Chapter 062 Placing the Cage
The lake is not far away, because here in Beishan, people in the family compound call it Beihu.
It took Wen Jiajia about five or six minutes to reach the lake. The half close to the road was surrounded by a wooden fence.
Of course, the fence is not the kind of fence that is seen in scenic spots decades later, but a fence simply made of unpeeled wood using nails.
Anyway, Wen Jiajia felt that it was not very stable, so she tried to push it, and it seemed to be even more unstable than she had imagined.
"Don't lean against the fence." Wen Jiajia turned around and said to the two sisters who were fighting, "Your aunt's swimming level is very average. If you really fall in, you must call your uncle-in-law to save you."
"I know!" Wen Chun kept touching the hair in front of her forehead. He had just washed her hair, and now her hair was messy due to the wind.
Wen Xuan laughed: "Aunt, you are not as good at swimming as me and my sister. I don't want you to save me if I fall."
This is actually quite true.
Because the two girls' swimming skills are really good, they can hold their breath in the bathtub for a long time.
But Wen Jiajia was so angry that she snorted, "After you climb ashore, do you want to change clothes and wash your hair?"
Bathing two kids every day is a hassle, and if you have to wash their hair as well, it's a double hassle.
Wei Dai chose a location and started to go down the cage.
Wen Jiajia watched carefully for a while and asked him, "Is there anything particular about the location you choose?"
Anyway, she felt that everywhere was the same, but Wei Dai spent several minutes choosing a location.
Wei Dai taught her: "Don't put it in shallow water."
Wen Jiajia nodded. Wei Dai indeed abandoned the shallow water area and walked several hundred meters to the other side of the lake where there were lush vegetation and placed the cage.
There was almost no place to step in this area. Before setting foot, you had to knock on the grass and bushes with a stick for fear of snakes.
The North Mountain is close to the mountains and has many insects and snakes.
Wen Jiajia has seen snakes three times this year alone. Once in early spring, when she was picking bitter bamboo shoots on the mountain.
Fortunately, the snake was not very agile and seemed to have just been awakened from hibernation. Wen Jiajia quickly fled and has not dared to set foot in that area since then. She had originally thought of picking some bitter bamboo shoots to make pickled bamboo shoots, but later had no choice but to give up.
The second and third times took place at the foot of Beishan Mountain. Fortunately, it was not next to her home, otherwise Wen Jiajia would definitely go crazy.
Wei Dai added: "It should be placed in an area with abundant aquatic plants, because there are more fish and shrimp in such areas. The fish in this lake are basically herbivorous fish or omnivorous fish. The density of fish here must be greater than that over there by the fence."
Wen Jiajia said, "It would be great if we could catch grass carp, carp and bream would also be good."
Wei Dai smiled and said, "These are the only kinds of fish we have. If there are no more in the cages tomorrow, I'll get a fishing rod and we can catch some grass carp and braise them for dinner."
As they were talking, the cage had already been put away.
A place that is not shallow but not too deep, a place with aquatic plants, a place with fast-flowing water... Wen Jiajia learned a lot of tips on placing ground cages from Wei Dai.
After the show, the sky gradually darkened.
But there is still a golden sunset in the sky to guide those who come home late at night. The sky in winter is much colder and more ruthless. You need a flashlight to walk outside at this time.
The next day.
Wei Dai got up early in the morning to collect the cages, but Wen Jiajia was not awake yet.
When she woke up, the cage had been retracted.
Wen Jiajia rubbed her eyes. She had just woken up and was not used to the strong light outside. She was still a little dazed after hearing the noise and stood by the window looking out.
"How much did you get back?" she asked.
Wei Dai looked up: "You're awake!"
He carried a bucket of water to the yard and poured the goods in the cage into it.
"We have a large stock!" he said. "The grass carp we want to eat is not available, but we do have carp."
"I estimate..." Wei Dai bent down and weighed it, "I estimate it to be more than three pounds." After saying that, the carp slipped from his hand to the ground.
In fact, this is already considered a very light carp. Carp can grow one to two kilograms of meat every year. He once caught an 18-kilogram carp in the river. He heard from the old people in the village that someone in their village even caught a 42-kilogram king fish.
But that was still the old society. There were officials in the county town who ate human flesh and blood, and there were also big landlords around the village who exploited people's marrow.
