Chapter 8 (1/2)

Catching Mudfish

“Jiaohua, Jiaohua, wake up. Precious son, why are you sleeping so heavily today?” In the morning, Liu Qiaoye was feeling very strange shaking Zhang Jiaohua who still hadn’t woken up. However, Zhang Jiaohua continued to sleep soundly inspite of it, while his breath remained vigorous and his complexion was also healthy.

Zhang Jiaohua opened his eyes, and upon seeing his Mother, regretfully said, “Mother, there was nice big chunk of meat, all of it was taken away by that Old Daoist Priest.”

Liu Qiaoye laughed gently, then used her finger to sc.r.a.pe her child’s nose, “What were you doing in the dream? Were you thinking of eating meat? When Mother goes to the market to buy 100 catties of corn, I will also bring back a jin of meat slice for you.”

“Mother, do not get the slice of b.u.t.t meat, it doesn’t have fat. You must get meat from the waist, the fat is thicker.” At that age, the choice of meat to be eaten was made on thickness of fat, the thicker the fat the more popular it was. On the other hand, lean and thin meat was unpopular. Just like other families in the rural areas, Zhang Jiaohua’s family couldn’t eat meat several times in an year, but children were too greedy.

“Ok, got it. Now quickly get up, brush your teeth and wash your face. By the time Mother returns and prepared nice food, you this stinky brat would still be dawdling in bed.” Liu Qiaoye chuckled and then planted a kiss on her child’s face with a smile.

“Mother, last night I had a dream. I dreamed of paying obeisance to an Old Daoist Priest for accepting him as my Master.” Zhang Jiaohua gradually stood up, and then chased after his mother.

“Did he teach you Seventy-two transformations?” Liu Qiaoye asked smiling. [TLNote: 72 transformations is the ability of Sun Wukong from the “Journey to the West”]

“Why would he teach me seventy-two transformations?” Zhang Jiaohua scratched his head in a cute manner.

“Because you were Sun Wukong.” Liu Qiaoye still thought that Zhang Jiaohua after reading the Journey to the west picture book daily, had begun considering himself as Sun Wukong.

“Right, why didn’t Master teach me about transformation?” Zhang Jiaohua still hadn’t realized that he was being teased by his mother.

Teasing the cute looking Zhang Jiaohua made Liu Qiaoye bend over laughing. Ever since the day of the accident, its been a long time since the Mother and Child had such an unrestrained interaction.

Zhang Jiaohua was teased a lot by Liu Qiaoye, so while during meal time, Liu Qiaoye deliberately spoke to her husband, “We can’t have our precious son shut indoors. If such an intelligent precious child stays shut indoors, wouldn’t he get bored to the utmost?”

Zhang Youping nodded, “Fine, precious son, you can come with Dad to go catch mudfish.”

Zhang Jiaohua began jumping out of happiness.

Jinhu, et. al., also were exceedingly happy. Due to the possibility of getting to go outside. Also, don’t know why but these five were not at all afraid of seeing the sunlight.

While going out, Liu Qiaoye personally put on a bamboo hat on her son’s head, and also warned him repeatedly. Regardless of how others looked at him, in her eyes, her son was the world’s most precious treasure.

Zhang Jiaohua didn’t care for that bit of loving mother’s care. Wearing the bamboo hat, he followed behind his father jubilantly hopping along while carrying a deep bamboo basket.

Zhang Youping was an experienced farmer. He knew which of the ditches of Meizi’ao contained lots of mudfish. Meizi’ao was a relatively backward mountain village, therefore in this day and age, there was no one who used electric fis.h.i.+ng equipment. The mudfish also weren’t a valuable object in the mountain village. So small, and so little meat, also didn’t have any fat. While cooking, it also required comparatively more oil. Therefore, it is not a popular thing in Plum hollow, many people prefer to eat bigger fish.