Just like the fish, the prawns were active in the night to hunt for food. If they were not hiding among the river grass, they would be under the boulders, looking for microbes to devour.
However, it was not easy to catch prawns. The bigger the prawns, the smarter they were. They were always vigilant and would quickly swim away if there was the slightest movement. After a few tries, they might as well be caught in dreams.
How would Zhou Yuan know that? It was easy to understand how to turn the boulders over, but he casually stuck his hand into the water and flipped it over with a splash. The flow of water was disturbed as it turned into mini ripples, stirring up the sand and mud from the riverbed. If the prawns still stayed where they were, they must be stupid!
Because Zhou Yuan kept simply flipping the boulders over, he caught nothing at all. Once the murky water finally turned clear again, the prawns were already long gone.
Standing ashore, Lu Xiao Shu knew for a fact that the rich boy did not know how to catch prawns just by watching him. She could not help but point out to him from where she stood.
“Be careful. Hold the boulder on both edges using two hands. Don’t flip it upwards. Instead, slowly move it along the water current little by little. Once you see the prawns, you can put the boulder down carefully before catching them. Make sure to be careful and catch them from behind. You just have to use your thumb and your index finger to pinch it lightly! It’s not a joke if their long pincers got hold of your fingers so…”
Lu Xiao Shu kept giving him instructions. After many tries, Zhou Yuan finally snatched a river prawn that was the size of his thumb. He happily waved the prawn in triumph and shouted towards the shore, “I caught it! I caught it! Look quick! I got it!”
“Watch out!” Xiao Xue’s voice rang out, but all they heard was a loud wail from Zhou Yuan as he flung his hand with all his might. “Plop!”, the lucky river prawn fell into the water and got back its freedom.
Lu Xiao Shu could not help bursting out in laughter. She laughed, “I told you so! Their pincers can turn around so watch out for them!”
“You should just get out of the water!” Xiao Xue called out.
With the help of the moonlight, Zhou Yuan saw the two lines of reddish imprint on his finger that looked like blood. He came ashore feeling dejected. Meanwhile, Lin Fang had already tossed countless prawns up ashore, and they were wiggling and frolicking about.
Zhou Yuan was very upset. He felt that he had lost his dignity in front of Xiao Xue. “I’m useless! I can’t even do this right!” He suddenly remembered that Lu Xiao Shu had scolded him relentlessly, saying how he was trash since he was a baby! At first, her words left no effects on him, but now that he thought about it, it seemed that was true…
“You’ve never done it before, so it’s fine that you don’t know how.” Xiao Xue smiled and called for Lin Fang, “Lin Fang, that’s enough! You can come up now!”
Lin Fang thought that it was quite a lot, so he agreed before coming ashore.
Lu Xiao Shu simply smiled, “You both can clean the fish and prawns while my sister and I go pick some nuts and peas.”
“Let me go! Both of you are girls—“ Zhou Yuan hastily said. After a few words of comfort from Xiao Xue, he wanted to show her that he could be of use.
“This is Feng Ye village. We’re familiar with everything here. We’ll be back when the two of you finish cleaning the fish and prawns.” Lu Xiao Shu dragged Xiao Xue away as she shouted to them.
The farmers in the village never waste any piece of land when they do any planting. They would scatter soybeans, peas, groundnuts or plant some leeks or garlic on the ridges and the little slopes beside the canals. It was like a side income to them.
Not far away was a vast agricultural land. The edges of the fields would definitely have some nuts or peas.
Since it was only a few clusters, the farmers would not mind them taking it. The sisters chatted and laughed as they walked in that direction.
Soon, they found a land with groundnuts. Picking out one that grew the biggest, they pulled it out from the ground and shook the dirt away. Under the moonlight, they saw a lot of groundnuts that covered the ground densely. It was the season when groundnuts had just started to grow. They were not completely ripe but were still sweet and crunchy.
Lu Xiao Shu plucked the biggest one and patted the dirt off. She opened the moist shell that was covered in dirt and nibbled on it. It was delicately sweet and crunchy. She smiled, “They taste better than the ripe ones. Xiao Xue, we should pluck more of them!”
Xiao Xue grinned and agreed as they started looking for more.
The peas were also fully grown around this time. Soon, the two of them had broken many stems of peas, ready to bring them back.
Lu Qi was back too. He had a steady fire going while Lin Fang brought various marinated skewered meat that was arranged neatly on two huge tin trays. The fish and prawns had been prepped. Cricket was casually lathering them with seasoning.
The few of them sat down in a circle, chatting happily as they feasted.
Lu Xiao Shu had always loved freshwater food, and Lin Fang took a skewer of prawns from Cricket for her. He said, “This is easy to cook. Take it. I’ll roast a fish for you.”
“Okay!” Lu Xiao Shu took the skewer with a grin and positioned it over the fire. Soon, the translucent greenish prawn had turned reddish. The fire crackled and the amazing aroma filled the area.
Lu Qi glanced at his little sister as she held the prawns with an impatient look on her face. Then, he glanced towards Lin Fang and thought to himself: This chap really is— soon, he’ll have Xiao Shu wrapped around his fingers! No, he already has her wrapped around them!”
It’s a pity that this girl has eyes for nothing other than food and fun. Oh, Lin Fang, you really are pitiful.
