Hunting 81: Gathering Goods in the Mountains, I Spoil My Ex-Wife to the Extreme

"Dou Dou is already three years old, and she has never been to the county town. Let's take her there to broaden her horizons."

"The county town has a department store, shops, and all kinds of delicious food. Let's take DouDou to the county town and let her broaden her horizons."

Li Yunshan kept talking incessantly.

In fact, Lin Xiulan had never been to the county town many times, and Dou Dou had never even been to the county town before she was three years old. This is also the social norm in this day and age.

In this day and age, transportation infrastructure is still very underdeveloped, and travel is inconvenient. It is far from the future where every town and village has paved roads and cement roads, and cars and motorcycles are running on the roads.

At that time, rural people mainly relied on their own two legs, or donkey carts, oxcarts, and horse-drawn carriages for transportation.

Moreover, since it was illegal to keep more than three poultry in the past, no one kept livestock such as donkeys, cattle, and horses.

Like Pang, the horse driver in their Guapigou Village, whose horse was a retired one from the village collective and which he bought himself, he usually drove people from the surrounding villages to the market in Xiangyang Commune or to the county town. He was a kind of "passenger driver" in those days.

If a family owns a bicycle, it will be equivalent to owning a sports car a few decades from now.

Of course, you can also take a bus, but unless it's absolutely necessary, nobody wants to spend money to take one, because making money isn't easy at this time.

Another point is that in this era, if it's a short trip, such as moving within the county, it's fine. But if you're leaving the county to go to another county or another city, you need a letter of introduction, which must specify the exact date of your trip.

Without a letter of introduction, you will find it difficult to move an inch if you encounter any checks.

According to Li Yunshan's recollection, the letters of introduction seemed to be gradually phased out two years later, and in different fields at different stages. The letters of introduction were not completely phased out nationwide until 2003, when the ID card system was popularized. This spanned nearly 20 years.

Due to various limitations—transportation reasons, personal economic reasons, and travel policy reasons—many people in today's vast rural areas have never even been to the county seat, let alone to the neighboring county, city, or neighboring city.

Leaving the province is even more impossible.

In her past life, when Lin Xiulan married him, the family was poor, and he was also idle. He could barely earn a few coins a year, and he was always spending money on eating, drinking, and having fun.

Lin Xiulan squandered all the money she had painstakingly earned in the village collective, earning work points.

Moreover, because they had been married for a long time, Lin Xiulan was the woman he had abused the longest and was the most ruthless among his three women.

Therefore, after being reborn, out of guilt towards Lin Xiulan, he treated her the best.

Of course, he was also very good to Gao Hongmei after his rebirth. Knowing that Gao Hongmei was stubborn, he taught her hunting skills after Gao Zhankui was discharged from the hospital. He also gave her a discount when she sold the game so that she could pay back the money she borrowed from him as soon as possible, so that Gao Hongmei would not have so much burden on her mind.

As for Su Lihua... she has always been cold towards him, and he hasn't found an opportunity to be nice to her yet.

Besides, Su Lihua will be returning to the city soon. Although the exact time is still uncertain, it is estimated that there will be little chance to meet again once she returns.

Alas, I wronged Su Lihua in my past life, and I wanted to make amends in this one, but fate has played a cruel trick on me...

However, when Lin Xiulan heard Li Yunshan say that he would take her and Dou Dou to the county town, a hint of anticipation still appeared in her eyes.

She fled famine from her hometown to Guapigou Village. After marrying Li Yunshan, she went to the county town very few times, and she never went to the county town with Li Yunshan.

Now, Li Yunshan is taking her and her daughter to the county town, and Lin Xiulan is filled with anticipation.

"How many days will we be gone?"

"A few days is fine, two days is fine, five days is fine, even seven or eight days in the county town is no problem. We just need to be back before New Year's Eve," Li Yunshan said with a smile, then took the hot water he had scooped to the bathhouse.

"I didn't know you'd be back tonight, so I didn't cook for you. I'll just make you a bowl of noodles. Would you like egg noodles or minced meat noodles?"

Lin Xiulan asked.

Ever since Li Yunshan suddenly realized his mistakes and started living a good life and working diligently, his family has never lacked eggs or meat.

Lin Xiulan made the leftover wild boar meat from the previous hunts into meat sauce and stored it in a ceramic jar.

It's freezing cold now, so the meat sauce is easy to preserve. When you want to eat it, just scoop out a little and heat it up.

"Let's have some minced meat noodles."

Li Yunshan said.

"Okay, I'll go make you a bowl of noodles with minced meat sauce."

After Lin Xiulan finished speaking, she went to cook noodles for Li Yunshan.

After Li Yunshan finished bathing in the bathhouse and came to the main room, a steaming bowl of minced meat noodles was already prepared and placed on the dining table.

After eating most of a bowl of fragrant, steaming hot minced meat noodles, Li Yunshan finally felt his hunger disappear.

After eating, he and Lin Xiulan sat in the main room and chatted for a while before going inside, turning off the lights, and going to sleep.

I slept soundly until after 8 a.m. the next day.

By this time, the sun was already high in the sky; it wouldn't be an exaggeration to describe it as the sun being high in the sky.

