Going west from Zhou Yu's home, you can reach the river in a few minutes by riding along the path in the village. The river in front of you, with various trees on both sides, looks full of vitality and everything is the Sui River that Xiangshan people rely on for daily water.
The Sui River has nurtured Xiangshan's 1.8 million people for many years. It is no exaggeration to say that it is the mother river of the Xiangshan people.
In recent years, Xiangshan has sought transformation. The government has proposed the concept of building a 'green and gold' Xiangshan, strengthened ecological governance, and promoted the comprehensive green transformation of economic development. This has also led to the water quality of the Sui River near Zhou Yu's home getting better year by year.
In the past few years, it was common to see sewage outlets discharging black and smelly sewage into the Sui River, polluting the entire water area. But in the past two years, the water of the Sui River has become clear and transparent, which shows that the government has indeed made great efforts in this regard.
Zhou Yu found a shady place to park the electric bike, and Ah Huang jumped off the bike and ran happily on the grass next to it.
"Don't run too far, be careful of the electric vehicles on the road!" Zhou Yu shouted to the dog playing not far away, picked up the fishing rod and stool, and walked towards the river.
The dog was originally having fun chasing a butterfly. When it saw its owner walking towards the river, it hurriedly dropped the pink butterfly and chased in the direction where Zhou Yu disappeared.
After finding a willow tree with lush branches and leaves, Zhou Yu placed a stool under the tree, sat down on it, and began to prepare.
He took out the prepared rice wine and sprinkled a handful of it on the water. Then he opened the fishing rod, installed the fishing line and float, strung the red worm on the hook, and threw the fishing line to the place where he had just made the nest.
Zhou Yu looked at the dog lying next to him, staring at the water quietly without making any noise. He stroked the dog's head and said with a smile, "Don't make any noise, understand! When we catch some fish, I'll go back and coat them in flour and fry them for you to eat!"
“If you scare the fish away, not only will you have no fish to eat when you go back, you won’t even get lunch!” Zhou Yu’s response was a furry dog head whimpering and rubbing against the palm of his hand.
Maybe Zhou Yu's luck started to change after he awakened the system, and his fishing luck also improved.
Unlike other people who at least had a novice period and could still catch fish, Zhou Yu didn't even have a novice period after buying the fishing rod. So there was a reason why he was disappointed and didn't go fishing anymore but went to tutor others.
Today's luck was good. Just two minutes after Zhou Yu cast the rod, a fish took the bait.
Zhou Yu, who was staring intently at the float on the water, saw some movement.
"Huh? A fish?" Seeing the float suddenly sink, Zhou Yu hurriedly lifted the rod, and a lively little crucian carp was pulled out of the water, and it was a good bite.
"Carp!" Zhou Yu was a little disappointed. It's not that he didn't like to eat carp, but he came here today just for the small fish like whitebait!
His target fish today was not crucian carp at all!
"Forget it, let's protect it first!" He took the crucian carp off the hook, picked up the small bucket he brought with him, filled half a bucket with water from the river, and threw the small crucian carp in.
After hanging the red worm again, Zhou Yu continued to throw the baited hook to the previous position.
"Wow, I'm lucky!" Within two minutes, Zhou Yu was pleasantly surprised to find that the float was suddenly pulled into the water again, "Another fish is caught?!"
While muttering, he repeated the action just now, and a light yellow and black fish that was twisting wildly was pulled out of the water. Seeing this fish, Zhou Yu shouted in surprise, "Angci! Wow, this fish is here!"
There is a thorn on the back of the Angci, and it can prick you if you are not careful. Zhou Yu had his finger pricked when he was a child, and the pain was so severe that Zhou Yu still remembers it vividly.
However, the fish tastes very good and the meat is delicate, so Zhou Yu likes it very much.
Carefully remove the long spines, this more than ten centimeters long long spine is still making squeaking sounds (of course the sounds are not because the fish has vocal cords, but because of the spines on its back).
Zhou Yu threw the slippery fish into the bucket with some disdain, to keep it company with the crucian carp. "If there are a few more, I'll go buy some tofu and stew it for lunch!"
I don’t know if it was because Zhou Yuyan used the method of following or some other reasons, but in the next few casts, except for his target fish, the other fish were all long fins.
Time passed by minute by minute, and soon it was almost eleven o'clock in the afternoon.
In less than two hours, Zhou Yu caught a small crucian carp, eight longhair sharks, and more than 30 small whitebait.
After releasing the small crucian carp that brought him good luck, Zhou Yu looked at the fish in the bucket that was jumping around because of the loss of water, and nodded with satisfaction.
After packing up, Zhou Yu took his stool and a small bucket and prepared to go back. "Ah Huang! Let's go home!" Seeing that the dog was still lazily lying under the tree, Zhou Yu called out, "If you don't leave now, you'll have to run back with the car by yourself! You'll be exhausted!"
