Back to 1984: Earning Money, Raising Kids, and Keeping the Household Busy

Chapter 59 Great Harvest

After finishing with the fishing nets, Chen Wenjun immediately boarded the boat and rowed the five-sailed boat to a relatively calmer spot.

It was the first time the two children had been to this body of water, and everything was new and exciting to them.

Liu Yaya pointed to the water plants by the river and exclaimed, "Are there duck eggs in there? Uncle, should we go and collect them?"

Chen Wenjun chuckled and shook his head. "Not now! The water level is too high. Even if there are duck eggs, they'll be ruined and we can't collect them. Uncle, how about you guys fish with the fish trap?"

The two children weren't disappointed; they happily ran to the back to get their fishing rods.

Chen Wenjun found a place for the fishing boat to pull over.

Quickly get ashore to dig for earthworms.

On rainy days, earthworms emerge in many low-lying, flooded areas. Some are as thick as a little finger and several tens of centimeters long. The key is that they come in clusters, densely packed together, which is enough to make one's scalp tingle.

Lin Qin stood on the deck watching, showing no intention of getting off the ship.

Chen Wenjun took a bucket and filled it with about half a bucket of large earthworms. "Use these to fish; small fish won't bite."

Knowing that Lin Qin had a slight fear of trypophobia, he didn't let her do it. He took the scissors himself and cut a large earthworm into several pieces in a few strokes.

The fishy smell was dispersed by the river breeze.

Lin Qin's tightly furrowed brows relaxed, and seeing Chen Wenjun thoughtfully helping her bait the hook, she happily sat down and cast her line.

The two children watched from the side. If Lin Qin could catch fish, they would put bait on the hook; if she couldn't, they would obediently go to the back cabin to play.

The waiting time is quite long.

Lin Yi glanced at the water every now and then, muttering to himself, "The water is still too strong. I guess we won't be able to catch anything. I think we can try a different spot, or have Wenjun put a fish trap here. How deep is the water here? Where can we go if we go this way?"

Chen Wenjun answered all the questions.

As they were talking, Lin Qin suddenly exclaimed excitedly in a low voice, "There's movement! Quick! Look!"

Four pairs of eyes immediately came closer.

In just a short while, the entire buoy sank.

Lin Qin immediately reeled in her fishing rod and began a tug-of-war with the object underwater.

Chen Wenjun decisively went to the back to get the net.

Lin Yi helped pull the rod. The fishing line wasn't the best, and they were worried it would break, so the father and daughter were very careful and didn't dare to use any force.

Only when the fish was tired from being played did they dare to drag it closer. Chen Wenjun, quick-witted and agile, spotted the fish's movements and rushed forward, catching a silver carp weighing four or five pounds in the net.

Lin Yi was overjoyed, "What a good omen! Ya Ya is safe and sound, let's get to work!"

Chen Wenjun didn't dare go far, so he simply set up a trap nearby.

The family had been busy all afternoon, and as it was getting dark, Chen Wenjun rowed his boat over to collect the nets.

Closing the net requires two people working together.

Lin Yi was worried and insisted on helping.

The river was wide, and their nets only covered part of it.

Lin Qin stabilized the bamboo pole and fishing net on the other side of the shore, while Lin Yi rowed the boat under Chen Wenjun's command, and Chen Wenjun was responsible for hauling in the net.

Starting from this end, we pulled up the pole, stopped briefly in the middle of the bamboo pole, cleared away the debris, and then continued to move closer to the shore where Lin Qin was.

When all the bamboo poles were brought ashore.

Chen Wenjun began to pull the fishing net from underwater with great effort.

At first, Lin Yi was somewhat disappointed when there were only a few carp, crucian carp, and silver carp in the net. But when he had caught a third of the fish, river eels appeared, starting with just two or three and eventually swarming in large numbers.

At first glance, it looks like a snake pit has been disturbed, and what's most shocking is...

