## Chapter 19: Milky-White Crucian Carp Soup
Old Man Shen parted the pine needles covering the top of the bamboo basket and saw seven or eight large crucian carp inside, each fully longer than his forearm!
Grinning from ear to ear, he reached out to take the bamboo basket off Shen Chang-geng’s back, holding it as he said, “Grandpa will carry it!”
Seeing the smile on Old Man Shen’s face, Mrs. Shen also walked over to his side out of curiosity. She glanced into the bamboo basket and her eyes widened in shock.
Immediately after, Mrs. Shen excitedly snatched little Guaibao from the arms of her younger daughter-in-law, Gu Hanmei. Overjoyed, she rubbed her face against little Guaibao’s and said, “I told you, our family’s Guaibao is a lucky star!”
“Other people can’t even dig up wild greens when they go into the woods, but our Guaibao takes her brother for a stroll there and manages to catch so many big crucian carp right out of the stream!”
With that, Mrs. Shen hurriedly beckoned to the rest of the Shen family—who were equally shocked and overjoyed—to head back and eat.
When Wang Juhua saw Old Man Shen pull a seven- or eight-catty large crucian carp out of the bamboo basket, she instantly forgot about blaming little Guaibao for wandering off aimlessly.
Seeing that Wang Juhua didn’t look happy at all upon seeing little Guaibao return, but rather filled with resentment, Old Man Shen’s face darkened.
He handed the bamboo basket to Wang Juhua with a stern expression and said, “Third Sister-in-law, you and Third Brother go quietly clean these fish.”
Hearing this, Wang Juhua couldn’t help frowning.
She wanted to eat fish, but she didn’t want to slaughter them!
During this period, every time they opened their eyes, they were just traveling on the road; there was simply no time to bathe, and even if they did, there were no spare clothes to change into.
She already had a noticeable body odor by now.
If she went to clean fish… her clothes would definitely end up stained with fishy slime all over again.
Seeing the expression on Wang Juhua’s face, Shen Fu guessed what his wife was thinking.
He reached out and took the bamboo basket right out of Old Man Shen’s hands, bent down to pick up the wood-chopping knife from the ground, and dragged Wang Juhua toward the nearby stream.
Wang Juhua had originally intended to fake a stomachache, but before she even had the chance to start acting, she was already dragged away by Shen Fu.
By the time Shen Fu and Wang Juhua quietly finished cleaning the fish and returned, Mrs. Shen had already led her other three daughters-in-law in scooping the cooked rice out of the iron wok and portioning it into the bamboo tubes that served as bowls for each person.
Old Man Shen and Mrs. Shen were still worried that eating might attract the surrounding refugees.
So they led the family away from the spot where they had originally built the earthen stove to cook, moving behind a large boulder leaning against the mountain nearby to set up a new earthen stove.
This way, one side was shielded by the mountain, another side by the boulder, and the Shen family wrapped around the remaining two sides.
Even if the fragrance of the rice and fish soup drifted out, it wouldn’t be so easily discovered by others.
Furthermore, the refugees around them were all people who had suffered from famine and gone hungry for a long time.
When people are extremely starved, they lose the ability to tell whether they are truly smelling the scent of food or simply hallucinating because of excessive hunger.
Therefore, even if someone caught a whiff of the aroma, they would likely think it was just a hallucination right before starving to death, never truly believing that anyone could eat fragrant white rice and fish soup while fleeing a famine!
Mrs. Shen took the eight large crucian carp that Shen Fu had split open and cleaned with the chopping knife, deciding to keep only two and cook the remaining six in one big pot!
Little Guaibao stood beside the iron wok, watching as her grandma first cut off the fatty fish belly fat with the cleaned chopping knife, dropped it into the iron wok, and rendered out the oil.
Next, she used the chopping knife to slice the big crucian carp into sections, put them into the pot, and fried both sides of the fish until golden brown before pouring in the clean stream water stored in the bamboo tubes.
Soon, a large pot of fish soup was bubbling away with milky-white froth, and a rich, intense aroma instantly spread through the air.
Catching this scent, the refugees not far away couldn’t help twitching their noses, their gazes beginning to scan the surrounding area in search of the source of the fragrance.