Chapter 323

The timing was excellent. When the second net was hauled up, this time, without a doubt, the entire net was mostly leatherjacket fish, over 200 jin, with only a small portion of miscellaneous fish, shrimp, and crabs inside, as well as some Spanish mackerel.

The heavy weight—it was fortunate there was a net hauler.

"Good heavens, this net is much heavier than the previous net of Spanish mackerel; there are so many, densely packed."

"This is the benefit of encountering a school of fish; one net down means a large amount of fish, which is better than netting some miscellaneous goods."

The two spoke while pouring out all the cargo, then packed up the fishing net.

"You clean up here; go collect the ground cages. I don't know if they'll be jammed again."

"It's fine, if they're jammed, I'll go into the water again. These can't be sorted all at once for a while, so you decide. Otherwise, let's cook something to eat first."

He was also a bit hungry; it was already noon. After eating his fill, he would go into the water, and his physical strength would be more sufficient.

Otherwise, he was afraid that once he got busy later, he really wouldn't have time to eat.

"What time is it?"

"Eleven-thirty."

Hearing this, Ye Fu also dropped the work in his hands and went to cook noodles first.

Ye Yaodong also slowed down and steered the boat closer to the buoy around the reef. Previously, they were deployed in the early morning and collected in the afternoon. Now that a day had passed in between, the harvest should be a bit more.

Carrying expectation, he pulled up the ground cage. Looking at the pleasing 4-5 sea cucumbers and a few small spiny lobsters inside, as well as quite a few squid and small fish and shrimp, he was extremely satisfied. It was still necessary to leave them for a day or two for a good harvest.

Pouring the cargo into the bamboo basket, he continued winching; none of them were empty. Besides sea cucumbers and small spiny lobsters, there were really quite a few squid.

Ye Fu couldn't help but run over to see the harvest, still holding a small pot lid he had forgotten to put down, "Quite a lot of cargo; it's quite good to leave them for an extra day or two. There are really quite a few squid here."

"They must have all swum over to spawn."

Ye Yaodong said while continuing to collect, but discovered he couldn't pull it anymore, "Oh? Jammed again. It's estimated that they were hit by the waves and jammed again."

"How many more?"

"Four more."

"The noodles are ready. Eat first before going down; you'll have more strength."

He nodded.

The things his old man cooked, even his mother hadn't eaten. How fortunate he was! It was salty as hell, and he ate it all, but it was really necessary to ask.

Otherwise, it was either too salty or too sweet all day, or it had no taste. After so long, there had been no improvement; this certainly wasn't an accident.

"Dad, can you not tell the difference between sugar and salt?"

"How could I not tell? Salt grains are so big; I'm not blind. Today I added crabs and didn't wash them, so it's a bit salty. In the past, the boat was rocking back and forth; how could I measure it accurately? Every now and then I poured too much. Just make do with eating it; otherwise, you cook from now on."

"Fine."

After eating his fill, he took off his clothes, put on his equipment, simply moved his limbs, and jumped into the water, diving straight toward the sea.

Originally, he was going to find the ground cages first, then find time to find sea cucumbers and dig for abalone, but halfway through his dive, he saw a school of squid.

It was a school of squid!

Ye Yaodong widened his eyes, stopped his downward dive, and stayed in place. He saw sheets of squid swimming toward him in the water in the distance.

He excitedly paddled his fins directly toward that school of squid, but discovered they were swimming very fast. He hadn't paddled a few times before the squid, which were still some distance away, were almost right in front of him.

Just as he intended to avoid them to the side, a piece of black ink in the shape of smoke shrouded him, just like a "smoke bomb" being released, instantly blurring his vision.

He was startled and swam to the side. He couldn't see, and caught off guard, he bumped into several squid. The thick ink around him became even heavier. With groups of squid releasing smoke bombs together, one could imagine...

Squid can generally release smoke screens five or six times in a row, lasting for more than ten minutes, and can dye 5,000 liters of water black within 5 minutes.

Ye Yaodong realized that moving to the side was fruitless, so he dived downward, which was how he avoided the billowing ink.

Looking up from below, he could see a particularly obvious black mist constantly expanding and diluting. The squid also kept swimming forward, with only a very few still swimming downward.

He thought of the egg-attachment devices he had deployed earlier nearby. He wasn't in a hurry to float up. This school of squid was clearly migrating to spawn; there was no rush for this moment, and there was no need to chase after them. He still had to go down and find the ground cages to collect them first.

If it were just one ground cage, it wouldn't matter, but the key was that there was quite a lot of cargo inside, and several more were connected behind it. Finding them and rescuing them wouldn't take much time.

He watched the black mist gradually dilute, the surrounding seawater returned to clarity, and the squid swam far away. Only then did he continue to dive.

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Although he didn't float up immediately, his mind was already no longer on the seabed. As soon as he came down, he swam directly toward the reef at the bottom. With just one glance, he saw the ground cages that had been jammed again.

To prevent the ground cages behind from also being jammed, after rescuing them, he simply swam along the line at the other end of the ground cages.

At this moment, if he were to go to the seabed to find sea cucumbers and catch small spiny lobsters, he definitely wouldn't have the patience. It was better to get the ground cages settled and float up directly.

