Chapter 313: The fish were scrambling to reach the shore

"Hiss— damn it, I got bitten..."

Ye Yaodong listened to the familiar curse, looked up at Lin Guangyuan, and was speechless. It was only because he was with him; if Lin Xiuqing were here, she would definitely have scolded him. Half-grown boys loved learning to curse like adults the most.

"Be careful, don't get your hand pinched."

"I just got pinched a bit, it's fine, the crab isn't big, it just hurt for a second."

Ye Chenghai gave him a look of disdain. "You're too useless, you can actually get bitten while catching crabs?"

"I'm not a seaside person, after all."

"Hurry up and catch them, they're all going to run away..."

Ye Yaodong kept his waist bent, picking up everything in front of him regardless of size, tossing them all into the bucket or the sack.

"Talking doesn't stop you from working!"

The two boys carried the buckets, and as soon as they were half-full, they would dump them into the sack. They didn't complain about being tired, just kept chattering away without stopping.

"Damn, so many coming at once, can't they just come ashore in batches?"

"Do you think they're queuing for food? You're thinking too beautifully. You want them to queue up to die?" Ye Yaodong replied to Lin Guangyuan while catching them.

"Why do they come ashore at night?"

"Because at night, the environment on the shore is quieter, and there's less oxygen in the water at night, so crabs crawl ashore in large numbers to move around or find food. You two keep chattering, that's why they got scared off."

"Ah? Is that so? Then shut up, shut up, don't talk anymore!"

"Idiot, aren't they already crawling back into the sea?"

These crabs had only stayed ashore for a while before turning around and crawling back into the sea. The three of them now wished they had three heads and six arms; it would be such a pity if they ran away—this was all money.

Fortunately, the tide was receding, lengthening their path back to the sea and allowing them to catch them for a while longer.

But after only about 20 minutes of catching, the crabs on the shore had all run away and entered the water.

The three of them carried the buckets and continued into the water to catch them; while they hadn't swum too far yet, they could still catch them for a bit.

When both buckets were half-full and there were no more crabs in the surrounding shallow water, they finally went ashore.

"What a pity, we didn't set up a few nets in the shallows, otherwise we could have caught them all in one go."

"We've already caught a lot."

"That's right, we've already caught nearly half a sack, there must be twenty or thirty jin."

Ye Yaodong dumped all the crabs from the buckets into the sack, reached out to lift his own bag, and said with satisfaction, "It's about 20 jin or so. Mainly because these are all quite large in size; your bag should have a bit more."

"We're rich~" Ye Chenghai said happily.

"Just a small fortune, I'll give you some pocket money after selling them tomorrow."

Lin Guangyuan said happily, "The tide just receded, let's look around some more, there must be other goods, we were just focused on catching crabs earlier."

"Right, right, right, let's look around, there must be other things."

Ye Yaodong checked his watch; only an hour had passed. The tide had just receded to the bottom and wouldn't rise back up that quickly. Since they were already out, they might as well wander around a bit more.

"Let's go over to that reef area and take a look. Let's just leave these two bags here, to save carrying them back and forth. Anyway, no one is out in the middle of the night, you two just ate too much."

"Third Uncle, you're the same, you also ate too much!"

"Hmm, I did eat too much, I'm just bored. Not sleeping in the middle of the night and actually coming out to scavenge the sea with you two. In two days, I won't be this leisurely. Let's go, hurry up, finish up and go home to sleep."

As it turned out, they hadn't walked far before Ye Yaodong felt like he was stepping on something under his feet. His flashlight also shone on the surface of the beach, where many sand worms had suddenly emerged.

"Ah? Little Uncle-in-law, there are sand worms again..."

Ye Yaodong stepped on them and looked; many had already been crushed halfway by him, with the other half still in the sand, not having had time to crawl out.

"They've come out to mate and reproduce on the night of the full moon. Hurry and catch them, catch as many as you can."

Without him needing to say it, the two boys were already excitedly squatting down to scoop them into the bucket.

Hearing the familiar sound of a sack being shaken, Ye Chenghai looked up in surprise. "Third Uncle, how many sacks do you have on you? How can you pull one out whenever you want?"

"None of your business? Get to work, don't chatter."

He still had more on him; this was called being prepared for a rainy day. That time with the starfish when he didn't bring a sack had taught him a lesson.

"We should have called everyone up, what a pity, just the three of us, how can we finish catching them?"

"Catch as many as you can. Little Uncle-in-law, let's fry a basin tomorrow, shall we?"

"The one who should be scolded isn't you, so you don't care? Forget it, we'll stir-fry them with chives tomorrow."

Amidst the murmuring, they caught another half-sack. By this time, all three were already tired, with sore necks and waists.

"Sigh, there's too much small seafood, it's so worrying that we can't pick it all up..."

"Yeah, there are more sand worms at night than during the day, we can't finish catching them. We clearly caught so many during the day, yet even more popped out at night."

"Tired? If you're tired, go back to sleep, that's enough."

Although it was a pity not to finish catching them, it would be very troublesome to clean up if they caught too much. Let's leave some for sustainable development.

"No, I'm not sleepy!"

"I'm not sleepy either!"