The fish was not saved in the village, but was taken away by the landlord's servants, leaving behind only two worthless gold yuan notes. What the hell is a gold yuan note? It's so worthless that it's not even useful for starting a fire.
However, according to Wei Dai, who has many years of experience in eating fish, the most delicious carp is the one weighing about one and a half kilograms.
Carp of this weight is the most tender. If you remove the white lines on both sides of the belly, there will be no fishy smell.
Wen Jiajia was overjoyed: "It's still alive! Hurry up and put it in the water tank. We will make braised carp for lunch."
Wei Dai looked up at the sky and said, "Why don't you check your watch? It's already half past nine. How about we just kill ourselves?"
Oh! It's already half past nine.
Wen Jiajia raised her wrist, "Then kill him."
She slept too late last night and was still thinking about going with Wei Dai to get the cage this morning.
In addition to the carp, there were also several small fish weighing less than one pound, and four crabs.
There were two big crabs and two small ones. The big one was as big as her outstretched palm, and the small one was only as small as her fist.
The crayfish that Wen Jiajia had been craving for were also available, and there were quite a lot of them. She ran to the yard in her slippers to count them, and there were 16 in total, but it was still not enough to stir-fry a plate, and it was even less worthy of her frying garlic as a side dish.
"How about we go get some more traps today?" Wen Jiajia ran to the laundry sink and asked Wei Dai, "and catch some more crabs and lobsters."
Wei Dai stretched out his wrist in front of her: "Help me pull up my sleeves. The cuffs are too big and keep falling off."
Wen Jiajia helped him roll up his sleeves and glanced at him: "Why are you wearing long sleeves in this weather?"
Wei Dai didn't want to say anything. His eyes were full of resentment when he looked at Wen Jiajia. Why did he wear long sleeves? It was because the short sleeves had a strong floral scent. Which real man could stand this?
Wen Jiajia understood the meaning in his eyes and coughed twice to ease the embarrassment.
This was an accident. She didn't think about it at the time and directly smeared the essential oil on the paper and put the paper in the closet to fumigate the clothes. Her clothes were indeed fragrant, and Wei Dai's clothes were also fragrant, with the same rose scent.
Fortunately, she only put the paper coated with essential oil into the closet containing summer clothes, thus saving Wei Dai's other clothes.
With a "pop" sound, Wen Jiajia patted Wei Dai's arm gently: "You haven't said it yet, do you want to go and put down some more cages?"
Wei Dai thought: Do I still have a choice?
He nodded: "Put down three, four, five more, and I'll start weaving them later." There was only one ground cage at home, but fortunately there were plenty of bamboo strips.
Wen Jiajia was satisfied and left to have breakfast.
Breakfast is millet porridge with fried dough sticks and salted duck eggs.
As the weather got hotter, Wen Jiajia became afraid of greasy food and had porridge almost every morning.
Goat milk... oh no, now it's cow milk. On weekdays, she put the milk into a jug and took it to the pharmaceutical factory to drink, and on weekends, she drank it as afternoon tea.
In a pleasant afternoon, use the newly fried tea leaves after Qingming Festival to make milk tea. Pour the cooked milk tea into a kettle and throw it into the cold spring water. After half an hour of boiling, the milk tea has reached the same temperature as the spring water. It is icy and refreshing to drink.
I usually have mixed-grain porridge. After the millet was sent to me from home, I basically only drink millet porridge.
Salted duck eggs were also sent from home, but they were sent back the day before last. They taste better than the ones pickled by Wen Jiajia. As soon as you taste them, you can tell that they were pickled by Wei Dai’s father. The duck eggs pickled by him have a stronger wine flavor but a lighter salty taste.
According to the letter, the duck eggs were bought from Fuyang. Wen Jiajia felt particularly at home when she ate them. After all, she had taken care of the ducks for a while, and it was not surprising that she could eat their eggs thousands of miles away.
The letter also said that Fuyang's duck breeding business had expanded and was in full swing. Now several supply and marketing cooperatives in the county town used Fuyang duck eggs.
Wen Jiajia was very happy for her hometown, after all, she had spent a good time in Fuyang. When she first came here, she felt like a floating duckweed, but it was Fuyang that gave her a sense of security and stability.
Needless to say, the fried dough sticks were bought in the cafeteria.
