Chapter 35: Night Hunting for Yellow Eel

Upon hearing his sister-in-law’s words, Lin Heng smiled and shook his head, saying, “I’m not angry, I was just joking. Besides, there’s really no secret to it.”

He added with a smile, “It’s simple.”

“Ah?” Liu Juan, his sister-in-law, looked puzzled.

“Because if you just walk into the forest at night, you’ll see them. You don’t need any special skills.”

Lin Heng smiled faintly.

Hearing this, Liu Juan immediately regretted her earlier words. It was that simple? If she had known, she would’ve just gone to check that night.

“But I advise you not to go catching them these days. Don’t let anyone in the family go either,” Lin Heng said with a smile.

“Why?” Liu Juan asked, confused. Something so delicious should be caught and eaten as much as possible.

“Our family has outsiders right now. Once word gets around, everyone will know, and then we won’t be able to catch them anymore. We should wait until they leave, and then we can secretly catch them. These will last until July,” Lin Heng explained.

In the future, food was abundant, but when people found out about the tasty yellow eel, it was sure to be caught every night. If the villagers knew, they’d be sneaking into the forest every night.

“You’re right. Let’s wait until they leave to catch them,” Liu Juan said, agreeing with him. The women in the village were frightening; they could trek across several mountains for a handful of locust flowers, let alone catch something as tasty as yellow eels.

She immediately turned and went back to tell the others.

Lin Heng went to the yard but didn’t see Xiu Lan. He asked Cai Yun where she was.

“Xiu Lan went to pick gray vegetables. She said everyone at home likes to eat them. But I clearly saw that only you, second brother, like eating them. The rest don’t seem to touch them much.”

Cai Yun was flipping through “How Steel Is Made” as she spoke. She had already read more than half of the book and was determined to finish it.

Lin Heng didn’t pay attention to this before, but now that Cai Yun mentioned it, he recalled that while gray vegetables used to appear on the table occasionally, recently, they seemed to be served with every meal. He was deeply touched that his wife had been picking them for him all along.

After unlocking the chain on Xiong Ba, Lin Heng went out to find his wife, Xiu Lan.

“Woof! Woof!” Xiong Ba barked twice at the sky, as if practicing its voice.

As they walked, Xiong Ba occasionally ran to Lin Heng’s feet, rubbing against him, almost as if afraid of being left behind.

Lin Heng found Xiu Lan in the field, squatting down to pick gray vegetables while carrying their daughter, Xiao Xia.

“You’re here!” Xiu Lan looked up and smiled when she heard Xiong Ba’s bark.

“Come over and take Xiao Xia from me,” Lin Heng smiled and said as he approached and took Xiao Xia from her.

“There’s a lot of small garlic here. I’ve picked quite a bit. After pickling it, it’ll taste great with noodles.”

Xiu Lan pointed to a bamboo basket filled with small garlic.

This wild plant, similar in appearance to garlic sprouts, was called wild garlic or small root garlic. It had a unique fragrance, and people usually pickled it and ate it with noodles, which tasted great.

“Okay, you go ahead. I’ll watch over Xiao Xia,” Lin Heng said, smiling as he took their daughter and watched her play with Xiong Ba.

Xiu Lan didn’t know why Lin Heng was smiling, so she just focused on picking wild vegetables.

Gray vegetables generally grew tall, about 30 centimeters, and only the leaves were edible. Picking them was quite laborious. After filling half a bamboo basket, Xiu Lan only stood up when the sky had darkened.

On the way home, Xiu Lan suddenly said, “I’m not going to catch the yellow eel tonight.”

“I actually forgot what you said yesterday,” Lin Heng chuckled. “Since I’m not going, it’s not like I broke my promise. You said I’d beg you to go with me, but you never said I couldn’t eat it.”

Xiu Lan didn’t look at Lin Heng, trying to argue, but inwardly, she couldn’t help but remember the delicious taste of the fried yellow eel from this morning.

Lin Heng found it a bit amusing and asked with a smile, “So, do you think it was delicious?”

“Delicious, really delicious!” Xiu Lan nodded.

Back in the yard, Lin Heng handed Xiao Xia over to Xiong Ba to watch over and let it play fetch with a stick.

“Woof! Woof!” Xiong Ba barked, seemingly unwilling to take on the task.

Lin Heng ignored it and went to grab a needle that Xiu Lan had used for sewing. After heating it in the stove, he bent the tip using pliers.

A fishhook made from a needle could catch creek fish, but it wasn’t strong enough for larger prey. So he used the needle to make a solid hook that wouldn’t bend easily.

Tonight, they were going to catch yellow eels, and for those that were difficult to catch, they could use fishing.

Mudsuckers in the fields were also slippery, so fishing was the only way to catch them.

At around 8 p.m., Lin Heng’s older brother, Lin Yue, came over with a fertilizer bag in hand.

“Let’s go, we’re going to catch yellow eel,” Lin Yue said excitedly.

“Let’s go!” Lin Heng couldn’t wait, putting on his water shoes and grabbing his gear.

Their rice fields were near the river, so they had to walk a long way.

“Speaking of catching yellow eel at night, we were the ones who discovered it,” Lin Yue said with a smile on the way.

“Yeah, no one else came out at night until the cows ran off. We were looking for the cows with flashlights when we found that the yellow eels were coming out and lying on the mud in the rice fields,” Lin Heng recalled the childhood memories he had with his brother. Though they were poor, they had plenty of fun.

Laughing and chatting, the two continued walking with their dim yellow flashlight, quickly arriving at their rice fields.

Lin Heng used an aluminum flashlight with two dry batteries. The light was weak, but thankfully, both of them had good vision and could see clearly.

“Look, here’s one. Come over, I’m afraid it’ll escape,” Lin Yue spotted a yellow eel lying motionless in the mud under the flashlight.

“Okay.” Lin Heng walked over and saw that it was a medium-sized yellow eel, about the size of his thumb, roughly 20 centimeters long.

Catching yellow eels by hand requires skill, and Lin Heng was the best at it because he loved catching fish and shrimp.

The technique wasn’t to scoop it up with the hands or grab it like a stick. Instead, the hand needed to form a pincher-like structure, with the middle finger vertical and the other fingers curled around it. Then, one had to carefully approach the eel and quickly snap it between the fingers with precision.

Lin Heng succeeded on his first try, pulling the yellow eel out of the water and into the snake-skin bag his brother had already prepared. By the time the eel realized what had happened, it was trapped and struggling in the bag.

“Impressive, your skill hasn’t diminished at all,” Lin Yue laughed.

“Of course!” Lin Heng chuckled, proud of his nearly perfect technique. He had caught hundreds, if not thousands, of yellow eels with that move.

The success rate wasn’t 100%, but it was definitely above 90%.

“There’s another one here! Wow, and there’s another right next to it, both are huge!” Lin Yue suddenly spotted another big catch.

(End of Chapter)