The Top Fishing
Chapter 349 - 182: Hang City Outing_4

Chapter 349: Chapter 182: Hang City Outing_4

Just as the three of them had finished packing and were getting ready to leave, Xiao Zhang suddenly came running over with a plastic bag in his hand.

"Here, let me show you something!" he said as he opened the plastic bag he was holding.

"Cicada nymphs?"

Looking at the contents of the bag, Lin Yang was taken aback before he spoke.

Cicada nymphs are actually cicadas, a term commonly used in Jiangdong. Inside Xiao Zhang’s plastic bag were about a dozen already fried cicadas.

Xiao Zhang hadn’t been home for some time, so while Lin Yang and the others were fishing, he visited several other households in the village. Unexpectedly, he brought back some of these edibles.

There are two ways to eat cicadas: the first is to eat cicada nymphs, which is to go out with a flashlight as the sun is about to set and easily catch them as they climb out of the ground and perch on trees.

After catching them, you can fry them up and eat them directly at home, but honestly, they do taste a bit earthy as they have spent three, five, seven, or even seventeen years in the soil, making it difficult to wash off all the dirt.

The other way to eat them is to eat the tender adults, which involves catching cicadas that have just shed their shells around 4 o’clock in the morning. At this time, the cicadas are the tenderest, and some people prefer to eat them then.

Lin Yang had eaten unshed cicadas before; their shells became very crispy when fried, getting more fragrant the more you chew. Most importantly, the nymphs are not as frightening as the adults, which many people are too scared to eat.

The cicadas that Xiao Zhang had brought were the fried nymphs. Lin Yang grabbed one from the bag, skipped the head, and ate the body directly.

I must say, these fried cicada nymphs were really good, very crispy and not greasy at all, indeed tasty.

"Come on, let’s all eat!"

Seeing Lin Yang eating, Xiao Zhang smiled as well. Originally, he thought no one would dare to eat them.

Convinced they were indeed edible, Wang Feng and Li Xiaopeng also tried some. Everyone agreed they were really delicious. Yue’er, seeing everyone enjoying their food, mustered the courage to try one too, and then her eyes lit up.

"Wow, they really are delicious, so fragrant and crispy."

"Hmm, where did you catch these?" Li Xiaopeng asked curiously.

"The villagers said they’re from over there, over by that hill, there are plenty of them there," Xiao Zhang pointed to a distant hill.

"Shall we go catch some to have as a night snack?"

"Sounds good."

The group of five discussed and decided to put their things away first and then go catch cicadas together.

After storing their fishing gear, the group headed once more to a small mound. Arriving there, they found it had become a haven for insects.

The weeds here were knee-high, and walking through would stir up many bugs, but what caught the eye most were the cicadas densely clinging to the distant trees.

Although cicadas can fly, they are actually quite lazy and won’t fly away easily if there’s food available, so they won’t leave the trees as long as they’ve not drained them completely.

Cicadas are, in fact, obvious pests. The adults suck the sap from trees, and the nymphs live off the sap of the tree roots.

This can greatly affect tea trees and other fruit trees. However, with more and more people eating them in recent years, this harm has somewhat decreased. Some have turned the nuisance into a treasure, catching them for sale or raising them specially.

It’s said that tens of thousands of pounds of cicadas are consumed daily in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang regions. Whether that’s true or not, Lin Yang didn’t know, but he did know he had his late-night snack figured out for tonight.

Once there, the group heard the collective noise of the cicadas.

Shining their flashlights, they indeed saw many small holes at the bases of some trees, which were made by cicadas burrowing out of the ground.

Following these holes up the trees, Lin Yang saw countless wingless nymphs, still in the process of metamorphosis, perched on the trees as if drunk, not moving even when caught in the flashlight’s beam.

Seeing this, he reached out and started catching them.

"Brother Yang, these are young cicadas, right? Why don’t they have wings yet?" Yue’er, seeing Lin Yang already grabbing them, came over and asked, puzzled.

"They are currently in the critical phase of evolving from nymphs to adults. If we don’t catch them, they’ll turn into real cicadas by around four or five in the morning," Lin Yang explained to her.

"But isn’t what we’re doing a bit wrong? They’ve been underground for so many years, finally developing properly, about to grow up and have a family, and we’re just catching and eating them. Isn’t that a bit cruel?" Hearing Lin Yang’s explanation, Yue’er whispered again.

"These creatures are actually pests; if we let them procreate, they would harm even more trees, so what we’re doing now is essentially acting for the greater good," Lin Yang said to her, his face exuding righteous

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