Chapter 142

The next day, Li Long and Tao Daqiang went to retrieve the nets before dawn.

Li Long planned to go to Shicheng to sell fish today. Shicheng was nearly an hour away by bicycle from Maxian, so he needed to leave early.

As usual, Li Long sat on the tire to retrieve the nets. Tao Daqiang had originally wanted to try it himself, but Li Long didn't let him.

Although Tao Daqiang had verified his dog-paddle technique when he went into the water to retrieve the cast nets, the water was deeper where the nets were set, and Li Long still wasn't quite at ease.

He felt that when things calmed down, he would have to let Tao Daqiang paddle the tire himself to practice first.

When that time came, he would watch from the side, at least to have a safety guarantee.

Taking a lesson from yesterday, Li Long brought three urea bags today. He put two nets in one bag, and once packed, he tied the opening with a rope and fastened it behind the tire to drag it; at least this way it wouldn't take up the buoyancy on top of the tire.

By the time all six nets were collected, Li Long's tire was dragging three "tails," but it wasn't as strenuous to paddle as it had been yesterday.

Collecting the nets along the way, Li Long felt that the mesh size he had bought still wasn't large enough, because two of the carp were three or four kilograms each and had only been snagged a little bit. When Li Long startled them while collecting the nets, the fish ran off, and not only did they run off, they also tore a hole in the net.

Great, didn't catch the fish, and the net got broken too.

However, Li Long was quite content; the fish caught in one day today would be enough to replace all the nets.

Of course, he was just thinking about it in his heart. If he were to say this idea out loud now, his older brother Li Jianguo would definitely scold him for being a spendthrift.

The tradition in this era was "new for three years, old for three years, mended and patched for another three years." Who would replace a net after using it twice?

Many families in the team wanted to catch fish but suffered from not having nets, and could only wait until watering time, when the fish entered the fields with the canal water, and then go catch them.

In his previous life, in the eighties, whose "fisherman" family's nets weren't used until they were tattered and shredded before they had to be thrown away?

And there was even a saying that "old, tattered nets catch fish better." In fact, who didn't know that a new net without the fishy smell of blood was the best for catching fish?

It was just that they didn't have the conditions to replace them with new nets.

Tao Daqiang didn't wait for Li Long to get to shore; he went into the water, grabbed the rope on the tire, and dragged it toward the bank. Li Long simply handed the three urea bags to him to put on the bank.

"Brother Long, there seem to be more fish today than yesterday," Tao Daqiang said very happily.

"Yeah, there are a few more crucian carp," Li Long said while walking up. "There are also carp and half-grown silver carp; I don't know if they'll be easy to sell or not."

When people in the village ate fish, they would rather eat palm-sized crucian carp than half-kilogram carp or silver carp, because they felt they didn't taste good and hadn't fully grown.

This time, Tao Daqiang carried all three bags on his shoulders, one in front and two in back, and strode toward the Li family home.

Li Long followed behind carrying the tire, sighing in his heart that this kid Tao Daqiang had such good stamina!

But it seemed his own height had increased a bit too; was he almost as tall as Daqiang?

Back at the Li house, Li Jianguo had already spread out the plastic sheet, and Liang Wenyu had emptied the laundry basin and placed it to the side. Li Juan was eating; seeing Li Long and the others return, she carried her bowl and came over. Li Qiang was in preschool in the village and didn't need to rush, so he had just gotten up, rubbing his eyes as he came to the laundry basin and squatted there, waiting to watch.

Although he could see it every day, he was still curious every day. "The biggest one today is less than three kilograms, not as big as yesterday's," Li Long said while dumping the nets and fish. "They're quite uniform."

The process of picking the fish was familiar; one by one, the fish were picked off and placed gently into the laundry basin—because they were going to be sold, he tried not to let them suffer secondary injuries, ensuring that by the time they reached the stall, most would still be alive.

Once the fish were picked and sorted, and Li Jianguo and Tao Daqiang were loading them into the urea bags, Li Long changed his clothes and started helping to pack Li Juan's things.

Li Juan had to get to school early today. It was just barely dawn, but she was already prepared.

The fish were stored separately in two urea bags—each bag had twenty-seven or twenty-eight kilograms of fish, very heavy. Water dripped down the corners of the urea bags, and the ground was soon wet over a large area.

These six nets caught over sixty kilograms of fish; when Li Long collected the nets, the fish on them were almost like a solid sheet. Besides the ones he was taking away to sell, there were seven or eight kilograms of fish left at home, half of which Tao Daqiang was to take back.

Li Jianguo tied the sticks and strips Li Juan used for weaving carrying frames onto the back seat, so Li Juan could only sit on the front crossbar.

Li Long let Li Juan get on first, and after she was seated and holding on, he pushed the bicycle out of the courtyard, took advantage of a small downhill slope to step on the pedal, and got on the bike, then rode toward the outside of the village.

Arriving at the elementary school, Li Long rode straight in and didn't stop until he reached the fourth grade. Li Juan nimbly got off the bike, and together with Li Long, untied the bundle of sticks and strips.

"Juan, when are you all weaving the carrying frames?"

"In the afternoon, after the regular classes are finished."

!.

"Alright, I'm leaving."

"Goodbye, Uncle."

Li Long rode off on the bike, speeding away. Although it was a gravel road and not very smooth, there were no cars on the road. Although there were students, they would hide on both sides of the road when they heard the sound of the bicycle from afar. This way, Li Long arrived at the county town in forty minutes. He turned toward the large courtyard, retrieved the scale and basin, tied them to the back seat of the bike, and then turned west to head toward Shicheng.

There were more cars on the Wuyi Ma Lu, and one would drive by from time to time, but the road was also much easier to travel. Li Long sighed that youth was good while pedaling the bicycle vigorously. By the time he reached the Old Ma Lu, the sun hadn't risen yet.

The pedestrian traffic on the Old Ma Lu was very heavy; although not exactly packed, it was at least four or five times the flow of the county town's morning market.

Li Long felt he had come to the right place!

Setting up a stall here was relatively casual, not like the county morning market where everything was on both sides of the road—because the Old Ma Lu was a T-junction, and buses passed through here from time to time.

Li Long looked around; the best central location at the T-junction no longer had space to set up, so he chose a secondary one, on the roadside opposite the Old Ma Lu entrance. This was directly across from the bus drop-off point; although one had to cross a road, there were fewer stalls set up.

Li Long stopped the bicycle, propped it up, locked it, spread out the plastic sheet, set out the two large enamel basins, and dumped the fish in—there were quite a lot of fish, and they wouldn't fit in the enamel basins, so he left some in the urea bags. Then he picked up a large silver carp, shook it, and shouted loudly:

"Selling fish, selling fish! Authentic wild carp, crucian carp, silver carp, and five-striped black fish from the Little Haizi, delicious and nutritious—selling fish!"

There were others setting up stalls here who shouted, but their voices were generally not loud, just enough to be heard within three or five meters nearby. After all, everyone wasn't a professional at this and was quite concerned about their reputation.

Li Long was different; being able to sell the fish and earn money was the serious business. As for reputation—poor people didn't care about reputation at this time, and besides, in this place, who knew who?

Li Long's loud shouting immediately attracted the attention of many people. Some people saw the fish in Li Long's hands and became interested, so they crossed the road from the Old Ma Lu entrance and walked toward this side.

(End of chapter)