Chapter 90: Buying Fish Fry

Chapter 90: Buying Fish Fry

The next morning dawned bright and clear.

After getting up and washing his face and cleaning his teeth, Gu Dalang, the village head's son, picked up his big bamboo-branch broom and started his usual sweeping of the courtyard.

The morning dew was heavy, so sweeping the courtyard wouldn't stir up much dust.

He had barely started when a knock came at the door.

Gu Dalang carried the broom to open the door and saw the two Wang brothers standing outside.

They'd clearly been there a while—their hair and clothes were damp, but their eyes were bright and full of energy.

"Hey, Brother Gu Zi!" Wang Ershan spoke up. "We came to see Uncle Lizheng to sign up—our family wants to try that rice-fish farming thing!"

After Wang Ershan finished, Wang Dashan nodded just as hard. "Is Uncle Lizheng awake yet?"

So that's what they were here for. Gu Zi was a bit surprised.

Everyone in the village knew the Wang brothers' situation—three mu of rice paddies and barely one mu of dry land, yet they were bold enough to try this.

Gu Zi looked at them differently. He couldn't help but think this was exactly how they'd pulled themselves out of hardship bit by bit.

They really had guts and vision.

Gu Zi hurried them inside. "My dad's not up yet, but he will be soon. Have a seat for a bit."

He got them seated in the main room, then went to the kitchen. He'd put water on to boil while sweeping, and it was just about ready now. Gu Zi brewed some of their homemade wild tea and brought it to the two brothers.

Watching Gu Zi run around, the two brothers suddenly realized they'd been a bit rude showing up so early.

Their whole family was used to getting up early, and they'd forgotten not everyone else got up at the same time.

Any other day, they wouldn't have been so hasty.

But last night, after the whole family agreed, they'd gone back to their rooms and talked it over with their wives and husbands. The more they thought about it, the better it sounded—they'd even had sweet dreams all night. After breakfast this morning, they'd headed out all happy.

Gu Changhe had already heard the ruckus outside. Figuring out what the Wang brothers wanted, he didn't waste any time. He got up fast, said hi to the two men first, then washed up.

While he was getting ready, Gu Zi had already dug out the paper, brushes, and other supplies and laid them out on the table in the main room.

Gu Changhe showing up seemed to be a signal—right after, Gu Rong, Gu Feng, Cui Shi, and Gu Zi's wife all came out.

Before she went to make breakfast, Cui Shi asked the two brothers if they'd eaten. When she heard they had, she got them some peanuts to munch on.

Gu Changhe first wrote down their names, then asked how many mu they wanted to do. When he heard it was three mu—not just everyone else, but even Gu Changhe was a bit surprised.

But once the surprise wore off, Gu Changhe smiled. "Alright, I'll put down three mu."

"Looks like we're all brave—our family's doing sixteen mu."

The Wang brothers were shocked at first, then thrilled.

Sixteen mu—that was every last paddy field the village head had.

As the Wang brothers came out, they happened to see the village head Gu Changhe's two younger brothers showing up. After saying hi, they slowed down and hung around a bit, overhearing that the two younger brothers had also come to sign up.

They didn't dare stick around and hurried home to tell their families what they'd just found out, to put their minds at ease.

When the family heard the village head was using all his paddy fields for rice-fish farming, and both his younger brothers had gone to sign up too, they couldn't help but feel even happier and more confident.

The oldest of the three kids was old enough to understand and got excited too. The youngest, only two, didn't really get what was going on but was happy because everyone else was.

The next day, when Gu Chaoning saw the list Gu Rong brought, he was amazed.

That many people.

Gu Chaoning hadn't expected this many families in the village to trust him.

Besides his own family, there was the village head's household, his second brother Gu Changliu's family, his third brother Gu Changxi's family, and his sister Gu Changyin's family—all of them had signed up all their paddy fields for rice-fish farming.

Besides the village head's whole clan, other households that had committed all their paddy fields included the two Wang brothers, Aunt Guihua's family, Grandma Cuilan's family...

All in all, there were twelve families.

Of the rest, some signed up half their paddy fields, others just one or two mu—still more than a dozen families.

The village had eighty-six households in total, and to have this many joining in—that was nearly half!

Gu Chaoning felt a rare rush of excitement. He quickly set a date to head to Yushui Town with the village head and Gu Tang.

The rice seedlings were already in the fields, so they needed to buy the fish fry and get them in the water ASAP. That very day, Gu Changhe told each household to send one person to his place to figure out who'd go to Yushui Town to buy the fish.

Gu Zi, Gu Tang, Gu Wen, and Gu Chaoning from Gu Changhe's house were definitely going.

The rest were settled: Gu Changxi, Wang Dashan, Zhang Cheng (Wang Guihua's husband), Xu Duo, Gu Dasheng, and Wang Tiezhu—ten people in all.

They also rounded up eight flatbed carts, pulled by mules, oxen, and donkeys.

They set out right at the start of the mao hour (around 5 AM) the next day.

Everyone was a grown-up except Gu Chaoning, who was still a kid, so they all looked out for him. Seeing him curled up in his blanket, someone even handed him a boiled egg from home.

The weather was good that day. It wasn't light out yet at that hour, but you could still see the road. With Gu Tang—a seasoned hand who hit both towns every year—leading the way, they made it in under three bumpy hours.

Yushui Town was buzzing, clearly livelier than Dudu Town.

