Chapter 123: Chinese Sturgeon?

The table was laden with seafood, chicken soup, and taro rice—more lavish than what they had at home. This was also the first time he had eaten taro rice this year.

No, wait—counting his previous life, it had been several decades.

In his previous life, he only stayed home during the three-month fishing moratorium, and he didn't live with his son and daughter-in-law. Living alone, he'd casually cook a pot of rice to last two days, a bowl of plain boiled seafood, a bowl of stir-fried greens—as simple as possible, however easy it was.

(During the fishing moratorium, the small docks around here still sent out trawlers as usual, and there were also catches from the box nets and Korean nets; the fishery enforcement wasn't strict. Only the big boats strictly followed the regulations.)

It was a rare treat now, and his appetite had really opened up. The bowl of noodles from the afternoon had been mostly burned off after a trip up the mountain. Lin Mu had packed his bowl of rice solid and pressed down, and he didn't stand on ceremony.

Lin Fu's family wasn't small either. Although they had split the household, today their daughter and son-in-law were visiting to deliver the festival, so naturally the whole extended family had to eat together.

A whole big pot of taro rice—each person put away two or three bowls packed solid, even the ring of crispy rice at the bottom of the pot, which the children grabbed and munched on, crisp and fragrant.

It was just too rare to eat. Lin Mu hadn't cooked it at all this year. In the past, it had been three meals a day of sweet potato shreds porridge—that stuff was the standard fare for every household around here in these years. Today they could only eat it again thanks to Ye Yaodong.

If only Lin Lin Xiuqing had come back alone, Lin Fu and Lin Mu wouldn't have been so enthusiastic as to cook taro rice and slaughter a chicken. After all, in these times, no household had it easy.

A son-in-law is the truly honored guest!

After the meal, the sky had also dimmed somewhat. After autumn began, the days were short and the nights long.

The room the Lin family arranged for them was the one Lin Lin Xiuqing had shared with her sisters before she married. After they married out, it had been given over to the children, and today it had been specially cleared out for them.

The room still had the old-fashioned canopy bed, plus a set of desk and chairs. The tabletop was covered in scratches and all kinds of scribbles, some spots even had holes punched through—truly solid wood furniture, through and through!

The desk was also piled high with textbooks. Ye Chenghu and Ye Ye Chengyang spotted them the moment they looked, scrambled up onto the stools, and reached out to grab a book.

Lin Lin Xiuqing quickly stopped them. "Don't touch those! Those belong to your older cousins. If you tear them, I'll strip your pants off and whip you with a rattan cane!"

The two were so scared they quickly pulled their hands back, not daring to touch anything.

"Wipe them down for me, I'm going to step out the door for a bit." Actually, he just wanted to smoke.

He'd been on the go all day, or else facing her family, so he'd been careful the whole time.

But the moment he stepped out the door, he saw his older brother-in-law carrying a shrimp trap and his younger brother-in-law carrying a hand dip net, both with flashlights. His eyes immediately lit up.

"What are you guys going to do?"

Lin Xiang Hui laughed. "We were planning to go catch some river shrimp in the stream at the foot of the mountain, save them for tomorrow. The ones you brought up tonight have already been polished off."

In these times there were no refrigerators. Shrimp and crabs left overnight were feared to die and lose their freshness, so Lin Mu could only cook them ahead of time and eat them up, only keeping the sea bass and the green crabs.

Sea bass hung in the well wouldn't spoil, and green crabs, as long as no mosquitoes bit them, could stay alive for several days.

Fearing there wouldn't be enough dishes for the crowd tomorrow, Lin Xiang Hui and Lin Xiangrong planned to go catch a few nets of river shrimp in the stream at night. For mountain people like them, river shrimp was also a rare meat dish, just as fresh-tasting. They caught them often in their daily lives, frequently netting some fresh fish and shrimp to sell in the countryside or at the town.