The fried dough sticks by the cafeteria chef are really good. This time they are small fennel dough sticks, only as thick as two fingers, not crispy but soft, but very fragrant, especially fragrant. I don’t know how they flavored it.
Wen Jiajia chews it, the more you chew it, the more fragrant it becomes, and it is quite chewy.
"I'll buy this fried dough stick next time." Wen Jiajia said to Wei Dai who came in with the fish, "It's not oily and doesn't taste as greasy as the big fried dough stick."
"Yeah, I also think this kind of small fried dough sticks are delicious. Old Zhao doesn't like to make them very much. He said that fennel and pepper should be added, so it's better to make big fried dough sticks." Wei Dai put the fish in the kitchen, put it on a plate, and cut a few times on both sides of the fish with a knife, sprinkled salt on it, and poured some rice wine to marinate it.
Wen Jiajia frowned: "Big fried dough sticks consume more oil!" Actually, if you really count it, small fried dough sticks are more expensive.
"That's what I said." Wei Dai smiled, "But don't worry, I'll probably make more of these fried dough sticks in the future."
"Why?"
"Because the leader also said it was good after eating." Wei Dai said with a brighter smile, "The commander also ate in the cafeteria today. He is from Hebei Province. He praised it while eating and said it would be even better if there was a bowl of spicy soup. However, there is no spicy soup, so we have to keep the small fried dough sticks in the cafeteria anyway."
Wen Jiajia thought that it would be better to be a leader.
The leader certainly didn't mean that, but others would naturally guess what he meant based on the leader's reaction.
Wen Jiajia ate the fried dough sticks with great relish. Wei Dai bought half a pound, but he and the two girls only ate half of it, and the rest was eaten by Wen Jiajia.
After eating the fried dough sticks, watch Wei Dai weave a ground cage.
He wove things very quickly, and the bamboo strips seemed to have come to life in his hands, able to independently drill into the places Wei Dai wanted them to go into.
Soon, the framework was ready. He did not continue editing, but made two more frameworks before moving on to the next step.
This step takes a lot of time. Wen Jiajia wanted to help, but she couldn't learn Wei Dai's weaving method after watching for a long time. So she could only help pass the bamboo strips and pour water for people to drink.
At noon, the three cages were finally woven, and Wei Dai put them into the lake together with the old cage.
"Let's go!" He brushed the dust off his hands. "Don't worry. We have to wait until night to collect it."
For lunch we had braised carp.
Braised carp is also a staple dish. Use oil to fry the fish skin until it is golden brown and wrinkled, then pour in seasonings, add water, cover and simmer.
What a pity there is no tofu, Wen Jiajia thought.
She likes to put tofu in braised fish. The tofu is fried and then stewed with the braised fish. The fried tofu has tiny holes in it, and the fish juice will naturally cook into the tofu, bubbling. Only those who have tasted it know how delicious it is!
After making the braised fish, I stir-fried some green peppers and eggplants, and finally cooked a bowl of refreshing loofah soup, and lunch was ready.
The portions were big, so Wen Jiajia could have another meal in the evening, which made her very satisfied.
In the afternoon, Wen Jiajia started making milk tea again.
Although Wei Dai, a real man, refused with his mouth, his hands were quite honest. After Wen Jiajia pushed it into his mouth twice, he took the cup and drank it sip after sip.
Wen Jiajia told him what had happened over the past two months, and then asked, "Now that you've finished your mission this time, you shouldn't have any long-term missions in the short term, right?"
Wei Dai shook his head: "Not sure."
He will probably have to go on a long-term mission in two months, but he can't tell his wife about this. Firstly, there are regulations, and secondly, if he tells his wife now, she will be unhappy two months in advance.
Wen Jiajia tacitly acknowledged that he had no more tasks to do and happily poured some more milk tea into his cup.
"The new factory said it will take another three or four months to open, which would be around September or October. If you go on a mission, I'll be busy and there'll be no one to take care of the two kids at home." She sighed and said this.
Wei Dai was not too worried. It was not because he did not care about Wen Chun and Wen Xuan, but because in this army, the two children would not be left without food.
And girls of five or six years old will never get hurt at home.
Scissors, kitchen knives, matchboxes, plugs... Wen Chun and Wen Xuan would never touch these dangerous things.