Following the line at the other end of the ground cages, he paddled his fins all the way forward. He saw that there were really quite a few squid gathered around the coral reef, and there were quite a few squid eggs hanging on the coral reef in strings or piles, just like sea grapes.

He swam all the way and looked all the way. Those squid that had finished spawning didn't die immediately and even stayed around the coral reef. He only took a few more looks, and two of the three ground cages behind were jammed again.

He could only prioritize what was in front of him. Fortunately, he had searched all the way over.

Just as he took the last ground cage out of the crevice where it was hooked and placed it on the sandy seabed to the side, he discovered that there were many black triangular things stuck in the seabed sand around this area.

The light on the seabed was not good. Today there was no sun, and it had rained yesterday. Today, the seabed visibility on this cloudy day was not very clear, so he specifically squatted down.

Holy crap! *Atrina pectinata*!

Scallop meat!

At close range, he recognized it. This black mussel was *Atrina pectinata*.

There is such a saying along the coast: Sea cucumber, abalone, and *Atrina pectinata*.

Don't look at the large size of this *Atrina pectinata* stuck on the seabed; in fact, after prying it open, one can only get a column of meat the size of a fingertip. This column of meat is called the adductor muscle, also called *Atrina* meat. After drying, it becomes dried scallop.

Hmm... *Atrina pectinata* is also called *Jiang Yao*.

In ancient times, it was a precious item offered to the imperial family. Although it can be bought everywhere in supermarkets now, large dried scallops are still expensive.

Because not all milk is called Terunsu, and not all dried scallops are called dried scallop!

But dried scallop is a large dried scallop, and the larger it is, the more expensive it is.

Dried scallop is just a dried product of miscellaneous shellfish. Only dried *Atrina* meat deserves to be called dried scallop. The vast majority of dried scallops sold on the market are made from the adductor muscles of cheap miscellaneous shellfish.

Dried scallops are often used by merchants in the market to impersonate dried scallops. Although the taste and nutritional value of the two are not much different, when eating seafood products, everyone compares the "size"!

Ye Yaodong saw this group of *Atrina pectinata* stuck together on the seabed, as if it were a stone forest on the seabed, and couldn't help but be overjoyed.

Living *Atrina pectinata* are stuck on the seabed with their large heads facing upward so that their shells can open to feed. Once they settle down, they never move again for the rest of their lives.

The shells of these *Atrina pectinata* were covered with attached organisms, just like monuments.

He took the lead and pulled down the largest one in front of him. It was wide at the top and pointed at the bottom, looking very much like a mussel, but the size was much larger than a mussel, reaching more than 20 centimeters long. He weighed it, and it was about one jin.

Perhaps because no one had touched them, the size was much larger than what he had seen in his previous life. What he had seen before was only ten-plus centimeters, one about 4-5 liang.

Unexpectedly, not far away on the seabed, there were so many *Atrina pectinata* standing here. The seabed is really too magical.

He had been wandering around the reef to make it convenient to find sea cucumbers and dig for abalone, and he didn't have extra time to wander around, and his heart wasn't that wild. Unexpectedly, today, while looking for ground cages, he could have this unexpected harvest. He was so happy that tears were almost flowing from the corners of his mouth.

But now time was tight, and he had been down for quite a long time. It wasn't the time for him to dig.

When the ground cage he had just untied beside him was pulled up, he also pulled a few and put them into the net bag, and hurriedly followed to float up.

When floating up, he actually encountered the school of squid again. This time he didn't dare to wait there to watch, to avoid falling into the smoke bomb again, and his free-diving time was also up.

By the time he avoided the school of squid and rushed to the water surface, he saw that he was a bit far from the fishing boat.

Usually, he would stop at a fixed position and then go into the water. Every time he reached the seabed, the distance from the reef would not be very far. When he floated to the water surface again, he was often around the fishing boat.

Fortunately, swimming was what he was good at. After floating on the water surface and resting for a while, he swam directly toward the fishing boat.

But at this time, he also discovered that his father seemed to be casting a net? He avoided the direction where the fishing net was cast and swam over quickly.

When his father was hauling the net, he also swam to the side of the boat, "Squid?"

"Right, you come up first."

After Ye Yaodong got on the boat, he didn't have time to tell his father that he had discovered a piece of *Atrina pectinata* on the seabed. He took the lead in helping him pull that net of squid up.

"Damn, the weight is not light!"

Ye Fu said happily, "When you went into the water earlier, a school of squid also swam over. At first, I wasn't prepared. By the time I took the fishing net and prepared to cast it, they had already swum past."

"You had pulled such a long pipe at the bottom, and I didn't dare to steer the boat, so I could only watch them swim away. Fortunately, I just pulled the ground cages up. Another school came this time, and my net has been at hand, just in time."

He spoke while untying the fishing net.

A pile of squid scattered on the deck, some of them pitch black, having been dyed by their own smoke bombs during the process of being pulled up.

Ye Yaodong picked up a squid and touched it, discovering that its belly was full of "rice," and also said happily, "Wait a while and go to the egg-attachment branches to see; we will definitely be able to catch more."