Birds landed on the branches by the river, chirping away; the quiet little village, after sleeping for a night, woke up early once again.
Just looking at this scene from afar made Lin Shu feel a beautiful sense of peace.
She did not approach to greet anyone, but continued walking upstream along the river with Lin Xiaopu.
After walking for about another half-hour, the two of them finally saw the place where the river curved, just as Lin Dashan had described.
The river was not too wide, with overgrown weeds on both banks and an abundance of sweet flag. The bottom of the water was indeed crystal clear, with pebbles of all sizes covering it, and fish swam happily within. Because it was a bend in the river, the current was much slower, and many fish had gathered there.
It was indeed an excellent place for fishing.
Lin Shu even spotted a large grass carp about seven or eight inches long!
On the way there, she had been plucking spotted knotweed, and by now she had filled an entire bucket. The green leaves mixed with clusters of pink knotweed flowers seemed to contain the very essence of summer.
She poured all the spotted knotweed out and used the pebbles on the shore to pound it into a pulp, extracting the juice. After mashing them all once, she put them back into the bucket, filled it with water, and continued mashing with a thick wooden stick. Then she stirred it repeatedly so that the juice of the knotweed would dissolve better into the water.
Actually, the spotted knotweed would be most effective if boiled in a pot, but the iron pot at home was a precious tool for cooking. No matter how much her mother doted on her, she didn’t have the heart to ruin the family’s primary cooking utensil.
The two sisters took turns mashing for a while. Lin Shu looked at the white foam stirred up in the bucket and, feeling it was about ready, went to move some stones. She specifically looked for large stones to place downstream, arranging them one by one while leaving an outlet on the side. This way, she could change the direction of the flow, forcing the upstream water to exit only through that single opening.
“Xiaopu, take the mat and block the fish at that outlet. In a moment, try not to let a single fish escape.”
She rolled the two ends of the broken woven rattan mat and tied them with thin hemp rope for a better grip, creating a simple makeshift fishing mat.
She placed the fishing mat diagonally against the outlet, allowing the water to pass through the gaps in the mat while trapping the fish.
Lin Xiaopu nodded and spread out the fishing mat, her small face extremely solemn.
Once everything was prepared, Lin Shu aimed at the spot with the most fish and poured the entire bucket of knotweed juice into the river.
The green liquid spread out, and white foam floated on the surface. Before long, big and small fish from the bottom of the river actually began to float up one after another, turning up their white bellies, looking dazed as if they were drunk!
The scene was quite spectacular and even a bit frightening, looking as if someone had poisoned the river to kill the fish.
Lin Xiaopu knew her sister hadn’t thrown poison; she felt only surprise and excitement, shouting out loud, “Sister! So many fish! Ahhh, they’re all drifting toward me!”
Lin Shu didn’t delay. After rinsing the bucket, she went directly into the river to pick up the fish.
The fish, stunned by the spice of the knotweed, had no power to resist. Lin Shu caught them with every grab, specifically picking out the large ones.
Lin Xiaopu, blocking the fish at the outlet, cried out in excitement, “Sister, I’m about to lose them! Ahhh, several fish escaped from the side!”
Lin Shu laughed. “If they escaped, they escaped. Picking these up is almost enough.”
The effect of the knotweed was temporary. Fresh river water continued to flow from upstream, and as the juice was diluted, it could no longer sting the fish. The fish that had been stunned would slowly recover. Those few fish that had leaked out from the outlet recovered especially quickly; not long after escaping, they flipped back over, flicked their tails in alarm, and nimbly dove back to the bottom.
As for the fish in Lin Shu’s bucket, once she added clean river water from upstream, they also gradually came back to life.
Lin Xiaopu put away the fishing mat and ran over to look. She reached out to count them, but after counting for a long time, she still couldn’t get it straight.
“Seventeen in total. Two large grass carp seven or eight inches long, and the rest are small fish of four or five inches—carp, crucian carp, and grass carp. Plus two yellow eels.” Lin Shu hadn’t picked up any of those tiny fish or shrimp.
Actually, small fish are delicious when coated in flour and deep-fried, but they didn’t have those conditions now. No one in the village would be willing to use oil to deep-fry fish. It was better to leave the small fish to grow big.
Lin Xiaopu’s face was flushed with excitement. Seventeen fish, plus two eels—it was so many! And they were all so large.
Her sister said the four or five-inch ones were small, but they weren’t small at all. The two seven or eight-inch ones were even bigger; she could hardly hold them!
“Let’s go, home! There’s a lot of fish and not much water in the bucket; they’ll have trouble breathing soon.”
Lin Shu was still happy at this moment, but she soon found she couldn’t smile anymore.
The first one to run out of breath wasn’t the fish, but her.
The bucket was more than half-full of water and crowded with fish, making it extremely heavy. After carrying it for about a hundred yards, she couldn’t go on, her back aching and her breath coming in gasps.
Thinking about the three-mile walk home, Lin Shu’s vision went dark; she almost wanted to pour out half the fish in the bucket.
Lin Xiaopu tried to lift it, but she couldn’t move it either, looking very distressed.
Lin Shu asked, “Should we release a few small fish?”
Lin Xiaopu looked defiant. “But these are the fish you and I worked so hard to catch.”
Lin Shu didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, thinking to herself: Where was the hard work? One of us just blocked the fish while the other picked them up.
In the end, it was Lin Xiaopu who had sharp eyes and spotted someone they knew in a nearby rice field.
“Sister, that’s Third Uncle and Cousin Yushu!”
