The stumbling and overstretched days of the two aunts made Yu Songyuan and his brothers take action.

Since he was very young, Yu Songyuan has learned the skills of watching fish, hitting ponds, and catching fish with his master. There are many ditches and rivers, and not all places where there are fish can fish, and not all places where there are fish can be fished. Where there are fish, where they can be killed, and where they are worth fighting, there are many things to pay attention to.

People say that thieves don't go empty, and since the age of eleven or twelve, Yu Songyuan never goes empty.

At the beginning, they were all when the young master was free, and he took them with him. In the third year that Yu Yueyue and Wang Feng moved here, it was also the hungriest year for the four families, and Yu Songyuan and they began to work alone. For the first time, he took the three brothers to work in a branch of the Erdao Canal for a night, and the water was wiped out, but only a few catties of saury (crucian carp in northern Jiangsu).

Yu Songyuan was puzzled. According to his sense of water, the ditch section more than ten meters long, the aquatic plants are dense, the water quality is good, and there are turbulent currents under the water, there must be big fish here, at least one or twenty catties of fish. He didn't give up, and asked Shu Tong to send the fish back the next morning, while asking the little master Yu Xinmin to make a special trip.

When the master came, he looked back and forth with his hands behind his back and said, "You read that right, there are a lot of fish, all in the mud." ”

Yu Songyuan suddenly realized, and immediately took a few brothers to pick up the mud with a basin, and as a result, from the mud out of the mud out of a dozen catties of round, lively big loaches, seven or eight big long fish (northern Jiangsu dialect, cockroach), what is even more surprising is that three big mullet fish (northern Jiangsu dialect, black fish), one small one pound weighs, two big ones, all four or five pounds.

When catching two big mullets, the four children were not its opponents at all, and the master took matters into his own hands to catch them. The five of them were busy until after lunch, when they scooped up all the mud in the ditch. Then, the cofferdams at both ends were dug to smooth the flow of water. This is the rule, the production team and the brigade do not object to the villagers cofferdam fishing, but you must remove the cofferdam after you finish the cofferdam and smooth the flow of water.

When he was done, he lit a fire by the ditch and roasted a potato for them to eat for lunch. Yu Songyuan and the four of them washed all the fish with water, and then washed the muddy water off their bodies. When eating the potato, the master taught with satisfaction:

"You can see it very accurately, the silt here is more than a foot deep, there is a lot of grass, and the water is good, which is suitable for loaches and long fish. Not long after the mullet came, the water gushing and turbulence you saw were mullet hunting. Oh my boy, this thing is amazing. The saury fish was almost eaten by it, and in a few days, the other fish would be eaten by it. ”

"The mullet is so powerful, after a long time, won't the fish eat it up? Are there any other fish after that? Chen Lan was puzzled and asked worriedly.

"No, it won't. In nature, the food relationship between various organisms due to predation and predation is called the food chain. For example, big fish eat small fish, small fish eat dried shrimp, dried shrimp eat zooplankton, zooplankton eat green algae, etc. In freshwater, carnivorous fish such as mullet are at the top of the food chain. If you eat all the other fish, you will starve to death. Therefore, in general, there is a relative balance between all types of fish and other aquatic organisms. ”

After lunch, Yu Xinmin said while helping them pack up and go home, "I don't understand it. Go back and let the professor grandma have time to give you a good lecture on biology, the food chain, and ecological balance. ”

A few people went home, causing a small sensation in the village, and many people also went to other sections of the river in this ditch, and sure enough, there were basically no fish. The first time he shot, he grabbed nearly thirty catties, and Yu Xinhe, who was very disdainful of them at first, didn't squeak anymore. Although it is still not supported for security reasons, it is not clear that it is opposed.

In fact, when they were fighting hard in the ditch at night, the brothers Yu Xinhe and Yu Xinmin, under the persecution of the two sisters She Wenfang and She Wenxiu, made a special trip here twice to accompany them from afar. Seeing that the water was very small and there was no potential safety hazard, I went back and told the families to sleep in peace.

The professor and Teacher Chen were even happier than the Chinese New Year, and Yu Yueyue and Wang Feng cleaned up the loaches according to the methods taught by She Wenfang and She Wenxiu, salted them and dried them. Then use the dried loach to cook the dried red cabbage in the snow, and eat it as a dish, it is really delicious, and I ate it for a long time.

Encouraged by this success, Yu Songyuan and them were out of control. That year, the fish they caught added up to four or five hundred catties, and they made a great contribution to surviving the famine for their family.

Of course, the happiest are the two housewives Yu Yueyue and Wang Feng, the food that the children get back every once in a while helps them get rid of the dilemma of having no rice to cook again and again. During the Chinese New Year, the two of them scraped together and made a new set of clothes for each of the four of them as encouragement.

Yu Songyuan and their brothers had the most fun during the winter vacation of the fourth grade of primary school. Entering the wax moon, the weather is cold, and the villagers hide in the houses with hanging (a thick straw curtain hung on the door of the house to block the cold wind), chatting around the brazier, collecting shoe soles, sewing clothes, and playing cards.

This year's winter vacation was released in mid-January. On the day of the winter vacation, Yu Songyuan took four people to the Nanyi Canal on the edge of the planning site, and carefully looked at the more than 1,000-meter-long irrigation canal, back and forth.

In winter, the water is dry, and the deepest part of the south canal is nearly two meters, the widest part is three or four meters, and the narrowest part is only two or three meters. Yu Songyuan looked at it again and again, and everyone didn't dare to say more. Usually this is the case, Yu Songyuan is the one who takes the idea and makes the decision, and once he makes the decision, the brothers will immediately and unconditionally do it. The three of them were eager to try, nervously waiting for Yu Songyuan to make up his mind.

