My 1995 Small Farm.

Chapter 359 Chen Ling Shows Off His Ventriloquism
When the four arrived at the reservoir, there weren't many swallows left.

These birds are known for their flocking behavior at dawn and dusk, meaning that they can be seen flying together in the early morning and evening, creating a spectacular sight that darkens the sky.

Now that the sun is high in the sky, the swallows have already flown to various places to forage for food.

But they were not disappointed.

There are just too many birds here at the reservoir. In spring, the water warms up, the willows sprout green leaves, the peach and plum trees turn red, and the reeds slowly grow.

There are an unusually large number of birds hiding inside.

As soon as people approached, countless water birds were startled and took flight in a flurry.

Without saying a word, Yu Qi'an picked up his slingshot and started shooting.

Not to be outdone, Zhou Weijun and his companion also pulled up their slingshots and began aiming and firing wildly at the startled birds.

After only a couple of shots, Yu Qi'an put down his slingshot and excitedly rushed towards the flock of birds, yelling as he ran, "My goodness, how come there are so many lovebirds here?"

Chen Ling was stunned. He thought to himself, "How can you catch a bird if you just rush over like that?"
Zhou Weijun and Ma Wei laughed helplessly.

Then Zhou Weijun shouted to him, "Qian, come back quickly! You go crazy when you see birds. You didn't bring anything with you. How can you catch them with your bare hands? Come back and let Fugui help you figure something out."

Yu Qi'an, his feet covered in mud, stood out panting in the distance and waved to Chen Ling, saying, "Fu Gui, come help me! There are so many lovebirds; they'll run away if we don't catch them!"

Upon hearing this, Chen Ling couldn't help but chuckle and called out, "Old Yu, come back quickly! We have plenty of these birds here, they're everywhere in the mountains. I'll take you to catch a few more later."

"Well, that's fine."

As Yu Qi'an spoke, he glanced longingly in the direction the lovebirds had flown away before turning back again and again.

"Fugui, what are you trying to arrest this time?"

Hearing them shouting outside, Old Niwai came out of his house and asked curiously.

My friend said he wanted to catch two red-lipped jades.

Chen Ling smiled. "Red-billed jade" is what they call the lovebird here. This bird has bright feathers, is about the size of a sparrow, has a red beak, a white ring around its eyes like a thrush, a yellowish-green head, and green from below its eyes to the back of its neck.

The color is yellow from the mouth down, turning orange-red as it extends down to the chest, with a grayish-white abdomen, yellowish-gray sides, and half-circles of gold on the wings, making it extremely beautiful.

This bird is only found south of the Qinling Mountains. Similar to the swallow, it is very difficult to see in the north because there is no suitable environment for it to survive.

Old Niwei puffed on his cigarette. "Oh, catching red-billed jays? Go look for them on the mountain. Where there's lots of bamboo, there are lots of red-billed jays. Wait until Xiaoman (the 15th of the lunar calendar), when there are the most birds. Take a chicken coop and a sieve and go up the mountain to catch them. You can catch several at a time."

Yu Qi'an, who had just returned to the village entrance and was stomping the mud off his feet, was immediately stunned upon hearing this. "Huh? Does this bird like to stay where bamboo grows?"

Old Nian grinned and said, "Yes, these birds live very low. When it's warm, they live in the bamboo thickets, and when it's cold, they burrow into the bushes. They don't build nests on the treetops, so they're easy to catch."

Upon hearing this, Yu Qi'an perked up: "Uncle, you just said that you have the most Xiaoman birds here, how many kinds are there?"

"How many kinds? There are too many to count."

Old Niwai tossed away his cigarette butt, shook his head, and said, "Some live by the water, some run in the wild, and some fly into the mountains. When you reach Xiaoman, you'll see that in just the time it takes to eat breakfast in the morning, you can hear no less than a dozen kinds of birds calling outside."

At this moment, Zhou Weijun couldn't help but ask, "Uncle, why are there so many birds here during the Lesser Fullness of Grain?"

