My 1995 Small Farm.

Chen Ling thought this was good news.

The village has never had all the required teachers for every subject.

The so-called music teacher, art teacher, and physical education teacher are often the same person.

"I wholeheartedly support such a wonderful idea. If you invite more senior professors over, my children won't need to go to school outside anymore."

"Then your kid will have to spend some money to renovate the school again."

"Renovating the school is easy. Adding a few more classrooms won't be a problem. Leave it to me."

Chen Ling thumped his chest loudly.

The school was flooded when it was flooded two years ago, and it was later rebuilt.

But the village school was just a small place, nothing special, just simple and rough mud-brick houses.

So even though it's newly renovated, it's still dilapidated and old.

Seeing Chen Ling's appearance, Old Zhong smiled and pointed at Chen Ling, then said to Zhao Yubao and his wife, "What did I tell you? We should ask Fugui for this. He's so wealthy now, building a school would be a piece of cake for him."

"Wow, good heavens, so it turns out you two families had your eyes on me all along." Chen Ling glared.

Zhao Yubao patted him on the shoulder: "How could I say I'm trying to take advantage of you? This is just helping you do a good deed. Building a school is a great act of merit, just like building bridges and paving roads."

I will inscribe a monument for you.

From now on, if anyone in the surrounding villages dares to speak ill of you, they'll be the butt of their mouths.

Hearing this, the lynx poked its head out from the kitchen: "Fugui, Uncle Zhao is right, I support you. So many kids in the village like and admire you."

You can't always have them figuring things out and playing around with you.

Besides playing, we also need to create a good educational environment for these good kids.

dont you agree? "

Chen Ling thought about it and realized that it was true.

Even though the Chen and Wang families in the village are now involved in a lot of messy and ridiculous things.

The Chen family and the Wang family are no longer as close as they were in the old days.

But since they are two surnames who have lived in the same village for hundreds of years, they are still closer to each other than to outsiders.

With proper education, children will definitely have a stronger sense of identity and belonging than previous generations when they grow up.

Chen Ling thought about it and mustered up his enthusiasm: "Great, great. If you put it that way, I'll have to find someone to renovate the village school."

Seeing this, the lynx laughed and said, "Look at Fugui, he's getting more and more excited as he talks, and he'll forget to cook for a while."

"Let me cook a couple of dishes. It's your dad's birthday, I have to show my appreciation," Aunt Zhong said with a smile.

No matter what, the old lady is a mother of three. Even if she can't cook exceptionally well, she's definitely qualified for this kind of small family dinner.

So Aunt Zhong went into the kitchen to help Shanmao and her son prepare the food.

Aunt Zhao brought Chen Ling a jar of pickled cabbage; they'll be making pickled cabbage fish later.

Old Zhong set up the chessboard and raised an eyebrow at Chen Ling: "Want to play another game?"

Today is his birthday, so he doesn't have to worry about anything and can relax a lot.

"I'm not coming, I'm not coming."

Chen Ling quickly waved his hand: "You should play with Uncle Zhao. I'm going to work on my sauerkraut fish. Today is your birthday, so I can't bring myself to play too hard. Let's wait for another day and have a good game."

After several games of chess today, Chen Ling lost so badly he was practically stripped naked, so Old Man Zhong naturally wanted to press his advantage.

Besides, winning the game is definitely something to be happy about.

So I wanted to drag Chen Ling along again.

"Oh dear, winning and losing are common occurrences in war. Old Zhao's playing style is not fair. I still prefer to play chess with you, Fugui."

The dark-skinned, thin old man looked at Chen Ling with a beaming smile and an expectant expression.

Zhao Yubao glared at him: "Who are you calling dishonest? Back then, they all wanted me to be the chairman of the chess association, but I didn't take the position. I don't go into any world of fame and fortune. I'm upright and honest, like a lotus rising from the mud. If I'm not upright, you're completely out of touch."

Seeing that the two of them were fighting, Chen Ling quickly slipped away.

Winning is great, but if you keep losing, who would want to play? He doesn't like to be tortured.

He went straight into the kitchen to prepare sauerkraut fish.

Such a large fire is a rare sight.

This thing is ferocious; it only eats meat and grows very quickly as long as there are enough fish and shrimp.

However, it rarely becomes widespread.

Sun Yanhong had caught quite a few fish heads when she was collecting fish before.

However, they were all small, and many were released back into the river.

As for outside Chen Ling's own farm, there were no fires in the ditches or canals except in the river at the foot of the back mountain.

There's nothing else to it; these kinds of fish like places with lots of aquatic plants.

The water was so clear that there wasn't a single duckweed plant on it, so they didn't like going there.

If a ditch or stream becomes overgrown with duckweed or other aquatic plants, fires will gather from all directions.

