Folk story: The fish that saved my life

Once upon a time, there was a rich man named Wang in a village in Baizhou. There are more than 200 people in the village, all tenants of the rich Wang's family.

This year, the local drought, there is a large pond in front of the Wang rich man's house, the water level has not dropped for decades, but now is also about to see the bottom. Wang rich man worried, ran to the backyard to find the old housekeeper to discuss.

The old housekeeper is ninety years old, and has helped the rich Wang family for three generations. Now he is no longer in charge, and is worshipped by the Wang family as an ancestor. In the event of a difficult matter, the king of the rich will go to him for advice.

After hearing the rich man's words, the housekeeper opened his half-closed eyes and said, "I will go and have a look." Leaning on his crutches, he stood at the edge of the pond and looked at it for a while. Then he heaved a sigh and said to rich Man Wang, "Eighty years ago, this pond was dried once, and many people starved to death that year. There seems to be another famine. We must get ready now."

Back in the backyard, the old housekeeper told the rich man Wang, after the bottom of the pond, no one was allowed to go down to catch the fish in the pond. Fish and water are the wealth of the royal family, can not call people to destroy the feng shui.

After a few days, the pond really saw the bottom, I saw the bottom of the pool like a layer of dark clouds, keep rolling. Under a closer look, the original is a ruler to long iron catfish, more to countless. The villagers ran after hearing the news, now, every household in the village are short of food, see this easy fish, everyone want to catch, but Wang rich man had arranged several families guarding the pond. Everyone can only look at, secretly scolded the king rich man is not a person.

Two days later, there was no water left in the pool, leaving only a thick layer of dead fish. The old housekeeper came out to see, said to the rich Wang: "The fish died in the bottom of the pool, I'm afraid it is unlucky, clean is, let everyone pick it up."

Then the rich man did a good deed and allowed the villagers to go down to the pond to pick up the dead fish. But the dead fish did not allow the villagers to eat several meals, soon, every family ran out of food, had to borrow money from the Wang family.

Wang was careful with his money, so he would not let go of this profitable opportunity. If he borrowed a liter of grain, he would have to return one and a half liters next year, at a frighteningly high interest rate. We know that the king of the rich, but also helpless, can only bite to borrow home for life.

After a flash of half a month, I saw villagers running to borrow grain every day, the king of the rich heart did not have the bottom, so it is not a way to borrow it! With a frown, he tripled the interest in order to make the villagers retreat.

This everyone could not help but, around the king rich man, scold him no conscience. The noise outside alarmed the old housekeeper in the backyard. He called the rich man Wang in and advised him, "Now there is a famine. If you don't borrow food, they will have to flee the famine."

"My grandfather! The rich man said with a bitter face, "Who knows when this disaster year will end. The whole village of more than 200 people depend on me to feed them, and they will not eat up my little family business?"

"You can't say that," said the old housekeeper. As the old saying goes, water can carry a boat, but it can also overturn it. It is doubtful whether they will come back alive. Then who will help you grow food, and who will your debts go to?"

The rich man was speechless and could only rub his hands and sigh. The housekeeper continued, "Now that there is chaos and chaos outside, and in a bad year, even the law of the king is not very effective. If a person is hungry, what king's law and criminal law, also can control?"

Hearing this, the rich man looked anxiously at the old housekeeper and asked, "What should I do?"

"Grain, still must borrow first." "Said the old housekeeper." The interest, I don't think so."

No interest? Wang CAI advocated opening his mouth. The old housekeeper then gave voice to his idea of letting the villagers dig up silt from the pond to offset the interest. In this way, the pond can be dredged; Second, silt is a good fertilizer and wall materials, can be stored for use; Three to the villagers must be grateful to the rich king, no longer have the heart of covetous Wang.

The rich man listened, although love dearly to lend out food, but also can only be forced to scalp so do. So he went out and told each family to send a strong man to dig mud and borrow a liter of rice every day, without interest. Hearing this, the villagers were naturally overjoyed.

The Wangs' pond had been cracked. The silt was as hard as stones. The old housekeeper stood at the edge of the pond and told everyone to move the silt back to their homes and pile it up, and then send it to the Wangs when they needed it.