"Why else? It's warm during the Lesser Fullness of Grain, and there are insects and grains everywhere, so there's plenty of food for the birds." Old Niwai chuckled. He knew Zhou Weijun; Chen Ling had taken him to his house to buy things before.

"So this is ah."

Beside him, Yu Qi'an exclaimed with sudden realization, "Uncle, you know so much! You must be a master at catching birds too!"

"Hey, what expert? Everyone knows this stuff. Fugui has been catching birds in the mountains since he was a kid. He knows more about birds and how to catch them. Let him take you there."

Old Niwei waved his hand, saying that even the boys in the village knew how to do this, and he didn't understand why these outsiders were so interested in it.

Upon hearing this, Yu Qi'an couldn't wait to pull Chen Ling up the mountain to catch birds.

Chen Ling told him not to rush, as he hadn't brought all the tools, so he went to Wang Jusheng's house first. After a few words, he called Wang Jusheng to take the wood-chopping knife, cotton thread, and other tools, and they went up the mountain together.

As they walked up the mountain, Zhou Weijun asked, "These birds are called lovebirds. Do they only ever be a pair? If one dies, will the other die with it?"

As soon as he said this, Wang Jusheng couldn't help but laugh: "You call it the lovebird, we call it the red-beaked jade, there's no such name."

Besides, these birds always roam in flocks. When we were kids, we boys did our share of mischief. After catching a few, we'd roast them right there with firewood, without even molting them. We'd roast them until they were charred, their feathers burned off, but when we broke open the blackened shell, the meat inside was pink and plump, incredibly tender.

Zhou Weijun swallowed hard upon hearing this and hurriedly asked, "How does it taste? How is it?"

"This tastes quite like a sparrow; the more you chew it after roasting, the more fragrant it becomes."

Wang Jusheng shook his head and said that he and Zhou Weijun had long been acquainted. The old man had been going to his house for a long time and bought all of his pickled vegetables. He was really outrageous.

"Right, Fugui? I haven't had it in years. I remember it tastes like this."

Chen Ling nodded: "Well, actually, apart from some special kinds like water birds, the taste is basically the same when roasted over firewood."

"No, no, no, how can they be almost the same? It's because you've eaten too much good food now and don't appreciate roasted bird meat anymore. I still think roasted pigeon meat is more fragrant."

The three of them began to have a heated discussion about the taste of bird meat.

This caused both Yu Qi'an and Ma Wei to roll their eyes.

Yu Qi'an finally understood why Chen Ling kept so many things at home, but not birds—it turned out he just caught and ate them.

Although red-billed leiothrixes can be found in bird markets in the north, good specimens are rare.

He felt it was a waste to roast and eat such a fine ornamental bird.

However, Yu Qi'an soon changed his mind.

Once you enter the mountains, there are just so many birds, beautiful birds with lovely songs everywhere.

The red-lipped jade was completely inconspicuous inside.

He even saw many rare birds darting by on the branches.

Yu Qi'an kept shouting and exclaiming in surprise, looking from east to west, his eyes unable to keep up with the sights, and he felt like he didn't have enough eyes to see everything.

It was like a mouse falling into a rice jar.

He wanted both birds, and wanted to catch them all, but suddenly he didn't know which one to catch.

They had already reached the vicinity of a bamboo grove, but Yu Qi'an looked up at the surrounding branches, no longer in a hurry to catch the red-beaked jade, and just murmured to himself, "This place is simply paradise, I don't want to leave now that I'm here."

There are so many birds in the mountains, the lovebirds are nothing compared to them; he wants them all.

"Oh no, oh no, Qi'an is also captivated by this place. Look at his eyes, he's chasing this bird and that bird, there aren't enough of them."

Upon seeing Yu Qi'an's appearance, Zhou Weijun immediately laughed.

Squinty-eyed Ma Wei chuckled and said, "That's right. He's like a monkey that's entered a cornfield, trying to catch all the birds in one net, but he only has two hands and can't catch so many."

Then he turned to Chen Ling and said, "Fu Gui, he asked you to help him catch birds. Don't forget to charge him. Qi An spends tens of thousands of yuan every year buying birds and birdcages. You saved him a lot of money."

