In ancient times, there was a gourmet named Zhou Yu who loved eel dishes and soups. One day, a friend responded to his wish and sent him some fresh and plump eels. Zhou Yu was so happy that he hurriedly cooked himself, hoping to make a pot of delicious eel soup to share with his friends.
Zhou Yu then put the eel into the pot. At first, the eels were still swimming in the pot. He slowly heated the bottom of the pot over slow fire; the eel was slowly cooked. The eel cooked by Zhou Yu in this way has not been slaughtered and the eel has not struggled, so the meat of the fish will not be tight and the taste will be relatively better.
As the pot of soup slowly boiled, Zhou Yu lifted the lid and took a look, only to find a strange phenomenon; there was an eel in the pot with its body arched upward and its head. The head and tail are in the boiling soup. This eel's body was arched, and its entire abdomen was curved upward, exposing it outside the boiling soup. Even after it died, its body still maintained its curved shape without falling down.
Zhou Yu felt very strange when he saw this situation, so he fished out the eel, took a kitchen knife and cut open the eel's curved abdomen. Only then did I discover that the belly of the fish was actually filled with fish eggs, the number of which was hard to estimate.
It turns out that this female eel was willing to put her head and tail in boiling soup and endure the painful suffering in order to protect the fish eggs in her belly. It was eager to protect its eggs, so it bent its belly and tried hard to keep the eggs away from the hot soup.
Zhou Yu was deeply moved after seeing it, and vowed never to eat eels again, and to show double filial respect to his mother in the future.