Chapter 1366: Splitting the Money

Pei Yu heard Ye Ye Xiaoxi mention her name, sensed trouble, and quickly dragged her twin brothers to sneak away.

The two twins weren't even two years old yet, walking unsteadily, but they toddled along after her.

Ye Yaodong was still there glaring at Ye Ye Xiaoxi and didn't notice.

Ye Ye Xiaoxi twisted her body, constantly trying to break free.

Lin Lin Xiuqing could barely hold on with one hand; thankfully it was still spring and they were wearing thin sweaters, so grabbing the clothes still held firm.

But, probably having learned from being beaten before, whenever her clothes were tugged, she would dart behind Lin Lin Xiuqing and then run in circles.

Lin Lin Xiuqing, pulled by her tugging force, spun along with her, and the result was that in a moment of carelessness, she really did let go.

But Ye Ye Xiaoxi had used too much force and went tumbling straight to the ground.

No matter—she scrambled up on hands and feet and bolted toward the courtyard gate.

Lin Lin Xiuqing, furious, called out her full name: "Ye Ye Xiaoxi!"

The more Lin Lin Xiuqing shouted, the faster Ye Ye Xiaoxi ran, terrified of being caught and beaten.

Lin Lin Xiuqing slapped Ye Yaodong, who was still standing there dumbly. "Why aren't you catching her for me? What are you standing there for? And the twins—hurry and take them home! Those two have a whole head of burrs… oh my god…"

"You go catch her, I can't bear to hit her. I'll take the twins back."

Ye Ye Xiaoxi ran toward the kelp thickets by the beach, with Lin Lin Xiuqing chasing behind her wielding a whip.

Ye Yaodong went to grab the twins, who were still wobbling at the gate on their little legs, and lifted them up by their clothes, one in each hand.

Pei Yu ran while looking back, saw her two brothers had already been caught, didn't dare go home, and turned to run into the village.

These twins were born dark and shiny, and no one knew if it was because they'd never seen the sun; at the start of the year they looked fair and tender again, but now summer hadn't even arrived and they were dark and shiny once more.

Presumably after learning to walk, they ran after the two little girls every day and got tanned again.

Ye Yaodong looked at the two with their heads full of green and his expression was somewhat indescribable.

Only the backs of their heads weren't covered yet—if he'd come out a step later, their whole heads would have been green.

The two little ones were also covered in little black thorns all over their bodies; no one knew which patch of grass they'd crawled out of.

"I'll take you to find your mother."

The two tilted their heads back, looking at him with innocent eyes. "Jiujiu~" (Uncle)

"Are you silly? You'll have to get your heads shaved. Feel your own heads and see."

The two little ones, adorably dumb, placed both little hands on their heads to protect them; after one prick they switched spots, patting all over their heads with both little hands.

Then they switched again, feeling each other's heads, drooling, giggling away.

Ye Yaodong watched their foolish antics and couldn't bear to look anymore.

He squatted down and held one in each arm, thinking of heading to their home.

But before he could step out, he stopped, and put the two back on the ground.

"You two wait here, don't go anywhere, understand? Uncle is going inside to get something, then I'll take you home."

The two nodded together, then stood right where they were.

Ye Yaodong looked back every few steps, confirmed they weren't running off, and hurried back inside to get the camera.

That's right, a camera…

How could he not photograph this, so when they grew up he could show them how green their heads were as children.

What on earth had those two older sisters done to them.

When he took out the camera to photograph the two little ones, they were still standing there in a daze.

"Okay, that's good, perfect."

"Jiujiu?"

"Keep standing there, I'll put the camera inside and then take you home."

The two stood foolishly waiting again.

After Ye Yaodong came out, he laughed as he looked at the two—honestly, they really did look like they were asking to be bullied.

"Let's go, I'll take you home. Do you want to walk or be carried?"

The two held out their arms together, so Ye Yaodong had to squat down and pick them up, one in each arm.

The new house had been built and they'd moved in nearly a month ago, in a spot near his house but a bit further back.

A Guang had gone out to sea and wasn't home; only Ye Ye Huimei was there alone, cooking at the moment. Probably busy with her hands full, she hadn't watched the three children and let them play on their own.

When he carried the two little ones to the door of the house, he also saw smoke curling from the chimney on the roof.

"Ye Huimei! Come out and look at your sons."

