Courtyard House: Drunk and tipsy, the whole courtyard exposed at the start.

Liu Gendatou Huzi was the first to step forward, followed by Qi Xiaoli (Qi Datou's sister), He Yushui, Xu Xiaoling, Liu Guangtian, and even little Liu Guangfu jumped out. Yan Jiecheng, without hesitation, led his two younger brothers over to register as well.

Yan Bugui was very uncomfortable at being humiliated, but seeing his third son run over, he quickly called out, "Jiecheng, Zhang Dabiao hasn't said how he plans to distribute the spoils yet!"

He was worried that if they found something, what if they didn't get enough to go around?

Or what if it's all divided equally? The Yan family contributed three people, which was a huge effort; it would be a loss if they got less.

Yan Jiecheng immediately retorted, "I'll listen to Da Biao; he won't betray me."

Sha Zhu scratched his head: "Da Biao, count me in too. I'll bring a pair, it'll be safer when we go out."

After all, his sister went, so he had to keep an eye on things.

Xu Damao also had to keep an eye on Xu Xiaoling, so he naturally had to go along as well, otherwise he wouldn't feel at ease.

Zhang Dabiao nodded; more people would naturally be better.

After the final arrangements were made, they were divided into two groups—Sha Zhu and Yan Jiecheng led one group to dig for vegetables, mushrooms, and soil, and they even borrowed a handcart to go out.

Liu Guangqi, Zhang Dabiao, Xu Damao, and others led a group to go fishing. They also borrowed a tricycle from the factory and several buckets and basins from their neighbors.

When Yan Jiecheng went out, he also called Yu Li and took Yu Haitang with him.

Qin Jingru then went to call Mu Wanqing.

The group grabbed their tools and rushed out the door, but the adults in the courtyard didn't have any expectations of these young people.

Digging for wild vegetables, planting mushrooms, and fishing?

It's not that simple!

Others have already done what they could. The aunties and grandmas in the yard go out to dig for wild vegetables every day, and the nearby ones have been dug up long ago.

And fishing?

There are more anglers than fish in Beihai Park!

Because they had nearly 20 people traveling together, they made quite a scene and alerted the local street office.

After Director Wang learned about the matter, he arranged for a clerk from the street office to accompany them, partly to protect them and partly to see if this method would work. If it was effective, then could it be promoted?

After all, encouraging residents to substitute melons and vegetables for food and to pick wild vegetables for self-sufficiency is also one of the tasks of their street office.

Needless to say, Yan Jiecheng and Sha Zhu's team digging for wild vegetables, mushrooms, and dirt were quite a sight. When Zhang Dabiao and the others arrived at Beihai Park, they saw—

Ouch!

It was absolutely packed with people!

Everyone's smart enough to know that there's a shortage of food and meat, and it's the weekend.

Zhang Dabiao thought for a moment...

Forget it, let's go somewhere else. Judging by this, the fish in Beihai Park have probably been fished out by now. And with so many people on Zhang Dabiao's side, the park staff immediately surrounded them and started asking about the situation.

If it were just one or two people, it would be fine; the staff would just ignore it. But you're a group of ten fishing? He should at least find out which organization you're from, right?

It's not that you're not allowed to fish, but since it's a "gang-like" operation, he should at least keep an eye on things from the sidelines, right?

Zhang Dabiao was embarrassed. He didn't want to be surrounded by onlookers, so he quickly led everyone to the section of the moat outside Andingmen, where there were fewer people.

The line was cotton thread, and the fishhook was bent by heating a sewing needle until it was red-hot; Zhang Dabiao had prepared all of this in advance. Fishing rods were too expensive to buy, so he just used some wooden sticks as a makeshift solution.

Why be so professional? But Zhang Dabiao's cotton thread was indeed more solid than the cotton thread of this era.

As long as I can fish, that's fine.

Everyone thinks... Da Biao is being silly again. How can he catch any fish like this?

Well, seeing how excited he is, I don't want to discourage him. Let's just treat it as everyone going on a spring outing.

Didn't you see that Zhang Dabiao's car also had seasonings, a cutting board, and a cleaver, as well as several bags of unknown stuff? He seemed ready to cook the fish right there, but whether he could catch any was another matter.

The clerk from the neighborhood office didn't say much. Zhang Dabiao was a legend in their neighborhood. As long as he didn't break the law, they let him be.

Once the line and hook were tied, Zhang Dabiao called everyone to put on his "secret bait," which smelled quite delicious!

It feels like using cornmeal, meat, alcohol, and sesame oil... isn't that a bit of a waste of food?

Classic all-purpose bait: corn kernels, wheat kernels, millet, and crushed corn grits. After cooking or soaking these ingredients, add yeast, a small amount of honey/brown sugar for fermentation. This natural grain aroma is highly attractive to large carp, crucian carp, and grass carp, making it suitable for wild lake and reservoir fishing, primarily targeting carp and grass carp.

Another option is to make a premium bait for crucian carp: fermented rice.

The bait is also convenient, consisting of 40% fishy aroma (animal protein and fishy smell) + 40% bran aroma (natural grain aroma) + 20% consistency adjustment (to adjust the bait's consistency, making it more fluffy, soft, and palatable).

That works, doesn't it? It's not a magic bullet, but it increases the chances of catching a fish this way.

Zhang Dabiao's "little nest" contains 30TB of data on his Feiniu NAS, a lot of miscellaneous stuff. This kind of fishing-related content is covered in survival-related PDFs.

Zhang Dabiao can't fish, but he can copy information! Just follow along and learn.

If you're talking about building a house or creating an intangible cultural heritage item, Zhang Dabiao doesn't know how, and he doesn't have the materials either. But copying a fish food recipe is something anyone can do.

Before anyone could say anything, Zhang Dabiao picked up the bag and started scattering grain into the river.

"Da Biao, what are you doing?"

Liu Guangqi asked in confusion, "Aren't you being a bit too wasteful?"

"You need to bait the area! Use our secret bait! You have to bait the area for the fish to come!" Zhang Dabiao said dismissively. He didn't have much fishing skill to begin with, and if you don't bait the area, why would the fish come to you?

"But, I heard from Uncle Yan that you can just use grass roots to fish, right? At most, you can just use half an earthworm or something." Xu Damao didn't understand either. In fact, nobody fishes like that these days—you're being too extravagant.

Don't let it turn out that you only catch a couple of fish and waste all the food; wouldn't that be a huge loss?

Zhang Dabiao, while scattering feed along several fishing spots on the riverbank, joked, "You guys don't understand. When I scatter feed, the fish eat it, and it tastes pretty good, plus there's a lot of it."

"It has to go back and tell its relatives and friends, 'Dinner's served here! There's food! Come quick!'"

"With more fish, our chances of catching them are higher. If we use a more fragrant, secret-recipe bait, they'll smell the even better aroma and want to take a bite, right?"

"Then we caught it, didn't we?"

Everyone burst into laughter. And you know what? It really was true.

The neighborhood committee official frowned: "Zhang Dabiao, isn't that just twisted logic? Fish can't talk, how can they call on their friends?"

Zhang Dabiao didn't argue with him, but he still explained, "This isn't some fallacy; it's probability theory."

"It should be considered one of the tools for applied mathematics and mathematical modeling, and it's very important."

"Simply put, since we don't have very advanced fishing skills, we should try to catch more fish so that we have a better chance of success..."

Before he could finish speaking, Xu Damao yelled, "Holy crap? Holy crap! They've taken the bait!"