Back To the Small Fishing Village In 1982 - Chapter 48

Chapter 48: A Boat Full of Shellfish

“I have good eyesight. Several crabs were covered in mud, hiding in the tidal flats – I almost missed them.” He admitted he was indeed lucky, but part of it was also his experience.

“I was pretty happy catching one blue crab, but after this comparison, it’s really put things in perspective – like comparing a novice to a master,” A-Zheng shook his head dejectedly.

“It’s fine, the tide hasn’t risen yet, you can look around the tidal flats again. Hey~ where are Fatty and A-Guang?”

Xiaoxiao pointed toward the beach near the reef, “Look~ Fatty’s taking a nap over there.”

Ye Yaodong turned to look in the direction he was pointing, and saw Fatty lying on the beach with his hands behind his head and his hat covering his face.

“Damn, he can sleep like that? Is he a pig?”

“Isn’t he just a pig?”

Speechless!

Under such strong sunlight, he could still use the sky as his blanket and the ground as his bed – truly incredible!

“A-Guang went to collect small abalones, he thought the catch on the reef suited him better.”

“Oh!” He also spotted a figure bent over on the reef, “Well, you guys continue searching, the tide won’t rise for a while, I’m going to rest for a bit.”

Saying this, he walked towards the muddy area where he had caught sea centipedes earlier. There was still half a bucket of sea centipedes he’d caught before – perfect for taking a break and catching more.

Though these things look disgusting, they’re considered a supreme delicacy by food lovers.

The beach in their village didn’t have these creatures. While the tide was still out, he could continue digging holes to catch some more. He wasn’t sure if their dock would buy them.

It wouldn’t matter if they didn’t – as long as they weren’t killed, they could keep for two or three days. With his large family, they probably wouldn’t last three days anyway, likely being consumed within two days at most.

One by one, he pulled sea centipedes from their holes, some 20-30 centimeters long, others just a few centimeters.

“You’re still catching those? Aren’t you disgusted?”

Ye Yaodong recognized A-Guang’s voice without looking up and said, “It’s fine catching them one by one, they’re just sea centipedes, nothing we haven’t seen before.”

“Are you catching so many to sell, or to eat yourself?”

“We’ll see if A-Cai buys them, since our dock doesn’t usually have these things. If not, we’ll eat them ourselves.”

A-Guang looked at the bamboo basket beside him, “You’ve got blue crabs too, and they’re quite big – not a bad catch, at least you’ve earned a day’s wages.”

“You’ll die of envy when I tell you – I caught seven of them, two females and five males, all very meaty,” Ye Yaodong said proudly, he hadn’t expected the lonely island to be so rich in resources.

“What? Seven? What kind of damn luck!”

A-Guang stared in disbelief and shook the bamboo basket, indeed seeing several large claws at the bottom.

“A-Zheng and Chen Wei each caught one too. Why don’t you go look around? The tide hasn’t come up yet.”

“I’m going right now, tell me where you caught them!”

Ye Yaodong pointed out the direction, “Over there, but I’ve pretty much covered that area. You could go a bit further, I haven’t been to that area.”

“Got it.”

A-Guang excitedly ran off in the direction he pointed. Once the tide starts rising, it comes up quickly, especially since it was past the first day of the lunar month, and today’s water level hadn’t dropped very low.

Ye Yaodong hadn’t expected his simple suggestion would help A-Guang catch two blue crabs, with one being enormous – even bigger than his largest one.

When he came back, everyone was envious.

Xiaoxiao joked, “Master Dong, when will you give me some tips too?”

“Yeah, if I’d known earlier, I would have asked you where you caught them. I might have gotten two as well!” A-Zheng’s regret was palpable – he had been chatting with Dong earlier too.

A-Guang seemed to have gotten a taste for it and said regretfully, “Ah, I went too late. Only found two before the tide came up. The second one almost got washed back into the sea, lucky I was quick enough.”

“That’s pretty good already – you suddenly have two blue crabs. Fatty and Xiaoxiao don’t have any. If we’d known that area had so many, I would have gone myself,” Ye Yaodong said with a smile, then reminded everyone, “The tide’s coming in, let’s pack up our things and get on the boat.”

“Let’s go, let’s go home, I’m starving to death.”

“Me too, my stomach’s completely flat.”

“Wake up that fat guy…”

“Just leave him here to be a wild man…”

“You’re talking so loud, think I’m deaf and can’t hear?”

Everyone bantered as they carried their buckets and tools onto the boat. Then A-Guang went to untie the rope and used the boat’s bamboo pole to push away from the shore before starting the engine.

It was already three o’clock now. They’d been out since early morning, and everyone was exhausted. As soon as they got on the boat, they sprawled out sitting or leaning in various positions.

“This sea harvesting is quite tiring, but at least today’s catch was good – didn’t come for nothing,” Chen Wei said, twisting his neck.

His personality wasn’t as lively as the others, and he didn’t talk much, just occasionally speaking up while they joked around.

Fatty rolled his eyes, “Why do I feel like you’re mocking me!”

“Haha, be confident – remove the ‘feel like’ part,” Ye Yaodong laughed.

Everyone else couldn’t help but laugh too.

“Fatty, you might as well not have come. Look at your fair, chubby face – it’s all sunburned now.”

“What’s wrong with a man being darker? But it really was too hot and sunny – won’t come next time.”

“Tomorrow you’ll still get sun helping at Dong-zi’s house site…”

Ye Yaodong quickly spoke up: “Hey, no pressure! In this heat, who wants to work under the sun? I’m not forcing anyone, come if you want to.”

Fatty said somewhat embarrassedly, “I’ll see if I can help a bit depending on the situation.”

“It’s fine, building a house isn’t a one or two-day thing, we’ve hired workers anyway, so just come as you please.”

Everyone nodded, agreeing to help when they could.

The boat took about ten minutes to reach the dock. After mooring, they all disembarked, leaving only Ye Yaodong on board to watch things.

They were going to get sacks to pack up their catch – there were several piles of shellfish on the deck – and bring a cart too, as it would be too heavy to carry home otherwise.

While he waited, fishing boats gradually came in around him. It was afternoon, the usual time for fishing boats to return.

Being from the same village, everyone knew each other. People greeted him and, seeing his boat full of shellfish, curiously asked a few questions, but he brushed them off.

Seeing they were all common reef shellfish, nobody found them particularly remarkable, though they did think the quantity was impressive – the boat was full. Seeing Ye Yaodong wasn’t willing to say much, they stopped asking, though they couldn’t help looking a few more times.

It was just that these things weren’t worth much money. Few families in the village had boats, most only had small hand-rowed wooden boats, and everyone used their boats to catch fish for money – otherwise, the surrounding lonely islands would have nothing left.

He hadn’t waited long when he saw his mother appear on the shore, surely waiting for his father.

His mother also saw him and quickly called out, running over to him, “Why are you back so late, you’ve been gone all day… why are there so many shells?”

She hadn’t finished speaking before her eyes widened in surprise at the boat full of shellfish.