Chapter 25: Fishing

Page 1 of 3

“Setting everything else aside, that boy used to look at me rather strangely. Did you notice how many times he looked at me today?”

Sun Yanhong smoothed her hair and spoke with a teasing smile.

Chen Ling had known that, after being released from prison, Chen Erzhu had risen through Sun Yanhong’s connections.

He also knew that Sun Yanhong’s elder brother was a formidable figure in the county town.

So after getting acquainted with Sun Yanhong through Chen Erzhu, Chen Ling had naturally begun entertaining a few improper thoughts.

Sun Yanhong knew perfectly well what was on his mind. But because he was handsome, she had never exposed him. Whenever they met, she would even take the initiative to tease him a little.

In truth, apart from his looks, Chen Ling had nothing else that caught her eye.

She simply found it amusing to flirt with a young pretty boy. It meant nothing more than that.

If she truly wanted a lover, someone like Chen Erzhu was more to her taste.

But she had not expected that, after meeting Chen Ling today, the boy would hardly give her so much as a proper glance. She found herself feeling faintly put out.

“Zhuzi, don’t tell me that boy is plotting something nasty!”

“Damn him! He wouldn’t dare!”

“Only a few days apart, and that little bastard thinks he’s grown wings? How dare he play dumb with your Brother Zhu!”

Chen Erzhu’s face darkened as he spat viciously on the ground.

No wonder he had felt that something was off when he ran into Chen Ling this time.

In the past, Chen Ling had always fawned over him whenever they met, calling him Brother Zhu this and Brother Zhu that, trying desperately to curry favor with him.

And whenever Sun Yanhong was present, the boy would go all out to show off.

This time, not only had he failed to do any of that—

he had also lied straight to Chen Erzhu’s face without the slightest change in expression.

He was completely unlike the fool Chen Erzhu remembered, the one who could be led around in circles with just a couple of words. It was almost as if he were an entirely different person.

Could the boy really be harboring some ulterior motive?

Chen Erzhu’s expression grew unpleasant.

Beside him, Sun Yanhong remained perfectly relaxed. With a laugh, she said, “Stop pulling such a sour face. I was only saying it casually. Are you really afraid of him? He’s a useless fool. Even if he has bad intentions, how much trouble can he possibly cause?”

“That’s true.”

Chen Erzhu paused, and his expression eased considerably.

“Still, in the past, I could have kept him dangling and made him put in extra effort when we built the greenhouse.”

“Free labor is still labor. Why not make use of it?”

“Damn it. That’s out of the question now. I’ll have to spend money hiring a supervisor.”

Chen Erzhu spat hard once more, looking deeply irritated.

…

While Chen Erzhu was still cursing Chen Ling over there, Chen Ling himself had long since forgotten the two of them.

He was happily driving his donkey cart toward the banks of the Nansha River.

It was roughly four in the afternoon.

As far as the eye could see, there was not another person around.

Chen Ling parked the donkey cart beside a large willow tree, slung his fishing rod over his shoulder, picked up a bucket, and ambled toward the river.

“Quack, quack, quack…”

As soon as he drew near, he startled a flock of ducks hidden among the dry yellow reeds along the bank. They splashed into the river one after another and paddled away in a tight group.

Page 1 of 3

Page 2 of 3

“Hahaha! When spring warms the river, the ducks are the first to know!”

Chen Ling laughed and found a large stone to sit on.

He took out some bait from his pocket, mixed it with water from the stream in his Grotto-Heaven, baited the hook, and cast his line into the river.

It was the finest bait sold at the fishing-tackle shop, which he had bought for ten yuan when he purchased the rod.

After mixing it with water from the Grotto-Heaven’s stream, it would have been strange not to catch at least a few soft-shelled turtles.

Unfortunately, things did not go as he hoped.

Twenty minutes passed, and forget soft-shelled turtles—he could not even catch a decent fish.

Everything he hauled in was a little fish barely ten centimeters long. He tossed them all into the Grotto-Heaven to raise for the time being.

“It must be because of those ducks just now. Even if there were fish and soft-shelled turtles here, they must have been frightened away.”

Chen Ling realized what had happened, reeled in his line, and prepared to find another spot.

He had taken only a few steps when he suddenly stopped. Something in the reeds ahead had caught his eye.

“Well, what do we have here? Duck eggs!”

Chen Ling was delighted.

He had not expected the flock to be laying eggs here.

He pushed aside the reeds and counted carefully.

There were eleven of them.