Wei Dai took another sip of milk tea and asked, "Will the infrastructure of the new factory be better than that of the pharmaceutical factory?"
Wen Jiajia shook her head: "The new factory was converted from an old hospital. 70% of the pharmaceutical factory is newly built. It can't be compared, absolutely not."
"Is there nothing new about it?"
"That's true... but I haven't been there, I just heard about it." Wen Jiajia sighed, "Anyway, I've got my application in now, Director Xue said the leaders are not willing to let me go, they really are not willing to let me go, I'm a snatcher."
Wen Jiajia started laughing again as she spoke.
It feels so good to be robbed. Her self-confidence has increased a lot.
Wen Jiajia even thought that after the reform and opening up, if Wei Dai was still serving here, she could try to take over the medical glass factory if it could not be run. The pharmaceutical business was also very profitable, and she had a golden finger to help.
At eight o'clock in the evening, after the two children fell asleep, the couple hurried to collect the cage while there was still some movement outside.
There is no way. The army is not allowed to walk around without reason at night, especially after the lights are turned off at 9 o'clock.
The harvesting cage in their house does not fall within the scope of "having a connection".
When the weather gets hot, there are countless insects and leeches, and you can hear rustling sounds wherever you go.
Some unknown birds were startled by passers-by and flew away with their wings flapping.
Wen Jiajia shone the flashlight in the direction of the sound, and Wei Dai quickly covered her eyes: "Don't look, I'm afraid you won't be able to sleep at night, and you'll have nightmares even if you fall asleep."
She became even more curious: "What the hell is this? It will give me nightmares if I see it."
Wei Dai: "How can you look at an owl if you are scared to death by a moth?"
His wife is really timid. She is afraid of all kinds of moths, snakes and weasels. Even when she sees a slightly larger cockroach, she has to call him to deal with it.
Wen Jiajia quickly held Wei Dai's arm tightly and felt a chill on her head.
Of course she was afraid of the owl. Just thinking about it made her scared. It was a bird but it had a face like that...
"Hurry up, hurry up." Wen Jiajia urged, and he quickly shone the flashlight back to the ground, deciding not to shine it around out of curiosity anymore.
Along the way, the two met quite a few people, and Wei Dai greeted five or six of them.
"They all went fishing," Wei Dai said. "They caught a few fish at night to supplement their family income. The lakeside must be very busy right now."
The two came to the lake and found that it was true.
Although it was too dark to see people clearly, Wen Jiajia had already spotted four or five people sitting on the shore fishing with the help of the flashlight.
She leaned over to Wei Dai and whispered, "Why don't they get out of the cage?"
Wei Dai laughed and tapped her head with his finger joints: "Do you think it's so easy to make a trap? If you want to make a trap, you need a trap. The best trap is made of dense nets, but this kind of dense net is hard to buy and expensive. But if you make a trap with bamboo, first you have to know how to make it. But the weaving method is complicated. People who don't have some bamboo strips skills can't learn it even if they watch it three times."
Wen Jiajia nodded, thinking it made sense. After reading it three times, she was still confused, and her hands and brain were not able to do it.
"Then there's the bait. The bait for our ground cage is mixed by me personally and has been tested on many fish. Ordinary baits cannot attract these clever fish."
Wen Jiajia nodded again. Wei Dai was indeed good at making bait.
According to him, this was not his limit. He used sheep fat as bait and caught more than a pound of shrimps, five fish, and countless crabs, eels and loaches.
But it’s not bad even without mutton fat.
The couple sneaked around to the other side to release the trap. They were not the only smart ones. Wei Dai saw several more trap marks on the water.
"I don't know who got there first," Wei Dai said. Two of the spots he had originally favored were already occupied.
Wen Jiajia was terrified during this process, fearing that a snake would emerge from the bushes.
It took Wei Dai nearly half an hour to put away the four cages. It was almost nine o'clock, so the two of them quickened their pace to go home.
The people who went fishing at night walked even faster than them. The road was dark and it was hard to tell who these people were in the darkness.
A good night's sleep.
The next day was a working day. Wen Jiajia went out for work on time and completely forgot about the cage.
After washing the dishes, Wei Dai went to collect the cages and only went to work after that.
If the cage is not collected in time, it may be taken away by others.