"Seafood definitely has to be eaten while it's fresh—it can't just be left to spoil. It's still too early to sleep now, and sitting around is just sitting around. I'll come with you. Let's see if river shrimp are easy to catch?"

The two older brothers-in-law exchanged a glance, then laughed and nodded. "Sure, come on. As long as you don't mind the mosquito bites—there are still a lot of mosquitoes right now."

"No problem, mosquitoes don't bother me."

After letting Lin Lin Xiuqing know, Ye Yaodong trotted after them happily, helping carry the shrimp trap along the way.

There wasn't much big difference between box nets, shrimp traps, and crab traps.

Shrimp traps and crab traps were both box nets, except the box nets were denser, shrimp traps sparser, and the mesh on crab traps could be larger. Box nets were cages for holding fish, shrimp, crabs, etc. Shrimp traps were mainly for storing shrimp, but fish could get in too.

But shrimp traps with horizontal openings lowered into the water would also catch fish, and vertical-opening fish traps would also catch shrimp—only traps with large mesh could only catch fish.

The stream they were heading to, they had passed by during the day. Ye Yaodong had even glanced at it a few times back then, his occupational habit making him wonder whether there were fish, shrimp, or loach inside. He hadn't expected that by night he'd be coming back with a flashlight to catch them.

The village at night was unusually quiet—after all, it wasn't summer anymore, with people out sitting in the cool.

If you were still inside the village, there would still be lights. But once you left the village, the path was pitch black—you couldn't see your hand in front of your face, very scary. Most people wouldn't go out unless there was something special.

Every household also kept a chamber pot at night, and would only take it to the latrine to empty the next day. People rarely went out to relieve themselves at night—one careless step and you'd fall into the cesspit.

Lin Xiang Hui and Lin Xiangrong led Ye Yaodong along the familiar route to the spots where they usually set their traps. They actually loved doing this too—Ye Yaodong had even seen fishing rods at their house.

They were kindred spirits, after all.

But before they even reached their destination, they heard strange sounds coming from the river. The splashing of water—plop, plop, plop—all three were very familiar with it, and a flash of delight crossed their eyes.

Ye Yaodong shone his flashlight directly at the water surface, and saw a whole school of fish leaping at the surface, splashing up layer upon layer of white spray.

He said happily, "No need to go to your usual fixed spots. Let's just do it right here—it looks like there are plenty of fish in this stretch."

"Alright, let's try it here then. The shrimp traps can catch fish too anyway. These fish must be coming out to feed at night."

"Adong's been setting box nets a lot lately, he must be pretty skilled. Why don't you set the shrimp traps too?"

When you got down to it, there wasn't much difference between the two kinds of traps.

"Sure, you guys use the dip net to scoop up a wave of these fish first, I'll go set the traps over to the side."

So many fish—no sense letting them go to waste!

The two older brothers-in-law rolled up their sleeves and got to work on the spot. But this stretch of river was fairly wide, and the water level wasn't shallow. Standing on the bank, it was hard to scoop, so they simply stripped off their clothes and pants and waded right in.

The early-autumn water was icy cold and biting, but not unbearable. The two shivered, then carefully waded into the river.

The fish were leaping very actively late at night, so the two netted them with ease.

Ye Yaodong helped by shining the flashlight from the bank, and also put the chicken intestines they'd prepared earlier into the shrimp traps as bait. Those had been specially intercepted from Lin Mu by the two older brothers-in-law that afternoon, earning them a good round of nagging.

After he finished baiting, he set the flashlight on a big rock to give them a bit of light, then took the shrimp traps downstream a short distance to set them. By the faint light, he could just barely make things out.

River shrimp were easy to catch at night—they generally came out more at night, and stayed in their burrows resting during the morning.

This also didn't need to be left for a day or two like the box nets out at sea. You could pull these up after waiting 15-30 minutes.

While waiting, he ran over to the brothers-in-law's side to see how many fish they'd netted, and to help shine the flashlight. The beam happened to fall on a fish with a very long snout right beside his older brother-in-law.

