That scoop of the Scoop Net brought up seven or eight fish: crucian carp, Common Carp, pike, which Li Long particularly liked, and a Five-Stripe Perch.
They weighed about three or four kilograms altogether.
Li Long dumped the fish onto the ice, then turned in another direction and scooped again.
This time, there were only four fish, the largest a Common Carp weighing just under a kilogram.
"Let me try! Let me have a scoop!" Tao Daqiang pleaded.
"Sure, your turn!" Li Long handed him the net and climbed onto the ice.
The fish he had just tossed out had already frozen.
Tao Daqiang took the net with an excited expression, then went over to the other hole in the ice and stepped down.
"Daqiang, make sure you've got firm footing. The water's deep here, at least two or three meters. If you fall in, we won't be able to get you out," Li Long warned. "Watch your footing!"
"Got it." Tao Daqiang had been about to lower the Scoop Net, but after hearing Li Long's warning, he stamped his feet down firmly again before bending over and dipping the net into the water.
Li Long held his hands near the fire to warm them, keeping his eyes on Tao Daqiang.
The fire warmed his chest while the wind chilled his back.
Luckily, his mind was mostly elsewhere, so Li Long did not feel uncomfortable just yet. Once his hands had warmed a little, he pulled out a reed and began lifting the gill covers of the nearly frozen fish. Using the reed as a cord, he threaded it through their gills and out through their mouths, stringing a dozen or so fish together and setting them aside.
Splash!
Tao Daqiang jerked the net up and dumped its contents onto the ice.
Five or six fish came out amid chunks of ice of all sizes. They flopped desperately once they landed, but soon ran out of strength. It was far colder on the ice than beneath the water, and they quickly froze stiff.
Li Long did the same as before, taking another reed and stringing the fish together.
This catch was another mixed assortment, and the largest was actually a Five-Stripe Perch. Its scientific name was European perch, a fierce, carnivorous fish. The one in front of him weighed nearly three kilograms and looked nice and fat.
When stewed, Five-Stripe Perch flesh separated into firm, garlic-clove-shaped flakes with a satisfying bite. Li Long remembered that in another seven or eight years, the Five-Stripe Perch in this lake would disappear, along with the small pike. They would not return until a year or two before his death, after the water quality improved.
Happily stringing the fish together, Li Long said to Tao Daqiang:
"Nice work, Daqiang! This Five-Stripe Perch would fetch at least two yuan in the county town!"
"Really?" Tao Daqiang had just lowered the Scoop Net into the water. Li Long's words stunned him. "It'd really sell for that much?"
At the time, a kilogram of pork cost only one yuan sixty or seventy, and a kilogram of mutton cost one yuan twenty. Some people sold fish in summer, but they fetched only twenty or thirty fen a kilogram, and there were few buyers. After all, the county town did not have a large population, and even fewer people could afford freshwater fish.
"Of course." Li Long smiled. "Think about it. It's the middle of winter, and New Year's is coming. If those townspeople want fish, won't they have to pay a bit more?"
"Then, Long, how about we catch fish and sell them in town? We could make quite a bit!"
"It'd be miserable, though." Li Long shook his head. "It's more than thirty below right now, and we don't have a cart. By the time we got to town, the fish would be frozen solid. Unless we happened to find someone who wanted enough to buy the whole lot, we'd have to wait around for customers. That could take an hour, or several. We might freeze ourselves half to death before we sold all the fish."
"I'm not afraid!" Tao Daqiang looked resolute. "Being broke is what scares me!"
Seeing the determination in Tao Daqiang's eyes, Li Long thought for a moment and said:
"I'm going into the mountains to haul timber tomorrow. Let's talk about it when I get back."
If Tao Daqiang wanted to catch fish to sell, he would have to rely on Li Long. After all, not every household had a scoop net these days.
The people in the production team came from all over the country. Some had never even eaten fish before. Even when fish jumped right beside their feet while they irrigated the fields in summer, they did not think to pick them up, since they would not know how to cook them anyway.
What Lu Yao wrote in The Ordinary World about some people on the Loess Plateau not eating fish or knowing how to eat them was true.
As far as Li Long knew, fewer than five of the team's forty or fifty households owned scoop nets. The one he was using had been made from a scrap of torn fishing net by Li Jianguo, who had worked odd jobs at the reservoir fishery during the slack farming season that summer.