"I'll go to Uncle Zhou's house to help out first, and pick up the money and meat for this hunting trip. After I get the meat back, we'll take DouDou over."

After breakfast, before heading out to Uncle Zhou's house, Li Yunshan said to Lin Xiulan.

It's still early. When he gets to Uncle Zhou's place later, he'll definitely have to deal with the wolves he killed last night first, and then divide the money and meat. He'll definitely have to come back again around noon. So Lin Xiulan won't be of much help if she goes with him now. It's better for her to stay home and take good care of Dou Dou and the baby in her belly.

"OK."

Lin Xiulan nodded obediently.

Although Li Yunshan had acted foolishly and treated her badly in the past, he was now able to live a stable life with her, and Lin Xiulan had put aside all her resentment.

She was destined to follow her husband wherever he went, whether he was a chicken or a dog. As long as Li Yunshan treated her and Dou Dou well, she would do whatever he asked.

……

"Yunshan has arrived."

When Li Yunshan arrived at Uncle Zhou's house, Zhang Sange, Li Baotian, and Zhao Shuanzhu were already there. They were squatting in the yard with Uncle Zhou, smoking.

The cigarette is Daqianmen, which is considered a good cigarette even in the city, and in the countryside, it is considered the best cigarette.

There's a saying that goes something like this: "Provincial Zhonghua, municipal Mudan, ordinary cadres Liaoye cigarettes, young men on the Great Production Day, working class 23 cents a pack of economy cigarettes, 8 cents a pack, 13 cents for Dahongying..."

This jingle shows that you can tell a person's social class just by looking at a pack of cigarettes.

The Daqianmen cigarettes were distributed by Uncle Zhou. He bought them from the county department store when he went to the county town to sell tiger skin and tiger meat last time.

A single ticket to Qianmen now costs 3.6 yuan with a ticket, but 5.9 yuan for free.

Back then, Uncle Zhou had some money in his pocket, so he gritted his teeth and bought a pack of Daqianmen cigarettes.

Normally, he wouldn't be willing to smoke such good cigarettes; he would smoke a pipe like Li Baotian.

Li Yunshan smokes Zhonghua cigarettes. Although these cigarettes are expensive, he doesn't have cigarette coupons, so he has to spend more money, but Li Yunshan is willing to spend the money.

If it were his past life, he definitely wouldn't have been willing to spend extra money to buy Zhonghua cigarettes even with a free ticket.

However, having lived two lives, Li Yunshan's consumption habits are quite different from those of people in this era.

In his view, money earned should be spent; why not spend it to have children?

Although bank deposit interest rates are quite high these days, money should be saved when it's due and spent when it's due. Li Yunshan won't be as stingy and frugal as he was in his previous life.

"Uncle Zhou, you should change your Daqianmen cigarettes in a few days. You should switch to Zhonghua or Xiangshan cigarettes."

Li Yunshan leaned over and joked with a smile.

"Hehe, hurry up and take out your Zhonghua cigarettes. Yours are better than mine. Hurry up and let me taste them," Uncle Zhou said with a smile.

"Yunshan, it's time to beat up your rich guy again!"

"Among the hunters in our village, you're the most willing to spend money. You deserve to be beaten for being a rich man."

Zhang Sange and Zhao Shuanzhu also said with a smile.

Li Yunshan took out the Zhonghua cigarettes from his pocket and, as usual, distributed them around.

Uncle Zhou and the others smoked the Daqianmen cigarettes they were holding between their fingers, and then lit up the Zhonghua cigarettes that Li Yunshan had given them.

As the group puffed on their cigarettes, Cai Er, Peng Youlian, and others arrived at Uncle Zhou's house one after another.

After the usual round of cigarettes, Uncle Zhou called everyone into the house and then took out the cloth bag that had been used to carry money when he sold venison yesterday.

He opened the bag, turned it upside down on the table, and pulled it up. Large bills, five-yuan notes, two-yuan notes, one-yuan notes, small bills, and coins of small denominations immediately splattered onto the table like an avalanche.

A few mischievous coins rolled around on the table, then spun a few times on the floor before finally falling over.

After picking up the coins and banknotes that had rolled to the ground and placing them on the table, everyone began counting the money.

Although everyone knows that this time they won't earn as much money selling venison as they did selling tiger skins, there's still a lot of cash on the table.

Last time they went to town to sell tiger skins, after exchanging money for goods, the pharmacy in the west of the city settled accounts with them in bundles of ten-yuan notes, while the money from selling tiger meat was only in small change.

They basically didn't count anything.

Although we earned less money this time than last time, we had more banknotes. Counting them was tiring, but everyone enjoyed it.

They counted the money three times before everyone started announcing the amount.

"I have two hundred and thirty yuan here."

"I have 545 yuan here."

"Eight hundred and twenty-three yuan."

"..."

Everyone reported their numbers, and Uncle Zhou calculated on his abacus that the deer they had hunted in the mountains this time had sold for a total of 2,737.9 yuan. They had sold about 1,250 jin of meat in one day.

"Normally, we couldn't possibly sell so much meat in one day. It's just that sales are good during this period."

Uncle Zhou said.

Next, it's time to divide the money.