He blurted out in shock, "Big brother, there's a Chinese sturgeon right next to you!"

That's right—a Chinese sturgeon!

This rare fish, on the brink of extinction in later generations—he had once chatted with coworkers on the fishing boat and been educated about caviar. Out of curiosity, he had even looked up news articles about it.

Lin Xiang Hui spun around in shock, looking everywhere, muttering, "I only vaguely saw a big fish swimming beside me, but the light was bad so I didn't get a clear look, wasn't sure. Where did it swim off to now?"

Lin Xiangrong also hurriedly started searching. "For real? Is it really a Chinese sturgeon? You didn't see wrong, did you? You actually know this fish? How could there be one around here?"

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Although they had never seen one, they had at least heard of the famous Chinese sturgeon—it was the renowned King of the Yangtze. Born in the rivers, it grew up in the sea.

"The Min River has this fish showing up, and your river isn't far from the Min River — it might be a tributary. It's rare, sure, but it's not impossible. I've seen this fish before; I shouldn't have misread it just now. I saw a pointed head with a long snout — that snout of theirs can be ten centimeters long."

"Really? Quick, look for it — where did it swim off to? I just saw the shadow of a big fish a moment ago…"

"Let's split up and search. A-Dong, you can see more clearly from the bank — shine your light further out and take a look…"

The two brothers-in-law instantly perked up as if pumped full of adrenaline. They loved fishing and knew a thing or two about well-known fish species — they knew exactly how valuable this fish was. If they could catch it, they'd be rich.

Ye Yaodong shone his flashlight around the two brothers-in-law again and again, but not a shadow could be seen — as if it had all been his imagination just now?

"Can't see where it went. Could it be that I was mistaken? That's not possible…"

He was a little unsure whether the light was poor and he couldn't see clearly, and whether the splash kicked up by the big fish in the water had made him see things?

Lin Xiang Hui also said hesitantly, "I did feel a big fish around us — my dip net bumped into something several times, but they were all too heavy to pull up. I thought it was a big grass carp or something. I did scoop a few big fish into the bucket. But you say it has a long snout, and I feel like I might have glimpsed it too."

Ye Yaodong frowned. "How about you keep scooping fish while you look? Best if you find it, but if you can't, come on up. The river water's too cold — it's autumn now, don't catch a cold."

"Let's scoop a bit more. If we don't see it, we'll drop it?"

"If we do see it, our cast net probably can't catch it, right? I heard the Chinese Sturgeon gets pretty huge — what if we can't net it and it just gets away?"

"Aren't you getting ahead of yourself worrying about that now? We haven't even confirmed it yet — Dongzi's already doubting whether he saw it right."

"Just thinking about it doesn't hurt, right? I've already thought up what I'd do with the money…"

"Impressive — close your eyes tonight and you'll definitely strike it rich!"

……

Ye Yaodong listened to his two brothers-in-law muttering and chattering away as they searched and made small talk, while he himself walked around shining his flashlight everywhere. But after searching for quite a while, all they caught were some common small fish.

"Stop looking — it probably swam off, or maybe I just saw wrong. The water's freezing. You two get up now, let's go pull in the shrimp traps. It's about time anyway — let's pull one up first and take a look."

"Where did you put it? We'll swim over and help pull it up."

"Downstream, over there."

The two brothers-in-law had already been soaking in the water for a while anyway, so a little more time didn't matter — they headed straight over to help haul the net.

"It hasn't been down that long — why is it so heavy? Big brother, come help. Stop looking — either A-Dong's eyes were playing tricks or it swam off. Why would it stay in one spot and let you find it?"

"Oh oh, I'm coming."

Ye Yaodong also reached out from the bank to help pull, and found it really was heavy. He hadn't even had it down for twenty minutes, had he? What on earth was in the river in such numbers?

"Holy sh*t — it's in the shrimp trap!"