Breaking ice took skill too

As Li Long neared Little Haizi, he heard someone calling him.

He turned and saw Tao Daqiang from the village approaching.

Tao Daqiang was the village's big lad, a year younger than Li Long and a little simple. The other young people rarely included him. Li Long had gotten along fairly well with him when he first arrived, but after he started hanging around with Gu Ermao, he had followed the crowd and distanced himself from Tao Daqiang.

Yet every time Tao Daqiang saw Li Long, he still greeted him with a cheerful grin, clearly happy to see him. He still considered Li Long a buddy.

In the years that followed, after the household responsibility system was introduced, Tao Daqiang's father had given the family's land to his older brother to farm. With no land of his own to work, Tao Daqiang had gone into the mountains to earn money with the people digging fritillary bulbs. At first, he came back once or twice a year, and whenever he returned, he would visit Li Long.

He always brought something along when he visited Li Long, too.

Later, though, years passed without him coming back. Eventually, Li Long only heard from his family that Tao Daqiang had married in the mountains, then had his leg broken by a wild boar. After that, there had been no more news.

He was an honest young man. Li Long felt he had truly let down that sincerity in his previous life.

"Daqiang, what brings you here?"

"I heard you were back, so I came over this morning to hang out. Your family said you'd gone to Little Haizi to catch fish." Tao Daqiang walked up to Li Long, panting, and took the sack from his hand. "Give me the sack. You're a factory worker. You're not as good at this sort of thing as I am."

Li Long laughed, gave Tao Daqiang a friendly punch, and said:

"All right, then. Whatever fish we catch, we'll split them evenly."

"Heh-heh." Tao Daqiang grinned.

With someone for company, the walk to Little Haizi felt easier.

"Look, rabbit tracks. Quite a few, too." Tao Daqiang pointed at the tracks among the tamarisk bushes beside them.

"If we get some thin wire and set a few snares, we might catch some." Li Long examined the tracks, which were still fairly fresh.

"You know how to set snares?" Tao Daqiang gave him a surprised look.

"When I was at the factory, one of my coworkers was from over by the Qingshui River. There are lots of hunters there, and he told me how." Li Long could now lie without so much as blushing. "We'll try it when we have time."

There was no pork at home. If he wanted meat, he would have to find a way to get it himself.

Luckily, wildlife was still plentiful, and the vast majority of the villagers came from farming backgrounds. Back then, there weren't all sorts of videos on phones to teach people these things like there would be in later years. Even those with the same ideas as Li Long were mostly just beginning to feel their way along.

There were plenty of opportunities.

When they reached Little Haizi, Li Long chose a broad, flat stretch of ice near the reeds, and he and Tao Daqiang began clearing away the snow.

Tao Daqiang did most of the work. Only after clearing the snow did he ask:

"Li Long, why did you pick this spot?"

"Because most of the fish here are Common Carp and crucian carp. They're timid and like sticking close to water plants, so when it gets cold in winter, they mostly gather beside the reeds to keep warm."

"Oh, so that's why!" Understanding dawned on Tao Daqiang's face, as though he had just learned something useful.

Li Long smiled, picked up the pry bar, and drove it down at the spot he had chosen.

The ice was frozen solid. The pry bar, made from ribbed reinforcing steel, left a dent smaller than a fist, and the impact made his hands ache.

"Let me!" Tao Daqiang picked up the pickaxe, raised it over his head, and brought it down hard on the little dent.

Li Long noticed that Tao Daqiang loosened his grip just as the pick struck, and silently nodded in approval. At least that would keep the shock from hurting his hands.

The pickaxe packed a punch. That single blow gouged out a plate-sized chunk of ice.

Li Long took advantage of the opening to drive his pry bar down again.

They worked like that, alternating blows. In less than ten minutes, they had dug a pit half a meter square and over twenty centimeters deep.

"Let's check the size." Li Long stopped, set down the pry bar, and tried fitting the Scoop Net into the opening. It was still a little too small, so Tao Daqiang began widening it with the pickaxe.

In that short time, steam had begun rising from both their heads, and sweat had appeared on their faces.

Seeing this, Li Long went over to the reeds, gathered a big armful of scraggly stalks that others had cut and discarded, and carried them back to the cleared ice. He took a lighter from his pocket and lit a fire.

Reeds were valuable in those days. In winter, they could be woven into mats or tied into bundles for roofing houses. The county paper mill also bought bundles of reeds to make paper.

There were two Reed Lakes around the village, and plenty of reeds grew in Little Haizi as well. Not long after winter began, once the ice could bear a person's weight, the village would organize a harvest. It brought in income from sideline work and added to the money accounted for at the end of the year.

All the tall reeds in Little Haizi had already been cut. Only some scraggly stalks remained, too poor to be useful, and those had been discarded.

It was a classic case of living off the resources around you. Back then, people seized every chance to earn money. In later years, apart from using the leaves to wrap rice dumplings for the Dragon Boat Festival, reeds served little purpose. Yet leaving them unharvested would actually hamper the growth of new reeds the following year.

That was why, before Li Long's rebirth, the Reed Lakes around the village had all disappeared. In Little Haizi, old reeds had accumulated year after year, leaving the new growth nowhere near as lush as it had once been.

With the fire's warmth, neither of them worried about catching a chill from sweating. But warming themselves by a fire like this left their fronts roasting and their backs icy cold, so they did not linger long before picking up their tools and getting back to work.

In less than an hour, they finished cutting the hole through the ice.

Tao Daqiang eagerly dropped the pickaxe, grabbed the Scoop Net, and bent down to scoop through the water.

When he lifted the Scoop Net, there was nothing in it but half a netful of broken ice.

Seeing the disappointment on Tao Daqiang's face, Li Long smiled and said:

"Don't rush. We've opened a hole in the ice, but you still have to give the fish some time to react."

Tao Daqiang said sheepishly:

"Before winter came, getting fish to eat was easy. But since the lake froze over, I haven't tasted meat in ages..."

Li Long found that strange. Tao Daqiang's family raised pigs too. How could he have gone without meat?

"Did your family's pig turn into a 'superstition pig' too?" he could not help asking.

"No. We slaughtered ours, but my dad sold half the meat. Most of the rest is at my brother's place. We don't cook any at home normally. My dad says we're saving it for New Year..."

Well, every family had its own troubles.

Seeing Tao Daqiang lower his head, Li Long quickly changed the subject. He pointed to a spot a dozen or so meters away and said:

"Since we have time, let's cut another hole over there."

"Sure. You call the shots."

They knew what they were doing this time, and forty minutes later, the second hole was finished.

"Come on, Daqiang. Let's see whether there are any fish in the first hole." Li Long picked up the Scoop Net.

"Okay!" Full of anticipation, Tao Daqiang followed Li Long back to the first hole.

A thin layer of ice had already formed over it. Li Long first stepped down onto the foothold they had cut halfway down the hole, then gently broke the thin ice with his fist. He saw a fish's shadow flash through the water.

With a little excitement and anticipation stirring inside him, Li Long slowly lowered the Scoop Net into the water. Then, holding it with both hands, he bent sideways and gave it a vigorous sweep!

Feeling something moving in the Scoop Net, Li Long immediately pulled it back. He braced his whole body against the ice behind him and heaved the net up!

"Fish! There are fish! Big ones! Huge crucian carp!" Tao Daqiang's voice rose into a squeak!

(End of chapter)