The pond was fully four to five mu wide, and it took us twenty days to clean it up. There were hills of silt piled up in every yard. Each village sent only one person to work, others will go to the mountains to find wild vegetables, come back to add a little rice a boil, borrowed a liter of rice can still be left a lot, naturally, we are grateful to the king rich man.

After the mud was dug up, the villagers did not come to him to borrow grain, only rely on the saved grain to survive, which let the king of the rich sigh of relief.

A few days later, the old housekeeper asked the rich man, "Is there anyone else in the village coming to borrow grain from you?" The rich man shook his head.

The old housekeeper sighed: "They must have run out of grain. They don't come to you to borrow grain. It seems that they are going to flee the famine."

The rich man looked sad and said, "Run away. I don't care about that anymore." Sighing, the old housekeeper walked back into the backyard.

On that very night, the door of Wang's house burst open with a bang and a gang of robbers rushed in. The bandit leader claimed that they were from Erlong Mountain, a hundred miles away, and that they had run out of food there. They plunder food, not life, but if they resist, their families will be destroyed. After saying this, the robbers swept away everything that could be eaten in the King's house, and left overnight. The KING RICH man A BUTTOCK SITS ON THE GROUND, heavES A SIGH: "GOD, HOW DO YOU LET ME live?"

When the old housekeeper came to comfort him, the rich man said with a wry smile, "What a surprise! My family is going to escape from famine too!"

"Don't worry," sighed the old housekeeper. "There's always a way out. We're not there yet."

The rich man cried, "Now we have no grain of grain at home. Even if we have some money, where can we buy grain?"

The housekeeper looked up at the sky and said, "It's dawn. I'll follow you to the village."

As they walked slowly into the village, they found that every household was packing up, apparently ready to go out to escape the famine. One of the villagers looked at the rich man and said, "We wanted to borrow more grain from the owner, but the owner doesn't have much grain either."

The rich man said with a bitter face, "To tell you the truth, a gang of robbers came to my house last night and took all the food we could eat. Now I have to go with the others to escape the famine."

Hearing that the Wangs' house had been robbed, everyone ran out of their homes. The old housekeeper said, "Folks, don't go! As the old saying goes, things are expensive, people are cheap, go out, nine out of ten can not come back, we die in the land of our ancestors!"

An elderly villager said, "We don't want to go either, old housekeeper, but we can't starve to death here." The other villagers also agreed, saying that they could have counted on the Wangs, but now even the Wangs could not protect themselves and had to go.

The old housekeeper said mysteriously, "As long as everyone stays, there will always be something. Hunger will never kill anyone." The whole village stared at the old housekeeper in wonder. How could the whole village have anything to eat now? The old keeper said, "Where is the mud you dug for the Wangs? Bring one."

Everyone did not understand the intention of the old housekeeper, but still moved a piece of pond mud. The old housekeeper told people to smash the pond mud, a few villagers will brandish the hammer, a disorderly hit. The housekeeper came close, looked at it carefully, then called for a basin of water, picked up a piece from the mud and threw it into the basin.

After a while, the piece of mud started to move in the basin. They saw that it was not mud, but an iron catfish, and it was alive. This, everyone is surprised, did not think of the mud hiding fish.

The old housekeeper slowly talked about the famine eighty years ago. At that time, most of the people in the village went out, but none of them could come back. Those who stayed in the village depended on the fish to survive. They stumbled upon a fish hiding in the mud to avoid drought, and learned that the fish had the ability to fake death in the mud and come back to life when there was water. He had deliberately not allowed the villagers to fish in the pond, so that more fish could be hidden in the mud in case of a last-minute rescue.

After hearing this, the villagers were pleasantly surprised. With these fish, there was no need to escape the famine.

The old housekeeper said to the rich man beside him, "Master, all this mud belongs to the Wang family. You can tell me what to do."

Everyone looked nervously at the rich king. The KING RICH MAN SMILED WRyLY SHAKE HEAD TO SAY: "ALL AT THIS TIME, RETURN CENT WHAT YOUR HOME MY HOME, PRESS THE POPULATION CENT, CAN LIVE LIVE TOGETHER EVERYBODY."