Chapter 48: Already Spent Over 300,000

Cheng Xiaolin was surprised. “Out of water again?”

“Yeah, but soon the water will rise. If I remember correctly, upstream will release water at the end of June or beginning of July. At that time, the water here will be high, and there will be lots of fish. You can even see them leaping out of the water along the shore in big groups—very spectacular.”

Cao Shujie came over carrying a bucket and a homemade bamboo stick and net, looking quite knowledgeable. “I’ll get us a good fishing net from town soon. When the water rises at the end of next month, I’ll bring you all over to witness a miracle.”

He sounded very convincing, though in front of real experts, he was at best an amateur. Still, he did have hands-on experience.

“Daddy, fish!” Mengmeng was a bit overwhelmed.

She glanced at the kids running on the riverbed, then looked at the spots where water still remained.

The kids were sharp-eyed and spotted a fish swimming in the water. Pointing excitedly, they shouted, “Daddy!”

The water wasn’t deep, and Cao Shujie saw the fish swimming on the surface—it looked to be about half a jin.

He signaled his daughter to stay quiet, quickly put down the bucket, bent down with his homemade bamboo net, and crept to the water’s edge. Seeing the fish hadn’t been scared away by his daughter’s shouts, he relaxed a little and carefully moved the net behind the fish.

At this point, Cheng Xiaolin, Cao Huifang, and Mengmeng all held their breath, growing tense.

Mengmeng, seeing her dad hadn’t caught the fish yet, grew impatient. “Daddy, hurry!”

“Shh!” Cao Huifang put her finger to her lips. “Mengmeng, don’t shout or you’ll scare the fish away.”

“Shh!” Mengmeng also put her finger to her lips, copying her.

Cao Shujie watched the fish still swimming calmly and felt pleased. The net was already a bit past the fish, and as he tested the water, Cheng Xiaolin grew frustrated—she wanted to ask if her husband was blind, since the fish was right in front!

Just as she thought to remind him, her sister-in-law, Cao Huifang, stopped her with a wave.

“Splash!”

The net plunged quickly into the water, and they saw Cao Shujie swing the bamboo rod and net forward. Before the fish knew what happened, it was already out of the water with the net—its heroics of no use.

Even after catching it, Cao Shujie didn’t relax. He swiftly hauled the net back and placed the fish into the bucket, finally heaving a sigh of relief.

“Wow, Daddy is amazing!” Mengmeng jumped and clapped her hands.

Cheng Xiaolin was stunned by her husband’s brilliant move. “Honey, you’re that good?”

“Of course! I played like this when I was young, though once I started middle school, I didn’t have the time anymore,” Cao Shujie said with a hint of nostalgia.

Cheng Xiaolin couldn’t stand his “I’m a natural” attitude and said, “Get some more water, or the fish will die of thirst.”

“Yellow River carp aren’t that easy to kill,” Cao Shujie retorted, but he still fetched half a bucket more water.

“Daddy, the fish is so big!” Mengmeng leaned over the edge to look inside.

The next moment, she reached right into the water to touch the fish, getting her sleeves wet before she even touched it.

Seeing this, Cheng Xiaolin was at a loss. “Mengmeng, are you silly? Reaching into the water without rolling up your sleeves—your clothes are all soaked. What are you going to do now?”

“Hee hee!” Mengmeng didn’t care at all. Getting wet was no big deal—in fact, she often got her clothes wet playing with water at home.

After catching the first fish, Mengmeng wanted her dad to catch another one. Pointing at the water, she shouted, “Daddy, fish.”

“Let’s see,” Cao Shujie turned, thinking there really was another fish. But on inspection, there was nothing but yellow sand. “Where’s the fish?”

“Daddy, catch fish,” Mengmeng demanded.

Then Cao Shujie realized his daughter was fooling him. He tapped her lightly on the back. “Mengmeng, you’ve learned to trick people, huh?”

Normally, if her dad hit her, Mengmeng would run to complain to her mom. But today, she was having too much fun with the fish to care.

Cao Shujie went back with his net to wait by the water, spotting a green snake swimming in the river, but still no more fish.

Mengmeng leaned over the bucket watching the fish for about ten minutes, but since her dad didn’t repeat his heroics, she lost interest and pointed to a child running wildly on the riverbed. “Mommy, running.”

With that, she dashed forward.

Cao Huifang, seeing her niece take off, got nervous—what if she ran to the water and trouble ensued? She hurried to keep up, just in case she needed to pull her back.

But before Mengmeng could get far, she stepped into the soft sand of the riverbed, missed her step, and fell flat on her face.

