Chapter 1047: Spring Outing

April in the human world, peach and plum blossoms are fragrant. He Lingchuan rode his horse through the brilliant pink wild peach forest, the horse's hooves making a crisp clatter on the gravel road.

The morning breeze blew in his face, bringing laughter.

He Lingchuan tapped the horse's belly lightly, and the steed ran a few steps faster, transitioning from the peach forest to the pebble beach in one go.

Here, several adults were with thirty or so children, and naturally, it was a place of chatter.

The children were all squatting by the stream playing, and those with sharp eyes saw He Lingchuan approaching and immediately pointed at him and called out: "The Commandant is here, Commandant He is here, Teacher, Teacher!"

He Lingchuan was approachable and often went around eating and drinking under the guise of visiting in disguise, so he was almost known to everyone in Yuheng City. These children were students of the Yuheng Academy and were already familiar with this Commandant He who often visited.

Someone in the small stream stood up upon hearing the sound and looked at the sudden visitor.

It was Sun Fuling.

It's just that she was wearing a wide, blue-flowered cloth garment today, tied with a casual cloth belt, and her hair was mixed with a thick, large braid tied with a blue headscarf.

He Lingchuan also discovered that she was barefoot in the water, and her trouser legs were rolled up, revealing her fair and well-proportioned calves, and she was carrying a bamboo basket in her hand.

Sun Fuling dropped the bamboo basket and walked ashore when she saw him, subconsciously slightly annoyed: "Why did you run over here?"

"Why didn't you call me for your spring outing? I went to the academy and missed you, and people said you came to the water to play." He Lingchuan jumped off his horse, and the warhorse very consciously walked to the side to find green grass.

Sun Fuling pouted slightly: "Isn't the Commandant a very busy person? I seem to have not seen you for three days."

"No matter how busy I am, I still have to eat." And accompany the beauty.

"Did you just come for mealtime?" Sun Fuling rolled her eyes at him, "I'm afraid the Commandant will be disappointed, we don't have any side dishes worth taking out here!"

"Oh?" He Lingchuan did see several stove pits dug on the pebble beach, with charcoal buried inside and pots on the side, but they hadn't started cooking yet.

Where did that fragrance come from?

He walked over to pry open the pebbles near the stove pits to take a look, but was slapped on the back of his hand by Sun Fuling: "Don't move, it's not cooked yet!"

Why are your hands so itchy? "Yams? Sweet potatoes?"

"Both, these are the fruits of Teacher Wang and Teacher Liu's labor." Your dog nose is quite sharp, "But the side dishes haven't been settled yet."

"Where are those two teachers?"

"The academy divided into groups, they took twenty or so children to pick wild vegetables and mushrooms, and our group is catching fish in the stream." Sun Fuling rarely showed distress, "The results are not good."

"Is that so?" Since it was his girlfriend's trouble, Commandant He showed great enthusiasm, "Let me see."

He patrolled among the children and found that the most things picked in the baskets were snails and river clams, and the most glorious results were just a few small crabs, no bigger than a fingernail.

As for river fish, there were only seven or eight, the largest no longer than a middle finger.

With just this little bit of stuff, how could it be enough for six or seven adults and fifty or so children to eat? "Yo, really just 'fishing'." No wonder Teacher Sun was distressed.

"You're not counting on this for lunch, are you?" He Lingchuan teased the crabs in the basket, teasing them until they were angry, "Such small crabs, not even enough for one bite for the children."

"We brought a lot of ingredients ourselves." Sun Fuling said in a low voice, "But the children like eating what they catch themselves more."

"In spring, there are plenty of white-striped fish in the Peach Stream, you didn't use the right method." Because of the peach forest on the bank, the stream was named Peach Stream. He Lingchuan said to her, "Rub a few large dough balls for me, make them a bit dry. Otherwise, peeling some snail meat is fine, but peel more."

Sun Fuling smiled and went to rub the dough balls herself.

He Lingchuan took off his shoes and socks, rolled up his trouser legs, moved seven or eight smooth large stones from the bank, placed them one by one to lay a foundation, and then clapped his hands to greet the children: "Come over, come over, if you want to eat fish, come over and help!"

How could the children worry about lunch? They only thought about playing when they came out. As soon as Commandant He beckoned, the children ran over and, under his direction, began to pick up large pebbles and build a small dam in the water.

"Build it tight, build it solid, don't leave any gaps!"

He Lingchuan chose a shallow, quiet water surface, and the pebble dam was at an oblique angle to the sandy bank, like an enlarged trumpet mouth.

Little Fatty didn't build it well, and He Lingchuan raised his leg, and the pebbles clattered and all collapsed.

"Do it again!"

Four or five bamboo baskets were placed at the trumpet mouth, the basket surface was higher than the stream water, and the bottom was also pressed with pebbles so as not to be washed away by the current.

After building it well, this was a small, quiet backwater.

Fish like quiet water.

Soon, small fish from elsewhere swam into the trumpet mouth, but the quantity was small, not enough for He Lingchuan to swallow in one bite.

"From now on, don't move and don't make a sound." He held up a finger and made a shushing gesture.

The children vied to imitate, and the shushing sounds were endless.

"..."

He Lingchuan turned his head and asked the teacher for the dough balls.

The three teachers had already kneaded a few white dough balls, which were blown by the wind and were indeed hard and dry. He Lingchuan casually broke off a strand of dough, crushed it, and sprinkled it onto the water surface of the dam with a flick of his wrist.

At first, no fish paid attention; the movement on the water surface actually scared the original small fish into the crevices of the stones.

For a long time, it was quiet here, and there was nothing.

Little Fatty couldn't help but say: "The fish aren't coming..."

The little girl on the side covered his mouth and made a shushing gesture with her finger.

The Commandant does things, how could he be wrong? Another few dozen breaths passed, and the small fish didn't find any danger, and the dough dregs that sank could be eaten.

Slowly, fish floated to the water surface and took the dough dregs.

One tail, two tails... ten tails.

He Lingchuan threw another handful of dough bait and repeated the above steps.

He had plenty of patience when he caught fish and touched shrimp in the stream when he was a child.

This was repeated more than ten times, for more than two quarters of an hour, and there were more and more fish in the low dam; the new ones that joined in saw that their companions were fine, and their courage grew.

As soon as he threw the bait, the school of fish scrambled on the water surface, fearing they would eat less.

He slowly threw the bait toward the trumpet mouth and then made a gesture to the children: "Charge!"

The children had long been impatient waiting for this signal, and at this time, they rushed into the stream with bare feet, making the stream water splash.

They lined up and kicked the water toward the dam mouth, forcing the school of fish to swim into the depths of the dam.

It was very dark in the bamboo basket, and the school of fish that was scared into it felt even safer.

He Lingchuan estimated it was about right and ordered the three teachers guarding here to lift the bamboo baskets at the same time.

He himself grabbed a large stone from the side and blocked the gap with one hand.

Sun Fuling looked down into the basket and beamed with joy:

"Fish, fish!"

There were quite a few fish, bumping into the basket in panic inside, at least thirty or so. Most were not as long as a little finger.

Looking at the other baskets, the results were much better.

When the children heard there were fish, they all ran over to see.

(End of chapter) ===== CHAPTER 1048 =====