"What's wrong?"

Ye Ye Huimei wiped her hands on her apron as she walked out, took one look at her two sons, and was dumbfounded; then she quickened her pace.

"What have you been playing? Who did this?"

The two little ones, not understanding, kept patting their own heads, unaware that their hair was about to be lost.

"Who else could it be? Xiao Yu and Xiao Jiu."

"Oh my ancestors, are you stupid? Just letting your two older sisters do this to you?"

Ye Yaodong set the two children down and said: "What would they know? They're tiny, they don't know anything, they just follow their older sisters around and do whatever they're told. Luckily I noticed in time—it's only the front half of their heads…"

"You call that in time? Half a head is already done and you call it in time? Can you get a half-haircut? What does that even look like—the Qing dynasty is long gone."

He laughed and laughed. "I'll call someone over to shave their heads."

Seeing their mother furious, the two children obediently stood off to the side, both hands protecting their heads, not daring to make a sound, only looking on pitifully.

"Where the hell did Pei Yu run off to?"

"She probably knows she caused trouble. She just ran toward the village—maybe to find her grandma."

"That dead girl—can you play with little brothers like that?"

"Alright, it's not that big a deal. Stop yelling about beating and killing and scaring people. Just shave their heads. The weather's warm now, and if you're worried about them catching cold, give them a hat. These two are yours, I'm leaving?"

"When you see Pei Yu later, tell her to come back."

"Mm."

Ye Yaodong went home first; behind him, Ye Ye Huimei was still lecturing her two sons.

By the time he reached the door, he heard Ye Ye Xiaoxi's wailing, mixed with all sorts of begging for mercy, calling out for great-grandfather.

The moment he stepped inside, he saw the old lady shielding Ye Ye Xiaoxi behind her, still saying: "She won't do it again in the future, she knows she can't do…"

"That's enough, go cook… stop hitting… it's not that big a deal, scaring the child like this, and dragging her back…"

"Alright, alright, just shaving their heads is fine, no one's hurt anywhere. Children being mischievous is normal."

"Dongzi, come hold your wife back."

The moment Lin Lin Xiuqing saw him back, she tossed the whip straight onto the table and went to cook. "You handle it, I can't manage her."

The old lady took the whip from the table with a smile, folded it once, snapped it in two, then turned and showed it to Ye Ye Xiaoxi.

"It's gone, no need to be afraid."

Grandmother and granddaughter exchanged winks and nods.

Ye Yaodong said: "Next time you can't stick things on heads, got it? Your two little cousins are going to have to shave their heads when they get home. If someone stuck something on your head and you can't get it off, those two little braids on your head would have to be cut, shave your head, and add in your chipped tooth—you'd be the ugliest in the whole village. Are you afraid?"

Ye Ye Xiaoxi grabbed her own little braid with one hand, covered her mouth with the other, and nodded heavily.

"Good that you know. Go find your little sister."

"Okay!"

She immediately ran outside again.

Lin Lin Xiuqing glanced at him. "That's all you have to say, just a few light words?"

"What else? It's not that big a deal. She didn't get into a fight, didn't hurt any other kids. Just tell her, let her know what she can do and what she can't, and that's enough."

She said nothing more.

Ye Yaodong added: "If you explain it to her and get to the point, then she'll understand. If you don't explain, what's the use of just hitting? She still won't remember."

"Dongzi's right."

Lin Lin Xiuqing looked at the old lady, then at him, rolled her eyes hard, and didn't want to talk.

If he told the old lady that shit smelled good, the old lady would also say he was right.

Pei Yu came at mealtime, following beside Ye's mother, each of Ye Ye Xiaoxi and her holding one of Ye's mother's hands, walking over together.

Ye's mother, one in each hand, said the moment she stepped in: "Why hit them when they're perfectly fine? One came running over, and the other came running over with red eyes and nose too."

"If you send Pei Yu back, you'll know what the two of them did."

"They said they were just playing with the twins."

Pei Yu tugged at Ye's mother and whispered: "Don't want to go home, want to stay with grandma."

"Alright, alright, alright, then stay with me, sleep with me tonight."

She nodded happily.

Ye Ye Xiaoxi also hugged Ye's mother's leg. "I want to sleep with you too, I like grandma the most."

