Chapter 32 It's crayfish season!
The mother and son walked home in the shadows of the setting sun. It was just past five o'clock when they arrived home, and Pei Jiuyan was already there, watering her vegetable seedlings in the yard.
Seeing Qin Suisui and the other person return, he raised an eyebrow and asked, "Are you done with your work?" Then, noticing the pile of things hanging on her bicycle handlebars, he frowned slightly and said, "Why are you carrying so much stuff? It's not safe. Put it on the back next time!"
Qin Suisui was stunned: "What about Zanzan?"
Pei Jiuyan replied matter-of-factly, "Squeeze in a bit."
Qin Suisui chuckled.
Zan Zan didn't understand the "malice" coming from his father. After Pei Jiu Yan took him off the back of the bicycle, he started chattering to him about what he had seen and heard that day.
Pei Jiuyan knew where Qin Suisui had gone. When he returned in the afternoon, he searched the house but couldn't find her. Finally, he found a small note left by Qin Suisui in the room:
I've taken Zan Zan to the village next door! It's Grandma Mai's house from last time. We'll be back soon, don't worry!
Just a few simple words with a smiley face at the end made Pei Jiuyan laugh after reading the note.
He looked around. The house was full of her things. The room even had her sweet fragrance. Even though he didn't see her when he got home, Pei Jiuyan felt particularly satisfied. So he looked at the round small regular script on the small note and felt it was particularly pleasing to the eye. He liked it so much that he quietly put it neatly in a large iron box full of letters.
But thinking about the task he had brought back for her, Pei Jiuyan felt a little guilty and decided to bribe her with some good food first.
"There are crayfish over there in the creek. Do you want to eat some? If you do, I'll ask Donglin and Alai to get some for you."
He knew that people in Jiangcheng liked to eat crayfish in the summer. The little girl had once described it to him in a letter:
Braised crayfish in oil is amazing! The moment you crack open the red shell, the white meat pops out with a "whoosh," dip it in the sauce, and pop it in your mouth—wow! It's so delicious my tongue is dancing! I could eat a whole plate… Spicy crayfish is also delicious, and garlic crayfish is delicious too…
After reading the letter, he went to Jiangcheng and ordered three large plates of crayfish, which he ate all night. The taste was indeed very good.
Qin Suisui's eyes lit up. She had completely forgotten that summer was here, and it was crayfish season! She quickly ran to the kitchen, grabbed the small bucket she had used for beachcombing, and urged Pei Jiuyan with sparkling eyes, "Hurry up! What are you waiting for? If you're not enthusiastic about eating crayfish, you're out of your mind!"
Pei Jiuyan chuckled: "Don't worry, no one will fight you for it. Crayfish have more shells than meat and they can be pinching. People here aren't used to eating them. There are plenty in the ditches."
Pei Jiuyan is right. In this era, both oil and seasonings are precious. However, cooking crayfish requires a lot of oil, salt, and seasonings. If you put in too little, it won't taste good, and if you put in too much, you'll feel bad. The key is that crayfish have big shells and so little meat. It's not as cost-effective as simply steaming seafood.
But seeing her looking so hungry, even Pei Jiuyan, who doesn't particularly like crayfish, couldn't help but reminisce about the fresh, fragrant, and spicy taste of crayfish in his mind.
Zan Zan had never eaten crayfish before, but seeing his mother's reaction, he knew they must be delicious! He ran to the kitchen and grabbed his little bucket. He pulled Pei Jiu Yan and rushed outside, shouting, "Hurry! Daddy, hurry! Daddy, let's go catch some crayfish, or they'll all be gone!"
When the family of three passed by the dormitory, Pei Jiuyan went up and called Chi Donglin and Song Yunlai to join them. Qin Suisui said: "Crayfish tastes better when there are many people!"
The so-called "ditch" was actually just a narrow ditch next to the residential compound. The water wasn't deep, only reaching about knee-deep for an adult man, but it was overgrown with all sorts of weeds. As a seasoned crayfish eater, Qin Suisui knew at a glance that this kind of ditch was teeming with crayfish!
Looking at the dense aquatic plants in the ditch, Chi Donglin and Song Yunlai stared blankly at Pei Jiuyan: "Ayan, what do we do? We don't have any tools! Are we going to grab them with our bare hands?"
Pei Jiuyan slowly rolled up his trousers and put on his rubber boots: "On my way here, I already notified Uncle Lin. He has the tools and should be here soon."
Sure enough, as soon as he finished speaking, Uncle Lin appeared in everyone's sight from afar. He was holding several homemade nets shaped like soccer goals. With their arched shape and large openings, Qin Suisui knew at a glance that these were tools for catching lobsters. She exclaimed that they were professional!
Uncle Lin was also very happy to see Qin Suisui: "Goodness, I knew there were still people who knew their stuff! There's a mountain area behind our residential compound, and a freshwater stream flows down from the mountain, forming many small ditches here. Every time it rains, there are so many crayfish, but they don't like to eat them. They really don't know their stuff, they don't know what good stuff is!"
Qin Suisui nodded in agreement: "That's right! If there were just a few more Jiangcheng people here, these lobsters would be eaten to extinction! Uncle, if they don't eat them, we will!"
Uncle Lin was amused by her and burst into laughter.
As they were talking, Uncle Lin had already led three men into the water. They placed the net in a place where the water plants were lush, and wearing water shoes, they walked into the water plants and stomped on them from the outside to the inside of the net, a process known as "driving". After stomping on them a few times, they lifted the net up, and there were more than a dozen lobsters waving their big pincers and two eels in the net.