These bird owners in Beijing not only keep expensive birds, but also expensive cages.

Not only do we need to keep birds, we also need to keep cages.

Keeping birds, keeping cages, walking birds, walking cages – these are activities that most people can't imagine.

Sometimes, even a single cage can cost thousands or tens of thousands of yuan these days.

There will still be hundreds of thousands of cages in the next twenty or thirty years.

"Haha, now that you mention it, I do have a suggestion for Lao Yu..."

Chen Lingchong said to Yu Qi'an, who had a round face, "Old Yu, there are many birds in the mountains. We can't catch many by ourselves. Let's catch a few red-billed jade birds later, and after we go down the mountain, you can ask the villagers to help you catch more. They're fast at catching them." Yu Qi'an's eyes lit up, and he clapped his hands and exclaimed, "That's right! How come I didn't think of that? That old man just now knew a lot. He said that many people in the village can catch them."

Chen Ling said, "You came at a bad time. Many people from our village have gone out to work this year. If you had come last year, the young people would have caught birds much faster."

Yu Qi'an, however, was immersed in the joy of the upcoming bird-catching bounty. He waved his hand excitedly and said, "Don't worry, the old general is worth two people. It doesn't matter if there are few young people. I'll pay more money. It just so happens that Lao Zhou's film crew is coming and can stay in your village for a while."

He took it all in stride. Then, the group chatted and laughed as they walked into the bamboo forest, where they began to prepare to catch the red-beaked jade.

Although the Red-billed Jade does not build its nest in high places, but only lives in low bamboo groves and shrubs, it is not easy to find its nest in the bamboo groves in the lush green spring.

Their nests are quite small, and sometimes they are overlooked even when they are right in front of people.

So we still need to create a trap to lure it.

The nests of the Red-billed Jade are hard to find, but this bird is not difficult to catch.

Red-beaked jade is silly and easy to fool. It's very easy to catch; any little kid in Chenwangzhuang can catch it.

Chen Ling and Wang Jusheng simply cut a few thin bamboo stalks, cleaned off the small branches on the bamboo poles with a knife, and then divided them into several short sticks and bamboo strips about twenty centimeters long.

Then clear a small open space in front of him and dig a small rectangular pit.

This small pit should ideally be deeper.

A few discarded roof tiles were placed over the pit; these were old tiles that had been taken from the roof of Wang Jusheng's house.

Then, bamboo sticks were placed over the small pit, and two tiles were placed over it, leaving a gap in one of the tiles, which was then propped up with bamboo sticks so that birds could land in it.

Take another thin bamboo stick with good elasticity and insert it into the soil, making sure to insert it quite deeply.

The key to this triggering device is bending the bamboo stick to create elasticity and power.

Tie a thin rope to the bent section of the bamboo stick; this rope is sturdy enough to be used for sewing shoe soles.

A small stick, about the length of a little finger, is tied to the middle of the rope and wedged under the tile, onto the bamboo stick that supports the tile.

As for whether the small bamboo sticks supporting the tiles can withstand this force, there's no need to worry.

Chen Ling was planted in the soil, but not too deep, just enough to maintain his balance.

When the red-beaked jade comes over and touches the bamboo stick, the balance is broken, the rope is instantly bounced up by the bamboo stick, and then it will be caught by the tile and put into the small pit below.

This is actually the same principle as the hanging foot cover.

However, the sling can injure birds.

The red-billed jade sparrow is about the size of a bird with such tiny feet that it's easy to miss the feet and trap the bird's body instead. In some cases, the trap might even kill the bird if it's pulled too hard.

This trap ensures the bird is not harmed to the greatest extent possible because it is trapped in a deep pit below by the tiles, where it has room to move around.

Chen Ling set up a trap, scattered some chaff around the tiles, then withdrew his hand to make the next one.

Initially, it was just him and Wang Jusheng doing it.

Later, Zhou Weijun, Yu Qi'an, and two others joined in.

Men, when they get into a game, they're like big kids. Once they get into it, they set up a dozen or so traps, and only stopped when they ran out of tiles.

