After returning from Uncle Xia's house, Li Chunmei, Xia Xiaomei, and Xiao Wu went straight to the kitchen to help.

Chen Chunhua saw the three people entering the kitchen and exclaimed, "Why are you back so soon? I thought you'd be a while longer!"

Li Chunmei said, "My brother and Jianguo have something to do later, and there will probably be a lot of guests tonight, so we came to help out."

Actually, they were embarrassed to say it, but it was because Chen Chunhua's cooking skills were poor, and they didn't trust her to handle the entire meal for these two tables. In addition, it was getting late, and cooking would be faster if there were more people.

Xia Minmin and the other children were playing in the yard.

Xia Jianguo and Xia Jianshe discussed the specifics of repairing the tomb and erecting a monument in the courtyard.

Xia Jianshe gazed at the distant graves. "Jianguo, do you think we should go find a fortune teller and someone to carve the tombstones now?"

Xia Jianguo glanced at his watch. "It's getting late. Let's go now. I still need to find a few craftsmen."

"The tomb repair can start tomorrow. I'll treat them to dinner tonight to get everything arranged. After we hire craftsmen, we'll provide them with meals every morning, noon, and night. Since you're paying for the tomb repair and the tombstone, I'll pay for the meals every day."

"Okay. Let's set off now."

After the two brothers finished speaking, they rode their bicycles out of the yard.

Xiao Bao was excited to see his dad ride off on his bike. "Sister, let's go fishing!"

Looking into Xiao Bao's bright, sparkling eyes, Xia Minmin couldn't bring herself to refuse.

Wang Yu said to Xiao Bao, "But we don't have any fishing rods either?"

Xiao Bao quietly led his two older sisters through the kitchen to the backyard and took out a machete. "This is good. I'll take you to cut bamboo poles."

Xia Minmin could tell from Xiao Bao's familiar movements that this wasn't the first time he had done this.

Xiao Bao opened the back door, and there was a clump of bamboo behind the house.

Xiao Bao skillfully selected several thin bamboo poles, chopped them down in no time, and also cut off the branches and leaves on the poles.

After preparing the bamboo pole, Xiao Bao took out a roll of string from his pants and tied it to the bamboo pole.

He carefully pulled out a few fishhooks from the corner of the backyard wall. No one knew where he got so many fishhooks and hid them here.

Xia Minmin looked at Xiao Bao, who was tying up fishhooks, and asked, "Xiao Bao, where did you get these fishhooks?"

Xiao Bao chuckled twice. "My cousin gave this to me a while ago. I didn't dare keep it at home, so I had to hide it in a corner."

Seeing that the children had gone to the backyard and hadn't returned, Li Chunmei ran there to look for them, calling out, "Xia Minmin! Wang Yu! Xiao Bao!"

Upon hearing this, several children outside the backyard dropped their fishing rods and ran into the yard.

"Mother!"

"Auntie!"

"Auntie!"

Li Chunmei looked at the children and felt an inexplicable strangeness. "You kids haven't been naughty, have you?"

The children shook their heads frantically, indicating that they didn't.

Finding nothing wrong, Li Chunmei had no choice but to let them go back to play. "Alright, go ahead and play, just be careful not to play near the water."

After Li Chunmei turned and went back to the kitchen, Xiao Bao, like a scout, scouted the backyard gate for a long time before swaggering away, saying, "Let's go! Let's continue making fishing rods."

This doesn't seem like the first time this has happened!

After Xiaobao finished making three fishing rods, he moved the remaining fishing hooks to a different place and hid them, forbidding Xia Minmin and Wang Yu from peeking.

There is a large vegetable garden and a pond outside the backyard. Every winter, the pond is dredged and the dredged mud is piled up in the vegetable garden.

This vegetable patch is very fertile; you can find earthworms just by digging around. Xiao Bao used a machete to dig a hole in the ground and pulled out three earthworms.

Xiao Bao held up an earthworm and handed it to Xia Minmin and Wang Yu, saying, "Here's an earthworm for you, can you put it on yourselves?"

Xia Minmin felt a chill run down her spine at the sight of this mollusk, let alone trying to catch it with her hands.

Neither of Xiao Bao's two older sisters reached out to catch it; they remarked with practiced ease, "Women are such a hassle!"

Xia Minmin was so angry that she pinched his ear. "What did you say? Say it again!"

Xiao Bao immediately begged for mercy, saying, "I'll never dare to do it again."

Xiao Bao rubbed his twisted ear with his shoulder, "I'm not going to hold it against you!"

Xiao Bao baited Xia Minmin and Wang Yu's fishing rods as well, saying, "Here you go."

Xia Minmin, Wang Yu, and Xiao Bao took their fishing rods and went to the pond.

Xiao Bao said, "Sister, we need to keep our distance, otherwise the fish won't bite easily."

As novices in the fishing world, Xia Minmin and Wang Yu listened to advice and generally kept a distance of more than a meter between them.

Before long, Xia Minmin caught a fish. "Xiao Bao, Xiao Bao, look, I caught one!"

Xia Minmin held the fishing line in her hand and was extremely excited as she looked at the fish, which was the size of an adult's palm, on the hook. It was her first time fishing.

Wang Yu from next door also clapped, "Xiao Min, you're amazing!"

But seeing the lively little fish, Xia Minmin was at a loss. "Xiao Bao, Xiao Bao, what should we do next?"

Xiao Bao sighed, then helped Xia Minmin remove the fish from the hook and put it into the fish basket in the pond, which also contained some small fish and shrimp.

Xiao Bao baited Xia Minmin's fishing hook again and said in a condescending tone, "I just can't do anything with you guys!"

Not long after, Wang Yu also caught a fish.

Xiao Bao spent the entire afternoon shuttling between Xia Xia, Min Min, and Wang Yu, constantly taking fish and baiting them. He caught nothing himself.

Xiao Bao pouted and said, "I'm never fishing with you guys again. I fished with my cousin and caught four or five fish, but this time I didn't catch a single one."

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