"Like grandma the most…"

Ye's mother beamed with joy. "Alright, alright, alright, you can both sleep with me."

Coaxed like this, Ye's mother instantly forgot to ask what they'd done, and led them straight to the table.

Lin Lin Xiuqing reminded: "Eating here, you still have to go tell Ye Huimei, otherwise at mealtime when they don't come back, she'll be looking everywhere."

Ye's mother stood up. "I'll go tell her."

After Ye's mother returned from Ye Ye Huimei's place, she poked each of the two girls on the forehead with her index finger in turn.

"Mischievous. The little brothers' heads are full of burr balls, no wonder they didn't dare go home and stuck by my side."

Pei Yu smiled ingratiatingly at Ye's mother, then lowered her head and hurriedly began to eat.

Ye Ye Xiaoxi also exchanged winks and nods with her.

"Hair not shaved yet?" Ye Yaodong asked.

"She's using scissors to cut them now, she has to cut those burr balls off before she can shave. Can't even be bothered to eat, has to deal with those two first. I'll go help, you all eat, don't wait for me."

Ye Chenghu and Ye Ye Chengyang were both very curious, and after asking clearly they all exclaimed in amazement.

"Right, covered their whole heads with them—doesn't that look just like the Buddha on TV?"

"You try it?"

"You try it!"

"You try it!"

"Shut up, hurry up and eat."

The two brothers winked and nudged at Ye Ye Xiaoxi and Pei Yu.

Unable to wait, they quickly finished their rice, then called out to the other cousins to head to Ye Ye Huimei's house.

"Let's go, let's go, quick, take a look—Little Nine and Little Yu stuck the twins into Buddhas…"

"Squeezed them into Buddhas?"

"Not squeezed, stuck—it's those green burr balls… hurry, hurry…"

"The green ones?"

"Walk faster, or there'll be nothing to see if we're late…"

The children around were also curious—what did it mean to be stuck into a Buddha? They all ran after the brothers and sisters.

"Ah, so many stuck on… all over the hair…"

"Too scary, stick one on and the hair has to be cut—so many…" A little girl's first reaction was to quickly feel her own hair.

"All over her head. We only dared to stick one or two on as a prank…"

"They really look like Buddha."

"Two Buddhas, hahaha…"

The twins had already been crying from having their hair pulled, and seeing so many people rush in to laugh at them only made them cry even louder.

Ye Ye Huimei scolded as she cut, and Pei Yu and Ye Ye Xiaoxi took one look and quickly slipped away.

No one was watching them now, but Ye Ye Xiaoxi hadn't had a free hand. After coming out, Pei Yu kept tugging on Ye Ye Xiaoxi and calling her big sister.

Ye Ye Xiaoxi held her hand. "Don't be afraid. You sleep with me, we'll sleep with Great-grandma."

Pei Yu nodded.

The two little girls hurried back to the old lady's room. The old lady hadn't even returned to her room yet, but the two of them had already lain down early in advance.

When the old lady came back to the room, she found the two girls unusually quiet and well-behaved, already lying side by side asleep.

Ye Yaodong thought it was funny when he found out.

Those two have pretty strong crisis awareness.

Still, you can dodge the first but not the fifteenth. The next day Pei Yu was caught and given a beating, but with the old lady shielding her, she barely got hit before being led out.

Then she happily ran around playing everywhere with Ye Ye Xiaoxi again.

Ye Yaodong wandered around the workshop, or carried a stool to sit in a corner, watching the boys bustling back and forth, mulling over who he should bring up in a few days.

The house up there had already been rented and left standing, so going up meant there was a place to stay anyway.

A few workers who came back last year weren't invited onto the big ship by him, so now he could consider bringing two or three of them up.

After all, they'd stayed half a year last year and were familiar with the place up there.

He sat there mulling over candidates. Once he'd decided, he mentioned it to Ah Qing, then went to their homes to confirm them in person, telling them in advance so they'd have time to prepare.

This trip up wasn't for going out to sea to work, just equivalent to being a supervisor, watching the construction site start work over there. No actual labor needed, so he didn't offer high wages—just 50 yuan, plus an extra 10 yuan meal subsidy.

Even so, everyone was more than willing. After all, it was basically like going up to play, and with the subsidy it was 60 yuan. They could also keep drawing wages until Ye Yaodong went up in the second half of the year.

