Chapter 22: Bumper Harvest of Abalone

The sea urchins had been dispatched from the storage space, so the incoming goods should also arrive there. Zeng Yan went inside to wait for her delivery.

After fifteen minutes, nothing happened.

Zeng Yan: “…”

Why isn’t it an “express delivery” for me?

She opened her phone’s backend and saw that most of the sellers hadn’t shipped their products yet. Could it be that the system couldn’t secretly snatch items from the sellers’ hands and could only shorten the delivery time once the items entered the logistics chain? It was like the system couldn’t directly fish seafood from the ocean; she had to fish it out and put it into her storage space before the transaction could be completed.

The system’s magic on objects was not unlimited like its magic on people’s memories.

A lightbulb went on for Zeng Yan. So she was just a tool in this whole process.

Well, there goes my plan for using body wash and shampoo tonight. She’d have to endure the sulfur soap for a little longer. The smell was bearable, but the main problem was how rough it made her hair. After a night’s sleep, her head felt as spiky as a sea urchin.

Since her little house wasn’t fully cleaned, Zeng Yan decided to sleep in the rest area of her space, which had a small bed.

She couldn’t let her guard down. Before bed, Zeng Yan took her phone out of her space, connected it to her power bank, and set it to record facing the window. She had forgotten to do this today, but tomorrow, once she earned some money, she’d buy a battery-powered pinhole camera with an infrared alarm. If people like Zeng Fugui tried to come for revenge, she’d make sure they never came back.

Finally, with a place of her own, Zeng Yan had the first good, solid sleep she’d had since she time-traveled.

A good sleep meant waking up early. Zeng Yan was up before 5 AM. The first thing she did was retrieve her phone and check the recording from the night before. Thankfully, there were no signs of outsiders.

Zeng Yan breathed a sigh of relief and turned to the storage room.

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Overnight, most of the sellers had shipped their goods, and a lot more items had appeared on the shelves. Although it had taken a night, the speed was still incredible. This kind of shopping experience was just too good to be true.

The loofahs and toiletries she had ordered the night before had arrived. Humming a song, Zeng Yan gave herself a thorough cleaning. After her shower, she put on body lotion and a face mask. The quick-drying underwear was ready to wear as well.

A perfect day started with a hearty breakfast. Seafood was great, but it was high in purine, so she couldn’t eat it every meal. Her breakfast was milk and eggs, with a boiled egg, fresh milk, and plenty of carbs. The toast was crispy, slathered with butter, and served with a side of blueberries and fresh oranges. Once her baking supplies arrived, she would bake her own bread. Zeng, the mini-chef, was a master of all trades.

After eating her fill, she stepped out of her space. The sun hadn’t risen yet, and the ocean was a deep, inky blue. Looking south toward the village, she saw wisps of smoke and sea mist hovering over the Xiangyang Brigade. On the beach, people were already out foraging with their small baskets.

There were no lazy people in the countryside; most households were already up and about. The grass was thick in the summer, so the area around her little stone house would provide her with enough grass for a while. Zeng Yan, with the dew under her feet, quickly cut two baskets of grass. She took one to the livestock shed and borrowed a bucket and carrying pole from Old Zhao. Although she had water in her space, not fetching water would be suspicious, so she had to at least pretend a few times a week.

While the ocean was full of water, it wasn’t drinkable. Freshwater was very scarce in the fishing village. The Xiangyang Brigade had five small teams, and each team had only one well for a hundred or so families. To save some effort, Zeng Yan carried her buckets to the nearest well, which belonged to Team Five. On her way, a man suddenly rushed out and grabbed the carrying pole on her shoulder. “Wifey, little wifey,” he yelled. He had an incredibly strong grip, and Zeng Yan stumbled, nearly falling over.

Where did this scoundrel come from?

