Chapter 533: A Bunch of Dog Sharks by Happy Accident

Ye Yaodong quickened his pace curiously and walked over, not even bothering to pick up a cat's eye conch underfoot.

But after only a few steps, he saw a black fish suddenly leaping up in the puddle, and his eyes lit up instantly.

"Is it a black bream or a black porgy?"

He jogged over, and before he could take a careful look at the puddle, he saw an octopus clinging to a reef at the edge, its tentacles waving wildly as it scrambled quickly, trying to escape.

"A big red octopus—what a windfall."

He happily opened the burlap sack in his hand, held it against the reef in the direction the octopus's tentacles were crawling, and watched it immediately crawl right into the sack, walking straight into the trap.

Ye Yaodong shook the sack twice, and seeing it still clinging tightly to the opening, he forcefully pried it off, tossed it into the bag, and then shook it twice more.

Then he lay on the reef again and peered into the puddle. The tide had just gone out, so the seawater in the puddle was still quite full, but he saw water continuously flowing out from a low spot at the edge, figuring that after a while, the water level would get shallower.

With this much water in it right now, it wasn't really suitable to wade in and scoop, and it wasn't easy either—the fish inside were awfully slippery and hard to catch.

Just as he was planning to wander around some more and come back later, he saw a moray eel slide out along the current at the spot where the water was flowing.

The moment its slender body was washed onto the sand by the current, it paused for just a moment, then instantly began wriggling again.

"Goodness, there's a moray eel in here too! Another one walking right into the trap."

The tide had only just gone out, and about a meter ahead the surf was still washing in continuously. Worried that a few more wriggles would let it ride the surf back to the sea, he hurried over and used the fire tongs he carried with him to clamp its head.

Without water, the thing was still ferociously fierce, twisting its head and opening its huge mouth—big enough to swallow its own head—to bite the fire tongs, slamming its head with loud thuds, and at one point it even passed out…

"Holy crap, it passed out?"

It must have passed out—that was what Ye Yaodong figured, because he saw its movements stop and its head droop.

He let out a mocking laugh and seized the chance to clamp its head and toss it into the sack. Who knew it was still bursting with energy, thrashing wildly inside the sack for a moment, but it went quiet after just a short while.

"Good thing it didn't slip out on its own from the puddle—getting bitten by that thing would hurt like hell."

This made him even more determined to wait until most of the water had flowed out before wading in.

Too bad he hadn't brought a fishing net—otherwise he could have set one around the opening here and not had to worry; even if it got washed out with the water, it couldn't escape.

He didn't have a water pump either, otherwise he could have copied others and pumped the water out for fun, but at this rate the water was flowing out pretty fast anyway.

He continued wandering around the area, and besides picking up two green crabs, three swimming crabs, and five Shi Zilu under nearby reefs, he didn't see anything else.

If he kept walking around the island, he was afraid he'd go too far, and if Lin Lin Xiuqing called him later, he wouldn't be able to hear her. This was already far enough.

Seeing no more fish swimming out near the puddle, he figured he shouldn't waste time, so he simply went back to the spot where he'd seen the razor clams earlier.

He planned to take this chance to dig up some razor clams to bring back.

But just as he'd just pulled up a bamboo razor clam as thick as a pen, he vaguely heard his wife shouting over there. He quickly looked up and saw her standing and waving. Confirming it was her calling, he hurriedly tossed the sack aside and ran over quickly.

"What's wrong? What happened?" Ye Yaodong ran over panting, gasping for breath.

"There are fish—there's a puddle over here with fish and crabs in it. I just saw several splashes in there, but I couldn't catch them. I only caught two crabs, and I even got bitten by a crab while scooping in the water."

Lin Lin Xiuqing stood excitedly on the rock, her body swaying as she spoke. Ye Yaodong was afraid she'd fall and quickly grabbed her legs.

"Ouch, be careful, hurry and get down."

"What are you doing…"

If he hadn't held her, she might have been fine, but once he did, she felt her center of gravity was a bit unsteady and could only hold his shoulders to steady herself.

"I'm fine, hurry and go catch fish in the puddle—over there, over there…" Lin Lin Xiuqing turned and pointed behind her.

Ye Yaodong lifted her down, then climbed up to take a look, and was speechless.

"It's that tiny, and you specially called me over?"

"How is it tiny? It's pretty big—about half the size of our room…"

Ye Yaodong turned and jumped back down. "Let's catch them when we're about to head back. I thought something happened to you—I didn't bring anything and just ran straight over. Wait here, I just found a big puddle over there too, way bigger than yours."

"There's an even bigger one? Are there fish?" Lin Lin Xiuqing got excited.

"Yeah, I just caught a moray eel, about two jin—not huge, but not small either. I also saw one, not sure if it was a black porgy or a black bream."

"Then hurry and go catch it."

"What's the rush? The water level's too high—how am I supposed to catch anything? And I didn't bring a bucket either, everything I picked went into the sack. Once there's too much stuff, it'll just get crushed."

