At the west gate pier outside Gusu City, take a raft down the rippling Su River. The two sides are full of green mountains and beautiful waters and the fields are bleak. About a hundred miles of water road is the Zhouzhuang Water Town.

Su Chen was carrying a bamboo raft and flowed down to the Zhouzhuang Water Town.

On the bamboo raft, there were a few new pieces of cloth he cut in the cloth shop in Gusu City, as well as cloth shoes.

Laba just passed, and the New Year was soon, so you could buy some new clothes for your parents and younger siblings. In addition, there were a few kilograms of white flour, chopped pork filling, some seasonings such as oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, sesame, etc. for making dumplings and cooking dumplings for Lantern Festival.

The raft has been gone for a long time.

The morning mist is misty and the cold wind is squeaking, and the hazy outline of a water town in the distance can be vaguely seen.

But I saw a faint silver light shining deep in the bottom of the river, like a lively silver thread, dazzling and moving.

If an ordinary fisherman passes through the river, he will obviously ignore it. Even if someone discovers it, he can only sigh and cannot catch it.

Hey~!

Su Chen was surprised and raised his eyebrows.

Stretch your hand and pat it gently on the water.

"Puff~!"

The water surface shook slightly, and a ripples blew, and a wave of shock reached the bottom of a few feet of the river.

The half-pound silver-ridge slashed fish, swimming happily at the bottom of the river, was shocked and rolled over and floated to the surface.

Su Chen couldn't help but smile, he picked up the silver-ridged swordfish, put the fish gills on one end with a straw rope, and tied the tail on the raft with this precious fish.

Soon, we arrived at the river in Zhouzhuang Water Town.

...

Zhouzhuang is far away from the noisy Gusu County and canal waterways. It is located in a remote and closed water town. The towns are mostly fishermen, and the small bridges and flowing water houses are very peaceful on weekdays.

In the early morning, smoke from cooking was curling.

Every household in Zhouzhuang is making a fire to cook, or preparing to go to the fields to work, or going to the lake to fish.

Next to an old crow tree, an old fishing boat is moored with a cable.

The Su family has been fishing for generations, and there is no land or house on the land, and there is only a dilapidated old fishing boat that can live on the river.

In an old clay pot on the stove at the head of the fishing boat, Mrs. Su was blowing firewood in front of the stove to make a fire, and boiling a small pot of porridge. There was not much porridge, so I could only eat a few bites to go to the lake to fish.

Mr. Su's face was full of wrinkles. He squatted beside the stove, holding a cold pipe and lit cold smoke in the stove fire, smoking dullly and silently. The old cold tobacco leaves picked in the wild were very dry.

"Dad, will my brother come back this year?"

The second brother held a bowl, licked his chapped lips, and waited with his third sister to drink porridge.

He was young and ignorant, and only vaguely remembered that he had an older brother. Over the years, he often heard from his parents that his older brother had gone to the Gusu Medicine King Gang for many years.

Dad Su and Mother Su were silent.

Back then, they were discussing selling their baby to a wealthy family in the city, which hurt the baby's heart.

Although the eldest child has never complained.

But over the years, I finally refused to go back to my hometown to meet again.

"Oh, maybe! Erwa has finished drinking the porridge and take Sanwa to the river to play!"

...

Su Chen was walking in the river on a bamboo raft and saw the familiar old fishing boat.

There were also two young kids with a familiar face and a strange face, playing on the river bank near the old fishing boat.

Second brother, third sister?

Su Chen couldn't help but feel nervous. He hesitated outside the old fishing boat, lifted the rag curtain, and met Dad Su and Uncle Su who had not seen him for several years.

My parents still live in this old fishing boat in the bamboo shed, with a few broken cotton mats on the bed, which can barely resist the prickly cold wind.

There was also a pair of shoes with countless patches beside the bed, covered with several thick layers of mud.

Mr. Su and Mrs. Su were baking fire beside the stove, drinking porridge, and discussing where to go for fishing. Suddenly, a young man in a civilian opened the rag curtain and stood outside the old fishing boat.

"Dad, mom, I'm back!"

Su Chen was standing at the door of the old fishing boat with a few big bags and wearing a cloth clothes.

"Big ~, big kid!"

Dad Su was stunned and at a loss for a moment. The old pipe was trembling, not knowing where to put it. He quickly moved an old stool from the boat, slapped the dust off, and let Su Chen sit.

"Dad, stop fishing today."

Su Chen smiled and said, "I pulled a few pieces of cloth in the city, a few kilograms of white flour and pork filling. I can make a meal of dumplings to eat at night. There is also this fish that I caught on the way back. I will make soup later and let the second and third brothers drink together."

"It's good to come back, mom makes you a meal of dumplings! The child's father is standing there, why are you doing? Why don't you go digging fish?"

My grandmother Su was so happy that tears came out, she was busy boiling water and cooking rice, and making fish soup for Su Chen.

