Chi Wu stood motionless by the riverside, fixing Cheng Ying with a stare as fierce as a bull preparing for a charge—it was a taut, locked tension between them.

It was clear the two of them were on the verge of butting heads like rival bulls.

Cheng Ying snapped, "Hey, you hothead! Are you coming or not? Believe it or not, if you don't, I won't let Grandma give you dinner tonight."

Facing Chi Wu, a mere child, Cheng Ying was simply acting out her true nature. She showed him no courtesy whatsoever.

Furthermore, she wasn't hedging her words or checking his expression as she might when around her grandmother or birth mother, worrying about too drastic a change in demeanor. This stark difference made one suspect there was something fundamentally wrong with her core self.

Because she was so utterly unceremonious, it made Cheng Ying seem utterly two-faced to Chi Wu.

For a little boy, this was a shattering realization.

Upon hearing her threat, Chi Wu immediately settled down. Cheng Ying seemed to have found the precise pressure point; no matter how unwilling he was, he started leading the way forward.

The youngest boy thought to himself that she was a stubborn mule who needed to be dragged along.

Yet, he also wondered how they managed to fish in such a backward place during winter; he had never heard of it, let alone seen it done.

The village Cheng Ying had been reborn into wasn't large. About three li away stood a massive, long river.

Since ancient times, people settled near water sources. All the surrounding villages, upriver and down, were situated along this great river.

Cheng Ying's village was upstream, which is why this location was called Heshang Village (River-Up Village).

Ten li from Cheng Ying’s village lay Hexia Village (River-Down Village).

Across the long river were endless, continuous mountains, stretching so far they were impossible to see to the edge. This expanse guaranteed the river’s water source.

Cheng Ying had never crossed to the opposite bank. Legend had it that during the season when the frozen river first began to thaw, the water surface could be over ten meters wide.

Even during the dry season, this long river had never run completely dry.

In Cheng Ying’s view, standing before such a magnificent, endless mountain range—you couldn't even see the end of it—

How could the water source possibly dry up?

Led by Chi Wu, Cheng Ying arrived at the bank of the long river. Watching the adults working furiously on the ice surface, Cheng Ying was momentarily stunned; the river was truly vast.

And furthermore, how could the frozen surface be so lively?

Quite a few children were gathered on the bank, clearly there just to watch the spectacle. It seemed they had arrived late.

Chi Wu didn't push into the crowd; the boy was clearly ostracized among the masses.

Unsure of the original Cheng Ying’s temperament, the current Cheng Ying also had no desire to crowd in. She found a slight rise in the ground with Chi Wu, both watching the distant activity on the ice.

Chi Wu hunched his shoulders, hugging his arms tight. Evidently, the temperature here was far too cold for him.

Cheng Ying felt a pang of pity. Even if they were petty, grudge-holding, and not entirely good people, they weren't outright villains, were they?

She said to Chi Wu, "You should go back."

Chi Wu shot her a glare. What kid didn't like watching excitement? "Why should I go back?" he retorted, his voice stiff and unpleasant.

Cheng Ying pulled the scarf from around her own neck and draped it over Chi Wu's head, thinking, You little wolf cub who doesn't understand kindness.

Cheng Ying said, her expression grim, "Hold this for me."

If she had offered to put it on him, the boy would surely have suspected some ulterior motive or trickery.

Chi Wu felt the warmth of the scarf around his neck. He glanced at Cheng Ying, pursed his lips, and said nothing.

Turning back, the two focused their attention on the group of rough men far out on the ice, using large wooden blocks to break through.

Cheng Ying simply couldn't grasp how they extracted fish from a river frozen so solid.

Chi Wu looked somewhat excited, and Cheng Ying could read it in his expression. "Why don't we go closer and take a look?"

Chi Wu scoffed, "Tch. Stop causing trouble. They are doing important work. Women just get in the way."

Well, this one was a chauvinist. How unlovable.

Cheng Ying looked at the crowd on the distant ice. "Is the ice thick enough? So many people standing on it—what if it breaks?"

Chi Wu looked at Cheng Ying, scrutinizing her with a look of immense disdain.

It wasn't the first year they were fishing; had this girl never seen it before?

Still, he couldn't bear to see her so ignorant. "This ice is thicker than your whole height. Mule carts can travel on it; how could it possibly break through?"

Cheng Ying frowned. Being looked down upon didn't bother her much, but she was genuinely worried. Even the current Cheng Ying stood about 1.2 or 1.3 meters tall; just how thick must this ice be?

The possibility of her catching fish alone seemed incredibly small.

She confirmed with Chi Wu again, "Is the water that deep?"

Chi Wu looked at Cheng Ying with even more disdain. This girl probably wasn't very brave and certainly hadn't come out to play in the water before.

He pointed toward the dense trees on the mountain across the river in the distance. "When the ice melts in the spring, all the timber they cut this winter relies on this river to carry it out. How deep do you think the water is?"

Hearing Chi Wu's words, Cheng Ying finally pulled her gaze back from the dense forest.

Indeed, on the opposite bank, there were piles of cut timber stacked up.

It was understandable; this was an era of logging and reclaiming land, not the 20th century where they preached returning farmland to forest.

But having this river made things incredibly convenient.

