Chapter 446: The Scallops That Ran Away

Although they hadn't piled up into a small mountain, the beach area was not small, and the number of them strung along the coastline was also very impressive—no wonder his mother had excitedly come straight over to dig them all up.

In these years, the catch of scallops was relatively small; it would only be later that people gradually started farming them, and then the yield would grow large.

Normally they rarely saw scallops by the seaside, let alone like today, when they had actually been washed into a whole coastline—simply too spectacular.

Just by picking them up casually, one could gather a whole pile.

Whether they're valuable is another matter, but a large quantity is also worth money—for example, starfish, though dirt cheap, but with large numbers, picking up a few bucks a day is still considerable, better than working a day job; earning money isn't that easy these days.

Besides, these scallops also count as valuable.

No wonder there wasn't any good stuff left at the doorway—if it wasn't picked up in time and got swept back into the sea by the waves, that was one thing; perhaps it was also possible that these shells had built a small embankment, and combined with the terrain getting higher the closer to the shore, it blocked back quite a bit of the tidal afterwash, reducing the amount of fish that got washed up.

Because the beach edge had been washed by seawater year-round, quite a lot of sand, silt, and various stones had accumulated along the shore, piling up higher and higher toward land in a slanted shape.

After his surprise, Ye Yaodong looked for the figures of his father and mother, and saw his parents with their bottoms stuck up at his diagonal opposite, vigorously scooping the shells along the shore with both hands into the dustpan in front of them; before long the dustpan was full, and she immediately dumped it into the basket.

The others were the same.

Everyone wanted to take advantage of the fact that it was just dawn and the villagers hadn't come to the shore to check the tide yet, to scoop up a bit more to take home, and couldn't be bothered to sort through them.

Ye Yaodong squatted down beside his mother and saw that there were all kinds of shells, just that scallops were the most.

Some of these scallops had meat, some were just shells; many of the other shells were also just shells, and the small ones were the same—not every one necessarily had meat.

Who knew how many in that dustpan his mother had scooped up were empty, but at this moment, who had the time to sort out which had meat and which didn't?

They could only try to load them all back first; what was loaded back was theirs, and it was the same to take them back and slowly sort them after everything was loaded.

He also saw quite a few scallops in the water jumping about there, fleeing toward the sea along with the rolling waves.

Although he had seen them before while diving at the seabed, looking again was still very comical—at this moment there was still a whole group of scallops fleeing toward the sea.

Although the typhoon had passed, the tide was still surging fiercely, and those scallops that had returned to the sea disappeared from sight in no time.

"What are you looking at? Hurry up and help load them. Wait until they're all loaded back before sorting slowly. One more step slow and the whole village will be here."

There was an octopus that had just been washed up by a wave; Ye Yaodong jogged over and grabbed it, and his arm was immediately wrapped around, and there was also a large conch by his feet.

He only said after picking them both up: "I'm going back to get the dustpan and the gloves."

At home there were only two bamboo-woven dustpans and one garbage-collecting dustpan in total. The dustpans were still woven by themselves, used for holding sand and stones when building the house; after the house was finished, each family got two, and his father and mother each took one out to load with, so he could only go back and get the dustpan.

Having rushed out in a hurry just now, he had also forgotten to put on gloves; the edges of these shells were very sharp, and one careless moment and the hand would be cut and bleed, so he had to put on gloves for protection.

"I told you about the scallops so many times earlier, and you only came out after ages, still bringing nothing. Everything has to wait for someone to remind you—how old are you already…"

Ye Yaodong was already used to his mother picking at everything and nagging about everything, and just acted as if he hadn't heard a thing and ran back.

Having been sleeping in a daze early in the morning and then woken up, how could he react so fast and think so thoroughly? Besides, seeing is believing—he hadn't seen it himself before, so how would he know what to bring.

By the time he ran back, Lin Lin Xiuqing was also just putting on a raincoat and running out; Ye Yaodong hurriedly reminded her to bring gloves and tools, and the two of them ran back again.

By the time the couple ran to the beach, a few people from the village had also drifted over in twos and threes to the shore to see how big the waves were, also harboring the thought of seeing if there was anything to pick up; upon discovering someone loading shells at the edge of the tide, they immediately ran back home to call people and get something to load with.

Lin Lin Xiuqing's eyes lit up when she saw the long arc-shaped line of shells along the beach.

"So many? In previous years they were scattered, and we had to wait for the tide to recede before the quantity got a bit more, but it was never as many as today—these have all been washed up to the shore."

"Just pick them up. The typhoon was on point, wasn't it? Yesterday the wind was strong and the waves were big."

"Do they have meat?"

"Look there!" Ye Yaodong pointed at the scallops fleeing in the seawater. "Fleeing so slickly, you tell me whether they have meat?"

Lin Lin Xiuqing's eyes went wide; she saw in the murky seawater of the shallows many scallops swimming by rapidly opening and closing, bouncing along with the afterwash of the tide toward the sea, fleeing really fast, really nimbly, as if they had grown legs.

