“Another girl!”

Chen Fong-shi disgustedly shoved the newborn baby into her son’s hands, snorted, and left the room.

Once she got to the kitchen and saw two bowls of brown sugar poached eggs on the stove, her anger was barely restrained.

She picked up a bowl and poured it into the pot, then said to her daughter-in-law, “First take this bowl of sugary eggs to your fourth aunt-in-law, your second sister-in-law won’t be able to eat right now, so we’ll wait until she’s hungry. The one in the pot, just add some water and boil it, then dole it out to Qi’er and Song’er.”

“Yes, mother,” said Zhao’s with joy, quickly picking up a bowl of sugary eggs and heading for the second room.

She lifted the curtain and saw her brother-in-law standing at the door, holding the newborn girl, his face an unreadable mix of grimness and confusion.

She handed the sugary eggs to the midwife who was cleaning up her medicine box, and said, “Fourth Aunt, eat first.”

Without any hesitation, Aunt Wu took the bowl and quickly ate the six poached eggs, then downed the entire bowl of brown sugar water.

After wiping her mouth, she stood up, grabbed her medicine box, and said, “I am going now. Let your second sister-in-law massage her abdomen later to get rid of the lochia. If there’s anything, just call me. We’re not far.”

Zhao hurriedly said, “Okay, thank you very much, Fourth Aunt. I’ll have Big Brother send you off soon.”

“Hmm.” Wu Fourth Aunt slung her medicine box over her shoulder, gave Chen Ergou -expressionlessly standing there- a meaningful look, then lifted the curtain and left with Zhao.

The woman lying on the bed turned her head, pulled the quilt over her face, and started crying.’

The man holding the swaddle purse looked grim, his face terrifyingly dark.

He already had two daughters and never expected that this time it would also be a girl, which made Chen Changping both angry and embarrassed.

Among his three brothers, his older brother already had two sons, and even the one who just got married last year had a son, but his own family had three girls in a row.

No, it was four births.

More than a year ago, that one, only born for a while, had her face covered by accident during his wife’s deep sleep at night, and by the next day she was gone.

That was also a daughter.

Chen Changping could only feel his head buzzing. He was mortified.

As the saying goes, there are three unfilial conducts, with no offspring being the greatest.

Was his second family going to end his lineage?

Thinking of the strange gazes he might receive from relatives and friends, the oblique insinuations from his parents, as well as the various gossip and innuendos, Chen Changping felt like his blood was running backwards.

Looking at the baby in his hands again, he was filled with disgust.

He turned around and left the house.

The sunset was everywhere at this time, with a few passersby on the road.

Chen Changping tucked the tiny swaddle into his wide sleeve and walked quickly towards the back mountain.

The infant in his sleeve moved her little head a few times and her mouth twitched twice before falling back to sleep quietly.

Standing next to the hill for a moment, he still felt it was too close to the mountain road and not hidden enough.

If this little bastard was picked up by a passing villager and brought back to the village for everyone to know, it would not be good.

Everyone knew his wife had just given birth, and it would be easy for people to guess it was their child that was abandoned.

After thinking for a while, Chen Changping walked a few dozen steps further in before taking the swaddle out and placing it in a patch of grass.

Still standing a while longer, and clenching his palm, in the end, he didn’t dare to strangle the baby girl.

Well, maybe she’ll be carried away by a wild wolf overnight, and he wouldn’t have to bear the guilt of killing a girl.

Looking around and seeing no one, Chen Changping turned around and hurried down the mountain.

…

During the late spring, the wild peach trees all over the mountain shed their flowers and were hung with fuzzy little fruits.

The wild cherries were already ripe, their stalks attached to branches, red and yellow, looking especially tempting.

In Dongchen Village, by the Chuanhe River, several women are pounding clothes and washing vegetables.

“Did you hear? Jiang Sanlang’s family found a girl yesterday. Who knows whose child was abandoned, tsk, tsk, the umbilical cord wasn’t even detached.”

“Really? Did you see it with your own eyes, Auntie Er?” A woman seemed not to believe it, “Who would abandon a child these days? It’s not like we’re in a famine and can’t afford to raise them.”

“Isn’t that the truth? I went to their house to borrow a bucket this morning and saw it with my own eyes.” Aunt Wang Ersan wrung the clothes in her hand, threw them into the basket, and said, “Her whole face was red and swollen, said it was bitten by ants, tsk tsk tsk.”

