Chapter 26: Going to the Sea

In recent years, the living standards of many families have improved, but not every household is willing to go fishing. Besides, with such a hot sun, wouldn’t it be nice to make money by weaving fishing nets at home?

Besides, you can’t make money by fishing at sea, you can only earn a bite to eat.
Ye Yaodong walked home, and only saw a few people carrying tools and buckets on the road.

As soon as he reached the turning intersection, he saw several women in his family with their children, a large group of people.

“Are you going to the pier or the beach at the intersection?”

Lin Xiuqing stopped and answered him while holding her little son, “Mom said we should go to the pier. Several of your friends are looking for you to go fishing at the sea, and they are waiting at the door.”

“I know, you go first, I’ll be there in a while.”

Ye Yaodong trotted home, and several of his friends were sitting in the shade at the door of his house with their feet up, waiting, watching him running over from a distance, and teased him a few times.

“Oh, our Dong brother has become diligent. He even went to help weed in the hot weather?”

He stood in the shade of the tree, panting, and stretched out his hand to fan the wind, “I have to contribute to my own new home?”

A Zheng said righteously: “When will it start to be built? If you need help, let us know and we will go to help you.”

“You don’t do your own housework, but come to work for me. Your mother will beat you with a mallet!”

“No, my mother will only praise me for my diligence! What’s more, we are brothers. If there is something wrong in my family, you will also help.”

Ye Yaodong rolled his eyes and muttered in his heart: Loving mothers often have bad sons.

Forgot that he is also a ‘bad son’!

“Okay, I’ll call you when I need you. Have you brought all the tools? Wait for me, I’ll go into the house to get a hook and a bucket, and also a hat, it’s too sunny.”

“Hurry up, or they’ll be picked up by others.”

“Right away!”

He ran in but couldn’t find where to put the hook, so he took a pair of fire tongs and ran out in a hurry. The old lady held a bamboo tube behind him and called, “Dongzi, bring the tea.”

He turned around and took the bamboo tube from the old lady, “Thank you, grandma, you can go back! Just sit in the house or at the door to enjoy the cool air, don’t go to the backyard, if the ground is wet, be careful of slippery feet.”

“Okay~”

“Then I’m leaving!”

The five people in the group each carried a bucket with tools and walked towards the dock excitedly.

Xiaoxiao said excitedly, “It seems like we haven’t been to the beach for two years.”

A Zheng reminded, “More than that, right? Since you guys got married, we haven’t been there much.”

“It’s okay, let’s relive the old days today, walk faster.” Ye Yaodong was full of infinite hope for his new life at this time, and he seemed to be a little positive.

Seeing him so fast, everyone quickened their pace to keep up.

When they arrived at the pier, there were already quite a few people on the beach below, both old and young, and his family was the largest!

And the adults were distracted and yelling, not allowing the children to go out of the tide, only allowed to play on the beach.

When Ye Yaodong’s two sons saw him coming, they called out loudly, “Dad! Dad! Mom, Dad is here too!”

Lin Xiuqing looked up at the person who came late, and said that she was glad that he didn’t fool her by the pillow last night, “I know, you guys just play next to me, and don’t run around.”

Sister-in-law Ye couldn’t help but said, “Yaodong has been very diligent these two days!”

“Who knows how long he can keep it up? Maybe he hasn’t come to the sea for a long time, and it may be a temporary novelty.” Sister-in-law Ye pursed her lips. She didn’t believe that Ye Yaodong would change all of a sudden. After all, it’s easy to change a country, but it’s hard to change one’s nature!

“At least he has changed. He’s not like before, always away from people.”

“If he doesn’t work harder and take more responsibility, who will support him after the division of the family!”

When Ye Yaodong approached, he also heard the discussion of his two sisters-in-law, and couldn’t help frowning. Women just talk too much!
“Dad, where are you going? Mom said not to go under the tide.”

“I’m going to catch fish and crabs. You guys can play here and help dig sand clams. Don’t follow me.”

The children stopped abruptly and could only watch him go down. They also wanted to go down to play. If there were no adults, they would go down to swim. What a pity.

“Let’s go separately and see who catches more.”

“Okay!”

This kind of luck-seeking to find crabs, fish and shrimps is not as fast as Ye’s mother digging clams, so few people spend time looking for them, and they are just idle.

And Ye Yaodong also tasted the sweetness of catching two blue crabs yesterday, and now he went directly to the place where there were stones around.

He used the tongs in his hand to move a large stone, and the surprise appeared as he expected, a large nine-segment shrimp!

“Oh, I found a nine-segment shrimp! This is the first prize!” He quickly picked up the still jumping nine-segment shrimp and showed it to others.
Several people turned around, “Good luck, I got a harvest right after I came down, and it’s a nine-segment shrimp!”

The nine-segment shrimp is large and beautiful in appearance. It has a deep and shallow horizontal pattern on its body, and a pattern on its tail. After being cooked, it has obvious nine-segment white patterns. The meat is refreshing and elastic, which is very popular. Ye Yaodong himself likes to eat it. He picked up a good start right after he came out, and he was very satisfied.

“I’m jealous, I want to catch a few more”, Xiaoxiao was full of motivation, and kicked a stone casually, “Huh~ jumping fish? I didn’t expect that I could get something just by kicking it casually.”

“Oh, you all got something, we can’t fall behind, let’s go… let’s go… separate ways!”

Everyone was originally holding the mentality of being idle and just joining in the fun, but now they are also interested.

After the tide recedes, the small fish and shrimps on the seabed are easily tripped by large and small stones. Instead of returning to the sea with the tide, they just move around in the low-lying shallow water areas around the reefs and wait until the next high tide before returning to the sea.

Everyone is very experienced. When searching, they always look for them in low-lying places with stones and water.

Ye Yaodong felt that he was lucky. Just after walking two steps to the side, he saw two stone crabs hiding under a big rock.

“I caught two more. It’s a pity that they are not blue crabs, but it’s better than nothing.”

The head and chest armor of the stone crab are brown with red spots, and the claws are generally bright red. It looks like a stone and has a thick shell. It likes to live in the muddy and stone bottom near the low tide line, or the seabed with lush seaweed. It often lurks under stones.

He used fire tongs to directly clamp the two stone crabs hiding under the big stone into the bucket and moved to the side again.

In the 1980s, the beach in their village had not been developed yet and was still in its original state. The sea was also extremely rich in products. After the tide receded, you would not return empty-handed if you just walked around the beach.

As for how much you could harvest, it depended on the tide and your luck.

(End)