Rebirth: Slice-of-life Cultivation

Jiang Ning jumped directly into the canal from the bank's shallow grass.

As he landed, the water splashed fiercely, and soon, the current roared around Jiang Ning's legs, continuing to flow turbulently.

The canal in the field was about a meter wide, with water reaching above Jiang Ning's knees, mostly because the current was too fierce, and the bottom was all slippery mud, making it hard for ordinary people to stand firmly.

"Jiang Ning, Jiang Ning!" Xue Yuantong called out.

She was so afraid Jiang Ning would be washed away, or else she'd have to risk herself to save him.

Luckily, he was unharmed.

After calming down, Xue Yuantong looked westwards along the canal.

A little further away, the canal flowed under a stone arch bridge, below which was a small pond about three meters long and wide. Further west, there was a river running from south to north, about seven or eight meters wide, with equally turbulent water.

The river connected to the water outlet below the dam and eventually merged into the wide Huishui River.

The rural ditches and creeks mostly had this kind of distribution.

Today was still cloudy, with the sky overcast, tufts of dark clouds swirling heavily, thick and sticky, as if rain was about to fall.

Jiang Ning moved against the canal's current, his steps slowly navigating the slippery mud.

Alongside Jiang Ning, Xue Yuantong and Bai Yuxia, the twins, followed along the canal bank.

Xue Yuantong, with exceptionally good eyesight, pointed to the shadow of a carp fleeting by in the water, shouting excitedly:

"Jiang Ning, quick, catch it, catch it!"

This small canal typically had little water in ordinary seasons, with almost no fish. Only during 'flood' times would such situations occur.

In her words, she only regretted not being able to jump into the water herself to catch fish!

Chen Siyu wondered: "Are there any fish? Why didn't I see any?"

Bai Yuxia said: "The water's too fast, even if there are fish, they'd be hard to catch."

She waited for Jiang Ning to cast the net.

Jiang Ning carried a triangular net meant to block the river, continuing forward until he finally stood in a slightly narrower part of the canal.

He placed the small river-blocking net into the canal, inserting wooden sticks at the edges of the net to fix it and prevent the net from being washed away.

Xue Yuantong and the others watched as Jiang Ning held onto the wooden stick, suddenly thrusting it down. The stick shortened by a significant segment, illustrating how deep it went into the mud.

Two wooden sticks secured the net on either side.

The water surface was urgent, occasionally swirling up patches of foam, with tree branches and weeds mixing into the current and getting caught in the net.

If any fish flowed downstream into the net, there was no way for it to escape.

"Alright, let's wait to eat fish." Jiang Ning clapped his hands; from then on, only needing to periodically clear the debris from the net.

Chen Siyu was astounded: "Finished?"

Bai Yuxia: "What else? With the current so urgent now, we can't jump in to catch fish."

After saying that, she glanced up at the river dam.

Jiang Ning's actions attracted passersby on the asphalt road at the dam, with many stopping to watch.

The bungalow's Mr. Qian, Uncle Zhang, Zhang Ruyun, and Bi Yue, who came home for a few days of rest, were originally watching the rising river from the dam; now their attention was entirely focused here.

Mr. Qian, overlooking the long canal, clicked his tongue: "The kid from the Xiao Gu family has got quite some ideas."

Why hadn't he thought of putting a net there?

Zhang Ruyun was puzzled: "Dad, can they catch fish?"

Butcher Zhang blurted: "Catch a damn thing!"

He recalled last time going to the canal to catch loaches, how frustrating it was, taking a bucket on a hot day, busying for half a day without finding even a shadow of a loach.

Bi Yue scoffed: "Now, do these small canals still have fish?"

"If you want fish, sure, there's the big river over there, but does he dare to go down and catch it?"

Then she turned around; the originally serene and beautiful Huishui River to the north of the dam, due to overnight heavy rain and the confluence of major tributaries, had turned into a yellow stream, expanded to more than double its width.

The river spanned almost 200 meters, and as far as one could see, it was deep and unfathomable, raging with torrential floodwaters, quite breathtaking.

If one were to catch fish in the river now, first they should talk about whether they could save their own lives.

Suddenly, in the Huishui River, waves surged, and a large fish jumped out of the swift current, scales clearly visible, before falling back into the river.

The crowd on the bank buzzed with excitement.

"My goodness, what a big fish!" Mr. Qian exclaimed; the fish just now was very long.

Even he, usually a rather staid old teacher, couldn't help but want to become a river god at that moment, to scoop up that big fish, thinking how glorious it would be!

Not to mention youngsters like Zhang Ruyun, who excitedly asked: "Dad, do we have a net? I want to catch some fish."

Uncle Zhang frowned, cheek muscles twitching, "Don't mess with these things, do you know how dangerous it is in the river?"

Zhang Ruyun, slightly dejected, said: "I'm not going into the river, I'll just fish from the bank."

"That won't do either! If you want to eat fish, I'll let your mom buy you some from the street later." Uncle Zhang flatly refused, he had only one precious son, how could he let him take risks?

Zhang Ruyun: "Is store-bought fish the same as catching it yourself?"

Completely not the same experience!

However, no matter how much Zhang Ruyun argued, Uncle Zhang denied all his requests.

Uncle Zhang had experienced it himself and knew how terrifying the river could be. Going back twenty years, those who lived by the river would see several people in the village drown each year.

Back then, there were water sports enthusiasts in Uncle Zhang's village. When there were large sand transport ships by the river, he could dive under those ships to play, making a dive of tens of meters seem effortless, practically extraordinary.

Later, during a big flood, that same person was swimming in the river and got sucked away by the undercurrent. Uncle Zhang even attended the wake, recalling that the pig intestines at the feast were very smelly that day.

...

Jiang Ning, after finishing setting the net, played for a while in the canal, then stepped back onto the bank.

Xue Yuantong was anxious, and so she suggested: "When it's time to collect the net, let me help."