“Oh dear, it’s such a sin.” Another woman leaned in to ask, “Where was she found?”

“No idea, Jiang Sanlang’s family simply won’t tell.” Aunt Wang glanced around, a gossipy look on her face: “Probably from one of the nearby villages. I wonder which family is so disgraceful.”

“Absolutely!”

The women knocked their washing sticks on clothing, a flurry of noise.

“Anyway, she’s not from our village. We only have about twenty households in our village, everyone would know if a woman so much as farted, let alone gave birth to a child.” One woman said.

The crowd burst into laughter.

“Certainly, no one in our village would be that heartless.”

Aunt Wang pursed her lips: “What’s unfortunate is that the baby is a girl. If it were a boy, Xu Chunniang would be relieved.”

Jiang Sanlang had been married to Xu Chunniang for ten years without a single child, which had nearly infuriated his mother to death.

The women looked at each other, breaking into knowing laughter, “Yes, yes.”

“It’s to Jiang Sanlang’s credit that he hasn’t divorced his wife after all these years.”

“Indeed, if it were my family, constant nagging would ensue everyday. A wife without a child wouldn’t last three years in my family, let alone ten.”

“Absolutely.” The crowd agreed.

One woman knocked her washing stick and said: “Ah, Chunniang is lucky to have a husband who cares for her. Without Jiang Sanlang’s protection, she would have long been divorced by his mother.”

“Yes, what a shame Jiang Sanlang is such a talented man, both cultured and strong. I am afraid there might be no continuation of his lineage.” Another woman sighed.

“Who can disagree?”

The women sighed collectively, sometimes feeling sorry for Jiang Sanlang, sometimes envying Xu Chunniang for having a handsome and caring husband.

The thought of their own husbands, whose unkempt beards and body odor were sources of displeasure, resulted in an acrid taste in their mouths.

“A baby girl is not so bad.”

A woman wringing clothes said: “How does the saying go? Raising a daughter brings a son. This baby girl might bring Jiang Sanlang a chubby baby boy.”

“That’s not necessarily true.” A woman retorted.

“Why not? Isn’t that exactly what happened to Chen Ergou’s family in West Village? Their daughter-in-law didn’t have a child for three years until his old mother adopted a baby girl. Guess what, less than two years later, Ergou’s wife was pregnant.”

“Yes, yes, yes, I heard about that. It truly happened.”

“Yes, yes, yes, I heard about that. It truly happened.”

“Yes, even the girl might be adopted by Jiang Sanlang from somewhere else, claiming it as a foundling. He probably feigned her origin to avoid being ridiculed if she didn’t bring them a child.”

“Haha, that’s also a possibility…”

After a round of gossip, the women finished washing the clothes, packed their baskets, and returned home.

Dongchen Village, Jiang Family.

Jiang Sanlang walked into the house with a bowl of sheep milk and told his wife: “Older brother’s sheep just had lambs yesterday, so I milked some to feed the baby.”

“Oh, what a coincidence!”

Xu Chunniang rejoiced, “Now the baby has milk to drink.”

They were worried about what to feed the child, but it turned out that the ewe, his elder brother bought earlier that year, had just given birth.

She placed the swaddled baby on the bed, covered it with a thin blanket, rolled up her sleeves to take the bowl, and told her husband, “I’ll go boil it. You look after her; she was crying a lot earlier.”

Jiang Sanlang passed the clay bowl into his wife’s hand, looked at the baby on the bed, and the more he looked, the more attached he became, “She must be hungry, she has only had some sugar water since yesterday.”

The baby on the bed opened her eyes slightly and suddenly smiled at him.

“Oh, our daughter knows how to smile.” Jiang Sanlang was thrilled, touched his stubble, and proudly said, “Our daughter recognizes her dad.”

“Stop talking nonsense.” Xu Chunniang shot a glance at him, “She is so little. How could she possibly recognize you?”

Jiang Sanlang chuckled, “You never know; our daughter is very smart. Yesterday, the moment I picked her up, she stopped crying and just kept shedding tears, as if she was grievously wronged.”

Thinking of the baby girl’s pitiful face, Jiang Sanlang’s heart ached. He reached out to touch her head and sighed.

