By the eighteenth day of the twelfth lunar month, the Li family had stopped buying fish. That afternoon, Li Long returned to the team and joined Dad and his eldest brother in sorting the fish and loading them onto the vehicle.
Li Jianguo had notified every household the day before that they would no longer be buying fish. Everyone could keep whatever they caught to eat themselves or take it to market.
The next day, the Tao, Liang, and Jia families were all still catching fish.
Most planned to keep at it for another two days. Apart from the big fish they kept for themselves, the rest would be gifts when they visited relatives.
Having Little Haizi gave the Fourth Team a unique advantage. Honestly, even people in the Third Team could hardly eat fish as freely as the Fourth Team did.
Yang Pingping's younger brother, Yang Yong, caught fish with Tao Daqiang, so his family regularly had small crucian carp on hand. In the past, Tao Daqiang would bring some to the Yang family after catching fish.
Usually, the Third Team could only catch fish in Reed Lake in early spring, when the ice had just melted and the old reeds had been cut but the new ones had not yet grown. Floodwater would wash fish out of Little Haizi and into Reed Lake.
Ordinarily, they did not go to Little Haizi.
On the whole, people back then respected the rules. If somewhere did not belong to their team, they stayed away. Nobody made an issue of it, but if anyone did, they would be in the wrong.
So when Fourth Team members brought fish to relatives in other teams, they were usually very welcome.
Especially at New Year-who could turn away someone arriving with two big common carp