Chapter 27: Not Everyone Has a Diamond Drill

"Someone has been here in the last couple of days," Li Long said, looking at the footprints in the snow. "They must have come to catch fish too."

"Little Little Haizi belongs to the collective; if you can catch fish, others certainly can too," Li Jianguo said with a smile. "It would be great if we could catch a water rat as well."

"That's not easy," Li Long said, shaking his head. "These creatures stay at the bottom among the weeds in winter; some even hibernate, making them hard to catch."

"It's just a matter of luck."

Tao Da said nothing, but his eyes shone brightly; he too hoped to catch a water rat, since one of them was worth several fish.

When they arrived at Little Little Haizi, sure enough, they found several holes already chopped in the ice.

However, these ice holes had already frozen over again with thick ice; because water expands when it freezes, the ice at these hole locations was actually thicker than elsewhere.

"Do we need to chop new holes?" Tao Da asked, touching his hat.

"No need; didn't we fill our old holes with snow before? Now we just need to clear the snow away," Li Long said as he located the holes they had previously chopped and began shoveling off the snow.

"Juan, Qiangqiang, you two go gather those reed catkins," Li Jianguo assigned tasks to the two children.

Dressed in round, puffy clothes, Li Juan and Li Qiang had begged for a long time to be allowed to come along, so now they eagerly went to find the cut reed catkins that hadn't been hauled away yet.

Soon they found a large pile; Li Jianguo instructed them to divide the reed catkins into two stacks, placing each not far from one of the two ice holes.

By this time, Li Long and Tao Da had already cleared the snow from the ice holes; a layer of ice had formed underneath, but it was not very thick.

Using an ice pick and a pickaxe, they quickly broke open the ice holes.

Li Long then used a landing net to scoop away the floating ice on the water's surface and said:

"Let's wait a bit; fish should come soon enough. Since this spot has been smashed a few times, there probably won't be many fish at first."

"As long as there are some," Li Jianguo said, not at all greedy, "it's better than eating pickled vegetables every day."

"That's true."

Tao Da remained silent, his tall figure bent over as he stared intently at the water.

"Da Qiang, you can't see anything," Li Long said with a smile. "The ice hole is too small; if you're impatient, just take the landing net and make a few scoops."

"Won't that affect the fish coming later? Wouldn't scooping now scare them away?" Tao Da hesitated.

"It won't matter; any movement will surely startle the fish anyway, so it's only a matter of time," Li Long said, handing him the landing net. "Besides, we have two ice holes, so we can just try back and forth."

"Take a scoop, take a scoop!" Li Qiang shouted on the ice; catching fish and shrimp is something no man dislikes, whether they are five or six years old or eighty or ninety.

"Stop shouting!" Li Juan slapped her brother. "What if you scare the fish away?"

The suppression from their bloodline made Li Qiang immediately shut his mouth, even holding his breath as he watched Tao Da's movements.

Li Long didn't pay much attention; feeling that it wasn't very cold right now, he didn't light a fire.

He was thinking that come spring, he would go to the fishery to see if he could get some old fishing nets and make a few more landing nets; when the spring floods came, water from Little Little Haizi would rush out from the side, carrying fish down into the reed lake below, which would be the perfect time to catch fish.

As for the saying 'don't shoot birds in the three months of spring, don't catch fish in the fourth month'—while crucian carp in the fourth month are indeed full of roe, if the crucian carp rushing down from the lake aren't caught, they will only dry up and die.

Crucian carp are particularly prolific breeders; there was once a period when, during spring plowing and irrigation, whenever the water stopped, the pools formed by water rushing out from the middle sluice gates would be half-full of palm-sized crucian carp.

If someone picked them up, they took them home; if no one picked them up, after a few days when the water dried up, they became lunch for flies. Tao Da had gained experience from catching fish once before; he stepped halfway down into the ice hole, planting his feet firmly on an ice ledge deliberately left behind, then bent over, thrust the landing net into the hole, swept it vigorously in a circle, and after scooping, quickly leaned back, pulled the net out, and slapped it hard upside down onto the ice surface.

Li Qiang, with sharp eyes, immediately shouted:

"There are fish, there are fish! Live ones, and there are stone loaches too! Wow! What a big fish!"

Speaking of big, it wasn't actually that large—just a large-board crucian carp slightly bigger than a palm—but indeed, there were also a few stone loaches that looked very much like mud loaches thrashing vigorously on the ice before slowly freezing.

"Juan, Qiangqiang, you two pick up the fish and pile them together."

This single scoop didn't yield many fish; the largest was that large-board crucian carp, weighing about three hundred grams.

Twenty years later, such fish would sell for twenty-five yuan per kilogram, but if sold now, this fish would fetch less than fifty cents.

Li Juan and Li Qiang gathered all the fish together, not even sparing the tiny crucian carp only two or three centimeters long.

Seeing there were fish, Tao Da became excited yet somewhat unsatisfied, so he immediately bent over for another scoop.

This time was even worse than the last; the net contained only two stone loaches about a finger's length long and three palm-sized crucian carp.

"Let's go to the other ice hole," Li Long said. "The fish haven't come to this side yet; they need to breathe."

!.

Tao Da felt somewhat unwilling but knew there was no other way; he climbed up and handed the landing net to Li Long.

Li Long moved over to the other ice hole, steadied his footing, and slowly extended the landing net into the water.

His movements were not as vigorous as Tao Da's; he swung the net underwater, slowly making a large circle, before suddenly pulling it back.

"Wow! A big fish! There's a big fish in Little Uncle's net!" Li Qiang shouted loudly even before the net was flipped onto the ice.

Feeling the weight in his hands, Li Long confirmed there was indeed a sizable fish; he flipped the fish from the net onto the ice, where a grass carp about a foot long immediately began leaping on the surface.

Li Qiang quickly ran over to hug the fish, but the grass carp had strong vitality and directly slapped its tail across Li Qiang's face!

Li Qiang's face turned red immediately from the slap, but he stubbornly refused to let go, tightly gripping the grass carp's gill cover.

"Alright, alright, you've caught this fish," Li Jianguo said hurriedly as he came over and took the fish from Li Qiang's hands.

"Qiangqiang, well done!" Seeing tears welling up in Li Qiang's eyes, Li Long knew the slap had truly hurt; he quickly diverted the little guy's attention. "Pick up the other fish and put them in the bag."

"Qiangqiang is really something," Tao Da also praised. "That grass carp had tremendous strength!"

Li Long silently thought this was trouble; at this point, not praising him would have been better, letting it pass as nothing, and Li Qiang would have moved on.

But with so much praise, the sense of grievance in Li Qiang's heart immediately surged up, and he burst into tears with a "Waaah":

"It hurts so much! Dad, Uncle, this fish hit me so hard, it hurts so much!"

"Qiangqiang, don't cry!" Li Long said hurriedly. "When we get back, I'll have your mom cook this fish for you to eat, so we can get revenge! You must remember this fish!"

"Mm, I've remembered it!" Li Qiang wiped away his tears, took a deep look at the fish, and said.

Well, this fish would probably end up in their stomachs today.

The fish catching continued.

Thanks to Uncle Awen for the monthly ticket, and thanks to everyone for the recommendation tickets.

(End of Chapter)