8
Could it be...
Chu Zhiqing is going to do something bad?
Zhuang Xiaolan's nerves trembled. She turned her head away and dared not face Chu Qi. She mumbled:
"I have no idea......."
Chu Qi excitedly said, "Of course it's stealing! Come, I'll take you to see the trap I set yesterday."
Zhuang Xiaolan: “…..?”
***
Not far from the mass grave, there was a river with rippling water and sparkling water.
The surrounding scenery is full of autumn, the leaves fall with the wind, and the green grass turns yellow.
There was a meadow beside the river, and the grass was withered. Chu Qi stepped on it and ruthlessly trampled it all down.
Zhuang Xiaolan felt numb inside, looking at Chu Zhiqing's inexplicably excited back, speechless.
"Xiaolan, wait here. I'll go see if there's anything I can find."
Chu Qi curled her lips and rolled up her trouser legs to her thighs. Her skin was white all over, especially her thighs, which were glowing white because she didn't often get sun exposure.
The girl embarrassedly looked away, but was curious about what the other person was trying to do, so she turned her gaze back with a blushing face.
As soon as Chu Qibing stepped into the cool water, her scalp felt numb.
Arriving at the first trap, Chu Qi picked it up to check and saw a few fish flopping around inside. She was delighted, "I can really catch them!"
Without bothering to count how many there were, she put the trap on the shore and asked Zhuang Xiaolan to help watch it while she continued to look for other traps.
The second one was that we also found a few lively fish.
The third, fourth, fifth...
Every trap caught fish.
Chu Qi went ashore and shook his legs to shake off the water droplets, then poured out all the fish in the trap.
Zhuang Xiaolan was so surprised that she couldn't close her mouth. "Chu Zhiqing, how did you come up with this method to catch fish? You are so smart!"
"Someone else taught me." Chu Qi sat on the straw sandals and pulled Zhuang Xiaolan along: "Come, let's count how many fish there are?"
Zhuang Xiaolan was delighted and happily responded with a "yes".
There are five traps, the minimum number of fish is three and the maximum number is eight.
In total, there are 29 fish.
Among them, ten were as big as half of Chu Qi's palm, and the others were of varying sizes, with the smallest being as big as half of a little finger.
Chu Qi threw the one that was bigger than her little finger back into the water, leaving the bigger one behind.
Zhuang Xiaolan asked curiously, "Why did you release those?"
It is not easy for farmers to get a meal of meat. There is a river here, but the water is very deep, so it is not easy to catch fish.
Although fish meat is fishy and not very tasty without frying, it is meat after all. We should cherish it so much, so why should we throw it away?
Chu Qi carefully tied the strips of cloth around her hands and began to pull out the weeds and clear the area:
"It's too small. Put it back and wait until it grows bigger before eating it."
"Is that so?" Zhuang Xiaolan thought for a moment and joined in weeding.
It didn't take a few minutes to clear a piece of space. Chu Qi looked at the results of the two people with satisfaction:
"It's time to grill the fish."
Chu Qi laid out potatoes, pine bark, matchboxes, and tin cans.
He even took out a handful of salt from the inner pocket of his shirt. The salt was in a small plastic bag. When he took it out, Zhuang Xiaolan was stunned:
"What's this?"
"Salt." Chu Qi washed his hands and took the fish to the river to process it.
Fortunately, I don't have a knife, and this kind of small fish doesn't require much effort to clean. I just need to open the belly, take out the internal organs, and remove the gills.
"No, I mean the thing wrapped in salt." Zhuang Xiaolan rolled up her sleeves to help.
Chu Qi dodged it easily: "Yuxing, I'll do it."
"That's a plastic bag, imported from foreign countries. It can be used as a shopping bag or for garbage collection."
Clean it carefully, using a flat, sharp stone to remove all the fish scales.
Zhuang Xiaolan squatted aside and asked: "Is it also a precious thing used by you city people?"
"It's not that expensive, it's just not popular in our country yet. ---Also, I'm not 'you city people', I'm a working people just like you." Chu Qi finished processing the twenty-five fish, stood up and went back to the cleared space where he had pulled out the weeds.
Zhuang Xiaolan followed him closely, "Yeah."
There were a lot of dead branches nearby, and Chu Qi and Zhuang Xiaolan picked them up together. They soon picked up a lot.
Arrange the dry branches, light the pine bark, and let the flames slowly grow bigger. Finally, you will have a qualified barbecue bonfire.
Chu Qi skewered the fish on brightly colored wooden sticks and grilled them over the flames.
The potatoes are buried directly in the coal ash and slowly cooked by the heat of the scorching flames.
The two of them sat cross-legged beside each other, and the sun had not yet set.
Chu Qi felt a little hot and thirsty, so she boiled water in a tin can to drink.
Zhuang Xiaolan puts her hands on the ground and relaxes:
"Before the river dried up, the kids loved to go fishing in the river and often came back covered in mud. We also grilled secretly outside.
But how can a child make it? There are no materials.
Well, it didn’t even have the basic salt, and it was burnt and blackened, which made it taste terrible.”
"Have you finished eating?" Chu Qi listened carefully.
Zhuang Xiaolan's eyes showed nostalgia:
"We've finished eating. There was nothing to eat back then. It was much harder than it is now. We were lucky to have one meal a day, so no matter how bad the fish tasted, we finished it."
"Come and try my grilled fish." The fish was cooked quickly. Chu Qi evenly spread some salt on it and handed it over.
"Thank you." Zhuang Xiaolan smiled shyly. Under Chu Qi's expectant gaze, she lowered her head slightly, opened her mouth and took a light bite of the fish.
When there is only fire and salt, fish will inevitably have a fishy smell.
However, Zhuang Xiaolan had been hungry for a whole day, so she was already very satisfied to be able to eat meat, not to mention that it was fish grilled by her lover.
She felt sweet in her heart, and the fish, which had a slightly fishy smell, tasted much better:
"It's delicious! You can eat it too."
"Let me try it too." Chu Qi also took a bite. The first time she put it in her mouth, her brows frowned imperceptibly.
To be honest, it's not very tasty, but it's not inedible.
"The rest are almost cooked, let's finish it." Chu Qi finished the small grilled fish in no time, dug a hole and buried the fish bones, then took the tin aside to cool.
There were twenty-five fish in total. After each of us ate half, the hot water was almost cold.
Zhuang Xiaolan looked left and right, wondering if there were any leaves that could hold water.
Unexpectedly, Chu Qi took a sip directly, then handed it over, smiling with her beautiful peach blossom eyes:
"You don't mind me drinking it, do you?"
Zhuang Xiaolan blushed again: "No, I don't mind."
She took the tin can with both hands, and while Chu Qi was lowering her head to eat potatoes, the girl quickly put her mouth on the place where Chu Qi had just drunk, and gulped down a big gulp.
When Chu Qi looked up at me, she opened her big innocent eyes and showed a guilty smile.
Chu Qi knew nothing about this and smiled, "The potatoes are cooked, let's each have half."
"I've eaten too much of your food, so you can eat this potato yourself!"
Zhuang Xiaolan felt embarrassed because she didn’t finish the bird eggs last night and gave one to her father.
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