After finishing, Yu Qi'an felt that the three of them had done a worse job than Chen Ling and Wang Jusheng, so he hesitated and muttered, "Fu Gui, is this okay? I think this trap is too simple and too crude."

Upon hearing this, Chen Ling simply smiled at him and said, "The Red-billed Jade Bird is silly; there's no need to go to the trouble of making such a sophisticated trap. This one will suffice."

"But if you're worried that traps won't work and want to see results quickly, I have a solution too."

Chen Ling's words surprised not only Zhou Weijun and the other two, but also Wang Jusheng, who hurriedly asked, "What's your plan? If you have one, show us quickly."

Chen Ling chuckled, waved to the four of them, and then led them into the bamboo grove not far from the trap.

What are you doing here?

"Be quiet, I'm going to lure the birds."

Chen Ling raised a finger to shush, then covered his mouth with one hand and made a sound like "Red Jade".

"Chirp chirp~", "Chirp chirp chirp~"

A series of loud yet melodious bird calls emanated from Chen Ling's mouth, intermittently. If an ordinary person were to listen to them, they would not be able to tell that these were human imitations of bird calls.

At first glance, it sounds exactly like a red-beaked jade bird chirping joyfully.

After Chen Ling let out a series of bird calls, the four people hiding behind him became suspicious. Could Chen Ling really lure the lovebirds over by just hiding in the bamboo thicket and imitating bird calls?

Are these birds really that stupid? Can't they tell that the call is being imitated by a human?

However, this suspicion did not last long, probably only about four or five minutes.

They were dumbfounded.

Two brightly colored little birds flew over, their tails wagging back and forth, hopping around in the bamboo grove like sparrows, but they seemed more cheerful than sparrows, and even a bit hyperactive. As they hopped, they kept slightly flapping their wings, making them look exceptionally clever.

After these two flew in, several more red-beaked jade birds soon followed and flew into the bamboo forest.

"I didn't expect it to actually work."

Zhou Weijun and the other two were filled with admiration. At this moment, Chen Ling suddenly stopped the birdsong, and the four of them hurriedly held their breath.

Because the red-beaked jade creatures spotted the food near the trap and slowly moved towards it.

What happened next left Zhou Weijun and his two companions dumbfounded. The red-beaked jade goblins, looking rather foolish, all gathered around a trap and began pecking at the chaff.

This peck had no effect; the mechanism was immediately triggered.

The curved bamboo pole diagonally behind the trap suddenly sprang up with a "whoosh," and the tiles fell down with a thud, completely covering two or three red-beaked jade plants in the small pit.

The others, startled, fluttered away in a panic.

"My goodness, they caught him already."

Yu Qi'an suddenly stood up, his mouth agape in surprise. He didn't rush to catch the bird, but looked at Chen Ling with burning eyes: "You're awesome, brother. I want to learn this from you."

Zhou Weijun frowned and said, "This bird is called the Lovebird, is it really that stupid?"

Ma Wei also joined in the criticism.

I feel like this good name is being wasted.

That's their problem as writers; they like to nitpick.

"It's all decided by people what to name it. Alright, now we can go out and collect birds."

Chen Ling clapped his hands, got up and went out. He walked to the trap, gently lifted the tile, and carefully reached in with one hand to pick out the three red-mouthed jade fish and put them into the big-bellied fish basket.

Yu Qi'an greatly admired Chen Ling's skills in catching and luring birds, especially his ventriloquism in luring birds, which he found incredible.

In response, Chen Ling simply said, "This method is basically just humans acting as bird bait, or bird decoys. It can only fool silly birds like red-billed jays. Most birds are quite clever. Try it on magpies or crows, and they'll be completely ignoring you."

Yu Qi'an then hurriedly asked which birds were the dumbest and easiest to catch.

"What kind of bird is stupid? The spotted dove, of course. Tits and pheasants are also quite stupid; they're easy to fool."

Yu Qi'an's face lit up with excitement as he listened, praising Chen Ling repeatedly. He felt his knowledge had greatly expanded, and on the way down the mountain, he seized the opportunity to interrogate Chen Ling relentlessly.

This person really loves to play to an extreme.

(End of this chapter)