In the spring of 1976, I, Pangzi, Yuan Xiaobai and Cha Wenbin were still in Yeren Village. Just like us living in that isolated village, news from our home was also unknown. It was difficult for descendants of typical black five-class elements during those years. Fortunately, people in the village treated us well, and the people here are as simple and honest as the big mountains here.

  In the past six months, weve all grown up a bit, our skin has darkened, and our arms have thickened. Were doing our best to take on the work that men should be doing, except for Yuan Xiaobai, the rest of us can be described as black people.

  The village is very busy at the beginning of spring, rushing to turn over the fields and repair the irrigation canals; rushing to repair farm tools, and rushing to sort out the seeds for sowing. The whole years plan depends on the spring, and every day we work until very late. During that time, it was always rainy weather, and we had to rush to plant all the crops before the season passed. All the villagers, young and old, were working in the fields, wearing raincoats and straw hats, with no exception for men or women.

  Such high-intensity labor soon took its toll, and Yuan Xiaobai began to run a high fever, convulsions, and even muscle cramps in the middle of the night.

  The village is too remote, lacking medical care and medicine. Yuan Xiaobai was once burned so badly that people started talking nonsense, and she was sent to the outside of the mountain by donkey cart overnight. After emergency treatment, her life was saved, but the doctor said that her physical condition was too poor and suggested that we should take good care of her after returning home.

  What can be made up for in those years? Even eggs were collective property, and we were children with problematic family composition. The team naturally didnt dare to be too biased towards us. During the busy farming season, it was impossible to make an exception just because of one outsider. Fortunately, the production team leader was relatively reasonable, allowing Yuan Xiaobai to rest at home and count as three work points for her, which was already a great kindness.

  It used to be her who took care of our daily lives, now its only natural that we two take care of her. The lush green mountains mean everything is still in gestation, the Oroqen people have rules, this season is when animals are pregnant, hunting is prohibited; the warehouse has last years old rice, and the crops in the field have just been planted, what we eat is the cabbage that was stored in the cellar for a whole winter, with such a nutritional standard, Yuan Xiaobais body is getting weaker by the day, we need to think of a solution.

  At that time, Cha Wenbin and I were mainly responsible for irrigation work. There were five water pumps in the village, driven by diesel engines, which were said to have been left behind by the Japanese years ago and had been idle in the warehouse all along. Pangzi overhauled them last winter and surprisingly they worked again. So this year our main task was to pump water and maintain the machines.

  In the middle of Ye Ren Tun, there is a river. The water for daily use and drinking are all from here. However, in the village, there are many "tang" (ponds). Those ponds have been there since before liberation, totaling eighteen, distributed irregularly throughout the village, some big, some small.

  The larger ponds are as big as a basketball court, while the smaller ones are not much bigger than a bathtub. In the middle of these ponds there is usually farmland, and we pump water from the ponds to the fields.

  Its a coincidence, we never paid attention to these ponds before. That day, when Fatso was pumping water, he saw that there were actually fish in the pond, big ones weighing 7-8 catties and small ones not even as long as a thumb, often jumping out of the water. This guy almost made us laugh to death. After Fatso asked around and confirmed that this wasnt the villages collective fish pond, we cut down some bamboo at night and used fishing line to make hooks. We planned to catch some fish to make a fish soup for Xiaobai.

  Fishing is not a difficult task for me, digging some earthworms in the ground and grabbing a handful of peanut shells and oil cakes to make a nest, I thought this was a matter of course. However, unexpectedly, the fish here seem to be uninterested in any type of bait, you can see them swimming in the water, but they dont bite the hook, three consecutive nights were empty-handed, which made us worried.

  We dont understand either, so we went to find Old Man Miao that night. Hes a local elder and should know something about this fish.

  Unexpectedly, when we mentioned this matter, Old Miao also found it strange. He said: "Since I entered this village, I have never seen anyone catch fish from those few ponds to eat. The fish are indeed there, but they cant be caught."

  I said: "Are all the fish here in the emotional world gods who dont open their mouths to eat?"

  Old Miao took a drag on his cigarette. "You think youre the only ones whove caught those few fish? Im telling you, the fish there are not to be trifled with!"

  Fatty split a clove of garlic and threw it into his mouth, chewing as he said: "Whats wrong with you? Will bite people?"

  "In 59, when Lanzis wife was pregnant with her, she had severe morning sickness and couldnt keep anything down. She was so thin that you couldnt even see the four-month bump. At that time, food was even scarcer than now, and I thought about getting some good stuff to supplement her diet, so I set my sights on the fish in the pond. There was no way we could catch them by fishing, since nobody had ever succeeded before. So, I went to the countys military department to find an old comrade-in-arms and got 10 kilograms of explosives. One blast and the water splashed up to half the sky... guess what happened?"