Who would be so heartless to abandon a newborn baby girl on a grave mound? They clearly wanted the child to die.

If he hadn’t passed by and heard a baby’s cry in the graveyard, the baby would most likely have been eaten by snakes, rats, and ants in another day or two.

If you didn’t want to raise a child, you could give her away. Why kill her?

“It’s alright now; you’re my, Jiang San’s, true daughter from now on.”

Jiang Sanlang picked up the baby and held her close to his chest, “As long as I have something to eat, you will never go hungry.”

The milk in the clay pot has boiled. Xu Chunniang removes the skin from the milk with a spoon. Once it has cooled down, she carries the baby and feeds her spoonful by spoonful.

The little girl doesn’t rush or fuss, swallowing mouthful after mouthful. Once she is almost full, she closes her mouth tightly and closes her eyelids, looking like she wants to sleep.

After using a handkerchief to clean the corners of the baby girl’s mouth, Xu Chunniang lightly pats her back to burp her. She looks up at her husband and says, “Sanlang, let’s name her.”

Jiang Sanlang scratches his head, but can’t think of a good character even after racking his brain.

“Why not ask Uncle Chen Sanyou? I…I can’t think of a good name at the moment.”

Uncle Chen Sanyou, also known as Chen Cunzheng, is the respected village head of Dongchen Village. He has a rudimentary knowledge of literature and calligraphy, and has named many children in the village.

Xu Chunniang shakes her head, “No need to trouble him.”

She doesn’t want the news of them adopting a child to spread throughout the village.

Although they cannot keep this a secret, it’s better to keep a low profile. Once the baby grows up, people will become accustomed to it.

“How about we call her Yingbao?” Xu Chunniang gently rubs her daughter’s little face and suggests, “She’s the treasure you found when you went to pick cherries at North Mountain.”

“Good, let’s call her Yingbao.”

Jiang Sanlang slaps his thigh, laughing and agreeing, “Chunniang, you’re right. She’s the treasure I found while picking cherries.”

Hehe, this name is good. It’s auspicious!

In the blink of an eye, it is spring again after fall and winter. In the full bloom of spring, Little Yingbao is now eleven months old. She can not only crawl, but also walk a few steps with the support of a wall.

“Dad!”

Yingbao holds onto the wall with one hand and opens the other to Jiang Sanlang who has just entered the house, “Pick up!”

She can speak now, but can only utter one or two words disjointedly.

“Oh, Yingbao, are you learning to walk? Tired? Come, see what Dad has brought for you.”

Jiang Sanlang takes out a somewhat wrinkly green and red fruit from his bosom and dangles it in his hand. He bends down to his daughter and teases, “Do you want to eat it? It’s sweet and fragrant.”

Yingbao’s eyes light up, and she reaches out her chubby little hand to hold it, making a sound that indicates her approval.

It’s a large apple. Although its appearance is not very good, it’s still a rare sight in rural areas during this season.

“Where did you get it?” Xu Chunniang glances at it while she’s sitting next to him, busily stitching a shoe sole.

Jiang Sanlang gives a mischievous smile, bends down to pick up his daughter and sits next to his wife. “Mother gave it to me. She couldn’t bear to eat it and secretly gave it to me. She said it’s for Yingbao to sweeten her mouth.”

Xu Chunniang gives her husband a disdainful glare, “Isn’t this the annual gift that your eldest sister-in-law gave your parents? You actually brought it home? We have already separated from the family. It won’t sound good if outsiders see it.”

His eldest brother’s family also has children. If the sister-in-law finds out that mother-in-law secretly gave an apple to her third son, who knows what she would think.

“What’s the big deal? I didn’t ask for it. How can I not accept it when mother gives it to me? Gifts from elders should not be declined. Don’t you understand!”

Jiang Sanlang doesn’t care at all. Seeing that his daughter can’t bite open the apple skin with her little teeth, he takes it and nibbles off a circle of skin before returning it to her hands.

Yingbao: …

She lowers her head to look at the bitten and irregular apple, and suddenly can’t bring herself to eat it.

“Why aren’t you eating?” Jiang Sanlang scratches her little nose and laughs, “Have you grown tired of your father?”

Yingbao blinks and shakes her head, “Not tired!” She takes a big bite and then removes it from her mouth to stuff it into her father’s mouth, “Dad, eat!”