"Fine, anyway, if you can't get up tomorrow, it won't be me getting beaten. You two stay here and catch them slowly, I'm going to wander around nearby."

It just so happened he was a bit tired, so he went to wander around the nearby reefs to see if there were any other gains. If not, he would come back and continue.

"I want to go too..."

"You two stay here and catch them, who knows if there's anything ahead, don't delay."

The two boys could only crane their necks and watch him slip away while talking.

"How come I feel like Little Uncle-in-law is slacking off, and making us do the hard labor here!"

"Don't feel, he is just using us as labor. I've seen through him."

"Damn it! When under someone else's roof, one has to bow one's head!"

Listening to the two half-grown boys murmuring behind him, Ye Yaodong walked while twisting his neck and rubbing his waist. Looking at the pitch-black distance, he thought it was fortunate he hadn't come with his bad friends; otherwise, with everyone scaring each other, they wouldn't get anything done.

His headlamp shone on the ground from time to time, and occasionally toward the reefs not far away. While walking, he also dug out several cat-eye snails buried in the sand, with only their breathing holes exposed.

Originally he didn't want to dig them, but since he saw the holes, his hands felt a bit itchy if he didn't...

He felt comfortable only after digging them out. The soft meat on top felt especially stress-relieving to touch, and it could even squirt out water, giving him a great sense of accomplishment.

After walking closer, he saw the reefs were densely packed with small barnacles and small mussels, which he directly ignored; the small ones weren't even as big as his boogers.

He lowered his head and looked carefully at the crevices between the reefs, and he really did pick up two ghost-head crabs.

Just at this moment, he heard the sound of water splashing continuously by his ears. Curious, he directly shone his headlamp toward the surrounding sea surface. Under the swaying light of the headlamp, the sea surface was extremely calm.

He was a bit puzzled. Just as he was about to turn his head, a silver-white, slender figure appeared in the light of the headlamp and even jumped out of the water.

"Eh?"

He stopped moving his head around and stared intently. Just as he wanted to take a closer look at what kind of fish it was, he discovered that in the halo of light, the white figures were gathering more and more, and they were jumping continuously, scrambling over each other. White splashes were scattered everywhere.

Was it the sound of these fish crowding and jumping that he heard earlier?

He curiously continued to move his head, letting the headlamp shine to the side, only to see this small school of fish following one after another, surrounding the circle of light.

Phototaxis!

Many fish have phototaxis!

That's why there is such a method as light-luring fishing.

He walked toward the school of fish and turned his head to the surroundings. Unexpectedly, he shone his light on another school of silver-white fish by the shallow reefs nearby, but their backs were blue. Under the bright light, they jumped even more actively, and the splashes kept hitting and scattering.

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"Damn, so many? No wonder the commotion was so big!"

"What? Third Uncle? What are you saying?" Hearing him talking to himself but unable to hear what he was saying, Ye Chenghai shouted loudly.

"Bring the dip net next to you over here!" Ye Yaodong also shouted at them, then continued walking forward.

Wherever his headlamp shone, those fish followed the light and swam there.

After getting closer, he saw that these were anchovies.

The silver-white color was the color of their bellies, which was more obvious at night.

Anchovies are a type of small fish with strong phototaxis, so he hadn't noticed them when his headlamp first shone on the sea surface. After waiting for a little while, the anchovies were attracted and swam over, and he saw them. Moreover, the longer he shone the light, the more there were.

Hearing his Third Uncle calling him to bring the dip net over, Ye Chenghai immediately ran over excitedly with Lin Guangyuan, pitter-patter.

"Why do you need the dip net, Third Uncle?"

"To catch fish!"

"Ah, there are fish! So many!" Ye Chenghai saw them after running over.

Lin Guangyuan also kept shining his flashlight on the sea surface, his eyes shining as he said, "Wow~ Little Uncle-in-law, what kind of fish is this? Why are there so many? Hurry and catch them~"

Saying this, he stuffed the flashlight to Ye Chenghai and rushed forward...

Ye Yaodong grabbed his back collar and pulled him back. "What's it to you? Wait for me here!"

Then he snatched the dip net from Ye Chenghai's hand. "All of you wait here, help shine the flashlight, I'll go scoop them."

"I don't have a flashlight, I'll go help scoop."

Ye Yaodong pulled him back again as he rushed forward. "There's only one dip net, what are you going to scoop with? Are you going to take off your clothes to scoop?"

"That's not impossible..."

Ye Yaodong glared at him. "Behave yourself!"

Lin Guangyuan wrinkled his face and looked at Ye Yaodong resentfully. "You said you were coming out, why didn't you bring one more?"

"How would I know there would be fish? I just brought it casually, there's only one at home, the others are on the boat. Wait here."

He walked up to the shallow beach. As soon as the light shone, the anchovies scrambled to rush ashore. With a light scoop of the dip net, it was a full net.

Immediately after, the fish next to them crowded up to fill the gap.

"What kind of fish is this, Little Uncle-in-law? You haven't said yet. This fish is so small, just the length of my palm, and thin."

"This is an anchovy, we also call it 'sea swallow', it can be used to make fish sauce."