The Whole Village Thrives After Adopting a Lucky Girl

Jiang Sanlang hesitated for a while, but eventually gave in to his daughter and reluctantly took her to the riverbank.

Yingbao crouched down and put the small ball of dough mixed with Wuding chi into the water from her hand.

“What did you throw in?” Jiang Sanlang asked curiously.

“Bait.” Yingbao mysteriously replied, “The fish might like it.”

Jiang Sanlang laughed, “From what I see, it’s just dough. Fish naturally like it of course, but…”

Before he could finish his sentence, he heard his elder brother Jiang Dalang and Jiang Erlang shouting from the riverside simultaneously, “Look! Look! Sanlang, quickly look! Some fish are coming!”

Jiang Sanlang looked up and indeed, two dark ridges in the water were heading their way.

“Hey, watch out, everyone!”

Jiang Sanlang promptly picked up his little girl and handed her over to his nephew who had also come, “Quick, take your little sister up to the bank.”

He picked up his fishing net and realized that it was too small to catch such large fish.

“Elder brother, second brother, we can’t catch them!” Jiang Sanlang was so anxious that he was jumping around.

Both elder brothers rapidly came running over, but were equally helpless.

Half of the two large fish emerged from the water. They swam to the shallow waters, ate the bait, circled around a few times, and swam away.

“Oh, oh!” Jiang Sanlang couldn’t help but sigh.

The fish were too big, and the water was too cold; he couldn’t risk going into the water, it could be lethal.

“If it was summer, we wouldn’t have let them get away,” Jiang Dalang sighed as well, “It’s almost nine feet long from head to tail, oh God.”

The last time he had seen such a big fish was in Jianglin County; it was a fish that a fisherman had caught from the big river and dragged to the county town using a flatbed cart, the slices of fish meat, which looked like tofu, were sold piece by piece.

A steward from a wealthy family spent two taels of silver to buy two baskets of fish meat, saying that this type of fish was the best for making sliced raw fish.

Yingbao was also stunned – she didn’t expect that her little ball of Wuding chi would attract such enormous creatures.

This was too absurd.

After gawking on the riverside for a while, Jiang Sanlang hesitantly asked his daughter in a low voice, “Baobao, do you have any more bait?”

Yingbao searched through her pockets and pulled out three dough balls the size of bird’s eggs, “I have three more.”

Jiang Sanlang hesitated for a moment, then asked, “Can you give them to

Daddy?”

Yingbao nodded and put the fish bait into her dad’s large, sturdy palms, “Here, for fishing.”

Jiang Sanlang smiled heartily and ruffled his daughter’s tiger-head hat, “You go home first. I need to discuss something with your Uncles before coming back.”

“Okay.” Knowing the magic of Wuding chi, Yingbao was content and ready to go home to see her little brother. “Dad, be careful not to fall into the river.”

“Mm, Daddy knows.”

Jiang Sanlang sent his nephew, Jiang Quan, to take his daughter home, while he and his elder brothers planned before they went back to look for tools to catch the fish.

Just a fishing net would not be effective. The big fish was violent and could very well drag both them and their net into the river.

In that case, they would have to catch them manually using iron hooks and ropes.

They would attach two long ropes to an iron hook and fork, and tie one end to a big tree. They would use the hook to snag the fish, while assisting with the fork. As long as the hook did not come off, they had no worries about not being able to catch the big fish.

Leaving aside how Jiang Sanlang will catch the fish, let’s talk about Yingbao. Upon returning home, she saw that Sister Dani and Sister Erni were there watching her mother spin flax threads.

Her two younger brothers were still sleeping. So, Yingbao didn’t disturb them and pulled up a stool to watch beside her mother.

Chunniang looked up at her three daughters, “Baobao, take your cousins to sit on the kang (heated brick bed). It’s too cold. Beware of getting frostbite on your

feet. ”

“Okay.”

Actually, Yingbao felt warm, but her two little cousins appeared to be shivering from the cold.

So, the three sisters sat on the warm kang, covered their legs with a quilt, Dani was embroidering with a handkerchief in hand, and Erni was also sewing a piece of rag cloth.

Country girls mature early; they started learning to spin and embroider at the age of five or six, and by the age of nine or ten, they must have learned how to weave and tailor.

Yingbao also wanted to learn more, so she took a piece of scrap cloth from her mother’s sewing basket to practice embroidery.