  "Come on, what else can we do? Youve already killed all the fish. Ten kilograms of explosives for such a small pond, and the old man didnt even notice. Youre really something."

  Old Miao said to the fatty, "At first, my idea was the same as yours. Ten kilograms of explosives seemed a bit heavy, and I thought it would shock all the fish in the pond to death. But who knew that after the explosion, except for the water splashing, I didnt even see a single fish scale. The next day, when I went to take another look, those little fish were still swimming on the surface of the water, blowing bubbles as if nothing had happened."

  Ive tried this method before, I just took the gunpowder out of the firecrackers and stuffed it into a small bottle of penicillin, tamping it down tightly, then inserted a fuse. One bottle of penicillin could blow up an entire area, whats the concept of ten kilograms of explosives?

  "Come on, cant you just die from all these explosions?" I chimed in.

  Old Miao said, "So the next day I asked that comrade for another twenty kilograms of explosives. This time I waited until I saw fish on the surface before throwing it in. One explosion and still not a single fish was caught. Like this, such a small pond, thirty kilograms of explosives were thrown in and not one fish was seen, you all just stop messing around."

  On the way back, Fatso asked Zha Wenbin: "Master Zha, do you believe what Lao Tou said?"

  Cha Wenbin shook his head and then nodded again. The fat man was puzzled: "What do you mean?"

  "Its hard to believe! Old Miao said he went to blast fish and I believed him, but he said not a single fish was blasted and I dont believe it. That pond is only four or five meters wide, it doesnt make sense."

  Fatso muttered a sentence: "We cant get explosives, and since we cant catch any fish, why bother? We have a water pump, dont we? Lets just use the water pump to drain the pond and then go down and catch some live ones. How great would that be?"

  I heard that this is indeed a good idea. This small pond can hold so much water, and I can catch fish while working, why not just do it?

  The next morning, the fat man found someone to bring two water pumps from the warehouse. As soon as it was said that we were going to drain the pond, the village became lively, and even the work points in the field were not wanted. They couldnt explain the origin of these ponds, but everyone knew there were fish here, they just couldnt catch them. On the same day, we were surrounded by three layers inside and three layers outside, even the brigade secretary came to join in the excitement.

  Fatso gave an order, and the three water pumps started working at the same time. The pond water was pumped up with a gurgling sound. Who knew that after an entire morning had passed, the water level in the pond hadnt even receded by half!

  The pond we chose is not the largest one, its of medium size, located in the southwest of the village. The pond is about 40 meters away from the river, and the nearest pond is also over 10 meters away. There is a field between the two ponds, and the water we pumped out went directly into the irrigation canal without circulating back to the pond. These ponds look black all day long, and nobody knows how deep they are, so someone suggested measuring the depth of the water first.

  We found a coil of hemp rope, tied a stone to the rope and threw it into the water. As soon as it was thrown, the pot exploded in the crowd. The hemp rope was over 100 meters long, and it wasnt until less than a quarter of it was left that we felt the weight of the stone disappear, which means this small pond is nearly 70 meters deep!

  This discovery immediately overturned the villagers views on this pond, and at the same time, more and more people became interested. Soon, two other water pumps were also brought over. Five water pumps started working simultaneously, and the amount of water drawn out was like a river overflowing during heavy rain. This was no longer just a competition with those few fish, to put it bluntly, everyone wanted to know if the water here could be drained!

  Another afternoon passed, the water depth dropped by more than half a meter, the onlookers dispersed, and we two continued. At night, we took turns, continuing during the day, and pumped out water for three consecutive days. The pond showed no signs of drying up, but instead revealed some strange things.

  I thought these ponds were small fish ponds dug by people in the past, but when the water level dropped to about two meters for the first time, the mud on both sides began to be gradually replaced by black stones. Those stones were shiny and smooth, with diagonal lines similar to those found on stone mills in rural areas. The stones were a single entity, with signs of artificial grinding visible everywhere. As we increased our water pumping schedule, these artificial marks also became more and more numerous. What was even more unexpected was that the seemingly narrow ponds, only a few meters wide, were actually expanding downward and widening, and our progress in pumping out the water was also slowing down.

  Five water pumps worked day and night, after eighteen days, the pond finally dried up. It was a vase-shaped pool with a narrow mouth, wide belly and narrow bottom, all made of black stone. It looked like it was originally a whole piece of stone, but someone had dug a vertical hole inside the stone, and the depth of this hole was nearly seventy meters!

  At that time, the whole village began to boil over. Some people said that we children had dug up a spring in the village, while others said that this place might have been a secret experimental site for Japanese people in the past. Others wondered if it was an abandoned stone pit. In short, this was explosive big news, and not just us, but everyone wanted to know what was at the bottom of this huge pit that was over 70 meters deep and couldnt be seen from the top.

  But Pangzis idea was simpler, "Damn it, this time the water is drained, where can your fish run to..."