Chapter 685: Keep One

Seeing the little green lobsters, Ye Yaodong was like he'd been injected with adrenaline, fully revived; he'd been working all day and was exhausted in body and mind, but now he was wide awake again.

He sped up hauling the net and pulled in the remaining half of the net in one go.

"Ah! Three! Three at once…"

Ye Father caught his breath, enduring the discomfort in his throat, and stretched out his index finger to point at the shrimp trap. "This is good, this is good…"

Of course it was good.

Ye Yaodong untied the rope binding the fish-collecting bag at the bottom and dumped the entire net's catch into the basket; when the greenish little lobsters poured out, they flipped over and then scurried about energetically, a delightful sight.

He reached out and grabbed one in his hand, watching its tail curling and uncurring nonstop. "Not bad, fairly big, about a jin, the other two are a bit smaller, probably seven or eight liang."

"Didn't expect there'd be lobsters to catch here too." Ye Father also grabbed one and took a look.

Ye Yaodong hadn't expected it either; they'd already hauled in so many shrimp traps without seeing any little green lobsters, yet this one trap had three of them.

"Don't know if the rest have any too, let's keep hauling and see."

"Hey hey, hurry up and haul them in, I'll get a separate bucket to put them in."

Ye Father walked to a corner, set his precious water pipe down carefully, then fetched an empty bucket; after thinking for a moment, he also drew a bucket of seawater before putting all the little green lobsters into the bucket.

Then he leaned against the gunwale, watching with eager eyes as Ye Yaodong lowered that row of shrimp traps he'd just put down, then continued hauling.

But after hauling in that entire row, they only saw one more in the very last net.

"Four."

"That's fine too, I thought they were only under that reef over there, didn't expect them here too."

"They're all in the same stretch of sea, it's normal to have some." After saying that, Ye Yaodong continued hauling up a buoy, along with another row of ten shrimp traps.

Hauling in a row of shrimp traps—fast when you say fast, slow when you say slow; the last row took half an hour to haul in and put back.

There really was another pleasant surprise.

"Six in total! Two are fairly big, probably just over a jin, the remaining four are probably around seven or eight liang, eight or nine liang."

"Not bad, not bad, these few alone can sell for several yuan, plus that big mackerel, and this whole basket of mantis shrimp, and all that other fish isn't small either—today's haul is decent." Ye Father mentally calculated the rough value of today's catch and was quite satisfied.

It was only because they were more hardworking, coming out to set nets and also putting down shrimp traps, and trawling too—every bit of time that could be used was put to use.

In the future, ordinary fishermen would only set one kind of net per trip; after setting the nets they'd just go home and rest, waiting until the next day to haul them in.

How could they be like them now, going out one trip and handling all kinds of nets, making full use of everything, just to earn a little more money.

"This basket isn't all mantis shrimp either; picking them out, I'd guess at most half."

Ye Yaodong didn't dare reach his hand all the way to the bottom to scoop; the spikes on the shrimp heads were awfully sharp—no matter how rough your hands were, if they stabbed into the flesh, they could still hurt enough to make you hiss.

If they happened to stab into the gap between your fingernails, that was even more exquisite agony, and there were crabs and fish in there too.

He only reached in to poke around on the surface a few times, but even so, his hand got pricked several times; a fierce bead of blood even welled up, and he casually sucked it twice.

"That's not a small amount either, half of it is over 20 jin, can sell for over ten yuan; shrimp are quite pricey now," Ye Father said as he walked toward the stern. "Alright, you go steer the boat, I'll tidy up some of the cargo at the stern, then come sort through this basket."

"Mm."

Ye Yaodong hauled the anchor up before starting the engine to head back; the sun had long since set behind the hills, but it was still Liangtang out, the days were gradually growing longer.

He checked the time out of habit—5:40—so getting back would be close to 7, working from dawn to dusk, no money is easy to earn…

In this life he'd really done all the work he hadn't done in his previous life in one go, and along the way earned all the money he hadn't earned in his previous life.

Thinking of it that way, he felt he could do it again.

He patted his pocket, took out a cigarette and lit it, taking a couple of puffs to perk himself up.

He hadn't found a spare moment all day; normally when not working, a pack of cigarettes would only last a day or two, but on the boat it could last three or four days.

He steered with one hand gripping the tiller, the other hand holding a cigarette half-burned down, forging ahead into the wind, looking quite high-spirited; not knowing what he was thinking of, the corners of his mouth kept curling up.