"I've got it! I've got it!" Qin Suisui said as I excitedly shouted, "Quickly pour it in, quickly pour it in! There's a lobster that escaped over there! There's a lot of grass, there must be more than one!"
Qin Suisui's enthusiasm galvanized the other three men present. None of them conceded defeat. Chi Donglin even threatened, "Sister! Just wait! I'll catch you ten pounds of crayfish so you can eat your fill!" Then, imitating Uncle Lin's example, he placed his net among the water plants and stomped on them. Even if his method wasn't perfect, there were indeed plenty of lobsters here, and a single net would likely catch a few.
When Pei Jiuyan mentioned the fourth net, Qin Suisui looked over excitedly. Before she could even see what was inside, she saw him suddenly change his expression, grab the net, and quickly climb ashore. Ignoring Qin Suisui's shouts, he carried the net away into the distance.
Qin Suisui was puzzled: "What's wrong? What's wrong with him? Did he find something good that he can't let me see?"
Uncle Lin chuckled, "He probably caught a water snake by accident and was afraid you'd be scared if you saw it."
Upon hearing the word "water snake," Qin Suisui got goosebumps all over her body. Ugh, she was terrified of such things!
Sure enough, Pei Jiuyan returned with the net in less than two minutes. The "dirty stuff" inside had been cleaned out, leaving only about ten crayfish and three or four eels about the thickness of a little finger.
Qin Suisui couldn't help but admire him. He had only brought the net up in that short time, and Qin Suisui hadn't even seen anything clearly yet. How could he have so quickly distinguished the snake from the eels and snakes in such a short time, and dealt with it so swiftly?
After nearly an hour of fiddling around, the group finally harvested a bucket and a half of crayfish waving their big claws, and a small bucket filled with eels of varying sizes.
Dinner was naturally at the Pei family's house. Uncle Lin brought Chi Donglin and Song Yun to cook crayfish, while Pei Jiuyan prepared eels on the side, and Qin Suisui and Zanzan, one big and one small, squatted beside them to watch.
Pei Jiuyan suddenly looked up at Qin Suisui: "Are you hungry? Why don't you go and have some snacks with Zanzan first? Dinner might be a little late tonight."
Qin Suisui stared intently at the crayfish beside her, then shook her head: "Not hungry, not hungry. I had cold noodles at Grandma Mai's house this afternoon."
Zan Zan shook her head, mimicking her, "Not hungry, not hungry. I ate cold noodles at Grandma Mai's house!"
Pei Jiuyan smiled and ignored them.
Dinner was cooked by Pei Jiuyan and Uncle Lin. Uncle Lin was an experienced cook, so he was the head chef, and Pei Jiuyan assisted him. Qin Suisui and the others chatted outside while waiting to eat.
Uncle Lin is a very skilled cook. He's lived alone on Qionghai Island for years, supporting himself and his family. He also receives a demobilization allowance, so he's never short of money and has thoroughly mastered the art of cooking crayfish. Each bucket of crayfish they catch weighs at least ten pounds. Uncle Lin made a traditional Jiangcheng-style braised crayfish dish, filling an enamel basin to the brim. Considering Zan Zan's preference, he also made a garlic crayfish dish.
Along with the snails, Uncle Lin also caught more than a pound of snails. He made a spicy hand-snail dish, and the large eels were cut into sections and stir-fried. The ones about the thickness of a little finger were made into separate plates of eel.
Looking at the plate of stir-fried eel, Uncle Lin muttered to himself, "That kid Ayan, he didn't even grow up in Jiangcheng, how does he know such an authentic way to eat eel? I told him it would be so simple to just chop it up and stir-fry it, but he insisted on making a separate plate of stir-fried eel..."
Pei Jiuyan coughed lightly, stopping Uncle Lin from saying anything more.
Everyone else was too busy eating shrimp to listen carefully, except for Qin Suisui, whose eyes had been shining as she looked at the plates of eel. She seemed to notice something and looked up, meeting Pei Jiuyan's gaze. So, was the small plate of eel being stir-fried separately because she liked it? She remembered saying before that the small plate of eel was best eaten whole.
She wanted to find the answer in Pei Jiuyan's eyes, but when she looked again, Pei Jiuyan had already lowered his head to peel shrimp.
After seeing the guests off, the family washed up and rested. Qin Suisui had been very active today and was covered in sweat, her hair was soaked. She washed her hair while taking a shower and was currently drying it with a towel in her room.
Pei Jiuyan came into the room after taking a shower, took the towel from her hand, and helped her dry her hair. Qin Suisui was already a little drowsy. Just then, she heard Pei Jiuyan's somewhat unnatural voice: "Um... do you want to make some extra money?" After saying that, Pei Jiuyan wanted to slap herself in the face. What kind of extra money could she make? She was not short of money.
Qin Suisui was startled awake by his sudden voice. She yawned, turned her head groggily, her eyes still misty with tears, and looked at him in a soft voice, barely audible: "Huh? What did you say?"
Pei Jiuyan heard a "boom" in his mind, and then his whole body began to feel hot. He remembered the jar of tiger penis wine that Uncle Lin had brought over that evening...
Seeing that his face had suddenly turned red, Qin Suisui curiously reached out and touched his forehead: "Why is your face so red? But it's not hot..."
Pei Jiuyan felt an almost uncontrollable heat coursing through his body. He grasped her hand, pressing it against his chest, his voice laced with barely concealed desire: "Sui Sui, we..."
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