Jiang Sanlang bursts into laughter and takes a bite of the apple that Yingbao hands him as a token of filial piety.

Xu Chunniang also laughs, she gently strokes her daughter’s fluffy little head, “Our Yingbao is really filial, she knows to give the first bite to her father.”

Yingbao nods her little head affirmatively, “Filial! Daddy, mommy!” She takes another bite and then hands it to Chunniang.

“Hahaha, good girl!” Jiang Sanlang laughs heartily, “When your mother and I get old, we can count on Yingbao to look after us.”

Yingbao shakes her head, holding her chubby little hand up towards her mother, “Brother! Yingbao! Take care!”

“What is Yingbao saying?” Jiang Sanlang doesn’t understand what his daughter is saying, so he laughs and asks.

Yingbao gets down from her father’s knee, wobbles over to Xu Chunniang, and jumps into her mother’s arms. She touches her mother’s belly and says, “Brother! Mom, brother!”

It seems Jiang Sanlang now understands what she means.

Is her daughter trying to say that she has a baby brother in her belly?

How is that possible?

Xu Chunniang was also dumbfounded. She rubbed her belly and asked with a smile, “Yingbao, are you saying that there’s a little brother in Mommy’s belly?”

“Yes!” Yingbao earnestly nodded, and placed her small hand on her mother’s belly, insisting, “Baby brother!” Two of them!

Jiang Sanlang was stunned, suddenly recalling how his wife had an ongoing lack of appetite and was often dry-heaving these past few days.

Could it be… could it be…

His eyes suddenly lit up with surprise. He grabbed his wife’s arm and suggested, “You’ve been complaining about digestive problems these past few days… What if we… what if we go see a midwife?”

Xu Chunniang was also taken aback and murmured, “That’s impossible.”

She’d been married for nearly eleven years, nearly thirty years old – how could she possibly be pregnant?

Jiang Sanlang urgently helped his wife stand, “Seeing a doctor won’t hurt, even if… even if you’re not pregnant, we should still have a check-up. You’ve been unable to eat properly for days, that’s not good…”

Xu Chunniang contemplated then nodded, “Then let’s go. We certainly can’t make it today, let’s go to the town tomorrow.”

“Yes, yes!” Jiang Sanlang hoisted up his daughter and spun her around joyously. He was so happy his smile reached his eyes, “Good girl, tomorrow Daddy and Mommy will take you to the town to play.”

Xu Chunniang chuckled lightly, folding up her shoe soles, “Let’s have soup biscuits for dinner and make a steamed egg custard for Yingbao.”

...

Midwife Old Zhang lived in town, about five or six li away from Dongchen Village – a half-hour’s walk.

Jiang Sanlang did not want to tire his wife and planned on borrowing a donkey from Chen Cunzheng as a ride.

“No.” Xu Chunniang was a little embarrassed, “Let’s just walk, it’s not like I can’t manage.”

Zhang Midwife was well-known in town, the widely recognized go-to midwife within a radius of several li. Those who went there for consultations were either pregnant or hoping to be.

In past years, she’d gone there several times for consultation, taken a lot of medicine, but there was still no movement in her womb.

If she goes again this time and truly is pregnant, well and good, but if she’s not, who knows how others would laugh at her.

“Alright then.” Jiang Sanlang held his daughter with one hand and helped his wife with the other, “Just be careful.”

Xu Chunniang chuckled and pushed her husband’s hand away, “I was carrying water just yesterday, and today I suddenly can’t walk anymore?”

Jiang Sanlang awkwardly withdrew his hand, held his daughter tightly, and whispered, “You shouldn’t do it anymore, wait for me to do everything.”

He’d been busy in the fields during the spring planting season. He would leave before daybreak and only return after dark. He was even eating his meals in the fields, which were brought by his wife. Naturally, he didn’t have time to fetch water for the house.

However, from then on, he could rise half an hour earlier, ensuring to fill the water vat before going to work.

Xu Chunniang smiled at her husband and rubbed her belly, her heart full of trepidation.

Yingbao blinked her eyes – first at her dad, then at her mom – and smiled sweetly.

How wonderful, Mother is pregnant with Baby Brother. Their family is finally reunited.

Yingbao hugged her father’s neck tightly, her mind returning to the red birthmark on her wrist.

It was this birthmark that had forever parted her from her mom, dad, and younger brother.

