Draining the pond to catch fish

  Life after crossing over has been quite leisurely. Since I became a student of Mr. Zhou, the problem of being extremely bored in class has also been relatively resolved. On the surface, I'm diligently listening to classes and learning new characters, but actually under my textbook is an English original version of "Hamlet". In my past life, not getting into a good school was mainly because English was exhausting. The college entrance exam's English section was a complete mess, pulling down my overall score.

  Mr. Zhou is a top student at People's University, and his English foundation is exceptionally good. At least teaching this little kid like me is no problem at all. It's a rare opportunity to learn as much as possible before he returns to the provincial city. Even if I were reborn, it's not necessarily the case that I would have to take the university entrance exam to have a way out, but with the progress of the times, whether or not one attends university, English is becoming increasingly important.

  These days I have been thinking repeatedly about the path of life after rebirth. Under the current political system, being an official is undoubtedly a very good way out.

  Here is the translation:

  "I must declare that I, a humble person, do not have the grand ambition of worrying about the country and its people like Mr. Fan Zhongyan. Think about it, in my past life, I was just a grassroots person who worked for over a decade without achieving anything, busy with daily chores, what "worrying before the world worries, and rejoicing after the world rejoices" is not something that can be cultivated by relying on manual labor to make a living."

  Far-reaching ideals and noble sentiments can only slowly develop after one's belly is full.

  I want to be an official, nothing more than because of the officials I saw in my previous life, each and every one of them was majestic and lived a comfortable life, and I admired them in my heart. If I really became an official, although I wouldn't embezzle or take bribes, harm the people, want to "do good for one side" and be a "clean and honest" good official, it's probably hard to do.

  However, being an official isn't that easy. In my past life, I had no experience in the official circles, and all my knowledge about them came from books and TV shows, which might be quite different from reality. The official world has its own rules, and even with a time-traveler's foresight, knowing the general direction of politics, it may not be much help when it comes to specific personnel adjustments within an organization. For example, if I knew that someone was going to become a key figure at some point, could I just go up to them and say: "Leader, please take me under your wing, I can predict the future"? Wouldn't that be simply asking for death?

  In China, being an official requires not only ability and achievements, but also the ability to flatter and curry favor. Most importantly, one must have a backer among those in power. My family, the Liu's, has been ordinary folk for five generations, so this "having someone in the court makes it easy to be an official" has nothing to do with me.

  The prophet of the traverser, mainly applied in business. It is said that information is the most valuable, knowing what will be expensive and what will be cheap in the near future, what will rise and what will fall, avoiding reality and being free to play.

  For example, in 1980, the monkey ticket was issued at a price of eight cents per ticket. At that time, we bought 1,800 tickets and waited for our fortune to rise. I remember that there was an article about a protagonist who made his fortune by doing this. The monkey ticket, which cost only eight cents per ticket, rose to 800 yuan per ticket, a increase of 10,000 times. Another example is the Shanghai Electric Vacuum, whose original stock price was less than one yuan per share and had no sales channel. When it was listed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, its price soared to 1,700-1,800 yuan per share. If we make good use of this opportunity, how can we not become rich?

  It's just that it's still a bit too far away. The monkey ticket will be issued in three or four years, and by the time it rises in value, I'm afraid it won't be until the early 1990s. Distant water can't solve present thirst, so let's think about how to get through the days ahead first.

  Now we are just a little kid, every day sitting obediently in the classroom to study hard and strive for excellence, after school still have to run to Mr. Zhou's "abuse", the schedule is packed, can't move.

  I also thought of sneaking out quietly, but immediately shook my head and scolded myself with a "fool".

  Where can I run to? Am I supposed to be a vagabond? Although I have the mind of a 40-year-old, I only have the body of a 7-year-old. This body is really too fragile. Not to mention the dangers of Jianghu and the unpredictability of human hearts, even a small cold or fever, if not treated in time, can take my life. Still talking about getting rich? It's better to dream!

  Just calm down and study hard, be a good boy, wait for the opportunity.

  Don't be too impatient with everything!

  It's laughable, but these days what I've been thinking about the most is how to get some meat to relieve my hunger.

  Past life's fondness for meat, absolutely unchanged by rebirth. After a few days of eating vegetable mixed rice, my mouth is about to spit out birds, seeing the fat pigs in the pen and the mother hens in the yard, my eyes are fixed on green light, I hate not being able to immediately slaughter and devour them with relish.

  There are pigs in the pen, but they belong to the production team and won't be slaughtered until Chinese New Year. Grandma raised a few chickens, which live longer than pigs, so even during Chinese New Year, it's unlikely she'll kill them for food. The fish in the pond also belong to the production team and can't be caught secretly.

  Of course, on that small street where the commune is located, there is a meat food station where you can buy meat. But we don't have money, and even less so, no meat coupons.

  Apart from a brain full of get-rich dreams, I actually have nothing. This crossing is really frustrating.

  Is there meat that doesn't cost money and isn't managed by the production team?

  The answer is yes — there is!

  The fish in the river don't belong to the production team and don't cost money either.

  Finally made it to Sunday, finished the exam at school and got a lot of praise, happily returned home, put down my backpack and immediately ran out to implement my long-planned fishing plan.

  To go fishing in the river, you need to have a helper. I'm just a seven-year-old kid, and all I can do is stare at the fish. They say that one's body is the capital of revolution, and this saying is really true. Even if we know the general trend of the next few decades like the back of our hand, and are as great as Zhuge Liang or Liu Bowen who "knew 500 years ahead and behind", but with such a weak body, it's really inconvenient to do revolutionary work.

  Fishing can't be called by second sister or third sister, I think it's not suitable for girls. This thing should be called by my elder brother.