Lin Shu looked into the distance and saw a middle-aged man and a thin teenage boy bending over to weed in a paddy field.
One used a hoe to remove short weeds while the other used a sickle to cut long ones; they looked very busy.
“How is our family’s relationship with Third Uncle’s house?” Lin Shu asked.
Lin Xiaopu looked conflicted and deliberated for a moment before saying, “It used to be very good. Third Aunt made clothes for me, and Cousin Yushu even secretly gave me candy. It’s just—”
“It’s just that later, during the family division, Third Uncle couldn’t win the argument against Eldest Uncle and Eldest Aunt, so he wanted our father to give him an extra acre of land. This caused some unpleasantness. In his anger, Third Uncle spoke without thinking, saying that Father only had two girls who would marry off when they grew up anyway, so why couldn’t he give him an extra acre? Then Eldest Aunt joined in from the side, saying that since Father’s line was ‘broken,’ he should be better to his nephews so they could care for him in his old age. Although Third Uncle didn’t agree with Eldest Aunt out loud, he stayed silent and didn’t refute her. Father was furious, and from that day on, the two families saw each other less often. They still visit during holidays, but they aren’t as close as before.”
“Actually, I can see that Third Uncle regrets it, and Father isn’t angry anymore, but both of them find it hard to save face.”
Lin Shu understood. The Eldest Uncle’s house was a relationship cut off forever, but the Third Uncle’s house still had contact; it was just that her father was holding a grudge and didn’t give Third Uncle a good look.
After figuring it out, Lin Shu immediately shouted toward the distance, “Third Uncle—Cousin Yushu—”
One couldn’t survive in the apocalypse with skin that was too thin. Lin Shu hadn’t been this thick-skinned from the start, but if she couldn’t set aside her pride, all the dirty and tiring work would be pushed onto her. Gradually, she had developed a very thick skin.
Lin Shu’s shout left Lin Xiaopu dumbfounded.
The familiar title but unfamiliar voice also caused the father and son in the field to freeze at the same time.
Lin Shu had changed into a clean set of coarse hemp clothes today. The greyish clothes did not diminish her beauty; instead, they contrasted with her fair and delicate skin, making it look like radiant white jade.
Lin Shu waved to the two of them. “Third Uncle, Cousin Yushu, could you help us with something—”
After a moment, Third Uncle didn’t move from the field, but the cousin named Lin Yushu came over. He rinsed the mud off his calves in the ditch by the field, casually slipped on the straw sandals left on the ridge, and walked toward them with a hesitant expression.
“Xiaopu, what is it?” He wasn’t familiar with Lin Shu and, for some reason, didn’t dare to look at her directly, so he asked his familiar cousin instead.
Lin Xiaopu stammered, unable to explain clearly.
In the past, she would have dared to speak up, but in these three years, as Lin Yushu grew older and worked in the fields with Third Uncle, the number of times they met was few and far between, and they had grown estranged.
From the side, Lin Shu said with a smile, “Cousin Yushu, Xiaopu and I went to the river to catch some fish, but we accidentally caught too many and can’t carry the bucket. Could I trouble you to help me carry it home? I’ll treat you to some homemade snacks later.”
Lin Yushu was normal when facing Xiaopu, but facing Lin Shu, he felt inexplicably nervous. He quickly replied, “It’s a small matter, you—you don’t have to be so polite.”
“What ‘you, you, you’? You should call me Sister Shu.”
Lin Yushu’s face, tanned to a wheat color, turned slightly red. “Sister Shu… you don’t have to be so polite.”
Lin Shu studied him for a few moments and found that the boy’s features were quite delicate. If his skin were paler, he wouldn’t look like a farmer toiling in the soil, but more like a scholar.
Lin Yushu didn’t know what else to say, so he simply reached out to lift the bucket. But as he lifted it and looked down, he was instantly stunned.
When he heard there were “many” fish, he had wondered what that meant, but it turned out there were truly many. The bucket was crowded; there must have been nearly twenty fish!
It was indeed heavy to carry; no wonder his cousin couldn’t lift it and had to ask for help.
However, Lin Yushu could work the fields; though he looked thin, he actually had quite a bit of strength. After his initial surprise, he didn’t ask much and walked forward with the bucket of fish, his head down.
Seeing his honest manner—the type where you couldn’t get a word out of him even with a stick—Lin Shu couldn’t help but tease him. “Walking with your head down like that, do you even know where your Second Uncle’s house is?”
Lin Yushu replied dryly, “I know.”
“Cousin Yushu, why don’t you dare look at me? Do I look ugly or scary?”
“N-no.”
“Is Sister Yao better looking, or am I?”
“Both… both look good.”
Lin Xiaopu covered her mouth and giggled from the side.
So her sister didn’t just “bully” her; she “bullied” others even harder.
Lin Yushu was already carrying a bucket of fish and now had to deal with Lin Shu’s terrifying questions; he was walking with sweat pouring down his face.
Lin Shu stopped teasing him and only made him stop to rest a few times along the way.
Once they reached the entrance to the courtyard, Lin Yushu didn’t even say he was going in; he put down the water bucket and turned to head back.
Lin Shu quickly called him back, fished out the large grass carp that was seven or eight inches long, and used a blade of grass she had plucked on the way to thread through its gills and tie a knot. She stuffed it into his hand. “I know you feel awkward, so I won’t pretend to keep you for a meal. Here, take this fish back and have Third Aunt add a meat dish for you and Third Uncle. Tell Third Aunt to throw in a handful of yeast herb; it helps with the seasoning and removes the fishy smell.”