She’ll have to figure out how to get rid of it.

She definitely didn’t want to be recognized and taken back by that family, to endure the torment, deceit, and murder again.

In her previous life, she struggled for over a decade to survive, yet only lived until she was twenty-one.

Just when she thought she’d finally escaped to taste the sweetness of life, her biological parents suddenly tracked her down and jointly strangled her to death.

She clearly remembered her biological mother, tight-lipped and gritting her teeth while cursing as she tightened the rope, “You disaster star! Evil wench! How dare you live? How can you still live?”

The intensity with which Han Family’s matriarch was exerting herself twisted her face and frothed her mouth. She looked like a terrifying demon.

Even now, the memory of the choking pain as the rope tightened around her throat, the head-splitting pressure as her brain struggled for oxygen, and the profound despair and anger caused her to tremble uncontrollably.

Yingbao has died once and reincarnated, reincarnated back to when Daddy Jiang first found her.

She felt both fortunate and fearful.

She was glad to be back with her parents, once again being a worry-free and cherished baby.

But she was afraid that, in a few years, she’d be claimed by that family again and forced once more down the path of her previous life.

In this era of ceremonial laws binding monarchs and ministers, fathers and sons, she was just a woman with no rights, restrained by kinship, filial piety, and societal norms, with no way to protect herself.

Even if her biological father had once abandoned her and never raised her, as long as they came to claim her, everyone would take morality as their high ground, accuse her with blood ties, suppress her with filial piety, and even the Prefectural Government Office sided with them.

In her previous life, she had already seen those people’s true colors. If she had to live again, she vowed not to compromise even if she had to die once more.

What nonsense about the debt of life being greater than the sky!

What kind of favor did she owe to people who schemed against her and intended to harm her?

Yingbao closed her eyes, and her consciousness instantly entered a cave.

This was her territory, a magical place she accidentally discovered in her previous life, a mysterious cave.

The cave was about ten square feet in size, with an almond-shaped large pool in the middle that took up about six or seven tenths of the cave.

The pool water was clear, sweet and slightly blue. In the middle of the pool was a large spherical object emitting a golden light like the sun.

This was completely different from the cave in her previous life.

She remembered when she was eighteen years old, just escaped from the army commander’s residence, disguised as a beggar, hiding everywhere.

One day, she was shivering inside a statue niche in a dilapidated temple. The temple was draughty and chilling to the bone.

She was feverish and somewhat delirious. Pictures flitted through her delirium, consciousness suddenly entered this strange cave.

Back then the cave had nothing but thick ice, making her think she had fallen into an ice hole.

Unexpectedly, in this rebirth, the ice in the cave melted and disappeared. There was an additional pool in the cave, and there was a glowing sphere in the center of the pool. It looked extraordinary at a glance.

Yingbao came to the edge of the pool and buried the apple seeds she had brought in yesterday into the soft black soil by the pool.

This black soil, three feet wide, circled the pool. At a glance, it looked like someone had drawn a black eyeliner around the pool with a brush.

This strange place perfectly matched the description of the mysterious caves in the storybooks.

So Yingbao wanted to test whether this black soil was also as described in the storybooks, possessing magical functions and able to grow anything planted within.

If one day an apple tree truly grew from it, then her family would have sweet, big apples to eat in the future.

After burying the seeds and watering them several times, Yingbao’s consciousness began to blur and soon fell asleep.

When she opened her eyes again, she found herself in the midwife’s house, with the midwife taking her mother’s pulse.

Zhang the midwife was over seventy, her white hair neatly tied behind her head. A silver hairpin was inserted in her bun, the tassel on the head of the pin swaying gently with her movements.

It was said that this old woman had worked at the county government office when she was young, doing the work of a midwife. Later, when she got older, she returned to her hometown to retire.

She was very skilled at handling pregnancies and childbirth, as well as treating some complex diseases in women, so many people respected her and sought her for treatment.

“How is it?” Jiang Sanlang couldn’t help but ask.

Zhang the midwife released her pulse-taking fingers and turned to smile, “Congratulations, your wife has a happy pulse. She’s about three months pregnant.”

“Ah? Really? You’re not joking with me, are you?” Jiang Sanlang spoke excitedly and incoherently, somewhat incredulous.