  I have three elder male cousins. My dad has two brothers, but my eldest uncle passed away early, so my dad often took care of his sons. As a result, the relationship between us cousins is not ordinary. Relatively speaking, my younger cousin Liu Zhao and I are only a few years apart in age, and we are closest to each other.

  "Third brother, let's go, we're going to block the river dam."

  Third Brother doesn't like reading books, but he especially loves fishing and catching shrimp. When I mentioned blocking the river dam, he agreed without hesitation. Then he took a look at my small physique and hesitated for a moment.

  "Xiao Jun, Auntie has told you before, no playing by the river."

  I'm the only son in my family, and also the youngest. My mom is overly protective of me, afraid that something might happen to me. As the saying goes, "don't bully the mountain, but don't bully the water either", this matter in the water is absolutely not allowed for me to touch. For this reason, she has sternly warned my older brothers and sisters more than once.

  "Hey, I'm just swimming in the river, it's just a small dam, what's the big deal? Don't be afraid, let's hurry up and go, or we'll be late."

  Third Brother was only in his early teens, at the age of good things, was inspired by me itching, instantly threw Aunt's strict orders to the back of his mind, picked up a bucket and a basin, took me straight to the riverbank.

  In my previous life, one of my hobbies was fishing, but I wasn't very good at it.

  The Liu family mountain is obviously a "mountain", so there are no big rivers, just two small river valleys, with water depths of only waist-deep. If you want to fish, sitting by the river and looking at the bottom, the fish will clearly see your greedy and ugly face, so why bother fishing? Even if the fish take pity on me for not eating meat for a few days and sacrifice themselves to "feed the tiger", after sitting there for an afternoon, I can only catch three or two small fish that are less than one or two liang in weight, which is not even enough to fill my teeth. So I adopted the method of "draining the pond to catch fish", finding a small river dam, blocking it, scooping out the water, and catching all the small fish, shrimp, crabs, and loaches inside with one net. If you're lucky, you can also get a harvest of one or two jin of fish and shrimp.

  This thing has been done many times since childhood in past lives, and it can be said that it is a familiar road.

  It's easy to know but difficult to do; it seems easy to talk about, but actually doing it takes a lot of effort.

  First of all, choose a good place.

  There are two small river valleys on the border of Liushan, which are truly small river valleys, no more than three meters wide, and the water depth is rarely over one meter. Due to the elevation difference, there is a relatively large drop, naturally forming many small dams.

  I pointed at one of the larger dams and said, "Third Brother, it's here."

  Third brother smiled and shook his head: "This won't work. We've already tried it out a little while ago."

  "Oh? How much did you catch?"

  Third Brother looked at me strangely and said: "About two or three catties. Haven't you eaten it before?"

  I couldn't help but click my tongue in admiration. Two or three catties, quite a harvest! Unfortunately, when I had that big feast, I hadn't traveled through time yet and was still enjoying the "big pot rice" in the cafeteria of a capitalist factory in the 21st century.

  Third brother continued on his way and arrived at a small riverbank. He looked up at the sky and said, "Let's stop here. This riverbank is small... you watch from the side, I can handle it alone."

  It turns out that Third Brother never intended for me to take action, but just called me to be a small follower, and then enjoyed the benefits.

  "That's not okay, I want to do it too."

  Third brother shook his head repeatedly: "Listen, you just watch from the side, Auntie said not to let you go down to the river. The fish we catch all belong to you, okay?"

  I was taken aback, Third Brother doesn't want the fish? This is a bit like the Olympic spirit of "participation is key". Actually, Third Brother is afraid of being scolded by Mom, and he really dotes on me, willing to give me good things.

  In our past life, among all my male cousins, Third Brother was always the one who had the best relationship with me.

  If I insist, Third Brother will pick up his things and go home. I rolled my small eyes (I'm young, so my eyes are small, not like the big villain in movies with small eyes and a big nose), and nodded.

  Third brother saw me nod, smiled happily and immediately took action. He used a bucket to dig up a bucket of mud from the riverbank paddy field and went to block the upstream water outlet, cutting off the water supply to the dam.

  This task is not big or small, three buckets of mud are needed. It's worth noting that Third Brother is only ten years old this year and still a child, one bucket of mud weighs over twenty kilograms, carrying three buckets of mud consumes quite some energy.

  After great difficulty in blocking the water outlet, Third Brother was already exhausted and sweating profusely, panting heavily.

  As soon as the water source was cut off, I immediately took off my shoes and socks, picked up the basin and ran into the river dam, starting to splash water out. This is really a laborious task, although the river dam is small, there are always about one or two cubic meters of water, and it's not easy for two little kids to splash water with the most primitive method.

  Third Brother saw I had already gone down into the river and no longer tried to stop me. He jumped down from the riverbank and splashed water with me.

  At that time, the countryside had almost no pollution sources. The sky was clear and vast, the river water was azure, and the air was fresh and clean. Two happy children were playing in the clear stream, sweating profusely, the scenery was extremely beautiful, like a poem or a painting. However, there were few trees on the hillsides, only some low shrubs and crops. It's a bit regrettable that it's not perfect.

  Time is slowly passing, the water in the dam is also decreasing bit by bit, and the small fish and shrimp hiding in the grassy crevices are darting back and forth in a state of panic. My brother and I exchanged a smile, both of us feeling elated.

  Tonight, I can have a full meal of pan-fried small fish!

  "Oh no, Xiao Jun, what are you doing? Come up quickly, come up quickly..."

  Just like a thunderclap on a clear sky, it shocked the two children so much that their souls flew out of their bodies.

  Terrible!

  I don't need to turn around and look, just by the sound, I can tell - Mom is here!