They even went so far as to stage repeated 'land migrations' at night.

That said, the fish is really delicious, and it's perfect for making sauerkraut fish.

"This fish is ferocious. I used to keep it in a fish tank a few years ago. At first, when it was a foot long, I fed it tadpoles, and later I fed it small fish. It would eat as much as I fed it."

They grow incredibly fast in the fish tank.

You can't just stop feeding it because you think it's too big.

When they get hungry, they fight with other fish, resulting in either death or serious injury.

After finishing making the longevity noodles, Lynx helped Aunt Zhong with the cooking. Seeing such a large fire immediately brought back unpleasant memories.

"I finally managed to raise two snakehead fish in the tank, from ten centimeters to almost thirty centimeters, but they were killed by this thing."

Chen Ling knew that in the past few years, the large fish tank of the lynx had some deep-sea turtles and some ferocious carnivorous fish: "The mandarin fish are water tigers, they are very fierce. Two mandarin fish, can the fire handle them?"

"They don't fight each other much, but these blackfish like to cause trouble at night. Several blackfish fight each other. The snakehead fish are timid and swim fast. Sometimes they get startled and crash into the tank and die."

The lynx said helplessly.

In some places, the mandarin fish is called the "arrowfish" because it is indeed shaped like a shuttle and moves through the water as fast as an arrow.

But when it's a small fish, it's very timid.

It's more like a water rat than a water tiger; it can scare you to death.

The key is speed. When kept in a fish tank, if someone gets close and makes a noise, they dart around inside.

They are extremely prone to dying from hitting the tank.

"You've got quite a few things to keep, have you kept piranhas?"

Chen Ling asked with a smile.

The lynx clicked its tongue regretfully: "No, I did want to keep one. I even asked someone to get one for me. But Uncle Han dragged me around all the time, so I didn't have the chance or the interest anymore."

Then, he looked at Chen Ling and said, "By the way, didn't Professor Feng Yi give you a fish tank? Have you decided what to keep? If you want to keep some piranhas or something, I'll ask someone to find some for you."

"Come on, piranhas? I haven't even figured out how to play with the local fish yet."

Chen Ling shook his head. "My mutated glowing fish, I haven't had a chance to breed them for the past six months. The good ones and the bad ones are mixed together, and I guess they're about to be ruined."

"Tsk, you'd better watch out. Didn't someone say last time that someone was using your fish as breeding stock in the provincial capital? Don't let them surpass you."

The lynx chuckled mischievously.

Once you get the hang of keeping ornamental fish, it doesn't require much effort, but you do need to take care of them a little every day.

For example, promptly separate fish of good quality from those of poor quality.

This is the only way to raise them better and better, and produce high-quality fish.

The rest are the fish to be eliminated.

Sometimes culling fish can yield pleasant surprises, but you can't always rely on them. It's best to separate them if necessary.

Otherwise, the more you raise them, the more mixed they become, and the worse they get.

"Surpass me? I'm not too worried about that. Let them do whatever they want. They'll come looking for me again someday."

Chen Ling, on the other hand, was very confident about this.

In his mind, fish were much simpler than cattle, horses, sheep, and dogs.

If you raise a pair of fish well, you can produce a large batch of good fish.

It's easy to care for, and the results are incredibly fast.

Therefore, he didn't take it seriously and had a very casual attitude.

"Wow, you're really confident! I think you're more confident than someone who raises dogs! Did you raise these red eels yourself?"

The lynx was a little surprised by his expression.

Chen Ling chuckled upon hearing this: "Oh, you guessed right."

The lynx rolled its eyes, not believing it.

They chatted about fish while cooking.

Aunt Zhong quietly left the kitchen.

Of course, Lynx wasn't just chatting idly with Chen Ling; he was also very concerned about celebrating his father's birthday.

He was responsible for making half of the sauerkraut fish.

If he hadn't been so bad at controlling the heat, he would have cooked the fish himself.

It was almost noon.

After school, the children brought over a few wild rabbits.

It was a wild rabbit whose burrow was flooded and destroyed on a rainy day.

They were caught by their parents.

Before the start of the school year, Chen Ling cooked a big meal for their child. Now that they know Chen Ling is with Old Zhong, they brought the rabbit over as soon as they caught it.

Besides rabbits, there was also more than half a bucket of river clams.

This is the doll that the children took out and gave to Zhao Yubao to play with.

The old man likes to play around.

Adults and children alike know this.

It's just that some gifts from adults had ulterior motives, which he refused to accept.

Seeing that the clams were quite clean, Chen Ling picked them out to cook a dish.

"Huh? You can eat this?"

Both families were quite surprised, even the little kids were surprised.

