Just as I expected, that very afternoon the clan elder granted my mother-in-law a half-day leave from all chores so she could teach everyone the technique first. Moreover, that clan elder knew how to handle things well and even requested that every household contribute a bowl of wheat.
Once they had made the gear, Daya led everyone down to the river for a hands-on training session. At first, some people lacked patience and failed to pull anything up. But nowadays, for the sake of a bite to eat, even the most impatient person would learn. Besides, there were truly countless swamp eels here. One exceptionally lucky fellow caught a huge one weighing about eight liang on his very first try. The sight of that eel was almost frightening, but he beamed from ear to ear, grabbed it tightly, and dropped it into his own bucket.
Though the afternoon was short, every household managed to catch a catty or two of eels—amounting to at least one meat dish. Our family caught even more. The happiest of all was my wife, who stuffed her cheeks and blustered that she was clearly the smartest person alive, casually marrying a husband who happened to possess ancestral craftsmanship.
Chapter 220