Zeng Yan frowned and looked back. It was Liu Xiu from Team Four. He had a delicate name but was as foolish as they came, earning him the nickname “Madman Liu.” Madman Liu’s father was a good butcher and worked at the county slaughterhouse, where he could buy meat without a ration coupon, which kept his foolish son plump and strong.

Getting angry at an idiot was a waste of time. Zeng Yan asked, “Who told you to call me your wifey?”

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The idiot wasn’t completely clueless. He tilted his head and thought about it. “Your little brother told me yesterday that you want to be my wife.”

Her brother? She only had one cousin, Zeng Yuejin, and he didn’t listen to his own parents but always did what his grandma said.

What’s this? Has Hu Feng grown a spine?

She wasn’t brave enough to confront her directly, so she was resorting to underhanded tactics to cause her trouble and get on her nerves. She still hadn’t settled the score for the last time she was poisoned, and Hu Feng thought she could just get away with it because they had split from the family. Zeng Yan was the type to hold a grudge.

Suppressing her anger, Zeng Yan coaxed the big idiot, “Don’t listen to his nonsense. I’m only fifteen, I can’t get married. I’ll tell you a secret: Zeng Fuzhen actually has a crush on you, and she asked him to test you. If she sees you holding onto me, she’ll get mad and won’t like you anymore.”

Liu Xiu scratched the back of his head, recalling Zeng Fuzhen’s appearance. The girl was tall, strong, and looked much more robust than the skinny wisp in front of him. The big idiot liked people who were built like him.

“The man has to be proactive about this. If you want to get married, you should go propose openly. I guarantee you’ll have a big, plump wife next month.”

“Propose… big, plump wife.” The idiot grinned and happily ran off toward his home.

Zeng Yan watched the big, silly man’s back, smiling like a little fox. You want to cause me trouble? Don’t I have the right to get you back?

Feeling much better, she went to fetch water and filled her small water tank at home. While the sun was not too hot, Zeng Yan cut two more baskets of grass. When she returned the bucket, she dropped off one of the baskets. With the four bundles she had already stashed in her space, she was more than halfway through her day’s work.

Zeng Yan purposely asked Old Zhao for a bundle of wheat straw. The sun by the sea was too strong, and chemical sunscreen alone wouldn’t be enough. She didn’t have a straw hat and didn’t know how to weave one, but she could buy a regular-quality one online and say she made it herself.

Back at home, Zeng Yan finished cutting the last basket of grass for the day.

The temperature hadn’t fully risen yet, and everyone was still working in the fields. This was a rare opportunity, and she was going to go foraging. Today, in addition to finding sea urchins, she had a new discovery. The tide had been low for the past two days, so she hadn’t seen any abalone, but with the water level up, the abalone had appeared.

The section of the coast below her stone house was a rocky reef. With a glance, she could see many abalone clinging to the rocks. Zeng Yan was overjoyed, not only at the prospect of a large sum of money coming in but also at discovering such a good ingredient. Abalone had the beautiful reputation of being “the soft gold of the ocean,” and was hailed as the king of the “Eight Sea Treasures.” Its flavor and nutritional value were unparalleled.

Most of the abalone in the Yellow Sea were “Big Plate” abalone, prized not only for their delicious meat but also for their medicinal shells. They were a treasure from head to toe.

Summer was the breeding season for “Big Plate” abalone. Zeng Yan picked one up and weighed it with a small scale from her space: 327 grams. An abalone of this weight would be an incredibly rare “two-head” abalone in later times! And this wasn’t even the largest one. A few would certainly meet the “one-head” standard—they were treasures to be passed down through generations. She would definitely keep those for herself and not sell them.

Zeng Yan was familiar with all sorts of ingredients and could tell the difference between male and female abalone. She specifically picked the male ones, which had a pale yellow gonad, and left the females to continue breeding. She was determined to avoid the “empty the lake to catch all the fish” approach.

She stopped foraging after an hour and a half.

She couldn’t pick everything up at once, so she went home first. There was one more important thing to do today. She was going to be a food blogger again and host a live stream.