The fertile water of farming does not flow to outsiders' fields

Father Xue got up after four cock crows. Xue Yinsong put on his clothes and shivered and moved the packed things outside the door, while whispering: "Has the day changed? It's cold, look at me." The air is all white."

Father Xue said: "It's already the beginning of winter. It should be cold. I don't think it's cold enough. If there is no snow in winter, the pests in the ground will not freeze to death. In the next spring, they will all crawl out and cause harm. They have to go up the mountain to find medicine. smoke."

Xue Yinsong thought about it: "Don't frogs eat insects?"

Father Xue filled the water sac with cold water, lit the oil lamp and inspected the animal again and added a few handfuls of grass: "How big is the frog? A few bugs will feed it, and besides, it eats flying insects. The worms gnaw on the roots in the ground, and you have to bury the medicine. Have you forgotten that during the spring plowing, the crows and magpies would follow? It’s just waiting for you to plow the ground and find something to eat!"

Xue Yinsong nodded. Spring plowing usually requires deep plowing. The worms in the field are big and fat after winter. , then the harvest is worrying.”

Just as Yingzi's father drove the car over, Xue's father helped to load the car: "Look at it, people are alive, and they can always figure out a way."

Yingzi's father brought a pair of big fishing nets, but it seemed to be quite old. Xue Yin walked beside Yingzi's father and asked casually what kind of fish there were in the river.

Yingzi's father smiled and said: "That river is called Kuanshui River. It got its name because it is wide and shallow after more than ten hours of going downstream. There are some common carp and grass sticks. Occasionally, you can catch some crucian carp shells. More often." Xue Yinsong was a little disappointed: "There are no more expensive fish, the kind that can be sold?"

Yingzi's father thought about it: "A few years ago, someone fished a black slipper as long as an arm. There are no good fish in this river. The river is too small, even if there are good fish, they would have been caught long ago."

Xue's father said slowly: "Where there are black slippers, there are usually flat mouths, but it is not easy to fish." Yingzi's father nodded: "Some people have fished it, but it is not common, that fish is like a ghost, and It’s not big, the biggest one is less than a foot.”

The bullock cart slowly walked out of the village. In order to speed up, the three of them walked. Even so, the bullock cart couldn't go fast. After walking for a few miles, it became bright.

Because they were in a hurry, they didn't stop to rest and eat dry food. Father Xue wrapped a little pickled radish fried yesterday, wrapped it in spicy peppers and rolled it into pancakes.

As soon as the sun came out, the moisture dissipated, and people felt much warmer. Yingzi's father was not very talkative, and the three of them were silent after leaving for a while.

In ancient times, because there were few people and a lot of land, and the traffic was not developed, we didn’t see anyone not far from the village. The three people took turns to get on the car for a rest, and walked to the river in the afternoon before resting.

After a day's hard work, both the cow and the man were very tired. Xue Yinsong let them both rest and went to find branches to make a fire by himself.

Father Xue saw that the river was still wide, so he took a fishing net and prepared to try his luck, while Father Yingzi was busy moving things, and then unloaded the cattle from the frame to graze.

Father Xue was unlucky, and after fishing for a long time, he finally caught a fish. He took out the internal organs by the river, grilled them, and shared them.Xue Yinsong discussed with his father for a while, and decided to go to bed first and then go fishing in the middle of the night.

Catching night fish is hard work, because there are lights at night, those autumn insects are easy to come, and the fish will come to eat insects if they are attracted. Two people close the net.

Father Xue inspected the river carefully before dark. Someone's footprints estimated that someone had caught fish a day or two ago.

Both Yingzi's father and Xue Yinsong felt very depressed, but since they came, they couldn't leave empty-handed. After discussing with each other, they decided to try dragging it with a big net.

The three of them ate dinner in a hurry, seized the time and fell asleep for a while, then got up and cut some pine branches to make torches.Xue Yinsong took a few sips of shochu and found a place where the current was not too fast to enter the water. He was in charge of standing in the river and holding a torch to illuminate it, while Yingzi's father and Xue's father were in charge of lowering the net.

After laying out the fishing net, Father Xue took out the dried fish that was dried at home, finely crushed it with his hands and sprinkled it on the water, then slowly backed away.

This is a swirling water, the river is very slow, Xue Yinsong stood quietly holding a torch, the insects in the late autumn desperately came to put out the fire, some were too close, only to hear the thorns scorched, and one after another fell into the river.

Not long after, a few undercurrents suddenly surged on the calm water in the distance, which was a sign of the activity of big fish.Father Xue immediately regained his energy, grabbed the net in his hand, and gestured to Father Yingzi.

Yingzi dad waved to show that he was ready, and his six eyes stared at the water without blinking.The weather after the beginning of winter is already very cold, and even three grown-up men can’t bear to stand in the water. The few sips of shochu just lasted for a while, and the river water formed a white mist at night. I meditated in my heart, big fish and small fish, come quickly.

After waiting quietly for a while, I saw a huge black fish fin slipping across the water. Father Xue shouted decisively: "Take in the net!" The fish in the water gradually floated out, and the crowding was impressive.

Father Yingzi had never caught so many fish at one time, and he was a little overjoyed: "Father Xue, there are so many fish!" Father Xue didn't say anything, only Xue Yinsong roared: "The net is broken!"

The two of them looked over together, and saw a big black fish about one foot long struggling hard, and had torn a two-inch hole. Xue Yinsong made a decisive decision, turned around and ran towards the big fish, because the water level was already up to his waist. , Although it was rushed over immediately, the big fish had already broken through the net and ran away with dozens of fish.

Xue Yinsong grabbed the opening with one hand and said, "Father, don't draw the net in the water, pull it ashore."

"No!" Father Xue resolutely refused: "Go ashore without gathering, the strength of the fish will tear the net again, gather together first, so that the fish will not be able to use their strength!"

Xue Yinsong agreed, and the three sides quickly collected the nets, and dragged them to the shore together. There were a lot of fish in this net, at least 50, and the fish were all very big, the smallest one was more than one foot long.

"It's really good!" Yingzi's father beamed with joy: "It's really thanks to you, we Chenjia Village people have never caught fish at night, Father Xue really has a way!"

Father Xue was proud of himself, but he said: "The people in our village are poor, and many people make a living by fishing. This method is specially used to catch old fish. Old fish have been alive for some years, and they don't come out during the day. Only when the moon is on the branches will they come out to look for food, and there is no way to catch them without this method.”

The three of them dragged the net ashore and didn't care about the fish. They first took a few sips of shochu to warm up their bodies, and then they each dried their bodies.

It took a long time for the three of them to recover. Xue Yinsong found some big branches and lit a bonfire by the river and said, "Sit down for a while, I'll clean up all the fish and put salt on them to dry."