The sky gradually darkened, visibility dropped, and Ye Yaodong turned on the flashlight ahead of time.

Fishing boats came ashore at different times; by the time they got back, the shore had long been pitch-black, with fishermen's lights shining everywhere, and scattered sparks of light on the sea—probably all returning fishing boats, plus small boats rocking heavily by the shore.

"Looks like we're not the only ones late; everyone else is back late too."

"Who isn't busy from dawn to dusk? Hurry up, while the boats behind us haven't docked yet, let's unload the cargo and weigh it quick, save us from being a step behind and having to queue."

It was already dark; at this moment only a few people were busy on shore, loading fish onto handcart, or some carrying buckets home.

Ah Cai, seeing their boat dock, hurried over to help carry things.

"Much cargo today? Catch anything good?"

"Do six little green lobsters count as good? Plus a yellowtail mackerel of about fifty or sixty jin, some other filefish too, and quite a lot of mantis shrimp."

Ah Cai was surprised. "Your luck's not bad, the haul's way better than your eldest brother's and Ye Ye Erge's—they only had some odds and ends."

"Oh? They got back earlier?"

That was rare; usually his two brothers were always first to start early and stay late, maybe they just didn't have much cargo so they came back earlier.

"About an hour earlier than you, got back before dark." Ah Cai spoke while searching the boat. "Where are the little green lobsters and the yellowtail mackerel?"

"Put them in the hold, the sun was a bit strong during the day, afraid they'd spoil."

Ah Cai went to take a look in the hold and found they really were big enough; among the villages around them, even the neighboring villages, few had trawlers, at most they could only fish in the surrounding waters, big fish appeared occasionally, but ones this big at fifty or sixty jin were really rare, all depended on luck.

"This fish is a bit cheaper compared to filefish, but it's big enough; figured out, one of them can barely match what an ordinary person trawls in a whole net. Come help me lift it down first."

"Mm."

Ye Father also said with a smile nearby: "Today we specially went and put down a few rows of shrimp traps, luck was pretty good, caught 6 little green lobsters, and quite a lot of mantis shrimp too."

"Your luck has always been decent."

They chatted a few sentences while carrying things, habitually asking about the others' hauls.

Apart from the boats that hadn't returned yet, they found they were still the ones who'd caught the most cargo; their three trawl nets matched what others got from five, though the shrimp traps helped too.

Anyway, it was Bai De; if you put them out to sea and the waves were really big, you couldn't go out to haul them, and even if the waves smashed them away you wouldn't feel much heartache.

But when weighing, Ye Yaodong deliberately picked out a slightly smaller little green lobster that was especially good at crawling, and tossed it alone into a bucket to keep.

"You're keeping it again to bring home and eat? Haven't you already eaten it and tasted what it's like, still eating? It's so expensive…"

"Little Nine hasn't eaten any yet, save one for her. She's gotten a bit bigger too, two little teeth have come in, she can eat these things."

Right, it's still five days until her first birthday. She was born on the third day of the third month, and today is the twenty-seventh of the lunar calendar. He had flipped through the wall calendar yesterday — this lunar month only has twenty-nine days.

Ye Fu opened his mouth, about to say something about it being a girl, but then remembered how he usually doted on this daughter quite a bit, and the wife at home was always spouting slogans like "boys and girls are the same" and "girls are no worse than boys," and so on.

He swallowed the words back down again.

Forget it, he hadn't spared much good stuff himself anyway. Out of sight, out of mind — it wasn't his money being spent, and he was counting on the three brothers to provide for him in his old age.

A-Cai laughed and said, "Saved for your daughter at home? You really do dote on your daughter. Too bad my daughter's already grown, otherwise I'd split your daughter with me — when she grows up, she can be a daughter-in-law for my son."

Ye Yaodong looked him up and down with disgust. Dragons beget dragons, phoenixes beget phoenixes, a mouse's son can dig holes!

Like father, like son!

With that short, stubby build and that round, bulging belly of his, he rather doubted his son could pull off some kind of reversal.

"Dream on! You want to make money off me, and now you want to make off with my person too? Don't let me catch sight of your son next time."

A-Cai: "???"

He has to go pick on his son too?

"Weigh the goods already, what are you looking at? Stop scheming!"

A-Cai shook his head. This kind of father-in-law didn't look reliable at all — and he had the nerve to be disgusted. a>vas>div>Scan the code to download Hongxiu, join forces with Xiaoxiang to send benefits, new readers limited-time free reading of the entire site div>div>div>