Jiang Sanlang hesitated for a while, but finally couldn't persuade his daughter, so he had to take her to the river.
Yingbao squatted down and put the small dough mixed with Wudingzhi in her hand into the water.
"What did you put there?" Jiang Sanlang asked curiously.
"Fishing bait." Ying Baoshen said mysteriously, "Fish might like to eat it."
Jiang Sanlang smiled and said, "I think it's just dough. Fish will like to eat it, but..."
Before he could finish his words, he heard Jiang Dalang and Jiang Erlang screaming at the same time: "Look! Look! Sanlang, look! There's a fish coming!"
Jiang Sanlang looked up and saw that, sure enough, two black fish spines had cut through two lines of water and were heading towards this side.
"Hey! Everyone!" Jiang Sanlang picked up his daughter and handed her to his nephew who had followed him. "Hurry up and take your sister to the shore."
He then picked up the scoop net, but found that it was too small and could not catch such a big fish.
"Brother, we can't catch him." Jiang Sanlang was so anxious that he jumped up and down.
Jiang Da and Jiang Er had already run over, but they were also helpless.
The two big fish had half of their bodies exposed. They swam to the shallow water, ate the bait, flapped their wings a few times, and then swam back.
"Oh! Oh!" Jiang Sanlang kept sighing.
The fish was too big and the water was too cold; he couldn't risk going into the water or else someone might die.
"If it's summer, I can't let it go." Jiang Dalang also sighed, "It's almost nine feet long from head to tail, my God."
He had seen such a big fish only once in Jianglin County. It was caught by fishermen from the river, towed to the county town on a cart, and the cut fish meat was sold piece by piece like tofu.
A steward of a wealthy family spent two taels of silver to buy two baskets of fish, saying that this kind of fish is best made into sashimi.
Yingbao was also shocked. She didn't expect that a small ball of Wudingzhi would attract two huge monsters.
This, this is too outrageous.
Jiang Sanlang stood by the river for a long time before he whispered to his daughter, "Bao'er, do you have any bait left?"
Yingbao dug into her pocket and pulled out three egg-sized balls of dough, "There are three more."
Jiang Sanlang hesitated and asked, "Can I give it to Daddy?"
Yingbao nodded and put three baits into his father's broad palm, "Here, go fishing."
Jiang Sanlang chuckled and rubbed his daughter's tiger-head hat, "You go home first, I need to discuss it with your uncles before coming back."
"Yeah." Yingbao had verified the magic of Wudingzhi and was satisfied. She could go home to see her brother. "Dad, be careful. Don't fall into the river."
"Yeah, Dad knows."
Jiang Sanlang asked his nephew Jiang Quan to send his daughter home. He and his elder and second brothers also discussed and prepared to go back to find some tools to catch fish.
A fishing net alone is not enough. This big fish is ferocious and it might drag both you and the net into the river.
Then you can only catch it by using iron forks, iron hooks and ropes.
Tie two long ropes to the iron hook and iron fork, tie one end to a big tree, use the iron hook to hook the fish, and use the iron fork for assistance. As long as the hook does not fall off, there is no worry about not being able to catch the big fish.
Let’s not talk about how Jiang Sanlang caught fish. Let’s talk about when Yingbao returned home, she saw the eldest and second sisters Ni were there, watching her mother spinning hemp thread.
The two younger brothers were still sleeping, so Yingbao did not disturb them. She moved a stool and sat next to A Niang to watch.
Chunniang looked up at the three of them and said, "Bao'er, take your cousin to sit on the kang. It's too cold. Be careful not to get frostbite on your feet."
"Um."
In fact, Yingbao was not cold at all, but her two little cousins seemed to be so cold that they kept stamping their feet.
So the three little sisters sat on the warm kang with quilts wrapped around their legs. The eldest sister Ni was embroidering a handkerchief, and the second sister Ni was sewing with a piece of cloth.
Country girls become sensible early. They start learning spinning and embroidery at the age of five or six, and must learn weaving and sewing at the age of nine or ten.
Yingbao also wanted to learn more, so she took a piece of cloth from her mother's needlework basket to practice embroidery.
Before she knew it, it was noon. A'niang was about to go to the kitchen to cook something to eat when she suddenly heard a noise outside.
