Chapter 11 Bribing a person with a meal After warming up for a while, Li Qiang opened the door, wiped his nose and said: "Uncle, my mom asked me to call you guys to eat." "Okay, we'll be there right away." Li Long stood up, and Tao Daqiang followed Li Qiang to the west room. As soon as I entered the room, I smelled a strong fragrance. On the eight-immortal table in the west house, there was a large pot of stewed chicken with potatoes, and six bowls and six pairs of chopsticks were placed on it. Li Long knew that the seat facing north and south was the seat of the head of the family, Li Jianguo. He was already sitting on the kang. When he saw someone coming in, he first asked Tao Daqiang to sit on his right. There is no custom here that women and children are not allowed to sit at the table, so Liang Yuemei quickly took Li Juan and Li Qiang to sit down. "You must be exhausted, I see the fish you caught are not small. Let's make fish soup tonight!" Liang Yuemei smiled. In the cold winter, the quacking chicken on the table and the thawing fish in the kitchen all indicate that the food will be good in the next few days. What made her even more gratified was that her brother-in-law had become more motivated and knew how to bring things home. After all, in this era of scarcity, the hardest hit were housewives. Eating chicken and fish now was already a better meal than during the Chinese New Year. "Okay, let's eat." Li Jianguo said, "Daqiang, don't be polite, just eat."
"That's right. After we're full, we have to go to Xiaohaizi again." Li Long said, "It's not easy to make an ice hole. We can't waste it." "What? Do you want to go again?" Li Jianguo asked. "The ice we broke is half a meter deep," Li Long said. "There are a lot of fish in the lake. After a while, there will be more fish gathered at the ice hole. If we go again in the afternoon, we may be able to catch more fish." "Then I'll go with you." Li Jianguo said immediately, "Get more and freeze them when we get back so we can eat them until the New Year!" "I want to go too!" When Li Qiang heard that they were going to catch fish, he wanted to go too. Liang Yuemei glared at him: "You're not allowed to go! What can you do there? Make trouble?" Li Qiang was not convinced and lowered his head in grievance. "Okay, okay, let's eat." Li Jianguo picked up a piece of chicken leg and put it into Li Juan's bowl, then picked up another piece and put it into Li Qiang's bowl, and said to Tao Daqiang: "Daqiang, don't be polite, eat quickly." After saying that, he looked at Li Long again, and Li Long said hurriedly: "I'll do it myself!" he said, picking up a potato. Tao Daqiang followed suit and picked up a piece of potato and started eating. This big pot of food is mostly potatoes and a little meat, mixed with a little bit of spicy skin, and tastes quite good. The potatoes are grown in my own vegetable garden and stored in the vegetable cellar in winter. They are stewed very sandy and very tasty. Because it takes a long time to stew, the meat of the quack chicken falls off the bones easily. Everyone was eating very attentively and bones soon piled up on the table. "Daqiang, eat some meat." Li Long saw Tao Daqiang just lowering his head to eat potatoes and said, "There's still meat." "That's right, Daqiang, don't pretend." Liang Yuemei said, "We have to go fishing later, so eat more meat now." "Brother Daqiang, eat meat." Li Qiang also imitated the adults and said. "Hehehe." Li Long laughed. Li Qiang is very awesome. Soon, the dish was almost empty, but there was still half a pot of soup. Liang Yuemei took out a strainer and poured the noodles into the pot. Li Jianguo stirred it and said: "Eat it, this noodle is delicious." They finished the whole pot of food and the bowl of noodles, and at the end everyone drank a bowl of soup to digest the food. Li Long didn't want to move at all.
"Uncle, it's so delicious. Can you catch another quacking chicken in two days?" "I'll try, but I may not be able to catch one." Li Long couldn't guarantee it. He believed that the news that he caught the quacking chicken must have spread throughout the village through Wu Shufen's mouth. If there is a harvest, naturally someone will be interested. You can find the place by following the footprints. I can't guarantee whether there will be any more if I go there at night. "If we don't have quack chicken, fish will be fine too." Li Juan interrupted, "I just saw that big crucian carp. It's so beautiful. It's as wide as my two palms. It has a fat belly. It looks delicious!" When she spoke, Li Juan's eyes were shining and she looked very serious. "That's right. Even if there's no guarantee of chicken, there will definitely be plenty of fish." Li Long stood up and helped Liang Yuemei clean up the dishes, making Liang Yuemei feel that her brother-in-law had really changed. He would never have been able to do such a thing before! After resting for half an hour, Li Long returned to the house and saw that the clothes were almost dry, so he told his elder brother Li Jianguo that it would be better to go now. Li Jianguo was almost ready, so he got dressed and went out. "Take two fertilizer bags, otherwise it will be hard to catch the fish." Li Long reminded, "The ice hole may be frozen with a thin layer, which can be broken open with a shovel." "Okay." Li Jianguo prepared the tools, then followed Li Long and Tao Daqiang to the small lake. Liang Yuemei watched the three people leave, then took Li Juan and Li Qiang to clean up the fish. All the fish were put into an oval washing basin, Li Juan scraped the scales, Li Qiang helped to pick the gills, and Liang Yuemei used scissors to peel the fish. After she cut open the belly of the first big crucian carp, she saw that the belly of the fish was indeed very fat, and she smiled. very nice. Thinking about the smile on her husband's face when he went with Li Long and the others, Liang Yuemei found it a little funny. If she understood, she should understand that this is called "a man remains a boy until he dies." When it comes to things like catching fish and shrimp, men of eighteen and eighty years old usually have the same interests. Tao Daqiang once again took the lead and cleared the way. After two trips, a narrow path had been cleared through the knee-deep snow, making it easier to walk. Twenty minutes later, the three men arrived at the location of the ice hole. Sure enough, a thin layer of ice had already covered the original water surface. Tao Daqiang smashed the ice with a shovel, then scooped up the broken ice with a scoop net, went down first, stood up, and started to "scoop fish". Li Long was not idle either. He gathered a pile of reeds and started to light a fire. When the first net came out, three or four fish were poured onto the ice along with the crushed ice by Tao Daqiang. They were all carp and grass carp weighing more than one kilogram. Li Jianguo hurriedly picked up the fish from the urea bag, looking at Tao Daqiang from time to time. He was eager to try the net. When the second net came out, a black object was poured out along with three or four fish - Li Jianguo was shocked when he saw it! Li Long had sharp eyes. After seeing this thing, he said with great joy: "Brother, this is a water rat, kill it quickly!" Water rat? What is a water rat? Although Li Jianguo didn't understand what it was, he reacted quickly. He picked up a shovel and slammed the slow-moving guy onto the ice. The front of this thing looks like a big mouse, not much smaller than a rabbit, but its tail is very strange, hard and hairless, like a flat stick standing upright. Although it moved slowly, the two big teeth in this guy's mouth were not slow at all. Being pressed there, it had to gnaw on the ice with a crunching sound, and soon it gnawed a hole in it! Li Jianguo quickly slapped it twice more and killed it. He looked at Li Long, wanting to hear how his brother would explain this. (End of this chapter)