Yu Xinhe asked Yu Xinmin, "These little things have been sneaking south these days, can't it be the idea of trying to hit the South Canal?" You didn't check it out? My principle is that it's okay to play around and make a little fuss, and we have no objection. However, the great rivers cannot be driven by their temperament. ”

Yu Xinmin said: "Big brother, don't worry about it, I have a number." I went to see it secretly, and there were a lot of fish, but the water was too big. Originally, I wanted to go to the slaughter, but as a result, Songyuan's goblin and goblin, he also set his sights on it. ”

"Allowing them to fish is just a survival exercise. Four teenage little hoops (Northern Jiangsu dialect, little boy), such a large amount of work, you look at the point, you can't have an accident. ”

"They can't sit idle anyway. Tell them to do it first, and when they can't do it anymore, everyone will help. If you intervene now, they will still lose their faces and be unhappy. Yu Xinmin said with a smile.

The four of them watched it for a few days, and Yu Songyuan finally made up his mind. He carefully calculated in his heart, with so much water, the four of them alone would not be able to do such a big job. However, the adults are busy and neglect here. On the edge of the planned area, ordinary people are reluctant to walk around, let alone catch fish. By the time one or two paragraphs are made, it is estimated that they will be tired and paralyzed by then, and they will not be able to do anything, but the fish will also come out in large numbers, and the adults will definitely come to help.

Thinking about this, he took his brothers and said to do it. The four brothers pushed a cart, brought bedding and shovels and other tools, took out some raw potatoes from the cellar and took them to make dry food, and set off quietly. The four adults all knew that they had made a big move again, but they just told them, and no one stopped them.

Yu Yueyue and Wang Feng ran together to ask Yu Xinmin, "What are they doing on this cold day?" Sneaky, don't ask. ”

Yu Xinmin said: "Auntie, you all leave them alone. Well, this time these things are playing big. I know in my heart, I'll wait to eat the fish. ”

Yu Songyuan made up his mind to play a big game this time. When the family celebrated the Chinese New Year last year, the four families were tight, and the family could only buy one or two catties of meat, and they couldn't even make up for next year's tuition. If we can get rid of the South Canal, this year, we will have to go too far.

The south canal is on the edge of the planned site, and there are countless graves on the south bank, and few people dare to wander in this ditch. The canal is four or five kilometers long, and this section on the edge of the planned site is almost more than a thousand meters long and has never been touched before. The surface of the canal has been frozen, under the ice, the canal water flows, the aquatic plants are drifting, and from time to time there are surges under the ice.

He first took his brothers upstream, where the canal was wide, three or four meters, but the water was not deep, less than one meter. They took great difficulty to dig up the frozen soil on the embankment on both sides of the river, and began to push the soil into it with a cart, and it took two days to close the cofferdam.

At night, they dug a pit in the leeward part of the embankment, spread grass on it, and built a small straw hut. When you are hungry, you will burn a potato to eat, when you are thirsty, you will drink the cold river water, if you are sleepy, you will squeeze in the shed and sleep for a while, and when it is cold, you will light a bonfire in the middle of the shed to keep warm.

That night, Shu Tong lit a bonfire, and the four of them just washed their feet and sat down in the grass hut, ready to burn the potato on the bonfire for dinner. The four of them saw almost at the same time, three or four meters outside the grass hut, there was a middle-aged man in his thirties, wearing a blue tunic and a blue hat, looking at them expressionlessly.

In just a few seconds, the man disappeared in an instant.

Yu Songyuan was shocked, he was barefoot, and rushed out of the grass shed as soon as possible. I saw that there was silence in the four fields, only the north wind was blowing. There is saline-alkali land on both sides of the south canal, there is not a single tree, the reeds by the river have long been dried up, low and low against the river slope, a bare, where there are still people.

The three people in the shed were already frightened, and when they saw Yu Songyuan coming in, Shu Tong said with a crying voice, "Brother, forget it, I want to go home!" ”

"Crying for what? I'm tired, it's just an illusion, and I continue to burn potatoes and eat them. After eating, hurry up and get some sleep, wake up and continue to work! Yu Songyuan plucked up his courage and pretended to be casual.

Yu Songquan put the potato into the fire and burned it, "I also think it's an illusion, nothing to be afraid of." ”

"Boss, I know there are no ghosts, and they can only be hallucinations, but I'm still a little scared." Shu Tong was the youngest, seven or eight months younger than the other three. Listening to the cold wind whistling outside the shed, he huddled in the middle of the three of them, and his heart was still straight.

Yu Songyuan sat at the outermost edge of the grass hut, "Are you also afraid?" Chen Lan and Songquan also honestly said that they were really scared in their hearts. After all, they are only thirteen or fourteen-year-old children, in fact, even Yu Songyuan himself has a straight hair in his heart.

When the yam was ripe, everyone finished eating, covered with hay, and fell asleep together. Yu Songyuan is the boss, and he can only sleep against the door of the small shed, shielding his three younger brothers from the cold wind. "Do you say that ghosts are powerful, or are the Japanese powerful?"

"Naturally, little Japan is powerful and can start a shijie war. Oni are people who are scared of themselves, but little Japan has scourged half the world, especially Asia, and China has suffered the most. Shu Tong said.

"Back then, my grandparents and my uncle were burned to death by the Japanese, and my eldest and youngest grandfather, my mother and aunt became orphans, and they were also thirteen or fourteen-year-old children, but they were able to kill countless Japanese, so scared that the Japanese, puppet soldiers, and traitors did not dare to walk at night or go out at night. We are their children, and sleeping next to the cemetery should be scared like this? ”

Yu Songyuan seems to be asking everyone, but also like questioning himself.