After that, Zhou Yu took the things and went back first. The little yellow dog watched Zhou Yu go, and quickly got up and chased after Zhou Yu like crazy. Before Zhou Yu could react, the dog jumped onto the electric car, sticking out its tongue and waiting for Zhou Yu to get closer.
Zhou Yu looked at the slightly panting dog with some amusement. After putting his things away, he inserted the key of the electric bike and rushed back towards home.
After returning home, Zhou Yu's mother Wang Yufang had not come back yet, and his father Zhou Dahai was still sleeping soundly in the room.
Zhou Yu, who had no idea how many meals he had cooked, entered the kitchen carrying a piece of tofu he had bought on the way and a small bucket of fish. He planned to prepare the lunch himself.
After pouring the leftover porridge from the morning into a porcelain bowl and briefly cleaning the inner pot of the rice cooker, Zhou Yu began to wash the rice and cook.
After washing the rice and plugging in the rice cooker, Zhou Yu began to prepare the fish. The small white strips were easy to prepare. After squeezing out the internal organs, they could be marinated and then coated with flour, fried in oil, and ready to be cooked.
But it is still quite troublesome to deal with the Angci.
There is a layer of mucus on the surface of the longspined fish, so you need to scald it with boiling water first, or apply salt all over the fish's body and give it a spa to remove the mucus.
After removing the mucus, it is time to remove the internal organs and fish fins. After the longthorn fish was cleaned up, Zhou Yu also used the method he just used to marinate the small white stripes. He poured cooking wine, cut several slices of ginger and threw them into the pot to start marinating.
After everything was done, Zhou Yu thought for a while, took out a small piece of pork belly from the refrigerator to thaw, then went to his own field in the backyard, picked two tomatoes and a handful of bean sprouts before returning to the kitchen.
......
At noon, the scorching sun shone on the ground, baking the ground like a frying pan. Even an egg thrown on it would be fried. This also resulted in the room not having air conditioning and only a fan for cooling. Zhou Dahai was awakened by the hot temperature at noon.
Zhou Dahai wiped the sweat off his forehead with his hand, sat on the edge of the bed and woke up. He shook his head, which was still a little numb from staying up late, put on his slippers and walked towards the yard.
"Eh? Dad, are you awake?" Hearing the noise behind him, Zhou Yu turned around with the stir-fried cowpeas just out of the pot and saw Zhou Dahai at the door. He smiled and greeted him, "Go wash your hands, it's time to eat!"
Looking at his proud son, and then at the three dishes and one soup on the table, Zhou Dahai smiled with satisfaction. He couldn't help but said in a gentle voice, "Why didn't you call me? Or you can wait for your mother to come back and cook it!"
While Zhou Yu was setting the table, he answered his father's question, "Hey! You worked all night last night and stayed up all night. How could I disturb your rest?"
"And my mom, she's been working in the factory all morning, isn't she tired? I'm the only one at home with nothing to do, so I just made lunch! It's just right that you're awake, and my mom will have food to eat as soon as she comes back!"
Zhou Dahai listened carefully to what his son said. He walked to the kitchen sink, turned on the faucet, rinsed his calloused hands carefully, wiped the water stains on his hands with a rag, and came to the table.
"Huh? What's this? Longspined fish? And whitebait?" Zhou Dahai saw a whole plate of fried small fish and a pot of longspined fish stewed with tofu on the table. He couldn't help but look at Zhou Yu and asked, "Where did this fish come from? Didn't your uncle send it again? Didn't he just send a silver carp? Why are you sending fish again? The fish market is so good recently?"
"How could that be possible?" After hearing what his father said, Zhou Yu finally knew who had sent the big fish to the yard, and hurriedly explained, "I woke up early this morning and had nothing to do. When I saw the fish in the yard, I remembered that I had bought a fishing rod before!"
"I thought I could go fishing to kill time, so I took my fishing rod and went fishing by the river," Zhou Yu explained, then looked at Zhou Dahai and asked with a smile, "I saw that the fishing rod had been used by someone. There was even a bag of red worms on the ground. Dad, do you also like fishing now?"
Zhou Dahai heard his son's joke and waved his hands, "It's not me, I don't like fishing. Your uncle lent it to a fishing friend of his for emergency use, so I let him go fishing with it, just that one time!"
As they were talking, they heard the sound of the courtyard door being pushed open. Zhou Yu's mother Wang Yufang hurried into the kitchen, "I just got off work and I'm back! Zhou Yu must be waiting anxiously! Wait, I'll cook right away!"
Wang Yufang was about to start cooking. But when she entered the kitchen and saw the table full of dishes, she was stunned. She looked at Zhou Dahai and Zhou Yu who were already sitting on the side and asked, "Dahai, did you cook? What happened today that made you so diligent?"