On the other side, Zhou Yuan too smiled at Xiao Xue as he asked her what she wanted to eat. Of course, Xiao Xue would not want his help. She smiled lightly and refused, “No need. I can do it myself…”
Lu Qi narrowed his eyes at him. What’s this about now?
Zhou Yuan noticed the glare. He forced a smile and stopped pursuing the issue any further.
He just felt that he was humiliated that night. After some thinking, Zhou Yuan said, “There’s a pond of reed near my manor. A lot of wild ducks would go there to hunt for food in late autumn. Every year, our servants would hunt a lot of them and they said that it was quite a lot of fun. Why don’t we go have some fun there?”
Naturally, Lu Xiao Shu would never turn down an invitation to something that she had never tried before. She even happily agreed and pleaded with her brother and sister to let her go.
Xiao Xue had nothing to say. She could not bear turning away her request. She only had two or three more years before she grew up. Then, she would not get to play with things like this anymore! Thus, Xiao Xue was even more unwilling to reject her, so she smiled and agreed to it.
Lu Qi thought about it and asked, “Your manor has a reed pond? As far as I know, the only bigger reed pond around our perimeter would be owned by the Zhou Family. Your family—”
Xiao Xue’s face blanched while Lu Xiao Shu snickered silently and thought to herself: Serves you right! I guess that’s the one small mistake that will cost you everything! That’s what you get when you leave a bad first impression! If my sister knew that it was you, we can bet how far she’ll run from you!
“Here you go!” Lin Fang passed the roasted fish to Lu Xiao Shu as he watched the drama in delight.
Sure enough, Zhou Yuan was embarrassed to be caught. He stuttered, “Err, my family, my family owns one too. It’s not the one that the Zhou Family has! It’s the, what’s that, oh! My family bought a part of it from the Zhou Family!”
“Oh!” His explanation gave Lu Qi a sudden realization.
Lu Xiao Shu added, “Wild ducks are very clever and vigilant. Are you sure you can catch them easily? Even bowhunters could not hunt many of them!”
Zhou Yuan was relieved that the topic was changed. He rose in spirits and hastily explained, “Of course! We have mallard ducks that are trained to lure wild ducks. We’ll set up the traps during the day by putting up a huge net, and at night, when the wild ducks pass by, they will be attracted when they see the mallard ducks frolicking about in the reed ponds. The mallard ducks will lure them in the direction of the trap. As they go towards them, we’ll pull on the net and can catch way more than ten ducks in one go!”
The sisters thought that it sounded quite interesting. They laughed, “The wild ducks must be stupid! How could the mallard ducks lure them over?”
Zhou Yuan smiled awkwardly, “To be honest, I don’t know. Anyway, the mallard ducks are trained to do that, so they know what to do!”
Lu Qi could not help explaining, “Wild ducks are very vigilant and it’s not easy for them to be tricked. Even if they were walking into a trap, they would not be completely calm. They could fly away in a blink. However, mallard ducks look quite similar to wild ducks. It’s quite easy for the wild ducks to mistake the mallard ducks as their kin in the dark. Seeing that the mallard ducks were completely relaxed, they too would relax. That is why if you want to catch wild ducks, you have to use mallard ducks. Otherwise, there’s no way to get hold of them. They wouldn’t be tricked so easily!”
“Yes, that’s right! That’s why!” Zhou Yuan nodded.
Finally, Lu Xiao Shu understood how it worked. She thought that it was very meaningful. Once Zhou Yuan urged them to accept the invitation again, everyone agreed to it. They wanted to see the fun during the hunt.
They chatted and laughed. Unbeknownst to them, they had finished all their food. So, they started to take walks along the river to help digest the food.
Lu Xiao Shu took the leftover meat and wrapped it around some tough cattails. She ran toward the river to fish for prawns with it. As soon as it touched the water, a bunch of fish of the size of thumbs came swimming towards her. They swam back and forth in the shallow waters and it was quite an amusing scene to watch. Lin Fang dug up a small pit beside her, poured some water into it and put the small fishes in it. Both of them were having a lot of fun.
On the riverbank, Xiao Xue stood a distance away and watched them with a smile.
“Xiao Xue,” a voice suddenly appeared behind her, scaring her out of her wits. After a few deep breaths, she turned around to find Zhou Yuan. She nodded and smiled, “Oh, it’s you…”
“I scared you…” Zhou Yuan was very apologetic. He looked guilty as he apologized, “Sorry, I, I didn’t do it on purpose.”
“It’s fine!” Xiao Xue smiled and shook her head, “I’m just a timid person.”
“It’s good because girls should be gentle and polite!” Zhou Yuan chuckled, holding his hands together as he wanted to say something but held himself back.
Absentmindedly, Xiao Xue glanced at her little sister. Furrowing her eyebrows slightly and shaking her head, she felt something was off with Zhou Yuan’s comment. “You… is there something you want to tell me?”
Zhou Yuan’s lips twitched slightly. It was a moment of silence before he stuttered, “Err, the other day at the temple fair—”
Xiao Xue blushed heavily as she heard him bringing that up. She lowered her head and wanted to leave immediately.
Zhou Yuan hastily explained, “I know that it was me who treated you rudely, but I really didn’t mean it. Back then, I just wanted to ask you, I wanted to ask for your name and where you stayed. I really didn’t have any other motive. I never knew that I would scare you.” He sighed before continuing rather gloomily, “You probably don’t know it right? I was beaten up pretty badly by your little sister…”
