Chapter 544

Ye Yaodong put down the basket he was carrying with Acai and looked at the collection point, where the goods were already piled all over the ground.

He pointed and said, "Do you know how much these toadfish can sell for? Brother Cai said it's three cents and five li per jin. There's about 1,200 to 1,300 jin here, so it can only sell for 40-something yuan."

"40-something yuan? 1,200 or 1,300 jin of goods, and it can only sell for 40-something yuan? My heart aches just hearing the price. How can you sell this? How can you get rid of it?"

Ye Fu and Ye Mu looked at each other. Although they knew this fish had always been cheap, calculating it this way made them feel a bit pained.

If it were any other fish, at eight or nine cents or a dime, it would be worth over 100 yuan, and they wouldn't feel pained.

Ye Fu frowned and asked him, "Then what do you plan to do?"

"Keep it all. I'll hire people to dry it tomorrow. It just so happens there's no rain these two days, and with the north wind and sun, it'll dry well."

He had just roughly calculated in his head: if he dried it, even if he didn't say much, he could sell it for 40 cents a jin.

Toadfish has a lot of water content. If 5-6 jin can dry into one jin, he could still earn half the profit. Labor costs are very cheap; hiring one or two people to work, it only costs a little over 1 yuan per person per day.

So, the 1,200-1,300 jin that would originally only sell for 40-something yuan could double in value to 80 or 90 yuan if he dried it himself? And that was a conservative estimate; if he calculated a bit more, 100 yuan shouldn't be a problem.

And this was just the harvest from one trip today. What if he had this quantity every few days?

Then the difference would be huge.

Ye Mu, however, didn't dare to gamble, "What if you spend all that effort drying it and nobody wants it in the end? This fish is dirt cheap to begin with, fresh ones aren't worth anything, will anyone want dried ones?"

"Dried fish tastes good, can be stored, and is easier to transport than fresh fish. Fresh fish is hard to transport to other places, but these dried goods are just right."

As he said this, he slapped his own thigh. It was just a slip of the tongue, but now that he heard it himself, he felt it made too much sense.

Why hadn't he thought before that fresh fish is hard to transport, but dried is easy?

Ye Fu also echoed, "That's true, dried goods are more convenient than fresh ones. Fresh ones can't be transported too far; seafood like this spoils easily if you're not careful."

Acai also said, "That's exactly the logic, which is why scalpers have also set their sights on the dried goods market."

"It will definitely sell well, but you'll have to go through a few more processes—killing, drying, transporting it to the city yourself, and selling it yourself. That's quite a bit of work."

Ye Yaodong nodded, "That's simple, just hire someone. Besides, the shop in the city is already ready."

He made his decision decisively. After pondering and doing the math, he decided to keep it and dry it himself.

Tomorrow, he would just hire his eldest sister-in-law and second sister-in-law to kill and dry them.

Still the same saying: don't let the fertile water flow into outsiders' fields; if there's money to be made, let the family make it first.

One trip to sea, earn an extra 40 or 50 yuan; ten trips, and that's an extra 400 or 500 yuan. With three or four months until spring, if he could go a few more times, earning an extra thousand yuan wouldn't be a problem.

And he didn't necessarily have to wait until the shop was fully handed over to take it to the city to sell.

He could wait until the quantity was about right, or when there was no room at home, and find a day unsuitable for going to sea to take a trip and sell a batch, just setting up a stall at the market entrance.

In a short amount of time, he had already figured everything out clearly in his mind.

Seeing that he had already decided, Ye Fu also felt that earning double was good. He wasn't just going to sea for this one trip; there would be a continuous supply of quantity in the future.

"Alright then, if you want to keep it and dry it yourself to sell slowly, then keep it all. It just so happens you can hire your two sisters-in-law to do it, no need to hire outsiders. Your mother has to work and doesn't have time, otherwise, we could have asked her to help with some."

Ye Mu opened her mouth as if to say something but then held it back, "Then dry it yourself, dry it. If there aren't enough bamboo mats, go to the old house to move some, or borrow some from your eldest or second sister-in-law."

"I know."

"Then you go weigh it first. Your mother and I will move these dozen baskets of toadfish to the side, move a few baskets onto the cart, and push one load back first. These definitely need two trips to finish hauling."

"Hmm, you guys handle it, push one load back first." Ye Yaodong responded without even turning his head; he was helping Acai lift a basket of sole onto the scale.

Besides the toadfish, this sole was the second most abundant, with 260 jin, which could fetch about 30 yuan.

Other goods were also being lifted onto the scale one after another.

Until all the goods were weighed, Ye Yaodong's stomach was growling, and then he started yawning wildly.

After Acai recorded all the harvest, he took the list, looked at it, and said goodbye to him. From morning to night, busy from early morning until now, he was truly exhausted.

However, he hadn't walked two steps out when he immediately stopped, "That's not right, why the hell is it only 112 yuan and 32 cents? The toadfish wasn't sold, if you subtract 40-something yuan, shouldn't it be 160 or 170 yuan..."

"Brother, don't try to extort me, how could there be that much?"

Ye Yaodong immediately slapped his forehead with his palm, "Damn, there are still three otters tied up and put in the cabin, I forgot about that."

At the time, because those three kept calling and were too noisy, he just threw them into the cabin and forgot about them when unloading the goods.

No wonder he felt the price was wrong when looking at the receipt just now; he had clearly estimated that today's harvest should be over 200, and even after subtracting the toadfish money, it shouldn't be only 110-something.

"Otters? What otters?"

"Wait for me, there's still cargo on the boat." After saying that, he hurriedly folded the receipt and put it back in his pocket, then hurriedly trotted toward the fishing boat.

When Ye Fu and Ye Mu came back after delivering the goods, they saw him hurriedly running back onto the boat.

"What are you doing? Is the cargo sold out?"

"There are still three otters left in the cabin, I forgot to take them down for a moment."

"Oh right! I almost forgot too, there was too much cargo on the boat, we were moving things for so long that we forgot about those three."

Hearing there were still three otters, Ye Mu was pleasantly surprised, "You could forget them even after putting them on the boat, what's wrong with your brains?"

"Wasn't there too much work? After dark, we were rushing and rushing, and we had long since thrown those three to the back of our minds."

Ye Yaodong went to the boat, grabbed the three guys, and put them in front of Acai. Acai was pleasantly surprised, hurriedly reached out to take one, held it in his hand, and examined it left and right.

"You caught these otters well today! Someone is collecting otters there recently."

"Hmm, is it because of their fur and liver?"

"Who knows, but it seems I heard someone wants to research how to raise them."

"That's fine, then how much will you count these three for me?"

"Easy to talk about, no need to weigh these, I'll count by the head. I'll give you 20 for one, 60 yuan for 3, how's that? Am I righteous enough?"

Ye Yaodong pouted; no matter how righteous he was, he still had to make a profit from him.