Gu Tang, reading everyone's mind, explained: "This is the busiest time in Yushui Town—all the villages around here come to buy fish fry."

In their own village, only their family had a pond, and just one at that, which was rare. In other villages, he'd heard of some with eight or nine ponds.

Gu Tang led the group toward the market. The deeper they went, the more crowded it got.

At the market entrance, there were stalls selling meat and veggies, but further in, more and more vendors were selling all kinds of fish.

From a ways off, someone recognized Gu Tang and stood up, waving at him.

"Brother Gu Tang! I knew you'd be showing up around now," the man said, eyeing the people behind him. "Why so many this year? Bringing me some business?"

Gu Tang said hi back, then asked about this year's business and the prices of fish fry.

Gu Chaoning looked around and saw that the fish fry here were indeed good quality. The ones in wooden barrels and basins were mostly common types, though there were some rarer ones too. He even spotted softshell turtles and river crabs being sold.

Besides fish fry sellers, about half the stalls sold full-grown fish. Gu Chaoning figured if he had time later, he might pick up some shrimp.

By then, Gu Tang had already told the fish fry vendor exactly what kinds and how many they needed.

The vendor was caught off guard at first. "Did your village dig up all your fields and switch to raising fish?"

Gu Tang couldn't help but spat at him, "With perfectly good land, who would dig it up to raise fish?"

That's true, but so many fish...

The man was still curious, but no matter how he asked, he couldn't get an answer. Finally, Gu Tang said impatiently, "Just tell me whether you have enough fish fry here or not."

"Enough, enough, enough." Seeing that they wouldn't say no matter what, he stopped being curious.

He didn't actually have enough himself, but the village had plenty of people!

The fish seller then asked an acquaintance to watch his stall and led Gu Tang's group toward the village.

Actually, they had noticed earlier on their way over that there were far more rivers here than in their own Dukou Town, and as they left the town and headed into the village, there were ponds of all sizes everywhere.

Many of the ponds were square and neat, looking as if they had been dug by hand.

The fish seller was called Shuisheng, with no surname, having grown up eating from a hundred households. According to Uncle Lizheng, when he was a child, he had floated down the river in a wooden basin to their village, where the Lizheng's husband had discovered him.

Seeing everyone's curiosity, Shuisheng couldn't help but speak up: "At first, we planted crops here too, but there was too much water, and the fields kept getting flooded. It flooded when it rained lightly, and it flooded even more when it rained heavily. An official came and said it was because our area was low-lying—like the mountains were what stuck up from the ground, and our area was what sank down."

Shuisheng had a colorful way of talking, and everyone listened attentively.

"Then another official came, found our village head, and said, 'That won't work, your village should stop farming and switch to raising fish instead.' The official then sent a few more men, who led our villagers to find spots and dig ponds. The dug-up earth was piled up in designated places. After that, whenever it rained in our village, the rainwater all drained into the ponds..."

As he spoke, they arrived at the village. Once there, Shuisheng became even more lively and excited, waving at people on the road from afar.

Before long, word spread through Yuduo Village that Shuisheng had brought back a group of people who wanted to buy a large number of fry.

Gu Chaoning and his group were first led to the Lizheng's house. The Lizheng had been called back from his pond and had quickly washed his hands and feet before returning, but there were still water and mud splatters on his clothes.

The two sides began to talk.

For the rice-fish farming method, the number of fry needed was between two hundred and four hundred per mu (about 1/15 of an acre), and they settled on three hundred per mu.

The total area of paddy fields participating in the rice-fish farming this time was two hundred and six mu, which came to 61,800 fry.

Accounting for losses in transit, Gu Chaoning conservatively planned to purchase sixty-two thousand fry.

When they heard how many they wanted, the villagers all gasped. A few even warned them, thinking they might be new to fish farming and didn't know what they were doing.

But after a few words of advice, once they saw the buyers knew their stuff, everyone stopped trying to persuade them and instead happily calculated how many fish they could sell this time.

Shuisheng and the Lizheng's family alone couldn't possibly supply that many black carp. Other village families who raised black carp went to see Shuisheng.

Once the quantity was confirmed, they moved on to the down payment.

They wanted slightly larger fry, which would naturally cost more than the smaller ones. The price proposed by the Lizheng and Shuisheng was six fry per wen (a small copper coin).

Gu Tang didn't like that: "Shuisheng, are you serious? You think I don't know the market price? We're buying this many fry, and you're still selling at market price? That's not being straight with us!"

Shuisheng quickly put on a smile. When money was on the line, everyone got tight-fisted.

Gu Tang knew the going rate and haggled hard, saying directly, "Thirteen fry per wen. We're serious buyers, so you should be serious sellers."

"Oh, my good brother, who here isn't serious? If we sell at that price, we won't even be able to afford fish for our own table."

"Then you can still have fish soup, right?"

Shuisheng winced and shot back with nine fry per wen, refusing to budge.

Gu Chaoning dropped a hint that if the fish were of good quality, they would come back next year to buy even more.

Shuisheng wasn't too sure, but then his mind went blank for a second.

Right—what were they so sure about buying all these fish for? He knew Xiaohe Village; only Gu Tang's family had a fish pond there.

If their village was buying this many fish, there had to be something big going on that nobody could guess yet.

Shuisheng chewed it over, whispered with the Lizheng, and decided to cut them a fair deal.

After more haggling back and forth, both sides gave a little and settled on ten fry per wen.