Chapter 133 [The banks of the Qingjiang River are also prosperous]

   "I see that among the fish you caught with the net, there are quite a few turtles and turtles. You picked them out and threw them back?" Fang Chang sat on the bow, pointed at the small net beside Zhou Fan, and asked with a half-smile.

  Because it has been used just now, this coarse cloth and hemp are used as materials, and it is carefully made. The net that looks very strong is still full of catches, and the next net cannot be used.

   Compared with hooks, small nets are indeed less likely to catch big fish. This may be a matter of probability.

  In this small net, the slightly larger fish have been put into the hold by Zhou Fan, where a certain amount of fresh water is reserved to ensure that they are still fresh when they go ashore or put on the chopping board in the boat.

The most leftovers are all kinds of shrimps—the kind that Fang Chang ate on this boat yesterday—and some small fish mixed with algae and finely divided aquatic plants, such as zodiac, bridge, mullet, white fish, and sandfish. The tapi, as well as a few scattered tortoises and turtles, were moving slowly.

  Hearing what Fang Chang asked, Zhou Fan hummed and said:

   "Those have no meat and can't be eaten. Even if they grow into big ones, they will be troublesome to cook. No one will want them, even we won't eat them."

  Fang Chang smiled and said: "Then you pick a small turtle and put half of it in a basket with me, and I will buy it for a price."

  Zhou Fan paused with the fishing line in his hand, turned his head and said to the other party: "What does the customer want this for? These are useless, and it's too wasteful to spend money on them. Just send them to you."

   Standing up slowly, Fang Chang walked to the side of the ship, and looked at the distant river bank with his hands behind his back:

   "There is a water pool in front of my house, and the surrounding scenery is quite beautiful, but it's just newly built, and there are few creatures in it, so it's too deserted."

   "I just saw the turtles in the net, and suddenly I had some ideas. I might as well buy some and put them in to raise them. It can also be regarded as adding some color to the pool."

   "Little brother, would you do me this favor?"

  Zhou Fan imitated his father, bowed his hands and said: "Of course I'm willing to do it, and it doesn't cost much, just give it to the guests, no need to spend money."

   Fang Chang adjusted his voice to majestic, and said to the boy:

"I've said I want to help you, but I'll take it easy. Learning to read and write earlier will be of great benefit to myself and the world. And in my daily behavior, the principles I hold are first of all not to be easily given by others for no reason. understand."

  The two were a little intimidated by their aura and dared not refuse.

  Fang Chang wanted to help this young man, but he just liked it in his heart. It had nothing to do with morality or good customs. After all, he was a person outside Fang Fang who entered the practice.

   Not to judge, he's doing things a bit his own way this time.

  The young man started to do it, picking out the tortoises and turtles from every time he got off the net, and putting them into bamboo baskets to save.

  ...

When they arrived at Xingqing Mansion, Zhou Fan cast off the net one after another, saved up half a basket of small turtles, handed them to Fang Chang for some money, and then satisfactorily followed his father Zhou Chang to steer the boat away from the pier. Raise the sails to ride the wind, and go upstream and leave.

  The father and son simply gave the bamboo basket to Fang Chang.

  He took the bamboo basket and hung it on his waist, one on the left and one on the right with the wine gourd, quite symmetrical.

  The scenery on the side of Xingqing Mansion is very familiar to Fang Chang. Compared with Huaifeng Mansion, Xingqing Mansion is slightly to the southwest. The wharf here is at the southernmost point of Xingqing Mansion, nearly a hundred miles away from Huaifeng Mansion, but only about 150 miles to Yunzhong Mountain.

  The same big river is called Dongxu River in Lianzhou, but here it is called Qingjiang.

  The Baigou River, originating from Yunzhong Mountain, also merged into this river in the end, but the meeting point was further downstream.

  Due to convenient transportation, Jiangzhong fish can be shipped directly to Huaifeng Mansion. Fang Chang remembered that he used to be in Yuelaiju in Huaifengfu City, and met there selling "Qingjiang Laughing Fish", which was one of the signature dishes of that shop.

  However, compared with the signature dishes of Huaifeng Mansion Yuelaiju, the aquatic products near the pier are fresher and more varied.

  Because it is an important place for transportation, people come and go, there are a lot of goods, and there are many residents. There are water and land gates, and all kinds of industries are flourishing. The prosperity is no less than that of Xingqing Fucheng, but there is no city wall.

  Fang Chang ate a fish-based meal, wandered around the market in Shijindu, and felt the culture and customs here.

  Although it belongs to Xingqing Prefecture, the habit here is rice soup with fish. Even in the surrounding restaurants, the staple food provided is mainly steamed rice, which is served in small wooden barrels and eaten casually.

   But if it is around the city of Xingqing, it becomes mixed with rice and millet, and at the foot of Yunzhong Mountain, it becomes the staple food, followed by pasta.

   "Rice cake—! Excellent rice cake~!"

  There was a lot of hawking on both sides of the road, and the stall owners and even the guys in front of the shop were shouting one after another.

  Although the focus is still on clearly explaining what their own business is about, each family has chosen more interesting words, and some even have rhymes in order to attract more attention.

  Compared with others, this rice cake stall does not have a good shouting content, but the queue in front is quite long.

Fang Chang went up to line up and bought a small piece. The rice cake stall has a small stock, only two boards, cut and weighed for sale, but the image of the rice cake is very good, and the taste is also very good according to the surrounding evaluations, which attracted so many people. people.

  Rice cakes are made of glutinous rice, but there are too many people coming and going from north to south in Shijindu, so everyone calls rice cakes slightly differently. Some call it cut cake, while others call it jujube cake.

  Because of the method of making this rice cake, in addition to spreading the soaked glutinous rice layer by layer in a large pot and a cage, it also needs to spread three or four layers of jujube, which is a special product in a certain place in the north.

  The jujubes are very sweet, and when they are ripe, the sugar can be pulled out, so they are called "golden silk", so there is no need to put sugar in the glutinous rice, and the cake is sweet and delicious.

  When selling, the stall owner uses a thin piece of wood to gently cut the cake, wrap it in yellow paper and weigh it, and then sell it to customers. The sweet dates are like fillings, which match the sticky fragrant glutinous rice very well.

  The only problem is that it gets too cold in winter.

  Chew the jujube pits and finished eating slowly. Fang Chang cleaned his hands.

  Next, he was going to find a car to go to Fucheng of Xingqing Mansion, and then head east all the way back to the mountain through Huaifeng Mansion.

   Randomly found someone to know the location of the car and horse dealership here, and Fang Chang was walking over there.

  Suddenly, he saw a little boy standing by the side of the road with a pair of bowls and chopsticks, looking at everyone anxiously, with a small package under his feet, his expression was very strange.

  Because of his excellent memory, he felt that the boy looked familiar.

  Cultivator's meddling mentality broke out, Fang Chang smiled, stepped forward and asked, "Little brother, what are you waiting for?"

  Hearing the words, the little boy turned his head and took a careful look at Fang Chang. Seeing that the person he was waiting for was not the one he was waiting for, he looked at him with some vigilance and said, "I'm not waiting for you."

   While speaking, a middle-aged man in green cloth came running anxiously from the other side of the long street, with a tense expression, constantly looking around.

  When he glanced at the package at the boy's feet, his eyes lit up.

  Then the middle-aged man ran a few steps, walked up to the little boy and Fang Chang, and said a little nervously: "You two are invited. I just passed by here and lost a small package."

  (end of this chapter)