Ye Yaodong thought for a moment, then said, "You wait here. I'll go grab two hand nets from the boat. Using hand nets to scoop will be easier later—saves us the trouble of them being too slippery and hard to grab."

"Hey hey, then hurry up and go."

Lin Lin Xiuqing waited on the spot, prying at the rock face while keeping an eye on the puddle. Seeing a bread crab crawl out from the small rocks at the edge, she hurriedly climbed over to grab it, excitedly tossed it into the bucket, then returned to her original spot to keep digging.

Ye Yaodong made a quick round trip, grabbed two hand nets and jumped down from the reef, then handed the smaller one to her. "This puddle doesn't look like the water level is high, so just do what you can and scoop. I'll go check over there first."

"Okay."

"Be careful! Call me if anything happens, don't keep startling me. Even if you catch a grouper, don't bother telling me—I'll see it when I get back."

"I know, it's not that easy to catch." Lin Lin Xiuqing replied curtly.

Ye Yaodong also brought along a bucket. When he'd gone over earlier, he'd only grabbed a folded sack and the fire tongs on the way—live fish were better off kept in a bucket.

After giving his wife a few more instructions, he hurried off toward the big puddle again.

The water inside was still quite a lot, and at the few gaps along the edge where water was flowing out, a few soft-shell crabs and small white shrimp had been scattered by the current.

He'd originally not wanted to pick them up, but looking at the empty bucket, he figured he might as well grab them casually. Those few soft-shell crabs had just molted and hadn't hardened yet—they didn't look spoiled, quite fresh.

He could take them back and make a crab and tofu soup or a crab and cabbage soup—delicious—or use them to cook noodles, also great.

He also took the moray eel he'd just caught and pulled it out of the sack with the tongs, putting it into the bucket to keep it from getting crushed later.

After finishing all this, Ye Yaodong took the hand net and climbed up onto the nearby reef, then stretched out and tried scooping a few times in the puddle.

Without any aim or method, without starting from the edge, he just stirred around in the middle of the puddle a few times, scooping here and there, casually looking—and sure enough, a black bream was swimming in the water, showing itself, and his sharp eyes caught it.

"Holy crap, a black bream—damn, this move of mine is called fishing in troubled waters!"

Now that he'd spotted it, how could he let it go?

Without a water pump to drain the puddle, he could still use the hand net to stir things up and fish in troubled waters.

He watched the direction the black bream was swimming, followed it with the hand net, and scooped it up in one go.

Caught completely off guard and scooped straight into the fishing net, the black bream thrashed about wildly inside, scrambling in every direction.

Ye Yaodong grabbed the fish out with satisfaction and tossed it into the bucket. "Not sure if that black bream I just saw is this one — seven or eight taels, passable. Small enough to steam whole for the three kids."

He'd heard that eating sea fish makes you smarter, and for over a year now he hadn't stopped supplying his two children with it. These days his daughter also ate a few bites every day — always the low-spine varieties.

After successfully scooping up one black bream, he pressed on, stirring the water again to see if he could net a few more fish in the muddied water.

There were fish shadows all right, but they were hard to catch — rocks lined the edges, and the bottom was all stones. He'd just spotted two moray eels, but they'd both darted to the edge of the rocks, out of reach, and in a flash their shadows were gone.

Ye Yaodong kept scooping back and forth in the big pool, shifting to a few different spots every now and then, and really did manage to scoop up one moray eel and two small horse mackerel.

"I thought I just saw a tiger grouper — where'd it go? My eyes aren't playing tricks, are they?"

"I definitely saw it — where'd it swim off to?"

He scrambled back and forth over the rocks around him, busy as could be, muttering nonstop under his breath.

"Look away for a moment and it's gone — darted off that fast… did it hide inside the rocks? Damn it…"

"Ugh… another Shi Zilu, so many of them…"

After scooping back and forth in the pool several times without spotting the tiger grouper again, Ye Yaodong didn't get discouraged — whatever he saw, he'd scoop it up.

Besides, as the water level kept dropping, rocks were already exposed at the very edge of the pool's bottom, and he spotted several mudskippers too.

But they were too small, and right now he had the tiger grouper on his mind — no time to catch them. He could grab them later.

Just as he was scrambling around and starting to feel a bit tired, wanting to sit down and rest while letting the murky water settle, he happened to step on a rock — and felt it wobble unsteadily.

Luckily he'd only put one foot on it; the moment he felt it unsteady he pulled back. His body swayed for a moment, then steadied itself right away.

But the rock beneath his foot shifted, and suddenly it was as if one stone had stirred up a thousand waves — a whole bunch of dog sharks darted out from under the rock.

"Oh… holy shit… holy shit…"

He stared in wide-eyed astonishment at the dog sharks scattering in every direction, feeling that the surprise had come too suddenly.

"A whole school of dog sharks, holy shit~ didn't find the grouper, but found a whole school of dog sharks instead…"