When the time came to go out to sea, wages would definitely increase—it was basically like grabbing a spot in advance.

He called three people, plus himself, so four of them would go up together.

After settling this matter, he thought it through and figured there wasn't much to prepare in advance, just some luggage. From here on, he just had to wait for the layman side to notify him; they'd come over to haul another truckload of goods.

Meanwhile, over these two days, the kelp being dried in the village had also been gradually brought in, and the kelp smell in the air had faded quite a bit.

After everything was collected, Ye Yaodong did his own tally on his side first—over 114 tons in total, paid to the village committee, a bit more than the actual calculation.

At the May Fourth Youth Day deeds report meeting, these specific figures hadn't come out yet, but somehow, at some point, Chen Shuji seemed to have filed a report in advance and launched a "satellite."

When he attended the meeting and heard the higher-ups passionately recounting their village's achievements, they even mentioned his name. At the time, he was completely dumbfounded.

The numbers Chen Shuji reported were all double the actual figures…

But fortunately it wasn't as exaggerated as the old satellite launches. Doubling this output was easy to fake—no one could tell.

He accepted the commendation and applause in a daze the whole time, then took a group photo, and was notified that when next year's harvest came, they would come to their village for an on-site inspection and interview.

When the meeting ended he was still dizzy, and coming back all he could think about was finding Chen Shuji to talk—this coming year he had to get the output up for him…

Chen Shuji was quite calm, and said lightly, "It's normal for harvests to vary year by year. At least we've achieved having the whole village's labor force creating wealth."

"Next year let's properly tally our village's income for the year, and how much benefit you've brought to our village again. Give the on-site inspection team a big fishing village shock—the Ye Yaodong legend."

Ye Yaodong didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and kept saying don't make fun of him.

Next year's business could wait till next year—as long as he didn't get screwed over.

Chen Shuji said he was now the village's living billboard, the village's face, the village still had to rely on him to get rich, and they wouldn't screw over anyone, let alone him, so he could rest easy.

He could only trust it for now.

Then he also heard that in the next few days, the village started handing out money—300 yuan per household to families that had participated in the kelp farming.

In the second half of last year, the able-bodied laborers had all gone with them to Zhou City. Those who stayed behind were just over thirty households who tried participating in the village's kelp farming. Each household only put out one person, and they didn't work every day—the village committee took turns scheduling shifts.

In these six months, the truly busy times were only the few days of seedling collection, seedling clipping, and harvest.

300 yuan was equivalent to half a year's wages for his workers here—already super considerable for the villagers who had helped out.

The whole village was encouraged.

After all, those who stayed were mostly the old, weak, women, and children, and even so they'd still created such a large income—already very impressive.

And once everyone got their share of the money, within two days it had spread to the nearby natural villages, and villagers from those natural villages were also demanding to participate in next year's farming.

Ye Yaodong figured that by next year, the farming scale could at least double again.

But with so many people signing up now, once they were invited out to sea one by one in the second half of the year, it would definitely fizzle out.

Last year was the same—tons of people signed up, but once they set off for Zhejiang Province, many got invited to be workers, and the matter fizzled out. When it was actually time to do the work, more than half were gone again.

This year the ships going would definitely be more than last year, and villagers from the nearby natural villages would definitely get taken along too.

It was only May now. He figured jellyfish was no longer worth doing—taking the big ships out to catch jellyfish wasn't as efficient as trawling.

When the time came, they'd just set off together for Zhejiang Province in September.

If anyone was thinking about jellyfish, they could organize a trip to Wen City themselves—he wouldn't bother with that.

At dinner, Ye Mu also brought up the matter of the kelp money distribution.

"300 yuan isn't a lot, but it's not nothing either. Look at them—they didn't really do much work, so many people sharing it, and they still got 300 yuan. That's awesome."

"If we don't distribute more money, how can we encourage everyone to plant more next year?" Ye Yaodong said.

"How much money did you make? Planting so much—is it worth it for you? This is all cash out of your own pocket! You haven't even sold it all yet, your own goods are piled up, and you're just letting everyone else benefit."

Ye Mu turned it around and felt a bit worried for him, heartache that what everyone got was money he'd forked out.

"Relax, I've earned enough to buy you gold."

Ye Mu immediately beamed. "Then that's fine. You can't let others get the bargain and end up losing out yourself."