"Meet you at the Zhaibei basketball court at 10 a.m. the day after tomorrow!"
That evening, Long Xiaochuan made an appointment with everyone and went home excitedly.
As soon as he entered the door, he saw his father squatting in the yard checking a basket of hemp rope to dry. He knew that his father was going to the back mountain to harvest this year's first wild honey.
Cliff bee wild honey is a specialty of Thunder Mountain, but the hives are mostly hung on cliffs hundreds of meters above the ground. Harvesting honey is a life-changing job. Not only must you be careful about falling off the cliff, but you must also beware of the siege of bumblebees.
Shen will end up being shattered into pieces, and there is no room for carelessness.
In order to avoid further disputes with his father and affect his work mood, Long Xiaochuan said hello and entered the house wisely.
Compared to her brother's caution, Long Xiaomei was carefree and didn't have so many worries. She talked about her trip to the county town like she was pouring beans into a bamboo tube.
Long Zaitian smoked his pipe and pot, pretending to be calm on the surface, but in fact he was very happy in his heart.
So much so that when Long Xiaochuan entered the house to change his clothes, the man in his late fifties ran out of the yard with brisk steps.
He went to visit the old guys in the village.
You know, the agreement with his son to play basketball will determine the future of Leizhai basketball. It was just an impulsive statement on his part.
If Hou Tian wanted to play ball with young people, he would have to go and say hello to these old guys first. How embarrassing would it be if he couldn't recruit anyone by then?
Persuading old guys to play ball is no less difficult than Long Xiaochuan's trip to the county town.
He called four old brothers, Luo Xiangdong, Yang Hongbing, Pan Qingguo, and Sun Shengli, to the village committee and held a meeting around the fire pit.
Five old men sat together barefoot and smoked cigarettes. The four men were not in high spirits when they heard that they were going to play basketball again.
We are all elders in the village, playing ball with young people. If you win, it means you have no successors and you are unhappy; if you lose, it means you are really old and don’t look good in appearance!
So Long Zaitian first said: "Yeyu Village's basketball game turned out like that, I don't blame you. The main reason is that it was raining, and the plastic court was wet and slippery, and our old arms and legs couldn't use it. Besides, the sky was dark.
It affects my vision. My old eyesight is dim and I can't see the basket clearly, so I can be forgiven for losing. However, others don't care about these objective reasons. Now not only the people of Yucun see our joke, but even my own juniors look down on us and are ready to build a team to seize power.
!Can this be tolerated?”
The lobbying tactics used by the two men were almost exactly the same. They first stirred up emotions, and then used inducements to play the emotional card. He took out two kilograms of high-quality flue-cured tobacco leaves and promised to give ten kilograms of aged corn rice after the game, so he persuaded the old guys to accompany his son.
"Play a game".
Luo Xiangdong spat and rolled his eyelids: "Your child's four years of college are really in vain. The world outside is so wonderful. There are many opportunities to make money quickly. Doing anything casually is not better than going back to this poor country?"
Long Zaitian clapped his hands and spread them out: "Who says it's not the case! I just thought, let's play a good game and strangle his unrealistic idea to death. Think about it, he can even kill us old men.
If you can’t win, why don’t you stop thinking about the basketball game?”
Pan Qingguo blew out a smoke ring slowly: "Then give it a good fight this time and teach these little bastards a lesson."
He was feeling angry. He had originally planned to ask his nephew Pan Lei to play in yesterday's friendly match. This kid was fat and lazy. He made up lies and made excuses not to come, so he was forced to go to the rescue and lost face in Yucun.
Yang Hongbing stretched out his pipe and pot to confront Long Zaitian: "Yes, let's kill them to show off our power, otherwise, we really think we are no longer useful because of our age!"
All the Yang family members in Leizhai went to other provinces and cities for development, and only Yang Hongbing's family remained in the village.
He considers himself to be a talker from the Yang family, and he attaches great importance to reputation and status, and must not let his juniors despise him.
Long Zaitian knocked the ashes out of the pot of his pipe: "Okay, that's it, we'll meet at the basketball court at 10 a.m. the day after tomorrow, everyone, come!"
While Long Zaitian was running around trying to "block" his son's unreliable business plan, Long Xiaochuan was worrying about the start-up funds for his business.
He returned to the village with enthusiasm and kept saying he wanted to start a business, but in fact he didn't have much money in his pocket.
Sun Changxing is right. With five people practicing football away from work, the daily expenses are quite large.
If there is no income for only a week or two, if everyone "generates electricity for love" and goes home to eat, they may still be able to persevere.
But what if it takes three to five months? Who can last?
Basketball requires at least five people to form a team. If one person leaves midway, the Leizhai basketball team will fall apart.
So don't look at Long Xiaochuan's understatement at the time: "I will find a way to deal with the funding."
But in fact, what can he, a college student who has just graduated less than a year ago, do? He can only borrow some money from his father, Long Zaitian, to cope with the current situation.
However, when he entered the house just now, Long Xiaochuan saw that his father was going to collect honey from the cliff again. When he thought that his father had sacrificed his life for the family's savings, he could not say anything about borrowing money.
"Well, let's take it one step at a time. First win the basketball game in front of us and get the qualification to represent Leizhai in the 'Village Basketball'."
Long Xiaochuan sat under the eaves and browsed Douyin, watching the basketball anchors he followed to accept advertisements to make money, and the rural anchors selling agricultural products. Suddenly, he felt that this career was not as easy as he imagined.
Long Xiaomei knew her brother's difficulties, but she couldn't help, so she could only worry in the kitchen.
Suddenly she thought of a person's name and came out holding a spatula: "Hey? Brother, why don't you ask Cadre Yu? In the past few years since you were away, the county's poverty alleviation team has provided a lot of help to our village.
, Fifth Grandpa, and Second Aunt Yu’s family got out of poverty with the lambs and piglets they provided. They also helped Uncle Hongbing get his village doctor qualification certificate.”
Long Xiaochuan's eyes lit up: "Yu Yan? Isn't she in charge of organizing basketball games? Does she still care about these things?"
"Then I don't know. Anyway, now when people in the village have trouble, they find my father, and they end up asking them for help."
Hearing what his sister said, Long Xiaochuan seemed to have seen the light of day and immediately took out his cell phone to contact Yu Yan.
But after all, they only met once, so asking for help was a bit hard to say. After thinking about it, he compiled and deleted the message, and finally he only sent two words: "Are you there?"
Little Sister Long was worried for him: "If you have anything to say, just say it!"
"We're not familiar with each other."
“We’ll get to know each other as we chat!”
"what's the topic?"
"Let me go, didn't you have a girlfriend in college? Do you still need me to teach you?"
"It's different. I'm not looking for friends with Mr. Yu!"
Long Xiaochuan and his sister were not on the same channel at all. While they were talking, a burnt smell came from the kitchen.
Long Xiaomei screamed and went to save the pot of rice with a sad face.
At this time, Yu Yan called directly: "Hello, Xiaochuan, have you formed a basketball team?"
Long Xiaochuan quickly told the current situation.
It can be heard that she was very happy on the other end of the phone: "Okay, I will definitely go to watch the game the day after tomorrow morning. See you at the stadium!"