The crowd watched as the big golden carp, pale green grass carp, and silver carp were pulled from the buckets one by one. Thrown onto the ground, they still jumped and flopped about, slapping the dirt with a THWAP, THWAP. The onlookers roared, pointing and chattering like a pot boiling over.
"See? I told you we should divide them up at noon," a man said, smugly taking credit. "Every year we wait until all the netting is done, and by the ti we get them ho, the fish are dead. This way, we get to eat so fresh ones today."
"They’re fresh, alright, but there aren’t enough carp to go around," Shorty Zhou retorted bluntly. "When we run out, you’ll be getting a silver carp."
The man laughed, unconcerned. "Fine by . When we net the fish from Tiaozi Pond this afternoon, you won’t still be giving a silver carp then, will you?"
Silver carp have lots of small bones, so they weren’t as popular as the common or grass carp.
With so fifty households, it was genuinely difficult to divide the fish if there weren’t enough of the large ones to go around. The village chief waved his hand and declared that anyone who got a silver carp at noon would have first priority for the carp in the evening. That settled the issue.
After the big fish were distributed, it was ti for the small, assorted ones. The crucian carp, small spotted fish, sand gourds, whitebait, and loaches were all used as fillers to even out the weight of each share.
When the distribution was finally over, it wasn’t practical to dump the remaining loaches on the ground—they were slippery and would wriggle away, making them a pain to pick up later. Li Gengdi, who was calling out the nas, announced in a loud voice, "That’s about it! Every household, co scoop up so of these loaches. If we dump them on the ground, they’ll slither all over the place."
Soone called out, "Forget it, we don’t want any. They’re a pain to prepare." As it turned out, most people agreed.
Juhua’s eyes widened. ’These people are passing on loaches just because they’re a hassle? But they’re so good!’ In her excitent, she called out loudly, "Give the loaches to ! I want them!"
The crowd fell silent, and all eyes turned to Juhua.
She only then realized how impulsive she had been. ’My craving was so strong I forgot to be discreet,’ she thought, filled with regret. But there was nothing for it. Everyone had heard her, so she could only brace herself and pretend to be calm.
The crowd, however, burst into laughter. That Juhua really was one of a kind. She’d just saved a turtle, and now she had her eyes on the loaches.
Zheng Changhe quickly called out, "I’ll trade our crucian carp for them! Our family will take a smaller share of fish tonight, too. Just give the loaches to my Juhua!" Seeing his daughter wanted them, he had quickly stepped in to help.
Li Gengtian laughed. "Brother Changhe, no need for such formalities. They’re not exactly a delicacy, and most folks here don’t care for loaches. You can have them all. What does everyone say?"
The crowd’s response was surprisingly unified: "You can have them!" After shouting, they all looked at each other, as if taken aback by their own synchronized response, and then burst into laughter again.
Qingmu and Zhang Huai were secretly pleased, and Zheng Changhe was grinning so wide he couldn’t close his mouth.
Juhua was very touched. Even though most people didn’t particularly want the loaches, they had all agreed to give the entire bucketful to her, and she couldn’t help but feel grateful. So, she announced loudly, "In that case, I’ll make extra acorn tofu to share with everyone for the New Year! Our family gathered the most acorns this year. By next year, once you’ve all gathered your own, you’ll be able to make it yourselves."
The crowd was overjoyed to hear this—they considered acorn tofu a much better deal than the loaches.
Zheng Changhe quickly added, "You’ll have to co grind the flour yourselves! If you expect Qingmu and to grind it all and deliver it, we’ll never get to celebrate the New Year. One bucket of flour makes a lot of tofu, so you should all team up with a few other households to share a batch. If every family wants their own bucket, we won’t have enough acorn kernels, and our pigs will certainly have sothing to say about it!"
This sent the crowd into another round of roaring laughter. After all, weren’t they competing with pigs for food? They’d heard that acorns were originally just pig feed; only after soone figured out how to make tofu from them did people start eating them.
Huang Dagunzi bood with laughter, "Put my na down first! As soon as we’re done with the pond, I’ll send my wife over to grind the flour. Who wants to team up with us? We can all go together. First co, first served. Let’s form a line and not all crowd in at once!"
The noisy chatter and laughter erupted once more. Slowly, the crowd began to disperse in twos and threes, carrying their share of the fish ho.
izi excitedly hurried Juhua along. "Co on, hurry! Your house is still a ways off, and you have to clean the fish when you get back. We’ll be late if we don’t get a move on!"
Liu Xiaoi rushed over to help, picking up the bucket of loaches for Juhua. But she imdiately stumbled, nearly falling over—the bucket was much heavier than she had expected.
Zheng Changhe hurried to catch up. "Here, let . It’s too heavy for a little girl like you. You girls go on ahead; the boys and I will be right along." He’d noticed the girls whispering among themselves and figured they were planning to eat at his house. The thought only made him happy.
As the crowd dispersed, Li Jinxiang and Yan spotted izi and her friends and hurried over to chat. When they heard the group was going to Juhua’s house to eat, their eyes lit up—they had never tasted fish cooked by Juhua. This was especially true for Yan, who had heard Li Jinxiang sing the praises of Juhua’s cooking for a long ti but had never had the chance to try it herself. And so, she turned to look at Juhua with pleading eyes.
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