Dad Su stood still and looked at the fish silently, the silver-ridged swordfish, one of the three treasures of Taihu Lake! It weighs half a pound and is sold to the county inn, which is worth at least five or six hundred copper coins.

He has been fighting fish for his whole life and has never tasted what this fish tastes like. How can he bear to eat such a valuable thing? It's such a spoiled person!

He couldn't twist it, so he went to dig fish after all.

Su Chen took advantage of the fire and boiled fish soup, and quietly added a few good medicinal herbs to warm up the body.

Su Chen sat next to the bed again.

Soon, the second and third brothers came in.

In a blink of an eye, they had grown up at eight or nine years old, and they hid beside the stove, looking at him with timid eyes, and they were very distant from him.

My grandmother Su carefully blew the hot fish soup a little colder, and then brought it to Su Chen. "Big kid, this is your favorite dumpling. It's rare to eat it all year round! Eat it with fish soup, don't choke!"

"Okay, you can drink a bowl too. The second and third brothers come in and let them drink a few bowls too."

Su Chen felt sad and drank a small bowl of warm fish soup.

Su Chen then asked casually: "Dad, mom. I have been with the Medicine King Gang over the years, and every four or five years, I have also asked Uncle Zhang to send a lot of silver home, and there are nearly a hundred taels. Why, Uncle Zhang has no time to send it to you?"

At first, only Butcher Zhang took half a liang to take him. Later, he became an intermediate deacon in the Janitor Hall of the Medicine King Gang, and the increase was one or two liang.

The world is not peaceful. The parents at home are already old, and the younger brothers and sisters are still young. If there is no middle-aged family at home, they cannot keep their wealth.

He was worried that he would attract covetousness, and he did not dare to ask Butcher Zhang to bring more money to his house, for fear of causing trouble.

Fishermen in Zhouzhuang rarely have expenses. In addition to the large monthly and annual taxes and the scale fees of the Giant Whale Gang, the daily expenses for eating are actually very small.

The nearly 100 taels of silver he brought back in recent years is not a small amount of money for the fishermen in Zhouzhuang.

In addition, my father's income from fishing every year is completely enough to pay taxes, and even exchange for a new fishing boat to build a new house on the land. It is not as poor as it was back then.

"You Uncle Zhang has brought it. There has never been a shortage of one or two taels of silver in recent years!"

Dad Su shook his head and sighed.

"Oh, I couldn't catch many fish in the twelfth month of that year... my family was really in trouble. The Giant Whale Gang couldn't pay the scale fee and couldn't stand it.

That night, Mr. Zhou from the farm was holding a pot of wine with a cane and asked me to eat water and wine. When he was having the wine, Mr. Zhou said, "I know that your family has no money to pay the scale fee." Tomorrow, you come to my house to get some money and bring some brown rice back. You can't let the child be hungry."

My father didn't want to borrow money from Mr. Zhou's family. But there was no way to borrow it. If you don't borrow it, you won't pay taxes. If you don't borrow it, you will starve to death.

I borrowed it, and I could survive this year, and I could still hope to have a good harvest next year. In this way, my father went to Mr. Zhou's house, borrowed a few taels of silver and a bag of rice bran, and ate it as soon as possible.

But the profits of this silver money are high, and it takes a monthly profit to double in a few months. There are always endless profits over the years.

Fortunately, you made money in the county town. I asked Uncle Zhang to bring it back every few days. The family moved around and then barely dealt with it, but life was always tight."

Old Lady Su hunched over and took out the ten taels of silver she had carefully hidden from under the stove, slapped the gray and said.

"Mom has finally saved some money over the years and didn't dare to spend it. Your second brother was nine years old and he was about to marry in a few years. How could he get married without ten taels of silver? Your third sister was going to get married and prepare dowry money to save her from marrying her husband's house.

This is where you spend a lot of money. After finally saving ten taels of silver, you can deal with these two major things. In a few years, life will be better.

A few years ago, the water bandits made a big fuss and often robbed everywhere. We didn’t dare to spend some savings, for fear of showing off our wealth and being targeted by those strong men and snatched away.

On weekdays, I just need to deal with a few bowls of vegetable porridge at home. I haven’t been doing this all these years!”

"That's how..."

Su Chen sighed silently, and then he realized that it was like this.

No wonder the past five years have passed, and the family is still the same as he left the same way he had left. However, now that he is back, these things are not a big deal. As long as everything in the family is safe, it will be fine.

"I'm going to find a way to handle the marriage between the second brother and the third sister. Don't worry about it. The water bandits were also wiped out by the government. In the past few years, I have earned some money from the Medicine King's Help. In the past two days, I have found a piece of land in the village and opened a new house!"

They were talking.

"Aunt Su's aunt... hasn't gone down to the lake to go fishing yet!"

But I saw a village woman shouting, lifting the curtain and entering the old cabin.

"Aunt Li!"

When Su Chen saw the village woman, he immediately recognized her.

He quickly got up, gave the only stool to the village woman to sit, and smiled and said, "Sit inside, the place in the boat is too small, so I can only put it in first."
To be continued...