It was noon before they knew it. As her mother prepared to go to the kitchen, she suddenly heard a commotion outside.

Rushing outside to see, a large crowd of villagers were carrying a large fish towards Uncle Jiang’s house.

“My goodness, such a big fish, it hasn’t turned into a spirit, has it?” Aunt Wang exclaimed in front of her house. Turning her head towards Chunniang, she said, “Chunniang, Sanlang and the others caught a big fish in the river, you should go and see.”

Chunniang was also taken aback and quickly ran to Uncle’s house. Lo and behold, there was another fish in the courtyard there.

Even Clan Leader Chen Fu’s family had come over, circling the large fish and marveling at it.

Old Man Jiang couldn’t stop grinning and loudly said, “Brother Chen, stay and have dinner here today, let’s enjoy some fresh sushi.”

Clan Leader Chen nodded with a smile. “I’d be honored to obligate. Let us both have a drink.” He turned his head and ordered his grandson, “Go home and fetch that jug of green ant wine.”

The grandson agreed and ran off quickly.

And so, the Jiang family started hosting guests again in the afternoon, inviting the Clan Chief, village headmaster, and a few old villagers.

Zhou family and several sisters-in-law were cooking in the kitchen. They prepared dishes of soybean-stewed fish, charcoal-grilled fish, fresh sushi, and fish fin stew.

A few large bowls were brought to the table, and everyone ate until their mouths were shining with oil.

After eating, everyone took a chunk of square-cut fish meat home.

After tidying up the table, Old Man Jiang sat down and discussed with his three sons how to distribute the remaining fish.

“We must give some to the people who have helped, leave some for our family to eat, and sell the rest in the town,” he said.

Jiang Sanlang said, “We don’t need to sell it at a too high price, slightly higher than the usual price of fish is fine, let’s set it at nine coins a pound.”

“Nine coins a pound, isn’t that expensive?” Jiang Dalang hesitated, ‘What if we can’t sell it?”

The usual price of fish is five or six coins a pound, and the highest price during the festival did not exceed eight coins, because in the town, pork is only twelve coins, and mutton is the most expensive, seventeen or eighteen coins a pound.

“If we can’t sell it, we will take it back and eat it during the festival.” Jiang Sanlang said, ‘We haven’t seen this fish for decades. Selling it for nine coins a pound is actually a loss.”

Jiang Erlang said, “Listen to Sanlang, let’s sell it for nine coins a pound. Big fishes are rare, and the meat is so good, scarcity is what makes something valuable. I don’t believe we can’t sell it.”

“Alright, it conveniently falls on the market day tomorrow, you guys transport it to the town early in the morning,” Old Man Jiang took the final call.

There was no more talking for the rest of the night, and the next day when the snow had stopped, the three brothers borrowed a cart and took the remaining big fish to the town.

The snow made it difficult to travel, and by the time their cart reached the town, it was already late, and there weren’t many people at the market.

Perhaps the cold weather and slippery roads due to the heavy snow made many people stay home.

Finding a suitable location, they parked the cart, and Jiang Sanlang started calling out, “Come, come, come! Century-old big fish, a rare delicacy indeed.

Eating it gives you longevity and wards off all illness.”

Seeing his younger brother’s flamboyance, Jiang Dalang felt embarrassed, poked him and said, “Third brother, stop shouting.”

But Jiang Erlang just laughed and said, “Big brother, you don’t understand.

How can you do business without shouting? Look, isn’t someone coming now?” Jiang Dalang looked, and sure enough, a few people were heading towards them.

“How much for this fish?” The man who asked the question was about forty, wearing a fox fur hat, a thick cotton robe, and deer skin boots. He looked wealthy.

Jiang Sanlang responded, “Ten coins a pound.”

Jiang Dalang and Jiang Erlang: “…” They immediately recoiled and turned away, pretending not to know their younger brother.

“Ten coins per pound? That’s almost the price of pork.” The man in the fox fur hat touched the fish and clucked his tongue, “That’s a bit expensive.”

Hearing this, Jiang Dalang felt more embarrassed and his head was almost sinking into his chest.

Jiang Sanlang just laughed and said, “Sir, this fish is a century-old big fish. As they say, anything transformed after a century is rare and hard to come by. If you still think ten coins a pound is expensive, then ten-year-old ginseng would be as cheap as cabbage.”

The man in the fox fur hat looked at him and laughed, “I appreciate your novel justification; give me twenty pounds..”