Chapter 136: Everyone Has a Bright Future

For an ordinary person, deploying six nets while paddling a tire would take at least two hours, but Li Long finished deploying the nets in about half an hour, then paddled the tire back to shore.

He wasn't wet, with only a bit of water on his shoes; compared to yesterday, this process was simply wonderful!

"Brother Long, you're amazing!" Tao Daqiang gave a thumbs-up, sincerely praising, "That skill of deploying nets—I estimate I'll never learn it in my lifetime..."

That was the truth.

In ten or twenty years, when villagers had spare money, many families around Li Long's age would buy nets. They wouldn't catch fish to sell, but just to have a harvest, to vary their meals, since being idle was still being idle.

But those who could paddle a tire with both hands and deploy nets with their mouths numbered no more than five in the entire village.

Of course, Li Long had seen even more impressive feats, casting nets directly from wooden boats in the big lake. Many could cast nets from shore, but on a boat, one had to use the boat's momentum, coordinating body, waist, and feet, both spreading the net wide and standing firm against the sway; that was no small feat.

After all, this was Northern Xinjiang, not a place where fishermen from the interior were common.

Hearing Tao Daqiang's praise, Li Long felt a bit proud and said with a smile:

"Just practice more. When the water isn't so cold, you can sit on the tire and practice; you'll get it. Come on, let's find a spot to cast our nets."

Learning from yesterday's lesson, Li Long and the others circled the small lake to find a suitable spot for casting nets. After all, if there were many reed roots underwater, the net could get snagged, making it truly difficult to retrieve.

It wasn't that it couldn't be retrieved, but there was no need to invite that trouble.

They found a spot beside a pit dug by a bulldozer during the dry season to reinforce the dam. Li Long shook out the casting net, tied the rope to his wrist, grabbed the bottom line, then, while holding the net about a meter off the ground from bottom to top, he gathered the top line section by section. With both hands ready, he checked the position, estimated silently, coordinated his body and waist, and cast the net outward in a wave-like motion.

When casting the net, the mesh must unfurl sequentially; you can't let go all at once, or it will spread into a single line.

Li Long felt good, but watching the net unfurl in the air and finally hit the water in the shape of a crescent moon from the tenth day of the first lunar month, he still felt a bit regretful.

But it wasn't bad; at least the start was good.

"Brother Long, your net cast was very good. The best I cast yesterday was only half as good as yours," Tao Daqiang said.

Li Long suddenly realized that Tao Daqiang was actually quite good at flattery.

He turned his head to look and saw a face full of sincerity; oh, so he was telling the truth.

Once the net was fully in the water, Li Long slowly began pulling the rope and immediately felt the net tremble.

There were fish.

The mesh was small, so fish of all sizes couldn't escape. When Li Long hauled the net up, he saw a mix of all kinds of fish inside: large white silver carp weighing over one kilogram, two medium-sized bighead carp approaching five hundred grams, about ten crucian carp the size of a palm, and about ten gully fish, which were a type of highland mud loach.

A good catch!

Li Long was very satisfied.

Tao Daqiang hurried over, holding a bag to pick up the fish. As he picked them up, he said with a smile:

"These gully fish are really nice; the big ones are as long as chopsticks. They must be two or three years old, right?"

"They can't grow that big in two or three years; it takes at least five," Li Long said while untangling the net. "Such gully fish will become rarer and rarer in the future."

"Why would they become rarer? Shouldn't they become more numerous?" Tao Daqiang asked, confused after finishing picking up the fish and adding some water to the bag.

"In the future, floods will come occasionally to wash over the area. One day, if the small lake's dam is breached, these gully fish won't be able to grow this big anymore." "That's unlikely, right? The small lake gets flooded every year, yet the dam has never been breached by a flood."

Even Tao Daqiang didn't believe it, so others certainly wouldn't.

But the fact was that a major flood occurred two years later, not only breaching the small lake's dam but also directly flooding nearby farmland, with the floodwaters eventually rushing into the residential area. If most homes in the residential area hadn't raised their foundations with a lot of earth during construction, many households would have been submerged.

During that time, Li Juan and Li Qiang were carried out of the village on Li Jianguo's back for school.

Looking up through the reeds to the west of the small lake, the village laborers were excavating earth between the dry ditch and the dry canal. Perhaps they could truly avoid the disaster brought by that major flood.

Adjusting his casting net, Li Long changed direction and cast another net.

Perhaps because the previous cast was so good, Li Long felt somewhat arrogant; this one only formed a semicircle. After it hit the water, he felt a bit embarrassed.

Heaven indeed favors novices; once one claims to have mastered the skill, one must face a setback.

This net still contained over ten gully fish and seven or eight slices of crucian carp, but only one large fish: a grass carp stick weighing about one kilogram. Fish of this size were not popular in the village; their round bodies didn't absorb flavors well, so they were less favored than crucian carp.

Next, Li Long adjusted his position with every cast. The amount of fish varied, but the shape of the cast net was never better than the very first one.

!.

Tao Daqiang also tried, but his best result was a half-net; no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't spread it wide, often ending up with a single line. Yet even with a single line, the net dragged up still contained fish.

Li Long couldn't help but sigh that in this era of few people and abundant land, resources were truly rich.

As the sun was about to set, the two of them, one carrying the net and the other the tire, prepared to head back. At that moment, the laborers from Qingqu had also finished their afternoon work and were returning to the village.

Li Long met several peers—Tian Siping, Qin Hongyan, and others.

Xu Haijun, who often played with them, had left to join the army. Wu Shufen taught first grade at the village school. Gu Xiaoxia went to middle school to become a teacher, finally achieving her dream of eating state-allocated grain. Gu Ermao was still an apprentice to a cart driver. Meanwhile, Qin Hongyan and Tian Siping stayed in the village, becoming genuine farmers.

Everyone had a bright future.

Li Long remembered that more than thirty years later, when cooperatives appeared in the village, Tian Siping and the others each received over a hundred thousand in annual dividends, achieving a respectable "retirement." At that time, their social circles often featured photos of barbecued meat, travel, and the flowers and plants in their courtyards.

But at present, only Li Long, whom these peers' parents privately called an unproductive "good-for-nothing" who didn't earn work points and spent all day catching fish and hunting, was seen by Tian Siping and the others as living the most carefree life.

Even in their eyes, Tao Daqiang lived better than they did.

Li Long and Tao Daqiang stood on the dam of the small lake, watching the villagers working pass by one by one like a general reviewing his troops, occasionally greeting familiar faces.

Until Li Jianguo and Gu Boyuan walked over side by side. Seeing Li Long and Tao Daqiang standing there, they called out:

"What are you doing, standing there like fools? Why not hurry home?"

Hearing this, Li Long and Tao Daqiang obediently joined the line, chatting and laughing as they walked back to the team with everyone else.

Does anyone still have monthly tickets?

(End of this chapter)