Finally, Sunday arrived. After finishing the exam at my teacher’s place and receiving lots of praise, I happily returned home, dropped my schoolbag, and immediately ran out to carry out my long-planned fishing operation.

To catch fish in the river, I needed a helper. As a seven-year-old kid, I could only stare helplessly at the fish. It’s true what they say: “The body is the capital of revolution.” No matter how well I understood the trends of the coming decades—on par with Zhuge Liang or Liu Bowen, “knowing five hundred years before and after”—with such a frail body, it really wasn’t convenient to do revolutionary work.

I couldn’t ask my second or third sisters to help with fishing; I felt it wasn’t suitable for girls. For this, I had to call my cousin.

I have three cousins. My dad and his brother—my uncle passed away early, so my dad often looked after his brother’s sons. As a result, the bond between us cousins is extraordinary. Among them, my younger cousin Charles Walker is only a few years older than me and is the closest to me.

“Third Brother, let’s go, let’s block the river dam.” Third Brother didn’t like studying and was especially fond of catching fish and shrimp. As soon as he heard about blocking the dam, he agreed without hesitation. Then he looked at my small frame and hesitated a bit.

“Xiao Jun, Auntie said I’m not allowed to take you to play by the river.” I was the only son in the family and the youngest. My mom treasured me like nothing else, always afraid something might happen. As the saying goes, “Don’t underestimate water,” so I was absolutely forbidden from doing anything involving water. She had sternly warned my siblings more than once.

“Hey, I’m not going swimming, just blocking a little dam. What’s the big deal? Don’t worry, let’s go quickly or we’ll be late.” Third Brother was only about ten this year, the perfect age for mischief. My words made him itch with excitement, and he immediately tossed Auntie’s strict orders to the back of his mind. He grabbed a bucket and a washbasin, and took me straight to the riverbank.

In my previous life, one of my hobbies was fishing, though I wasn’t very good at it.

Liujia Mountain is clearly a “mountain,” so there are no big rivers, just two small streams, with water barely waist-deep. If you wanted to fish, you’d sit by the riverbank, but the fish could see my greedy, ugly face from underwater as clear as day—how could I catch anything? Even if the fish pitied me for not having meat for days and were willing to “sacrifice” themselves, after an afternoon I’d only catch two or three tiny fish, not even enough to fill the gaps between my teeth. So I used the “drain the pond to catch the fish” method: find a small dam, block it, scoop out the water, and catch all the little fish, shrimp, crabs, and loaches in one go. If lucky, I could get a pound or two of fish and shrimp.

I’d done this many times as a kid in my previous life, so I was quite experienced.

Easier said than done, though—it sounded simple, but actually took a lot of effort.

First, you had to pick the right spot.

There are two small streams in Liujia Mountain’s territory—real streams, only a few meters wide, rarely more than a meter deep. Because of the elevation, there’s a big drop, so many small dams form naturally.

I pointed to one of the bigger dams and said, “Third Brother, let’s do it here.” Third Brother shook his head with a smile, “Not here. We already fished here not long ago.”

“Oh? How much did you catch?” Third Brother gave me a strange look and said, “About two or three pounds. Didn’t you eat some too?” I clicked my tongue in admiration. Two or three pounds—that’s a good haul. Too bad, when I feasted that time, I hadn’t yet transmigrated; I was still in the canteen of a capitalist factory in the 21st century, eating “big pot rice.” Third Brother kept walking and reached a smaller dam. He looked at the sky and said, “Let’s do it here. This dam is small… You just watch from the side, I can handle it myself.” Clearly, Third Brother never intended for me to help—he just wanted me as a little sidekick, so I could enjoy the results.

“No way, I want to help too.” Third Brother shook his head repeatedly, “Be good, just watch from the side. Auntie said you can’t go into the river. All the fish we catch will be yours, okay?” I was stunned—Third Brother didn’t want the fish? That was a bit like the Olympic spirit of “participation matters most.” Actually, Third Brother was afraid of being scolded by my mom, and he really cared for me, always willing to give me the good stuff.

In my previous life, among my cousins, Third Brother was always the closest to me.

Seeing that if I insisted any further, Third Brother would just take his things and go home, I rolled my little eyes (I was young, so my eyes were small—not like the big-nosed, small-eyed villains in movies) and nodded.

Third Brother saw me agree and smiled happily, immediately getting to work. He dug a bucket of mud from the rice field by the river and used it to block the upstream inlet, cutting off the dam’s water supply.

This project wasn’t huge, but not tiny either—it took two or three buckets of mud. You have to know, Third Brother was only ten this year, still a kid. Each bucket of mud weighed over twenty pounds, and carrying three buckets took a lot of effort.

After finally blocking the inlet, Third Brother was already sweating and panting heavily.

Once the water source was cut off, I immediately took off my shoes and socks, grabbed the washbasin, and ran into the dam to start scooping out water. This was the real hard work. Even though the dam was small, it still held one or two cubic meters of water. Two little kids using the most primitive method to scoop water—it wasn’t easy.

Seeing that I was already in the river, Third Brother stopped trying to stop me and jumped into the dam to scoop water with me.