My Fish Pond Has One Very Loyal Customer novel · Chapter 2 of 24
Chapter 2: Saturday Rules
The stranger comes back and pays triple for fish he throws back, Lu Qing sets three rules, and the developer's son turns up to say the village register shows no owner.
On Saturday the man was at the gate before the mist was off the water.
Lu Qing had set Grandpa's chair on the east bank at six, and told himself it was in case of ducks.
"You came," he said.
"I said Saturday," said the man.
He was wearing the same jacket, and carrying a thermos and nothing else.
"I'm Lu Qing," said Lu Qing. "You didn't say your name last time."
"Meng," said the man.
"Just Meng?"
"Meng Yuhe," said the man, and sat down in the chair.
Lu Qing put the rod in his hands, and this time the cast went out straight and true.
Within a minute the float went down.
"Doubled, Host," said the Pond System. "I would like it noted that this customer has excellent hands."
Lu Qing coughed to cover a laugh.
Meng Yuhe reeled in a fat grass carp that was too big for the net.
He held it up in one hand and looked at Lu Qing.
"How much?"
"It goes back," said Lu Qing.
"How much?"
"Forty a jin. Seventy jin, that one. It goes back."
Meng Yuhe took out his phone, and Lu Qing's own phone buzzed in his back pocket.
It said he had received eight thousand four hundred yuan.
"Triple," said Meng Yuhe.
"I told you. You can't pay me for a fish I'm not selling."
"You're selling it. I'm buying it."
"And then you throw it back," said Lu Qing.
"Yes," said Meng Yuhe.
"That's not buying," said Lu Qing, crouching to slide the carp into the shallows. "That's renting."
Meng Yuhe thought about that.
"Then I'll rent it," he said.
"You can't rent a fish."
"You've said that three times."
"I'm going to say it a fourth time, and then I'm going to set rules," said Lu Qing.
He stood up with his sleeves soaked to the elbow.
He had been practicing them in the shower.
"One. Saturdays only. This is a working pond, I have a lot of ducks to talk to."
Meng Yuhe nodded.
"Two. You sit on the east bank. Never the dam bank. The dam bank is my grandfather's."
"Where is he?"
"Dead. Last winter." Lu Qing said it lightly, and moved on before it could settle.
"Three. Nobody pays me anything but fish. If you want to give me money, you take a fish and eat it."
"I don't eat fish," said Meng Yuhe.
"Then you're a very strange customer."
"I won't argue."
He didn't, which was the odd part.
He sat in the chair and held his rod and let Lu Qing set the terms of his own Saturday.
For the first time, he looked a little less tired.
Lu Qing put his hands on his hips.
"Rule three is for your own good," Lu Qing added. "I'm not poor. I'm fine."
"I didn't say you were."
"The pink carbon is in a tin, and the tin is in the hut, and I'm up to date on everything."
He had no idea why he was saying it.
"Thursday I went to the village office, and Uncle Qian, the village head, stamped the transfer," said Lu Qing.
"Grandpa told me to always keep the pink copy, because the village register eats paper."
"So I'm fully registered. The pond is mine. It's all in order."
"I see," said Meng Yuhe.
The Pond System said, "Host is explaining himself again."
Lu Qing sat down on the bucket and stopped.
Nothing else happened for a while.
The mist went up off the water in pieces.
The first of the ducks came out of the reeds to look at them.
Meng Yuhe's float sat on the water without a twitch.
Lu Qing talked quietly about the weir and about a heron that came in November.
He talked about the time Grandpa had caught his own hat.
At some point his words went slower, and he looked across.
The thermos was open on the grass and untouched.
Meng Yuhe's head had gone back against the canvas, and his mouth was a little open.
He slept with his hands still on the rod.
Lu Qing watched the float for forty minutes by the church clock across the valley.
He did not talk, and he did not move, and he would not have admitted to anyone that he was guarding him.
A fish took the bait twice.
Lu Qing leaned across and lifted the rod out of the sleeper's hands, so nobody would be pulled into the pond.
His knuckles brushed a palm that was hot and callused, and he took his hand back faster than he had taken the rod.
When Meng Yuhe woke, he did it all at once, and looked at the sun.
"Forty minutes," Lu Qing said, before he could ask.
Meng Yuhe sat very still.
"What does the water do at night?" he asked.
It was a strange question, and he asked it in a low, careful voice.
"It talks," said Lu Qing. "The frogs start at dusk, and then the reeds."
"And then it's just the inlet. A little noise, like someone pouring tea in the next room."
Meng Yuhe closed his eyes for a second.
"Does it hurt?" he asked.
"Does what hurt?"
"Nothing," said Meng Yuhe.
A car engine came down the lane, too smooth for the potholes.
A white SUV stopped at the gate.
A man in pale loafers got out and stepped straight into the mud.
He looked at his shoes with real distress.
He was about Lu Qing's age, with a lovely haircut and a smile put on in the car.
"Lu Qing," he said warmly. "Finance, class of 2022! The scholarship kid who talked in the library. I'm Tang Wenjie, do you remember?"
Lu Qing remembered.
He remembered being shushed by that exact smile.
Meng Yuhe had pulled his cap down over his face and tipped back in the chair, and Wenjie's eyes slid over him and away.
"Your customer?" Wenjie asked, lowering his voice. "He's sleeping on the job."
"He's resting," said Lu Qing.
"I'll be quick," said Wenjie. "Tang Group is building a lakeside resort in the valley."
"Your pond is in the middle of it. My father would like to be a good neighbor, and he'll pay eight hundred thousand."
"No, thank you," said Lu Qing.
"You haven't heard the number yet." Wenjie smiled a little wider.
"I looked you up, Lu Qing. I'm sorry. I checked the village register this morning."
"And?" said Lu Qing.
"It says nobody holds this contract. That pond belongs to the village, as of Thursday."
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