“Ah? Really? You’re not joking with me, are you?” Jiang Sanlang spoke excitedly and incoherently, somewhat incredulous.

“Would I joke about this?” The midwife stood with a smile, took out a stethoscope from her medical box, and said to Xu Family’s wife, “Third Mistress, follow me. I will let you listen to the baby’s breath.”

“Oh.” Xu’s wife got up, glanced at her husband, and followed the midwife into the back room.

Before long, the midwife emerged, cheerful, and said, “Oh my, Sanlang, your wife is carrying twins.”

“Ah?” Jiang Sanlang exclaimed in surprise, “This… is it really twins?”

“Yes.” The midwife put away her stethoscope and, with a glance at Jiang Sanlang, advised him in a soft voice, “Your wife is almost thirty, isn’t she? And this being her first pregnancy, you must take extra precautions.”

“Yes, yes.” Jiang Sanlang grew even more anxious, stuttering, “Well… what precautions should I take? What… What should I do?”

The midwife wiped her hands on a cloth and, upon seeing that the lady from the Xu family had finished tidying her clothes and was coming out from the inner room, she continued, “Let your wife eat well, including meat and eggs, and do not strain herself with heavy duties. When she is seven or eight months along, she should eat less rice and more vegetables to facilitate delivery.”

“Oh, I see.” Jiang Sanlang hastily acknowledged.

“And remember, when she is nearing full term, find a competent midwife in good time. Don’t leave it until it’s too late. Twins are a different matter entirely from a single baby, you mustn’t be careless,” cautioned the midwife, her tone solemn and earnest.

“Yes, yes!” Jiang Sanlang fervently nodded his head in agreement.

Upon leaving the midwife’s abode, Jiang Sanlang was still somewhat dazed. Carrying one daughter in one arm, he held his wife’s hand with the other and spoke softly, “Let’s go buy two pounds of brown sugar, and measure out some rice to make porridge for you.”

Unfortunately, there was no market today and the butcher shops in the town had closed early; otherwise, he could have bought some pork to take home.

“Rice is expensive, we have only a bit of money left at home. Let’s not waste it unnecessarily.” Chunniang grumbled, “It’s just the beginning of spring, there are still several months until harvest.”

Jiang Sanlang looked at his wife sympathetically and reassured her, “Don’t worry, once we finish planting our fields, I will go to the county to find work. I’m sure I can find something.”

“It’s not as easy as that.” Chunniang sighed, “The county is a long way away. Where will you stay? Will you end up sleeping in a dilapidated temple like last time?”

Last year after the harvest, Sanlang and two other villagers went to the county in search of work. They couldn’t find anything and were nearly beaten to death by a gang of local ruffians.

Chen Cunzheng’s nephew had been the worst off, he still couldn’t do heavy work to this day.

Jiang Sanlang scratched his head, “We definitely need to purchase rice and brown sugar. The midwife said that you should eat fine nutritious food… And when we get home, we can slaughter one of our old hens to make soup.”

“We only have two hens left, and they’re laying eggs now. We can’t afford to slaughter one.”

The Xu family wife interrupted her husband’s incessant rambling, “Without hens to lay eggs, what will Tiantian eat?”

“Ah yes, hehehe, Tiantian does need to have an egg custard every day, I forgot.” Jiang Sanlang scratched his head and laughed foolishly.

Tiantian blinked her eyes, too, was at a loss.

Their home was poor, comprised of three thatch huts and a small kitchen, with a bamboo fence enclosing it. Just like in their previous lives, there was barely any furniture in the house.

As for food, they had just enough to eat.

She had once looked inside the jar where they kept their food. There was only a thin layer of wheat in there.

Even the least appetizing millet, they only had about one stone measurement left, just enough to sustain the family until the harvest.

The two hens at home were probably their most valuable possessions right now.

Being small and delicate herself, with weak legs and speech difficulties, she couldn’t help her parents and depended on them to look after her.

Tiantian was worried, her little face creased with concern.

Her mother was pregnant with her brother and needed more nutrition. How could she eat only wheat and millet?

Suddenly, an idea flashed through her mind.

Wasn’t there a river to the west of the village? Even though the current was strong, there would be fish in the river.

“Daddy, fishing!” she decided to give her doting father a hint.

Without meat, mommy can eat fish.

As long as they could borrow a fishing net, they should be able to catch some fish and shrimp.

...