This time the goods were full, and each cage yielded more than the cages used yesterday. Three large wooden barrels were barely able to hold them all.
There were six fish weighing more than one kilogram, half a bucket of crabs, two eels, and one water snake.
However, his wife was extremely afraid of snakes, so Wei Dai did not keep the water snake, but gave it to Xie Yang next door.
Xie Yang didn't want it either, and later it was taken away by Sister Bao.
Sister Bao said that she wanted to cook it together with Dendrobium, Chinese Yam and Dang Shen, and said that eating it this way is good for people.
The rest were mostly lobsters, a whole bucket full, enough for his wife to stir-fry two or three meals.
Wen Jiajia only remembered this after she arrived at the pharmaceutical factory. Before she could guess how many fish the cages could catch this time, Director Xue came to call her. What did he call her for? He called her to see the new factory.
"Can we get in?" Wen Jiajia was surprised.
Director Xue: "You can't do that, but this time we are going with the chemical plant, so we can only do it as a group."
Wen Jiajia understood that she was afraid of getting into trouble if she acted alone.
That’s right, it says it’s a new factory, but it’s also a construction site. They can’t just let anyone in.
At half past nine, the group set out for the new factory.
The new drug glass factory was not far away, so the group from the drug factory walked directly there. The people from the chemical factory came by bus, but fortunately they left early, so the two groups arrived almost one after the other.
Wen Jiajia counted silently and there were more than 30 people. She followed behind Director Xue and was inconspicuous at all.
The new factory has been opened, with large characters reading "Linhe City Pharmaceutical Glass Factory" hung on the left side of the door.
Entering through the gate, a Western-style building came into view. Wen Jiajia took a closer look and felt that it looked a bit like the buildings left over from the Republic of China period in the northeast. She guessed that the building was built by foreigners decades ago.
With this in mind, someone in the team asked, "This building of the old hospital has been used for many years, right?"
Someone answered, "Of course! It's at least sixty or seventy years old. The building was there when my mother was a little girl. She said my grandmother used to pull a cart here. It's really solid. It took a lot of strong people to build the building. It's only thanks to the new society that we can live here."
This building used to be a hospital for foreigners, and 50% of the people there were foreigners with blond hair and green eyes. Ordinary people didn't have the courage or the money to set foot here.
Later it was taken over by the state and turned into a municipal hospital.
After the municipal hospital moved, this place became vacant. The government originally wanted to convert it into an epidemic prevention station, but the area was too large. When they were considering whether to add a veterinary station and other departments, applications from the pharmaceutical and chemical factories were submitted. After discussion, this place was approved.
This building looks huge from the outside, and it's even bigger once you get inside.
The building has three and a half floors in total, covering an area of at least 500 square meters, and there are 12 rooms on the first floor alone.
The light is average, Wen Jiajia thought after walking around. In her opinion, the window could be opened a little wider.
But if they want to expand the opening, they have to tear down part of the wall, and the workers are not willing to go through that trouble.
Then go up to the second floor.
The building is seven meters high, so the second floor gives you a feeling of being up high and looking far. Standing on the second floor, you can actually see the building of the pharmaceutical factory through the houses.
The second floor is also a production workshop like the first floor.
The third floor is not like that. It is home to various meeting rooms and offices.
As for where is the remaining "half floor"?
It's not on the third floor, but below the first floor. In short, it's the basement.
This is quite normal. When this building was built, there was war everywhere and the basement was used to avoid air raids.
"Wow! It turns out that all the machines are in the basement." The first person who went down said, "I was wondering why it was so empty up there. Mr. White clearly said that some of the machines had already been moved in."
"Really? Let me take a look." someone said.
Upon hearing this, Wen Jiajia hurried downstairs.
However, there were too many leaders ahead of her, and a little kid like her could only wait until others had seen enough before watching.
She looked around furtively, and the synthesis page popped up again. It turned out to be a melting furnace...
It doesn't look like a brand new smelting furnace, because there is an option for a 100% new smelting furnace on the crafting page.
"Jia Jia, let's go." Wen Jia Jia was so absorbed in watching that someone next to her reminded her to leave.
"Okay!" The speaker was Lin Yunfei, who was an employee of the chemical plant and would most likely be her colleague in two or three months.
Wen Jiajia came to the pharmacy several times and passed by the door. He saw her two out of three times.
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