From the day when Fusi and Nuwa revived humanity, there were more and more people every day. And soon their villages again filled the banks of rivers throughout the Celestial Empire. People then only knew how to collect fruits from trees and hunt. If you're lucky, they find fruit or kill an animal - they walk around well-fed and happy. There will be no fruit, the animals will scatter - you have to starve. Fusi began to think about how to help people so that they had something to eat every day. He wanders along the river bank, thinks, thinks... And suddenly a big fat carp jumps out of the water. “Since the fish is fatty, it must be tasty,” thought Fusi and entered the river to catch a fat lazy carp. Fish then did not yet know that they could be caught by hand, so it was not difficult for Fusi to grab a carp, bring it home and feed it to his children and grandchildren, and they spread the news that fish can be caught and eaten. But on the third day, the dragon king Lung-wan appeared with his first turtle minister and shouted menacingly:
— I don’t allow you to fish. So your stupid people will catch and eat all my grandchildren and great-grandchildren!
But Fusi was not afraid of Lung-wan, and asked calmly and with dignity:
“Then what should we eat every day?”
“I don’t care about that,” the dragon grumbled.
- Oh so! - Fusi exclaimed: - Look, since we will have nothing to eat, we will drink water, we will drink it all clean, and all your water creatures will die.
The First Minister approached the dragon's ear and whispered:
- Allow them to fish, but on one condition: let people not grab the carp with their hands.
The minister’s advice seemed very wise, and Lung-wan said importantly: “The following idea came to my mind...” and repeated the words of the minister.
And Fusi thought and thought and agreed. Satisfied, Lung-wan sailed with the minister into the Eastern Ocean.
Fusi thought for three days about how to catch fish without hands. Nothing came to mind. Finally he got tired of thinking and went for a walk. He sees a spider weaving a web between two branches. The thread on the right will pass, the thread on the left will pass through... So we have a network. The spider finished his work and went to rest. And soon flies began to get into the net. The spider calmly crawled out of its corner and began to eat. And Fusi suddenly had an idea. He ran into the forest, plucked several thin, flexible vines and, like a spider, weaved a web. After that, he cut down two sticks, made a cross-piece out of them and hooked a net onto its edges, cut down another long stick, tied it to the cross-piece, ran with this tackle to the river, lowered it into the water, and then quickly picked it up full of fat, stupid carp.
The wise Fusi immediately told people about his discovery. They all began to weave nets and catch fish without grabbing them with their hands. And Lung-wan, having learned that Fusi had outwitted him, began to rage so much that his eyes crawled out of his sockets forever. Finally he calmed down and decided to write Fusi a threatening letter. He spread the mascara and took a brush to draw hieroglyphs. But I couldn’t figure out where to start. The turtle minister climbed onto his shoulder, closer to his ear, to give advice. But Lung-wan was so angry that he jerked his shoulder, and the turtle fell into the stewpot. The minister tossed and turned in the stew pot for a long time before he got out of it. The turtle looked at himself in the mirror and was very upset. She turned all black, like mascara. But nothing can be done. The mascara does not wash off.
Since then, all turtles in China are black. People catch fish with nets. And the king of dragons is angry, looks at everything with wide eyes, but cannot do anything.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru