80s Transmigration: The Young Widow's Hustle to Riches

Chapter 396 - 394: Catching Swamp Eels

The group returned home to find that Lin Lan and the others had already cut the noodles. The fire in the wood-burning stove was strong, and they were cooked in no time.

Wu Shufen lifted the lid of the clay pot and ladled a spoonful of pork intestines into a bowl. She smiled at Li Xiaofeng. "It’s nothing special, just some noodles with pork intestines."

Li Xiaofeng laughed. "Pork intestines and white flour noodles aren’t good? Then what is!"

Zhang Xiuqing nodded with a smile. "That’s right. In the past, we couldn’t even get white flour noodles once a year for the New Year."

Zhao Xiaohui and Lin Lan brought the noodles to the eight immortals table in the main hall and said to Lin Changyou, Li Xiangyang, and the others, "The pork intestine noodles are here."

Lin Guozhu said with a laugh, "Little Lan, I didn’t expect Xiangyang to be so fast at planting rice seedlings."

Lin Lan grinned smugly. "Of course! You think you’re the only fast one? Xiangyang is an all-rounder."

Li Xiangyang laughed. "Little Lan, be a little more low-key, a little more humble. This is our family’s field, after all."

Lin Guozhu rolled his eyes at the two of them, then looked at Lin Changyou. "Dad, if I’d known Xiangyang was this fast at planting seedlings, it would’ve been fine if I didn’t come, right?"

Lin Changyou shot him a glare. "You’re not even looking for a girlfriend. If you didn’t come plant seedlings, what would you do? Stay in your dorm and get fat?"

"Big Brother, look at this," Lin Guozhu lamented, slinging an arm around Lin Guoliang. "The old man has a son-in-law now, so he’s cast his own son aside."

Lin Guoliang laughed and pushed the noodle bowl in front of him. "Stop being dramatic. Hurry up and eat before the noodles get all clumped up!"

"Mmm! We still have to go catch eels. I haven’t had eel braised with garlic in forever."

Lin Guozhu slurped down his noodles, took his bowl to the kitchen, and said to Wu Shufen, "Mom, we’re going to catch eels. Where did you put the lantern?"

"Okay, go catch some eels so we can braise them with garlic." Wu Shufen said with a smile, "It’s hanging on the beam in the woodshed. The eel tongs are there too."

Little Douzi quickly finished his noodles too, his cheeks puffed out, and said to Lin Lan, "Mama, I want to go catch eels with Uncle Xiangyang and my uncles."

Lin Lan looked at him with a gentle smile. "Don’t go, son. It’s pitch-black outside. You might fall into the rice paddy."

Little Douzi shook his head. "I won’t. We’ll have a lantern."

Lin Jun, Lin Qing, and the other kids said, "Little Aunt, we want to go too."

Little Douzi hugged her arm. "Mama, I wanna go, I wanna go."

Lin Lan could only nod. "Alright, go on then!"

Wu Shufen also brought out a flashlight. "Take this flashlight with you."

Lin Guozhu and Lin Guodong took down the lantern, a fish basket, and the bamboo tongs from the woodshed beam. They inserted a candle onto the holder inside and lit it.

Lin Guoliang said, "You guys go. I’m not going."

Lin Guozhu looked at Qiaohui and Tong Xinglan. "Are you cousins coming?"

Qiaohui nodded with a smile. "Yes, yes, we want to go see." The two of them also grabbed flashlights and went along.

Little Douzi held Li Xiangyang’s hand. "Uncle Xiangyang, I’ll stick with you."

Lin Guozhu tapped him on the nose. "You little traitor. Now that you have Uncle Xiangyang, you don’t need your Third Uncle anymore."

"Hee hee! Mama, we’re leaving now." Little Douzi waved to Lin Lan and led Li Xiangyang outside.

After Lin Guozhu and the others left, Lin Changyou and Lin Guoliang saw Shi Song’s family off, then went back inside and said to Lin Lan, "Little Lan, I’ve been watching for a while, and I think Xiangyang is very good to Little Douzi. A biological father couldn’t do much better. Why does Little Douzi still call him Uncle Xiangyang? Why hasn’t he started calling him Dad?"

