Chapter 452 - 13: Snake Swallows Sheep (Part 2)
Moreover, if they make some mistakes in the future, as someone close to Leader Saturday, they can help put in a good word for them.
No native ever refuses the tasks assigned by Saturday.
Social relations just naturally develop when people gather together, as long as they aren't all fools, after all, humans are social animals.
...
Having mixed the cooked barley with certain small flies, Chen Zhou first made a fishing spot.
Actually, there is no need to create a spot on rainy days, as this place is a rare "fishing paradise" with resources so abundant that modern anglers find it unimaginable.
During the fish active period, you can catch fish without even needing to bait the hook.
However, since this barley is cooked, if not used, it would spoil in a couple of days, so it's better to not waste it.
"Consider it a compensation for the fish that lost their families," Chen Zhou thought.
...
With a wave of his hand, the sprinkled barley made the already organic-rich surface layer of the water even more complex.
The small flies, a result of many experiments, were particularly appealing to the fish. Their bodies stuck to the barley grains, releasing a fishy scent that drew the fish to compete for them.
At this moment, not only could you catch fish with a hook, but even with a long net.
The school of fish thrashing in the water caught the attention of the frogs on the lakeshore, and when Chen Zhou first arrived, there were only a few frogs croaking, but as the fish became active, a whole chorus of frogs started.
Two years ago, Lai Fu would have definitely fought with these noisy creatures, or at least barked a few times to express discontent.
Now, it just lay under the umbrella, lazily glancing in the direction of the frog sounds, flicking its tail impatiently, without even getting up.
...
Just as Chen Zhou had summarized from experience, a light rain is when the fish are most active, and he hadn't been sitting long before he caught a few small fish in succession.
The new fishing rod was quite handy, the line unwound and rewound smoothly, proving the reason for its high price.
Chen Zhou felt that after using this new rod, it would be very difficult to go back to using the low-quality rods from the fishing kit.
It's easy to adapt to luxury from frugality, but hard to go from extravagance back to simplicity.
It's like now, enjoying the help of Saturday and Sunday in handling daily chores and having locals share the labor of farming and herding.
If he had to go back to working non-stop 365 days, constantly traveling over the mountains to check on the sheep, he simply could not accept it.
...
Before Chen Zhou arrived, not to mention fishing, there probably wasn't even anyone catching fish on the island.
The fish here maintained their primitive state, with many large fish and low intelligence, not even recognizing fishing hooks.
Initially, when Chen Zhou started fishing, he thought he was a fishing prodigy, easily achieving what anglers dreamed of—multiple catches in one go.
He later realized that such multiple catches were merely commonplace here.
Even an amateur like him from an online fishing group could easily catch fish, and even Saturday and Sunday, who had never fished before, could easily catch over a dozen fish.
More ridiculously, even without professional fishing rods, just by sticking a long branch by the lake, tying a vine to its end, and carving the vine into a hook, they could catch fish.
Honestly, when he saw the fish on the vine one day, Chen Zhou almost lost his composure.
He couldn't understand why sometimes he could sit for hours and catch nothing, even with such ridiculous methods working.
But fishing is about sometimes coming back with a haul and sometimes empty-handed, which brings a unique kind of joy.
Chen Zhou finally comforted his wounded heart with the flimsy excuse that "not catching fish is accumulating merit, and the value of the next mysterious reward will certainly increase."
...
Although it has been nothing but wishful thinking, Chen Zhou has quite an obsession with fishing.
Once anglers develop a "fishing addiction," they tend to set catching bigger fish as their life goal, and once they catch a big fish, they aim even higher.
Gradually, anglers start looking down on small fish, and sometimes after a hard day of fishing, they feel embarrassed by the small fish they caught, preferring to release them and go home empty-handed.
Chen Zhou is no different.
He has been fishing for three years, and he only caught one particularly large fish, with most of his other catches weighing just seven or eight pounds.
Fish weighing seven or eight pounds are common in this river, and the natives can catch dozens within an hour by diving.
This means every time Chen Zhou catches a fish, he doesn't feel a sense of achievement.
He knows there are large fish near a meter long in the depths of the lake, but he never catches them.
The less he catches them, the more he yearns for them, especially remembering the big fish that slapped his face the first time it got hooked and then escaped, it reignites Chen Zhou's passion for fishing—
"I must catch that big fish and redeem my shame!"
He often thinks this way, and before heading down the mountain for fishing today, he fantasized that today, on this drizzly day, he would successfully capture that big fish.
...
However, the gap between fantasy and reality is indeed vast.
Sitting by the lake for more than five hours, the persistent rain gradually extinguished Chen Zhou's enthusiasm.
Although the fish were active this morning, his catch was no different from usual, with most of the fish caught being small ones no longer than 20cm, and the occasional two exceeding 30cm would be considered big.
As for the one-meter-long big fish Chen Zhou longed for, he didn't even catch a glimpse of a shadow.
He even began to wonder if these big fish had a separate habitat, disinterested in mingling with the small fish.
...
By afternoon, the rain had stopped, but the sky was still gloomy without a trace of the sun.
Chen Zhou didn't know how many times he had lifted his rod; he could tell the weight of the fish just by the feel of it.
He glanced at the fish on the hook and finally sighed, feeling that he couldn't find happiness in fishing at the moment.
Just as he was about to set his fishing rod down and play with Lai Fu, he noticed an indigenous man rushing from the direction of the mountain camp.
Chen Zhou recognized this native; according to their tribal language, his name was Kulu. He had a slight stutter but was fairly diligent in his work.
According to informants placed inside, this guy wasn't talkative, usually silent when others found a hot topic to discuss in the evening.
Apparently, Kulu also had a wife and children in the tribe, and his constant glumness was probably due to missing his children.
All the natives knew the realities of tribal life. Losing a robust man would surely result in his wife being assigned to someone else, while his children would become half orphans.
It was already a stroke of luck for fatherless children to survive, let alone thrive within the tribe.
If one has never experienced better living or received an education, Kulu might have happily existed in this "Heaven."
But having learned what's right and wrong from Saturday and Chen Zhou, he inevitably thinks about his family, still living in Hell, unable to rescue them to enjoy such a life alongside him. No wonder he seemed withdrawn.
...
"Normally, at this hour, Kulu should be working in the fields or having a meal and resting with other natives.
Why is he coming over? There's no need for him to deliver messages; Saturday and Sunday are both free..."
Chen Zhou was puzzled when Kulu quickly reached him, catching his breath before speaking stutteringly.
"Sheep, sheep have, have been... been eaten by a snake."
He already had a stutter, and after running such a long way, with anxiety in his heart, his speech became even less clear, more severely stammering than usual.
The word "been" repeated over a dozen times before he finally managed to say it, turning the face of this strong native man red from anxiety.
"A snake ate the sheep?"
Chen Zhou was puzzled about what kind of snake could eat a sheep when suddenly, a flash of inspiration came to him; he remembered the giant python he accidentally saw when he discovered the wild goat herd during his first year on the island.
The venomous snakes on the island were mostly small and skinny, a meter long at most, and eating a goat's hoof would be a challenge, let alone a sheep.
If it were about eating sheep, likely only a python would be capable.