Everything was scarce these days. Things that would be everywhere in later years were treasures in this era.
"Going into the mountains to haul timber? On your own?" Tao Daqiang asked.
"Yes, on my own."
"Then I'll come with you!" Tao Daqiang's eyes lit up. "I've never even been outside our township. The village sideline crew wouldn't take me into the mountains in summer. They said I was too slow-witted..."
"Then you'll need to dress warmly." Li Long did not see any harm in bringing Tao Daqiang along. The only reason he had not wanted Li Jianguo to go was that he had some other things he wanted to do, and with his older brother there, he would not be free to make his own decisions.
With Tao Daqiang along, on the other hand, Li Long would naturally be the one in charge.
As for carrying a few dozen kilograms less timber because he had brought someone along, he could always make another trip. If he delivered some fish to the team leader's house tonight, surely the man would let him use the horse cart.
With his plans neatly worked out, Li Long was in a good mood, and Tao Daqiang was happy too. They each worked a separate hole in the ice and hauled up several more netfuls, bringing their total catch to over ten kilograms. When Li Long felt too exhausted to keep going, he said to Tao Daqiang:
"That's enough, Daqiang. Come on, let's head back and eat."
"Long, let's do a few more scoops." Tao Daqiang was still not satisfied. "There've been fish in every netful. Maybe we'll get another big one in a minute."
No wonder the elders said fish had fire in them. As long as people kept catching them, they forgot exhaustion and cold. One look at Tao Daqiang proved that saying true.
"We can't stay any longer," Li Long flatly refused. "Look at yourself. Your clothes are soaked through. Stay out here any longer, and you'll get seriously ill!"
There was no arguing with Li Long's tone. Only then did Tao Daqiang pull in the Scoop Net and climb onto the ice.
"My ears are about to freeze off!" Once Tao Daqiang was back on the ice, he finally felt the cold in the air. He covered his ears and hopped in place. "I can barely feel my feet."
"And you still didn't want to come up." Li Long gathered the tools and fish as he spoke. "Come on, hurry back to my house and warm up by the fire. Oh, and rub your ears with snow on the way. Don't let them get frostbitten."
In later years, many people said rubbing your ears with snow was bad, that it was the wrong thing to do. But out in the wild at a time like this, it was the only option. Warming them directly over a fire would make them blister and ooze pus, and then they really would be in bad shape.
"It's fine. I'll just cover them for a bit." Tao Daqiang held his ears again, then picked up two strings of fish and strode back toward the village.
Carrying more than ten kilograms of fish, Tao Daqiang went ahead and broke a trail through the snow. Li Long followed with the tools, which made the walk a little easier for him.
Li Long knew this was Tao Daqiang's way of expressing his thanks, and he accepted it.
The sun had reached its highest point, halfway up the southern sky. Its light offered a little warmth, but the chill in the air was far stronger.
By the time the two returned to the Li Family house, panting for breath, forty minutes had passed.
"Get inside!" Hearing their footsteps, Li Jianguo opened the door and came out. Seeing them both coated in ice, he immediately called out, "Put everything down and go warm up and change! The fire's going in the east room. Get in there and change!"
Li Long and Tao Daqiang hurried into the east room, took off their coats, and propped them beside the heated wall to dry. Then they took off their shoes.
Their leather winter boots had frozen hard, and there was still a layer of snow inside when they pulled them off. Their feet were already a little numb.
There was a basin of water on the stove. Li Long tested it and found it a little too hot. He hurried outside, scooped up some snow, and brought it back to drop into the basin. Once the snow had melted, he tested the water again. Finding it lukewarm, he took the basin down and said to Tao Daqiang:
"Come on, soak your feet, or you'll have chilblains tomorrow!"
Two grown men soaking their feet in the same basin might have looked a little odd, but who cared about that now?
After soaking for a few minutes, Li Long felt much better. He dried his feet, changed into cloth shoes, and stretched, then said to Tao Daqiang:
"Stay here for lunch. After we eat and rest a bit, we'll go catch fish again. There'll probably be even more by then."
"Okay." Tao Daqiang nodded emphatically.
He had no tools or connections, only his strength. Now that Li Long was willing to take him along, he could not have been happier to go.
(End of chapter)
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