There was even a huge fish weighing over ten kilograms in the net, its head almost as big as two children. "Wow! Such a big fish didn't even break the net, this net was such a good deal!" Lin Qin grinned from ear to ear.

The price of fish is directly proportional to its size; the bigger the fish, the more valuable it is. This fish should sell for at least thirty or forty yuan!

Besides this big fish, the river eels were also quite large and looked plump. They could sell for 2.5 or 2.6 yuan per pound, and these probably weighed 40 or 50 pounds each.

Chen Wenjun pulled the fishing net up, glanced at the fishing boats in the distance, and said excitedly, "I'll get the big fish onto the boat first. Don't tell anyone about this, or Aunt Shuifang will be unhappy."

When they first met, Zhou Shuifang noticed the fishing net looked obviously sour. If she knew that the net had caught a fish weighing over ten kilograms, she would definitely make a scene.

Lin Qin didn't want to cause trouble, so she immediately asked Lin Yi for help to get the big fish and a bucket of river eels onto the boat.

The two made three trips before they managed to get most of the eels onto the boat, and Lin Qin was still picking through the fishing net.

Grandpa Chen's fishing boat was about to head back, and as soon as it approached Zhou Shuifang, he couldn't wait to ask, "Wenjun's wife, how was the catch?"

Lin Qin was startled. She looked up at them, smiled at Zhou Shuifang, and pressed down on the bucket to show them, "There's not much."

Zhou Shuifang immediately became anxious, "This shouldn't be! We caught several eels with a small fishing net! How come such a big net only caught so few?"

Lin Qin chuckled, "Maybe it wasn't done properly and got away."

Zhou Shuifang looked regretful. "Next time we have to be more careful, so as not to waste such a big net."

As she spoke, she shrank back into the cabin, wondering if she hadn't woven the fishing net properly. What if Chen Wenjun came back and asked her for a refund?
Thinking of this, she quickly urged Chen Yongding to row faster.

Seeing Zhou Shuifang's fishing boat sail away, Lin Qin secretly breathed a sigh of relief. She shook the fishing net clean, intending to hang it on the boat to dry so it could be used again.

Just then, Chen Wenjun got off the boat and said excitedly, "I plan to use the net again. I can catch another batch tonight, and then we'll haul it in early tomorrow morning to collect everything in the traps."

"Send the valuable bulk goods to Guoxing Restaurant first, and we'll sell the rest. Any unsold goods at the market can be stored and sold again this evening."

Chen Wenjun was short of money to build a house, so he naturally couldn't miss any opportunity to make a fortune.

Lin Qin really couldn't do anything about him, so she could only let him do whatever he wanted.

The two dawdled and returned to the fishing boat under the stars and moon.

Lin Yi boiled water.

The two quickly showered and went back to sleep.

It was 4:30 a.m. the next day.

Chen Wenjun opened the cabin with a kerosene lamp, hung the lamp by the door, and used a bamboo pole to retrieve the fish traps.

There aren't many fishermen here normally, but when the floods come, there are so many fish and shrimp that almost every fish trap bursts.

He didn't have time to clean it all by himself, so he could only separate the fish and shrimp into two parts. He would have to wait for Lin Qin to help him with the rest.

I was busy until a little after five o'clock when the sky began to lighten.

Only now was he preparing to go and close the net.

Lin Yi and Lin Qin were both ready.

The three of them worked together to get the fishing net ashore.

Surprisingly, we caught even more river eels this time than we did yesterday afternoon.

In addition, there were several black carp weighing one or two kilograms each, four soft-shelled turtles, and quite a few river shrimp.

For them, this was definitely another huge success.

Chen Wenjun could only carry a limited amount of things at a time.

The couple discussed it and even went to borrow a cart from other Tanka people.

Lin Qin first pushed a cart of fish and shrimp to the market to set up a stall, while Chen Wenjun delivered the big fish and three large buckets of river eels to Zheng Guoxing's place.

(End of this chapter)