In this small fishing village in the middle of nowhere, each of our normal students who have graduated and been assigned to work for at least three years before they can apply for a transfer to work in the city or near their home. At that time, we were all eighteen or nineteen-year-old boys, watching this barren land every day, looking at the career that could be seen through to retirement in that life, it should be a prime of youth, but all day long with these children, although unwilling, but in that era, it was almost impossible to change their fate.

Fortunately, we are all graduates of the same normal school with little age difference, and the passion when we first worked was like fireworks at that moment, which was slowly replaced by these tedious and dull jobs. But the restless heart of the young man could not be stopped.

Opposite the school is a large river that leads directly to the sea, and the beach is wide and covered with reeds. When winter comes, and the reeds turn yellow, the embankment opposite the school immediately comes alive, and the locals are cutting down the yellow reeds, and the outsiders are also rushing to buy the reeds in flatbed carts pulled by donkeys or mules, and they say that the reeds are purchased and returned to those places where they do not produce reeds to make a necessary material for building houses in the countryside at that time.

When the reed harvest is over, the endless reeds immediately turn into a large river beach with an unobstructed view, like a thick-haired person who has just been given a bald head, which is very dazzling at first glance. When winter comes, there will be many small holes on the river beach, and according to the locals, these small holes on the river beach are the home of a kind of crab hibernation unique to the junction of the river and the sea. This crab is not big, but it has two large yellow pincers, and it is caught and marinated with salt, soy sauce, chili, monosodium glutamate, garlic, ginger and other spices, which is a delicacy to accompany the sake.

At this time, there are always fishermen with bamboo baskets on their backs and iron hooks on their backs. I saw that as soon as their heads were lowered and their waists were bent, they were very skilled in using the iron hook in their hands to hook out a black crab from the crab hole, and then straightened their waists, and threw the crabs backwards with the iron hooks in their arms, which must have been so chic and skillful to throw the crabs into the bamboo basket on their backs.

I also wanted to give it a try, so I went to Ye'er and asked her if she had an iron hook to hook crab roe, but the bamboo basket was not necessary, I had my small bucket. Ye Er laughed at me and said, you will definitely not be able to hook crabs, this technique is very difficult, her brother is not very good at hooking crabs until now, for this reason, her brother is often scolded by her father, scolding him for how stupid, how useless and so on.

I don't believe it, I'm going to hook the crab so chicly. The next day, Ye Er really brought her iron hook for hooking crab roe, about a meter long, one end of which was in the shape of a simple curved hook, and the other end was wrapped in cloth to be used as a handle. As soon as school ended, I couldn't wait to change into water shoes, take an iron hook, and carry a small plastic bucket to the river beach to try my crab hook technique. Ye Er stood on the river embankment from afar to watch me perform, and I also learned from the appearance of those fishermen who hooked crab roe, pretending to make a mess, and tinkered with more than a dozen holes in a row, and not a single crab roe came up. In the end, I really hooked a crab roe, but this crab roe has been torn apart, and I hooked it to pieces, leaving only a complete pair of large pincers and half of the body.

When I walked up the embankment to show Ye Er my results, Ye Er said to me with a disdainful face, I said you can't hook, you just don't believe it. It's a pity that such a good crab was hooked to death by you! This was the end of the day's show, and it ended hastily. Later, I asked the local old teachers, and they said that they didn't know much either. If you want to hook the crab, you must first learn to observe the crab's home, that is, those dense holes on the river beach, some holes live in hibernating crabs, some do not, and some holes are hooked by others, encounter such holes, you can't hook the crab no matter what, in addition, you also have to learn to observe the direction of the hole, because not every hole is straight, some holes with bends, you have to follow these invisible bends to hook the crab up, so that the hooked crab will be complete.

If you want to eat delicious crab roe, you can only wait until the spring flowers bloom.

It was the beginning of the school season in September, and the residual heat of midsummer was still scorching the earth, the barren land, the dilapidated school buildings, and the only thing that surprised us was this kind of crab roe crawling everywhere, all over the ground! Walking on the river embankment, this crab shuttles back and forth in front of you, completely ignoring your existence, we have to walk carefully, because if you are not careful, a crab will become a ghost. During class, some crabs will climb onto your lectern table; Back in the dorm, some crabs will burrow into your mosquito net。。。。。。 There are such cute little creatures everywhere.

When we put down our luggage and hurriedly prepared to catch crab roe and plan to cook and eat them in the evening, the old local teacher immediately stopped us when he saw us like this. They say that this crab is their specialty, small in size and small in pincers, and can only enjoy their delicacy when they are dormant. Because in the summer, they will eat, and there are a lot of bacteria, when they eat, because there is little meat and can not be cleaned, they can only chew and eat whole, so they often eat a lot of problems, and in serious cases, it will even be life-threatening.

Since then, we have been with these crabs and have not interfered with each other. However, when winter comes, when we want to eat these cute little creatures, they hibernate and hide in their carefully built nests, and we will not hook crab roe, only in the spring season, the weather warms up, spring comes, these cute little creatures are impatient to drill out of the dark and damp mud holes, enjoy this long-lost spring, is the best time for us to catch them.

The old local teacher also told us that to catch these crabs, we should walk on the river beach with a flashlight on a warm spring evening, and then there will be such crabs everywhere, but I am afraid that your hands will not be enough, and your bucket will not be big enough! However, your catching period can only extend until the Dragon Boat Festival at most, after the Dragon Boat Festival, the reeds by the river have grown taller, and other aquatic species have begun to multiply, at this time the crabs have begun to eat, that is to say, their intestines are no longer so clean, as long as the Dragon Boat Festival passes, you can no longer catch these crabs as a delicacy.

Spring is coming, and the moonlight shines on the river not far away, like a mirror, more like a silver-white ribbon, sparkling and gorgeous. The beach was full of crab roe catchers, and several of our colleagues also wore water shoes, carried flashlights, and carried small buckets to the beach.

Really, there were crabs everywhere, and they were crawling on the river beach with their tentacles stretched out one by one, completely ignoring the people who were walking behind us and preparing to catch them, and we screamed excitedly, feeling that our hands were not enough, and in a few moments, everyone's bucket was full of crab roe that were panting and foaming from their mouths.

Back in the dorm, we were talking excitedly about tonight's harvest, and we were arguing fiercely about how to eat them tonight. In the end, we agreed that part of it was boiled, part of it was fried, and part of it was fried。。。。。。

However, no matter how we try to eat them, they are not delicious, because they are really small meat and small tongs!

Local fishermen say: This kind of crab roe is only suitable for winter pickled with various preparations, and that is the delicacy they give us!