Zhou Dahai smiled and pointed at Zhou Yu, "How could I have done this? I just woke up not long ago. Your son did it."
"Ah? Zhou Yu did this?" Wang Yufang was about to speak when she saw the things Zhou Yu brought back in the morning piled up in the corner. "What is this?" As she said that, she walked over, opened the bag and started checking.
Seeing his mother asking, Zhou Yu quickly said, "Oh, I bought this this morning." Then he began to explain to Zhou Dahai and Wang Yufang.
After the explanation, Wang Yufang and Zhou Dahai looked relieved, but then they said to Zhou Yu in a blaming tone, "Spend money recklessly. Your father and I never asked you to buy anything at home! Why don't you keep the money and buy yourself some more food at work?"
Zhou Yu explained with a smile, "I've already started making money, so I bought this specifically to honor you! Okay, no more talking, no more talking, let's eat!"
"Let's eat!" Zhou Dahai agreed with a smile, and then picked up the bottle of Kouzi wine that Zhou Yu bought, "Let me taste the wine my son bought!"
As soon as she finished speaking, Wang Yufang glared at Zhou Dahai, but did not stop him. Instead, she got up and went to the kitchen, took a wine glass and placed it in front of Zhou Dahai.
Zhou Dahai looked at the wine glass in front of him, smiled and said to Wang Yufang, "Bring another one, Zhou Yu and I will drink some together!"
......
Two days passed in a flash, and soon it was October 3rd, the third day of the seven-day National Day holiday.
Zhou Yu finally had a good rest in the past two days. In addition to helping with housework and taking care of the vegetables in the backyard, Zhou Yu spent most of his time fishing.
Zhou Yu had a lot of catches when he went fishing by the river. The biggest one was a carp weighing more than 3 kilograms.
At noon, after the family had lunch, Zhou Yu began to pack up and prepare to return to school in the afternoon.
"You're going home so early?" Wang Yufang was still a little reluctant to see her son packing his things. "Is your school so busy? You can't even let us have a good rest during the National Day holiday. Why are you going home early?"
Zhou Yu put three packages of roast chicken into his backpack and explained without looking up, "Didn't I tell you? The class I'm teaching now is the graduating class, and the students are about to take the college entrance examination! I'm also the class teacher, so I have to work harder!"
After hearing what Zhou Yu said, Wang Yufang could only nod in agreement, "Okay, then go back and rest more! Don't be too tired!"
"I know! Don't worry!"
"By the way," Wang Yufang watched Zhou Yu pack three bags of Xiangshan's famous pickled cucumbers into his backpack, and asked in confusion, "You're packing roast chicken and pickled cucumbers here. Are you going to eat them on the train?"
Zhou Yu zipped up the backpack that was already filled with a large bag, put it on his back, and shook it a bit to feel the weight. Then he explained to Wang Yufang, "I met two friends at school who usually take good care of me."
"Besides, they told me that they would bring me some local specialties when they come back for the National Day! I was thinking, I can't be too rude! So I thought about bringing them some local specialties as well."
After hearing Zhou Yu's explanation, Wang Yufang immediately understood. She nodded and said in agreement, "You should definitely bring something for them. Not to mention that they asked you to bring something, just because they take care of you at school, even if they don't bring you any local specialties, you should still bring something on this trip."
Then, Wang Yufang immediately asked, "Isn't this a little too little? Do you want to buy some more?"
Zhou Yu shook his head and refused, "That's enough. They don't need our little bit. Just showing your kindness is enough!"
"Okay, Mom, I'm leaving!" After saying goodbye to his mother, Zhou Yu went out.
"Let them know when you get there and let them know you're safe!" Wang Yufang said after sending Zhou Yu out the door and watching her son walking further and further away.
Zhou Yu waved his hand to indicate that he understood.
......
When I stepped into Wuzhou Middle School again, it was already past 7 o'clock in the evening.
Normally at this time, the school building would be brightly lit. But now, except for the street lamps and two small classrooms, everything else was completely dark.
Zhou Yu shook his head, threw away all other thoughts in his mind, and quickly returned to his dormitory.
After putting the heavy backpack on the bed, Zhou Yu rubbed his sore shoulders and breathed a sigh of relief.
After taking off his shoes and socks and putting on flip-flops, Zhou Yu picked up the washbasin and towel and walked towards the sink outside the house.
After wetting the towel, Zhou Yu took it and wiped it vigorously on his face several times. After washing away the fatigue on his face, Zhou Yu filled another basin of water and returned to the dormitory.
Turning on the fan, Zhou Yu lay down on the bed and rested for a while.
At this time, Zhou Yu decided to open the system to check. During the three days of resting at home, he had never opened the system to check.
"Huh?" After opening the system and seeing the contents inside, Zhou Yu said softly, feeling a little surprised.