If Ye Yaodong hadn't pointed it out to her, she wouldn't have noticed—the seawater was too yellow and too murky.

She asked in surprise: "These scallops can actually run?"

"Of course."

Otherwise why would that scallop-farming company farm them year after year and lose money year after year—every time at harvest they tell everyone, *snap*—the scallops ran away.

"Hurry up and pick them. In a bit more people will come. Be careful, just squat behind the shells and don't go forward."

"Got it."

Lin Lin Xiuqing excitedly hurried to squat down and load them with the dustpan, stretching both hands into the pile of shells and scooping hard toward herself; this feeling of filling a dustpan in two or three scoops was too good.

"You don't have a dustpan, so how are you going to…"

She had just filled a dustpan and dumped it into the basket, and was about to turn her head to ask him—how was he going to load them without a dustpan?

She saw him sticking a stick into the shallows, and even picked up a stone to hammer it there, wanting to drive the stick in deeper—really strange.

"What are you doing?"

"You do your loading, you'll know in a bit."

After Ye Yaodong stuck a stick in beside her, he ran forward and stuck another one, then went further forward and stuck a third.

The three points were spaced apart, head to tail about seven or eight meters, and the diameter of these two nets spread out was also about ten meters.

Mother Ye turned her head, saw it, and started scolding again, "Properly asking you to do a bit of work, and here you are running around doing what? Can't you see several more people have come to the shore now, and you're still running around playing there? Nothing can be counted on you—been here for ages and haven't seen you pick up two…"

"You scoop yours, what's with the nagging?"

Ye Yaodong busied himself with his own work; his mother's words he had always treated as wind past his ears, in one ear and out the other—he'd really heard too much of it, all sorts of disdain.

After sticking the bamboo in the shallows, he waded through the water a little further into the sea to stick more bamboo in; the bamboo in the sea had to be driven in deeper.

Although the typhoon had passed at this point and the waves weren't churning as fiercely, the seawater was still very high, and he didn't dare go too far forward.

After a bout of hammering and busying, he then tied and secured the fishing net he had just brought out and tossed on the shore to the wooden sticks, to keep it from being washed away by the waves.

Lin Lin Xiuqing had been keeping an eye on his movements, and was even more puzzled when she saw he had actually spread a fishing net on the bottom in the sea.

When he walked back and was about to take the bamboo after finishing with the wooden sticks, she hurriedly asked again: "What are you doing?"

"Guess!"

"I just forgot to ask you—where did those two fishing nets come from? I didn't see them yesterday during the day. Weren't you only bringing back the crab pots to wash at that time?"

"From next door, Lan Da and Zhou Li Laoer's. Yesterday they used their fishing nets to net people, and afterward when they sent their own family members back in a hurry, they didn't have time to take the fishing nets back. Dad and I were afraid they'd be washed away by the waves, so we picked them up back to the yard, planning to bring them over today."

He hadn't expected the waves to wash all kinds of shellfish from the sea onto the shore; just now when he was about to go back for the dustpan, he saw the fishing nets in the corner of the yard, had a sudden idea, and brought them over, also carrying a few sticks and bamboo poles.

"Then why are you spreading the net underneath?"

As soon as she finished speaking, Lin Lin Xiuqing remembered the scene of the scallop escaping, and immediately realized—her mouth dropped open in shock.

Then she added quickly: "You're going to net the scallops?"

"Exactly. This thing has no legs but still runs away—just lay down a net and let it swim right into it. The seaward side is raised a bit higher, so once it bumps in, it can't get out."

She looked at him in delight: "That's so much easier…"

"It is easier, but you can only net the scallops right in front and a few meters to the sides, plus whatever gets swept in by accident or washed up by the waves—the number won't be large, but you can guarantee most of them are meaty."

It can't match the speed of them scooping into their baskets, but the net catches mostly live, meaty scallops, and you can also catch a few fish, shrimp, and crabs washed in by the waves.

"That's fine too—looks easy and not troublesome."

"Mm."

The main thing is, once the net is spread out, you don't have to manage it—just wait until everyone's collected enough, then he can pull it back in.

He copied the same method and spread out another net nearby.

Waves rolled in one after another; even though the typhoon had passed, the sea hadn't receded yet and still surged fiercely. He stood on shore, but setting up the net was tricky—he had to exert some effort to tie it down.

Remembering there were four rows of cage nets at home, he ran back to fetch them.

Luckily, he'd left them stacked on the cart since washing them two days ago—they'd already had a rinse of fresh water, so he didn't have to go through the hassle of hauling them now.

He pushed the cage nets to the beach on the cart, then carried them down one by one, preparing to lay them horizontally along the shore, end to end, anchored in place. Seeing this, Lin Lin Xiuqing helped him carry the cage nets.

"I'll handle this—you stay back, there are still waves. Just collect shells on shore."

"Alright then."