Chapter 383: Spanish Crab Season Opens

He deliberately emphasized the big characters, instantly drawing people's attention.

Upon seeing it, everyone instantly erupted.

"Holy shit! Is this a mantis shrimp?"

"Damn, this mantis shrimp is way too big."

"It's almost as big as my hand; I've never seen anything this huge before."

Seeing this big haul, everyone got excited, gathered around, and started picking up the shrimp to examine.

"It's rare for mantis shrimp to grow this big."

"Lao Er, you guys are impressive—big is one thing, but you also caught so many."

"Lao Er, how much? Name your price."

They had Ye Cheng name the price, but Ye Cheng himself didn't know what to ask, so he simply waved his hand,

"you guys decide; I'll go with whatever you say."

Seeing Ye Cheng say that, the several bosses each became wary.

"I'll pay 60 per jin," said a small boss, the first to speak.

As he finished speaking, He Lao Ban interjected, "Damn! 60 for this shrimp? No wonder you can't make it work."

That small boss's face flushed; he also realized his offer was too low.

"100 per jin, Lao Er—how about that?" He Lao Ban said.

Ye Cheng remained silent; it wasn't low, but still hadn't reached his expectation.

Such large mantis shrimp are uncommon; though not necessarily tasty, they are absolutely rare.

Seeing Ye Cheng not speak, the bosses below began muttering quietly; after discussing for a while, one person raised his hand and shouted,

"110—I'll pay 110."

He has a batch of high-end clients who just love this kind of scarce item.

At 110, he's just making a little less profit.

Seeing them struggle to raise the price, Ye Cheng also grew impatient and directly named a price,

"130—whoever can eat it takes it; if not, you can split it among yourselves. Who knows when we'll see such huge mantis shrimp again?"

As soon as the 130 price was called out, the crowd below fell silent instantly.

He Lao Ban gritted his teeth and looked at the others,

"I'll take half; does anyone else want any?"

The other few bosses glanced around, then two more bosses raised their hands, together claiming the remaining half.

The deal was done.

This batch of shrimp totaled 120 jin; calculating gives yuan.

Adding Xiao Hu's earnings from selling the blue crab, total ___ yuan.

Split three ways, Ye Cheng took 10,000, giving Xiao Hu and Duan Chunsheng each 8,000.

Duan Chunsheng grinned so wide his mouth couldn't close; every time he went out to sea with Ye Cheng, they made several thousand.

This sugar-coated cannonball makes it hard not to be convinced.

After selling the goods, the few were about to head back when suddenly a commotion arose at the dock; the crowd gathered around a boat.

"What happened? A fight?" Ye Cheng asked curiously.

"It doesn't look like a fight; seems they hauled in something good." Duan Chunsheng said.

The crowd was excited, shouting and yelling—surely something good.

Since there was something good, Ye Cheng naturally wouldn't miss it; the three followed the crowd over.

Although it was night, under the lights it was no darker than daytime.

They surrounded a fishing boat, each holding something and shouting loudly.

Ye Cheng squeezed in, looked onto the boat, and saw several baskets of Spanish crabs, each large.

Ye Cheng hadn't yet felt it, but Duan Chunsheng had already rushed over excitedly, grabbed one and shouted excitedly,

"Lao Er, the Spanish crabs are ready, the Spanish crabs are ready."

"Uncle, what do you mean—good or bad?"

"Brother, it means the Spanish crabs can be caught." Xiao Hu explained from the side.

"Exactly, Lao Er, you used to just loaf around, not knowing that the state has regulations on Spanish crab zones—there's a closed season, and they open the sea only when they've grown. This should be the first batch of the season's Spanish crabs; we can go catch them." Duan Chunsheng explained.

"Fine, you say what you say; why step on me?"

Ye Cheng had also watched videos of the Spanish crab season opening; they were all called something like "first bite of freshness."

When first hitting the market, they could sell for several dozen or even a hundred yuan per jin; once supply increased, the price would stabilize.

As for the closed season, Ye Cheng had only heard of it.

However, looking at these few baskets of Spanish crabs, their size is much larger than what he usually catches while gathering at sea.

From this you can see the closed season is still effective.

Everyone's happiness is also because when the Spanish crab season opens, the initial catch is large.

Moreover, most importantly, the Spanish crabs at this time are the tastiest, each full-bodied, and market demand will be high.

Citizens line up to buy them, so going out to sea definitely makes money.

Of course, fishermen make money, but middlemen make even more.

In short, this is a feast where everyone can make money.

As for how much you can earn, that depends on your own ability.

"Lao Er, tomorrow we go out to sea to catch Spanish crabs." Duan Chunsheng said excitedly, putting down the Spanish crab.

Hearing Duan Chunsheng say they'd go out to sea tomorrow, Ye Cheng was a bit surprised, "No, Uncle Duan, given your hardworking nature, you shouldn't be heading out to sea right now, should you?"

Duan Chunsheng smiled,

"Damn! I want to too, but catching swimming crabs has to be done at night, and then we also need to swap in a trawl net with a slightly larger mesh, and buy some rubber bands—all of that takes time."

"We also need to change the net?"

"Yeah, before we might catch shrimp and other stuff, so the mesh was smaller; now it's precise trawling, we have to consider the body length of the swimming crab."

Generally, adult swimming crabs are 10-15 cm long, so our mesh needs to be larger than 5 cm; around here we usually use 5.5 cm, which is larger than our usual trawl net mesh.

"Precise trawling, right? Okay, then I'll switch too—except Ye Cheng has to get the net from the system."

After this foraging trip, the system points have reached 9800, just shy of 10,000, so now we'll have to spend points to exchange for a net again.

Fortunately the system has this option; Ye Cheng spent 1,000 points to exchange for a trawl net with larger mesh, and tomorrow daytime he'll have Xiao Hu install it.

And because we're focusing on swimming crabs, we need to prepare more plastic frames, preferably the stackable kind, for easy handling of the catch.

Since the claws of swimming crabs are smaller than those of blue crabs, generally speaking, swimming crabs don't need to be trussed up like blue crabs; just a small rubber band on their claws will do.

There are many other preparations as well, all of which need to be done during the day.

After the fishermen cheered for a while, they each made phone calls and began preparing for tomorrow's sea trip.

Ye Cheng and Xiao Hu also hurried home to sleep.

Tomorrow we're going out to sea at night, so we definitely need to catch up on sleep during the day.

The next morning after getting up, Ye Cheng checked the system.

Luck Value: 80+20

Points: 8800

Savings: 260,000, external debt: 30,000, mortgage: 300,000

With a Luck Value of 100, not going out would be letting heaven down.

After casually eating some breakfast, Ye Cheng began preparing things with Xiao Hu; in the afternoon he took a good nap, then after dinner he summoned Duan Chunsheng to go out to sea together.