: Some people are complaining that there's only one chapter now, and it's expensive. Previously, each chapter was 5,000 words, so it was two chapters a day. Now it's one chapter a day, but it's more wordy, and more words naturally mean a higher price. I'm currently working on increasing average subscriptions, so one chapter a day, combined with other chapters, will make it easier for everyone to enjoy reading.

(End of this chapter)