“This is great. Even if I don’t catch any soft-shelled turtles today, I haven’t come away empty-handed.”

He picked up one of the duck eggs. It was fairly large and still warm.

It had probably been laid only moments ago.

Domestic ducks nowadays no longer brooded their eggs. In the countryside, if people wanted ducklings, they had to rely on a broody hen.

This egg was still warm, which meant it had only just been laid.

Chen Ling then took a basket from the Grotto-Heaven.

He picked up the eleven duck eggs one by one and placed them inside. Three or four of them were still warm.

They had just been laid.

Chen Ling shook his head with a smile and thought, “I wonder whose ducks these are. They must have grown accustomed to laying their eggs outdoors.”

When he was a child, his family had kept ducks too.

Some of them were honest and obedient. They returned to their coop at dusk every day and laid their eggs there in the evening or at night.

But others were troublesome. Though they returned to the coop after dark, they always laid their eggs somewhere outside.

In one corner to the east, another corner to the west—who knew where they might leave one?

Besides…

Most ducks laid their eggs in the evening or at night. But some were different. They insisted on laying during the day, out in the open, and only went home afterward.

Chen Ling remembered that his family had several ducks like that when he was young.

Every time they laid their eggs in someone else’s yard, they infuriated his grandmother.

Later, the family put up a duck pen to confine them, but that did not work either. The ducks had become accustomed to laying outside, and once penned in, they simply stopped laying properly.

His grandmother had no choice but to slaughter them and eat them.

“Well, there’s another one.”

As he walked on, Chen Ling found another duck egg in the reeds. If his eyesight had not been sharp, he would already have stepped on it.

Page 2 of 3

Page 3 of 3

After that, Chen Ling wandered back and forth, stopping now and then to pick up another egg. Before long, he had gathered more than a dozen from the reeds.

“There really are quite a lot!”

“Looks like this flock comes here to lay eggs all the time!”

Looking at the basket filled to the brim—nearly forty eggs—Chen Ling muttered to himself.

“I wonder whose ducks they belong to…”

“I’ll put them away for now and ask around later.”

Chen Ling stored the basket of duck eggs in the Grotto-Heaven and thought to himself:

If there had only been a dozen or so eggs, he would have simply kept them after finding them.

But there were nearly forty. Sold, they would cover an ordinary person’s expenses for more than half a month.

Besides, people in the county town were not wealthy these days.

During the wave of layoffs, there had been plenty of people rummaging through the market for discarded vegetables.

So he figured that if he found out whose ducks they were, returning the eggs would be no great burden.

Now that he possessed a miraculous treasure like the Sun-and-Moon Grotto-Heaven, it would be petty to covet such a small advantage.

He searched the surrounding area carefully once more and found another three or four duck eggs. After that, there were no more.

Only then did Chen Ling choose another spot, cast his hook, and resume his fishing.

“Swish, splash… swish, splash…”

Less than two minutes after the hook entered the water, a patch of river surface four or five meters across in front of Chen Ling suddenly began to boil.

It was as if someone had overturned a cooking pot. Waves of water splashed into the air as the surface churned violently.

One large fish after another came rushing in from every direction.

The bait on the hook was scattered at once, drifting into the river, where the school of fish fought over it and devoured every last scrap.

“Well, would you look at that! It works even better than I expected!”

Chen Ling’s mouth fell open in astonishment, and then he broke into a delighted laugh.

So it really had been those ducks that frightened the fish away earlier. Otherwise, bait mixed with water from the Grotto-Heaven’s stream could never have caught only a few scattered little fish.

He simply put away the fishing rod, mixed all the remaining bait with water from the Grotto-Heaven’s stream, and scattered it into the river.

Splash!

The fish still circling nearby surged forward all at once. They swarmed around the bait and feasted ravenously.

In the blink of an eye, the bait was devoured again.

Some of the fish, still unsatisfied, poked their heads above the water and opened and closed their mouths as if urging him to throw in more.

The more impatient ones leaped entirely out of the river, smacking the surface with loud slaps.

“Hahaha, don’t rush, don’t rush. Once you’re in my Grotto-Heaven, you’ll have more than enough food and drink.”

As Chen Ling scattered bait with one hand, he used the bucket to scoop up fish with the other. Not a single one tried to flee.

Looking out across the water, he saw fish leaping and darting everywhere, as though they were scrambling to get into Chen Ling’s bucket.

This was going to be a truly abundant haul!

Page 3 of 3