Chapter 50 : Breaking Bones and Catching Fish

When Lu Fangfang returned home, she could still smell the aroma of beef bone soup.  

Seeing that the weather was good, she spread out a sack in the yard, poured the cow bones from the basin onto it, and laid them out to dry.  

These beef bones had been cooked until they were very brittle. After drying them for a few days, they could be easily crushed into bone powder with a hammer.  

After finishing her task, Lu Fangfang washed her hands, patted the dust off her clothes, and walked into the house.  

After turning the soil all morning, she wasn’t too hungry, just extremely tired.  

She simply ate some leftover beef offal from the morning, mixed it with some sweet potato flour, and then went to bed to rest.  

She slept for a while, and when she woke up, it was already two o’clock.  

After getting up and washing her face, Lu Fangfang found a piece of cloth and wrapped up the broken bones.  

She tied them tightly with a rope and put them in her pocket.  

Carrying a hoe, a shovel, and a large enamel basin, she headed to the wasteland by the riverbank.  

Wang Shufen had arrived much earlier and was already turning the soil.  

Lu Fangfang greeted her and then walked toward the river.  

Instead of starting work right away, she took the broken bones wrapped in cloth from her pocket and placed them inside the fish trap she had woven in the morning.  

The trap she made had a large belly and a small opening, similar to a jar, so the broken bones inside wouldn’t fall out easily.  

Taking out the rope she had brought from home, Lu Fangfang tied the opening of the trap and threw it into the river where many small fish were swimming.  

At that moment, Wang Shufen walked over curiously.  

Seeing Lu Fangfang’s actions, she asked, “Sister, what did you put in the cloth?”  

“Broken bones with cow’s blood on them,” Lu Fangfang replied.  

Wang Shufen nodded. That should be able to attract small fish. “I’ll make some traps when I have time. I can catch small fish to feed the chickens and save on feed.”  

The two of them stood by the water, squinting into the river.  

Seeing small fish swimming around the trap, they felt reassured and returned to turning the soil.  

Walking into the wasteland, Lu Fangfang picked up her hoe and swung it hard.  

‘Bang!’  

“Hiss…”  

Her hands stung from the impact. She shook her wrists, bent down, and dug out a long stone.  

This was a high-altitude grassland, surrounded by snow-capped mountains, with many stones scattered on the ground.  

Seeing that the stones were neatly shaped, Lu Fangfang didn’t just throw them aside. Instead, she picked them up and placed them along the edge of the field.  

She planned to collect more of these regularly shaped stones and transport them home to use for building a chicken coop or something similar in the future.  

After brushing the dirt off her hands, she returned to her work.  

After more than half an hour, Lu Fangfang had turned over another piece of land.  

Wiping the sweat from her forehead, she put down her hoe and walked toward the river.  

In the distance, Wang Shufen noticed her movement and followed.  

As Lu Fangfang approached the river, her steps slowed.  

She carefully pulled out the branch that had been stuck in the shore with the rope tied to it, took a deep breath, and yanked hard.  

‘Swoosh…’  

Lu Fangfang pulled the trap out of the water.  

The small fish inside, still nibbling at the bones, were caught off guard, and most of them didn’t have time to escape.  

“Hurry, sister, put them in the basin!”  

Wang Shufen quickly scooped some water into the enamel basin and placed it in front of the trap.  

Looking down at the trap, she gasped in surprise. “Sister, there are so many small fish in there!”  

Lu Fangfang looked inside and was also a bit shocked.  

There were nearly twenty small fish jumping around in the trap.  

She didn’t know if the fish in the river were just too foolish, but she had managed to catch so many in one go.

Picking up the woven cage, she poured all the small fish inside into the basin.  

Seeing that the cloth wrapped around the broken bones had also fallen in, Lu Fangfang picked it up and threw it back into the cage.  

Standing up, she took the cage and tossed it back into the creek.  

Turning around and looking at the little fish swimming in the basin, Lu Fangfang smiled. Just from this one catch, she had enough fish to fry a whole plate.  

After that, every half hour, Lu Fangfang would come over and pull up the cage to check.  

Each time, she caught a few fish, but as time went on, the number of fish she caught gradually decreased.  

On the last attempt, when she pulled the cage up, it completely fell apart.  

Lu Fangfang looked at the broken cage, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.  

Due to limited materials, the cage she made was very simple. It worked fine at first, but as she kept using it, it gradually became misshapen, and in the end, it completely fell apart.  

Fortunately, the cloth wrapping the broken bones wasn’t lost.  

Lu Fangfang untied the cloth and found that the broken bones inside were still intact.  

Looking back at the small basin full of fish, she smiled, shook her head, and scattered the broken bones into the river.  

The small fish that hadn’t been caught were lucky, they immediately swarmed around and started nibbling on the bone scraps.  

Lu Fangfang squatted by the water, watching without concern. She just treated it as bait and planned to return to this spot to catch fish next time.  

After rinsing the cloth in the water, she laid it on a stone to dry.  

This piece of cloth could be used again in the future, so there was no need to throw it away.  

“Sister, you caught a lot!”  

Wang Shufen walked over, looked into the basin, and was astonished.  

This small basin of fish would be enough to feed chickens and ducks for four or five days. She suddenly felt more confident.  

Lu Fangfang smiled and nodded. “Sister Shufen, when you leave later, take some and fry them for the children as a snack.”  

“I don’t want them. I only have half a bottle of oil left at home. When I cook, I can only use chopsticks to drip a few drops of oil, I can’t afford to deep-fry anything.”  

Wang Shufen shook her head.  

She and her children had only recently changed their household registration, and they hadn’t received their grain and oil ration coupons yet. Right now, they were relying on the rations provided by Aiguo, and there wasn’t enough oil at home.  

Aiguo’s salary was decent, but food and oil were strictly rationed, and even if he had money, he couldn’t just buy more.  

She had heard that money could be exchanged for ration tickets on the black market, but Wang Shufen didn’t dare to go there. She was afraid that if she got caught, her husband would be implicated.  

Lu Fangfang didn’t say anything more.  

She planned to send over a plate of fried fish in the evening.  

The two of them rested for a while before heading back to work in the fields.  

It was getting late, and Wang Shufen quickly finished turning over her piece of land.  

Lu Fangfang, having spent time catching fish, still had some land left to till. Seeing this, Wang Shufen came over with a hoe to help.  

After working for a while, the two of them finally finished turning over the entire wasteland before dark.  

“Sister, the weather is getting warmer. Let’s plant some vegetables tomorrow so we can eat them sooner,” Wang Shufen suggested.  

“Okay, I’ll follow your lead, Sister Shufen,” Lu Fangfang agreed.  

As it was getting late, Lu Fangfang called Wang Shufen over, and the two of them squatted by the river, picking up the small fish from the enamel basin.  

The largest fish was only about the size of a palm, so there was no need for much preparation, they could just be fried directly.  

However, Lu Fangfang felt a bit uneasy about it, so she still planned to clean them up a little.  

“What a pity! It would be great if the eggs at home had already hatched,” Wang Shufen sighed as she watched the fish intestines being removed.  

“Sister, don’t throw them into the water. Just toss them on the ground, they’ll at least serve as fertilizer,” Lu Fangfang suggested.  

After a while, the two of them had gathered a small handful of fish intestines.  

Wang Shufen, unfazed by the smell, buried them in the ground.  

This little bit wouldn’t provide much fertilizer, probably only enough for two or three tomato plants.  

But every bit helped, and little by little, it would add up.