Lin Lan gave a wry smile. "Dad, Little Douzi has a good memory. He still remembers his father hitting us. He said he doesn’t want to call Xiangyang ’Dad,’ he likes calling him ’Uncle Xiangyang,’ so I haven’t pushed him. Little Douzi has told Xiangyang this as well."

Wu Shufen nodded. "Little Douzi told me the same thing. The child knows in his heart what’s good and what’s not. When he’s ready to call him Dad, he will."

Lin Changyou took two puffs of his leaf-rolled cigarette and sighed. "Sigh! It’s all that damn ghost’s fault."

Li Xiangyang’s group walked under the cover of night. The croaking of frogs in the rice paddies rose and fell. Here and there, they could see a few scattered people carrying lanterns to catch eels.

Perhaps because their group was too large, they passed by several rice paddies in a row without catching a single eel.

Lin Qing and the other kids had lost their initial excitement and were walking listlessly.

Little Douzi tugged on Li Xiangyang’s hand. "Uncle Xiangyang, I’m sleepy. I want you to carry me on your back."

Li Xiangyang ruffled his hair, handed the lantern to Lin Guozhu, and squatted down, saying, "You little lazybones, hop on."

"Mhm!" Little Douzi happily scrambled onto his back. He wrapped his arms around his neck and nuzzled him a couple of times. "Thanks, Uncle Xiangyang." ’He still felt that ’Uncle Xiangyang’ rolled off the tongue more easily.’

Li Xiangyang patted his bottom, and the group continued onward.

Lin Jun said with a sigh, "Sigh! These fields aren’t any fun. There’s no fruit, and there aren’t even many eels. Our Shilian is much better. The paddies there are full of eels."

Lin Guozhu turned around and flicked him on the forehead. "You little devil. You’ve been chattering away like a sparrow in the woods the whole time. You’ve scared all the eels away."

Lin Jun clutched his forehead. "Third Uncle, you’re the one who doesn’t know how to catch eels, and you’re blaming me."

Just then, Lin Qing, who was walking at the back with a flashlight, shone it steadily into the rice paddy and shouted in a hushed voice, "Third Uncle, come quick! I see an eel!"

Everyone turned around. Following the beam of Lin Qing’s flashlight, they saw an eel about a meter from the paddy’s edge, lying motionless under the water.

"I’ll get it." Lin Guodong said, holding the eel tongs. He pinpointed the eel’s location, stepped gently into the paddy, aimed for a spot just behind the eel’s head, and with the speed of a thunderclap, plunged the tongs in and clamped down on it.

The eel, caught firmly in the tongs, struggled and twisted, but to no avail.

The group, who had been holding their breath, let out a collective sigh of relief. Tong Xinglan laughed. "We’ve finally made our first catch."

"Not bad. This one’s pretty big, weighs about five ounces," Lin Guodong said with a smile as he put the eel into the bamboo basket.

After their first catch, the group walked a full circle around the paddy and found five more eels. Now that they were having some success, the adults and children were both re-energized.

Lin Guozhu said, "Let’s split up. We’ll meet up at the rice paddies at the foot of Niu Bei Mountain and head home from there, no matter how many we’ve caught."

Lin Guodong nodded. "Okay. We’ll go this way, you guys go that way."

Li Xiangyang, carrying Little Douzi on his back, went with Lin Guodong’s group. Lin Guozhu took the three girls—Lin Hong, Qiaohui, and Tong Xinglan—with him.

「Two hours later.」

When the two teams met up at the rice paddies, both of their bamboo baskets were half-full of eels.

When the group got home, Lin Changyou said with a laugh, "Let’s keep them in a bucket for now. There’s only one mu of field left for tomorrow. It won’t take long to finish planting. Xiangyang, invite your in-laws and Zhigang over. We’ll cook up the eels."

Lin Lan nodded. "Okay. And we can butcher those two old ducks and stew them with mushrooms."

Wu Shufen laughed. "One of them is a female, and she’s laid a few eggs since we bought her. Let’s butcher one duck for soup, and then we can red-braise a rooster."

After they agreed, Wu Shufen stayed behind with the sleeping Little Douzi, while Lin Lan and the others who lived in the city cycled back.

They dropped Qiaohui and Tong Xinglan off at the entrance of the department store, watched them go inside, and then went their separate ways home.