When I ran out, I saw a large group of villagers carrying a big fish towards Uncle Jiang's house.
"Oh my god, such a big fish, could it be a spirit?" Aunt Wang stood at the door of her house and exclaimed, turning around to see Chunniang, "Chunniang, Sanlang and his friends caught a big fish in the river, you should go and have a look."
Chunniang was also surprised, and hurried to her uncle's house to take a look. Hey! There was another one in the yard.
Even the family of Patriarch Chen Fu came over and gathered around the big fish to marvel at it.
Old Man Jiang couldn't stop laughing and said loudly, "Brother Chen, stay for dinner today and let's try the sashimi."
Patriarch Chen smiled and nodded. "Obedience is worse than respect. Let's drink a cup together." He turned around and told his grandson, "Go back and get the pot of green ants from home."
The grandson agreed and ran away quickly.
So, the Jiang family started hosting a banquet in the afternoon, inviting the clan leader, the village chief, the school teacher, and several village elders.
Zhou and her sisters-in-law were cooking in the kitchen, stewing fish with soybeans, grilling fish over charcoal, cooking fresh fish sashimi, and stewing shark fins.
Several large bowls of food were brought to the table, and everyone's mouths were filled with grease.
After the meal, everyone took a square piece of fish home.
After clearing the table, Old Man Jiang sat down and discussed with his three sons how to distribute the remaining fish.
"Give some to the people who helped, keep some for my family, and take the rest to the town to sell."
Jiang Sanlang said, "We don't need to sell it too expensively. Just a little higher than the normal price of fish. Let's set it at nine cents per pound."
"Nine coins per pound, isn't that expensive?" Jiang Dalang hesitated, "What if I can't sell it?"
The normal price of fish was five or six cents per pound, and during the New Year the highest price was no more than eight cents, because pork in the town was only twelve cents, and mutton was the most expensive, at seventeen or eighteen cents per pound.
"If we can't sell it, we'll bring it back to eat during the New Year." Jiang Sanlang said, "We haven't seen this kind of fish in decades. We're losing money if we sell it for nine cents a pound."
Jiang Erlang said, "I'll listen to Sanlang. I'll sell it for nine cents a pound. Big fish are rare, and the meat is so good. Scarcity makes things valuable. I don't believe I can't sell it."
"Okay, there's a market tomorrow, so you can take it to town early in the morning." Old man Jiang made the final decision.
Nothing happened that night. The snow stopped early the next morning. The three brothers borrowed a cart and pulled the remaining big fish to the town.
It was difficult to travel in the snow, and when the cart arrived in the town it was already 9:00 p.m., but there were not many people in the market.
Maybe because it’s cold, the snow is deep and the roads are slippery, many people don’t come.
After finding a suitable spot to park the cart, Jiang Sanlang began to shout, "Come, come, come! This hundred-year-old fish is rare to see. Eating it will prolong your life and protect you from all diseases."
Seeing his third brother jumping around like this, Jiang Dalang felt embarrassed and poked him, "Sanlang, stop yelling."
Jiang Erlang laughed and said, "Brother, you don't understand. How can you do business without shouting? Look, isn't there someone coming over here?"
Jiang Dalang looked and saw that there were indeed a few people walking towards this side.
"How much is this fish?" The man who asked the question was in his forties. He wore a fox fur hat, a thick cotton robe, and deerskin boots. He looked like a wealthy man.
Jiang Sanlang replied, "Ten cents a pound."
Jiang Dalang and Jiang Erlang: “… …” They immediately retracted their necks and turned their faces away, pretending not to recognize their third brother.
"Ten cents a pound? Almost as expensive as pork." The fox fur hat reached out and touched the fish, clicking his tongue and saying, "It's a bit expensive."
When Jiang Dalang heard this, he became even more ashamed, and his head almost drooped to his chest.
Jiang Sanlang laughed and said, "Sir, my fish is a hundred-year-old fish. It is said that a hundred years of refinement will make it a fine fish. It is rare to see it once in a thousand years. If you think it is too expensive to sell it for ten cents a pound, then a ten-year-old ginseng is very cheap."
The man in the fox fur hat looked at him and laughed, "Your twisted logic is quite unique. Weigh twenty kilograms for me."