"Uncle Fugui, you can't eat river clams, they're disgusting and are used to feed chickens. But you can eat snails. My grandma said that snails are better than fat geese during Qingming Festival, snails are the best."

"Don't worry, if your uncle says it's edible, then it's edible. Nobody in the village eats crayfish, but your uncle still cooks and eats them. Would I lie to you?"

Chen Ling said with a smile.

Actually, the locals don't eat river clams.

No one in your family has ever eaten this stuff, not even a few generations ago.

Firstly, it's troublesome.

It's relatively difficult to gather enough river clams for a large pot; you might spend half a day gathering them and only get enough for one dish.

As for snails and river snails, you can easily fill a bucket with them.

Secondly, river mussels have thick shells and little meat, making them cumbersome to process. Many villagers, when they find river mussels, either give them to their children to play with or crush the shells and throw them outside to feed the chickens and ducks.

In addition, for ordinary households, river clam meat is quite difficult to cook. It is usually very tough and cannot be chewed.

So I don't eat there much anymore.

Just like this year, when some tourists from other places came to visit, they were puzzled and asked around.

They wondered how Chen Fugui's family outside the village knew so many ways to cook food.

These are all locals living in the mountains. They have lived here for generations. Who is worse than whom?
Surely his family knows, but you guys don't?

Chen Fugui has so many ways to eat, don't you guys know how to prepare them?
As a result, the villagers said that there are many things to eat in the mountains, but there are some things they really don't know how to cook well. Only Chen Ling is willing to put in oil and seasonings, and he is just thinking about how to cook a meal.

They are content with eating dumplings a few times a year and having soup once a year after slaughtering a pig; they don't ask for anything else.

Even the wild game caught in the mountains is prepared in the same way as fish and shrimp from the river, with the unpleasant tastes removed as much as possible, and simply fried, stewed or boiled, without any special fancy dishes.

Hearing this, Chen Ling would definitely feel very wronged.

Because some things are simply not something he can figure out just by putting in the effort and money.

For example, the large feasts cooked for weddings and funerals in the village, the seasonings weren't anything special, far inferior to the ingredients he had, but the taste was truly amazing.

Chen Ling could drink several large bowls of soup each time, and still feel like he hadn't had enough.

But when you make it at home, it tastes good, but it's missing something, though you can't quite put your finger on what it is.

This is also very strange.

"Hey, since we're talking about crayfish, did you also come up with the recipe for river clams?"

Zhao Yubao immediately perked up.

"That's not it."

Chen Ling shook his head and smiled: "Speaking of which, in such a small place as our city, the eastern half eats clams, while we are in the western half, so we don't eat clams much... It is said that people in the eastern half have been eating clams since ancient times, and I only found out a couple of years ago. People in the same city are so different."

Chen Ling knew about this dish when he was working in the city. His father picked him up from the city and the two of them had eaten it there.

No wonder the old folks often say that customs vary greatly even within a short distance. If customs differ even across a river, how much more so within a city?

It's normal for there to be differences, given that mountains and rivers separate the two sides.

"Back then, I hadn't made any money working and was feeling down. My dad deliberately found something interesting for me to listen to, so he asked the restaurant owner how to cook river clams, saying they were so delicious."
The people in our own village don't eat the river clams at all; the meat is too tough and chewy.

My dad is a strange guy. He's not particularly noticeable in the village, but he's easy to get along with everyone outside. He just asked him a couple of questions, and the shopkeeper actually told him...

They told us that when they eat river clams, they never say that the meat is tough, hard, or difficult to chew.

When cooking river clams, scoop out the clam meat, then make two cuts on the two muscles that hold the clam shell together. Gently pound the remaining clam meat and tongue to soften it before cooking so it won't become tough.

I've always remembered this practice.

But I haven't made it since my dad passed away. I only made it for Zhenzhen last year. I stir-fried it with chili peppers, and it tasted really good.

The soup was also very delicious.

When Chen Ling talked about this, his feelings were quite complicated.

He is not a sentimental person.

Seeing the Lynx celebrating their father's birthday today just brought back some memories.

It's only human nature to do that.

"Your dad must be a very good person."

Old Zhong and Zhao Yubao exchanged a glance and said, "I heard from your Party Secretary that your father wanted to see your mother one last time before he passed away. He also asked you to try to find her. He was worried that you would have a hard time being alone. In this regard... do you need our help?"

Upon hearing this, Chen Ling was stunned for a moment, and then simply shook his head.

He had long understood his father's intentions; it wasn't for his mother, but for his own son.

He was so useless back then, even after he got married, he couldn't rest easy and was still worried about him when he passed away.

Just a mother...

Some things don't need to be thought about too deeply.

We're doing just fine with our current situation.