The sudden accident scared Cao Huifang, who rushed over to help her up, wanting to see if she was hurt. But Mengmeng climbed to her feet by herself, looked at her little hands, then at the sandy ground.

“Hee hee, it doesn’t hurt!” Mengmeng’s eyes sparkled. This was fun.

Dirty clothes didn’t matter—mom would wash them anyway.

Next, she ran a few more steps and deliberately fell in the sand, then got up again, crawling around.

This sequence of actions left Cao Huifang completely bewildered. What did this mean?

Cheng Xiaolin, hurrying behind, was frustrated to the point of liver pain. She shouted, “Mengmeng, your clothes are filthy! Are you asking for a spanking?”

But Mengmeng ignored her, crawling on the sand, hands and knees, having more fun than crawling on the bed.

Getting more excited, she imitated Daha and rolled in the sand, soon covering her head with sand and getting her face absolutely filthy.

Just before lunch, Cao Shujie finally drove his wife, daughter, and younger sister back from the Yellow River. Unlike the trip out, they returned with two fish.

In the end, they caught another one. The second was even bigger—probably almost suffocated from too much sand at the bottom, so it surfaced, mouth open, to breathe, and was caught by Cao Shujie, who was waiting.

By now, Mengmeng was a little mud person. When they got out of the car, Cheng Xiaolin reminded her husband to wash the car.

He had no choice—the seats and the back were full of sand, and even Cheng Xiaolin and Cao Huifang had gotten dirt all over themselves.

In the end, Mengmeng couldn’t escape a spanking, but she’d had a great time, giggling nonstop.

Wang Yuelan, cooking at home, saw her granddaughter in this state and told her daughter-in-law, “Linlin, change Mengmeng’s clothes, I’ll wash them.”

“Mom, it’s okay, I can wash them,” Cheng Xiaolin replied, embarrassed to let her mother-in-law do it.

……

In a blink, five days passed, and the three-day May Day holiday was long over.

Cao Shujie’s sister, Cao Huifang, took the long-distance bus back to school in Yiling City early on the 3rd.

During these days, Cao Zhenggang and his team of eight finished installing the wire fencing.

A two-meter-high fence—almost a rectangle, though irregular—now surrounded all of Cao Shujie’s contracted mountain fields.

Every four meters there was a ten-centimeter-wide square tube post, and at the top, a circle of barbed wire. The base was flush to the ground, with mesh small enough to keep out even a mid-sized rat—fully sealed.

After this work was finished, Cao Shujie proactively settled up the materials and labor costs for the house with Cao Zhenggang.

Labor was uniformly paid at seventy per day, a bit lower than the outside market.

From March 18 to May 6, a total of fifty days, with labor alone costing over thirty thousand.

For the house and the small wellhouse on the mountain, they’d used 52,000 bricks, delivered to the site, at 0.33 yuan each.

Cement was about 500 per ton, using fourteen tons.

Steel was 5,000 per ton, using three tons, with other materials such as sand and plastering coming to under four thousand altogether.

For building materials, Cao Shujie really spared no expense.

As Cao Zhenggang said, all those materials weren’t really necessary, but Cao Shujie insisted, telling them not to worry about the cost.

The remaining doors and windows were being custom-made, so Cao Zhenggang didn’t need to worry about those. The labor and materials for the house alone had cost just under eighty thousand. Cao Shujie asked for a bank account and transferred the money in person via CCB internet banking.

At the time, Cao Zhenggang was amazed at how convenient it was, but since he received the SMS bank notification, he didn’t doubt it for a second.

As for the rest—furniture, doors and windows, decoration, appliances—as Cao Zhenggang put it, even double those figures might not be enough.

But Cao Shujie didn’t care; he wanted everything done well the first time.

In the past few days, over thirty people had been working daily to clean up and replant the mountain fields, finishing in eleven days.

As agreed, eight hours a day at thirty-five a day, totaling 11,970 yuan in labor, which Cao Shujie also paid promptly, earning him a good reputation in Cao Family Village.

Even Cao Jianguo and Wang Yuelan cheered up, feeling the family’s days were getting better and better.

But Cao Shujie didn’t feel relaxed; he’d been making outgoing payments nonstop, and overall, he’d already spent almost 300,000.

And that’s without doors and windows installed, no furniture or appliances, no decoration. Add all that in and it would cost at least another 200,000.

Now, Cao Shujie no longer had any illusions that 200,000 would be enough to build a house and move in.

“Sigh, money is really easy to spend!”

Sighing, Cao Shujie received a call. After hanging up, his mood instantly improved, as if he’d just had a cool drink.

(End of this chapter)