Otherwise, transporting these logs, even relying on mules and manual labor, would take until the year of the monkey and the month of the horse.

This was truly living off the mountain and relying on the water—the creativity of the farmers was endless.

Cheng Ying asked, "Then how do they cross the river when the ice melts?"

Chi Wu looked at Cheng Ying, completely unable to fathom her question. She couldn't possibly have never been to the other side, could she?

Cheng Ying looked back at Chi Wu, realizing with alarm, Damn it, my not knowing doesn't mean the original Cheng Ying didn't know. How is this boy reacting so quickly?

She coughed lightly. "I was just asking you. I’m worried you might get lost. The water near the bank gets high, so don't run around recklessly, got it? And when the ice melts, you are definitely forbidden from going across to play, hear me?"

This explanation wasn't too harsh.

Chi Wu pursed his lips. For some reason, he confided in Cheng Ying, "When the ice thaws, you take a detour upstream; there's a suspension bridge where the river is narrower."

Chi Wu looked at Cheng Ying, then added, "None of the kids here can't swim. In the summer, they just splash around and get to the other side."

Well, that was difficult to accept—no means of formal transport.

Just then, the activity on the river surface became chaotic.

Cheng Ying heard someone shout, "Water is coming up here!"

Then a group of people began shouting excitedly.

Cheng Ying said, "Why are they acting like they just ate meat? Is a little bit of water coming up enough to catch fish?"

It wasn't that Cheng Ying was being overly generous; people in this era would be far more excited about getting meat.

Chi Wu looked at Cheng Ying with contempt. "See the flags on the ice? Each flag marks a small team breaking the ice. Whichever team breaks through to the water first gets ten work points for every member that day!"

Cheng Ying blinked. So they could earn work points here too? "What about the team that breaks through last?"

Chi Wu fell silent, looking downcast. But Cheng Ying understood his expression immediately.

It must be that the last team only got seven points. Otherwise, Chi Wu wouldn't look like that; his own father specialized in earning those seven-point jobs.

Right, this involved a child's pride; better not to mention it.

Cheng Ying asked, "Even if the ice is broken, it's just a tiny hole. How do they catch fish?"

It wasn't that Cheng Ying was slow; she genuinely didn't understand.

Seeing that Cheng Ying hadn't brought up the work points, Chi Wu immediately raised his head. Children were so easy to placate.

Chi Wu asked, "You never watched the fishing in previous years?"

Cheng Ying wasn't sure if she had watched or not, so she gave a guarded answer, "Even if I watched, I didn't understand any of it."

Hearing this, Chi Wu somehow felt superior.

It was only natural for a girl not to understand. "Do you see the mule carts on the bank? Those have the fishing nets on them. Once the ice is broken, these teams will clear all the spaces between their flags. This creates a gap in the ice sheet, and the net is lowered through it. They use the mule carts to drag it all the way to the opposite bank, secure it, and then they start driving the fish upstream from where they meet Hexia Village. When they pull the nets in at night, every family gets to take home two big ones."

Chi Wu spoke with relish, explaining the process and the logic of the fishing operation in the language he could muster.

Cheng Ying still couldn't grasp it. "How do they drive the fish?"

Chi Wu looked at her with that look reserved for the hopelessly dense. "They walk loudly across the ice—that startles the fish!"

Cheng Ying felt no embarrassment for her ignorance; after all, she truly had never witnessed this.

But looking at it another way, these were a group of people with very little real knowledge. Hmph, fish swim upstream against the current. Why would you need to coax them?

With that thought, Cheng Ying felt she knew far more than they did, and her chest puffed out slightly.

Just then, Cheng Ying exclaimed in surprise, "Look quickly! What is jumping out of the ice?"

It wasn't that Cheng Ying didn't know what it was, but she was genuinely astonished.

It was a fish! And it was jumping out of the water on its own!

It was practically committing suicide.

Chi Wu’s face flushed scarlet as he glanced around. Fortunately, they were in a secluded spot. So embarrassing, such a lack of worldly knowledge! "The fish need to breathe; they naturally jump toward areas with more air. That's mortifying! Stop shouting so loud!"

Alright, Cheng Ying realized she had been foolish and overly excitable. Worse, she had yelled it out loud! No wonder a little kid was laughing at her.

She had lost all face. She coughed dryly. "I was just testing you."

Even as she said it, she felt ashamed of herself. How could she have lost her composure so easily, allowing a teenager to look down on her?

At that moment, the mules and horses on the ice began to pull the nets into the water.

Cheng Ying had never seen a fishing net this long before; everything about it was astonishing.

The ingenuity of the common people was truly limitless.

The river, over ten meters wide, was netted in barely more than ten minutes. The strength of many people wasn't just a saying; this was not a project one or two families could manage.

The collective—that was the collective.

Cheng Ying had to admit that the collective had its advantages.

Cheng Ying watched the adults move downriver in groups. They were going to drive the fish.

Cheng Ying asked, "Aren't they leaving anyone here to watch things?"

Chi Wu looked at her. "Besides you, nobody here is inclined to mess with things."

This implied that only Cheng Ying had bad intentions; everyone else was upright and diligent.

Of course, this also reflected the general social situation. People with Cheng Ying’s mindset were truly the minority.