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Chapter 10
Uncle Jiang He ran to the front when he heard A’Dong and the others shouting, and his face turned pale.
“This is inauspicious, extremely inauspicious!”
“Comrade Lan, hurry and throw that thing away!”
Lan Xiruo acted as if she hadn’t heard anything. She and Sun Yuqing both stared blankly at the object, their eyes wide.
A protruding jaw, neatly arranged teeth, hollow nasal cavity, dark eye sockets, a thick skull…
This is…
This is…
“A hominid skull!”
The two spoke in unison, then looked at each other and burst into laughter.
“They’ve lost their mind!”
“Uncle Jiang He, what do we do? Comrades Lan and Sun are both laughing foolishly. That thing must have bewitched them!”
A’Dong and the others panicked when they saw the two behaving this way. They wanted to snatch the object and throw it away but were afraid of being bewitched themselves.
“A’Dong, Dazhu, Heiyu, you three are still just kids.” Uncle Jiang He frowned in thought for a while, then suddenly slapped his thigh and gritted his teeth.
“You—you all go get some urine and splash it on them!”
“Huh? Splash urine?”
The three of them glanced at the two beautiful and delicate female educated youths, unable to imagine such a scene.
“Cough, cough, cough—”
Lan Xiruo and Sun Yuqing’s laughter was abruptly interrupted by Uncle Jiang He, turning into a fit of coughing.
Seeing that the three weren’t moving, Uncle Jiang He shouted, “Hurry up! Saving lives is more important than worrying about embarrassment!”
Lan Xiruo’s mouth twitched, and she quickly stopped them. “No, no! Don’t move, we’re fine! We’re just happy, extremely happy!”
“Really, don’t look at it as just a skull. This isn’t an ordinary skull—it’s a fossil!”
Sun Yuqing added, “It’s a hominid skull fossil from around 600,000 years ago!”
“In other words, it’s the skull of one of our human ancestors.” Lan Xiruo finished speaking, and the four men instantly turned to stone.
She and Sun Yuqing burst into laughter again.
After a long silence, Uncle Jiang He finally found his voice and pointed at the skull. “So, are you planning to take this ancestor home and worship it?”
“Haha, no, we’re not taking it home to worship. We’re turning it over to the state for research.”
A’Dong was dumbfounded. “Huh? We don’t even know whose ancestor it is, and the state wants to keep it? What if it belonged to a rebel’s ancestor?”
“Oww! Uncle Jiang He, why did you hit me?” He clutched his head in pain, causing Lan Xiruo and Sun Yuqing to laugh even harder.
The four men on the boat finally believed that this “ancestor” was truly a priceless treasure.
Otherwise, why would two normally proud young women be laughing so wildly?
Once they had laughed enough, Lan Xiruo carefully packed the skull away and said to the group, “Let’s hurry and find the last fishing net, then head back.”
No one had any objections.
However, their luck seemed to have run out. No matter how hard they searched, they couldn’t find the last net.
In the end, by three o’clock, Uncle Jiang He could only sigh and announce the return trip.
On the way back, they finally started cooking.
Sun Yuqing added water to the large pot on the small stove to cook a pot of rice, while Lan Xiruo took charge of stoking the fire.
A’Dong, Heiyu, and Jiang Dazhu picked out the smaller miscellaneous fish, cleaned them, and also selected two medium-sized shad.
The shad was placed in a bowl, seasoned, and set aside to be steamed once the rice was nearly done.
Ten minutes later, the rice was cooked, and the fish was ready.
The fragrance seeped out from the edges of the pot, making everyone clutch their stomachs and stare eagerly.
After letting it sit for a while, they took the fish out and served the rice. Then they steamed the smaller fish, which took only five or six minutes to cook.
“Let’s eat!”
—-
At Lan Xiruo’s loud announcement, A’Dong and the others, who had been waiting impatiently, immediately grabbed their chopsticks and placed a large portion of shad into Uncle Jiang He’s bowl before digging in themselves.
Lan Xiruo also picked up a piece of shad and placed it in her mouth to savor.
The moment it entered her mouth, she could taste its freshness, sweetness, tenderness, and smooth texture…
It was definitely the most delicious fish she had ever eaten.
Unfortunately, shad were too delicate. Once they were caught in the net, they died immediately.
It seemed that getting fresh, live fish into her personal storage space would be difficult. For now, she could only think about preserving dead ones.
After A’Dong finished eating, he switched places with Uncle Jiang He, who had been steering the boat, so he could eat.
By the time Uncle Jiang He finished his meal, they had already reached the harbor.
Everyone worked together to carry the seafood they had caught that morning onto the boat.
Then they set sail for Wangyang Commune, about a nautical mile from their location at Baima.
Wangyang Commune had a large seafood company that specialized in purchasing the fishermen’s catches.
As long as the fish weren’t too small, they would buy nearly everything at fair prices, making the transaction simple and fast.
This time, their haul included:
Total: 500 yuan.
After splitting the earnings, each person received 0.5 yuan.
They hung their heads in disappointment as they set sail back home.
What a huge loss!
—-
In previous trips, they could at least earn a little over one yuan per person. This time, their income was cut by more than half.
Lan Xiruo looked at the 0.5 yuan in her hand and gave a bitter smile. It had been so long since she had seen such a small denomination of money.
It felt like she had suddenly gone back to the old days.
However, since they had expected this outcome, no one stayed upset for long. They quickly adjusted their moods.
After moving their belongings off the borrowed fishing boat and cleaning it up before returning it, they finally carried their valuable find to see Jiang Aiguo.
When they arrived, Jiang Aiguo was sitting at his door, drinking tea.
Upon hearing why they had come, he spat out a mouthful of tea.
“You said what? What did you say you found?”
Lan Xiruo remained still, holding the wrapped item in her arms. Instead, she signaled for A’Dong and Heiyu to place the wooden bucket on the ground. Then she said to Jiang Aiguo,
“Captain, this is what we pulled up from the sea today.
Should you call the relevant department, or should we?”
Before coming here, Sun Yuqing had secretly told Lan Xiruo something.
Her grandfather had once worked in the cultural relics department in Beijing, though he had retired in recent years.
Sun Yuqing said that although her grandfather was retired, he could still contact the right people to come and collect the find.
Jiang Aiguo had been the captain for five or six years but had never encountered such a situation before. For a moment, he didn’t know what to do.
Scratching his head, he hesitantly said, “How about I call the commune first?”
The commune?
She recalled that there was someone there who loved taking credit for things. If they took the call and stole the credit, what then?
Lan Xiruo immediately shook her head like a rattle drum. “No, no! This is too important.
If anyone is calling, it should be the relevant department first. Only then can we inform the commune.”