Chapter 699: The Strange Boat

The night is quiet and gentle, but the nighttime sea looks surging and mighty, though in the depths of the darkness, countless secrets are likewise hidden.

The silver-white waves on both sides behind the fishing boat, under the moonlight's reflection, became clearly visible, spreading outward layer by layer, shimmering and forming a white sheen.

After their boat had sailed some distance from the fishing village, light spots would appear on the sea surface from time to time—those were other boats out fishing as well, big and small, some bright as the sun, some faint as fireflies, weaving through the night, silently pressing forward.

Ye Yaodong focused intently on the front, judging the boat's heading, while Ye Fu hung bait on the longline hooks beside him.

That's right, the sticky net was hauled in and not redeployed; next they planned to keep fishing with the longline, working together with the trawl net, putting in a month or two first, then focusing on catching squid later.

After he steered the boat to their usual patch of "allocated ground" for the longline, he also helped hang bait, and then they coordinated—one steering the boat, the other paying out the line.

Same as always: 1,000 branch hooks, ten bamboo baskets.

After finishing, he stacked the baskets one by one to reduce the space they took up.

Speaking of which, their family really did have a lot of bamboo baskets, because they were just too useful. Just sorting out one longline's worth of line took ten baskets, let alone the ones on the boat used to hold the catch.

His father, usually idle with nothing to do, never stopped working with his hands when sitting at the door; all the baskets at home were woven by his father whenever he had nothing else to do.

In the past, after weaving, they were handed over to the production brigade; later, they occasionally took them to market to sell, and now they were all for the family's own use.

Ye Fu, seeing he had finished paying out the fishing line, sped the boat up a little, preparing to head to where they had set the shrimp traps yesterday to haul them in.

Actually, leaving them and coming back to collect them on the return trip would have been fine too, but catching two lobsters yesterday had them a little excited, thinking they'd come by early to check and see if there were any more.

Moreover, Ye Yaodong was also thinking of taking advantage of the early morning to haul in the shrimp traps, then move them to a better spot later.

By now, the sky was already a little hazy with light.

In the distance, they also saw the buoys drifting on the sea; Ye Fu slowly reduced speed and steered over.

Ye Yaodong took a hook in his hand, and as the fishing boat neared the buoy, he hooked it with the hook to make it easier to reach out and grab.

However, his luck today wasn't so great—none of the shrimp traps yielded a single small lobster when hauled in, and there weren't many mantis shrimp either, though there were quite a few red shrimp, estimated at over twenty jin.

It's just that these red shrimp weren't big, weren't worth much, and could only be used as bait or shelled and dried into dried shrimp meat.

Ye Fu was also a little disappointed. "Looks like there's nothing much today."

"If there's none, then there's none. We should be able to sort out about five jin of mantis shrimp; the red shrimp, we'll just take them back, shell them, and dry them into dried shrimp meat—dried shrimp meat is sure to sell well."

Ye Fu nodded. Dried shrimp meat tasted good no matter how you cooked it; even dried mussels sold well, so there was no reason dried shrimp meat wouldn't sell.

It's just that, seeing him stack the cages in a corner without continuing to set them out, he felt a bit puzzled.

"Aren't you setting out the shrimp traps? Put them all down together."

"I'm planning to move the shrimp traps to a different spot. You steer the boat toward the submerged reef—be careful, don't run aground on it."

Ye Fu's eyes lit up at the words. "Right! We can take them to the submerged reef and set them out, see if we can catch more lobsters and sea cucumbers? We caught lobsters the past few days, so there must still be some around that reef."

"That's exactly what I was thinking. There were quite a lot underwater there last year, it's just that the time in the water was short, not easy to catch. The weather hasn't really warmed up yet now, so it's not good for diving—perfect for setting out the shrimp traps. If they get stuck and can't be hauled up, forget it, leave them; we didn't spend any money on them anyway, no heartache."

"That works too. If these run out, there are still a few rows of ground cages at home; once the weather gets a bit hotter, we can take those over and set them out too." Ye Fu said as he steered the boat toward the submerged reef.

Today looked like it would be an overcast day—the sky was already fully bright, yet there wasn't the slightest red glow on the horizon, and there was even a faintly misty feeling in the distance.

Ye Fu kept staring intently into the distance, always feeling there was a boat moored at the sea island, but with a bit of fog rolling in, he couldn't see very clearly.

"Dongzi, come take a look—is there a boat at that little island over there?"

Ye Yaodong had originally been resting against the cabin; hearing his father shout, he got up puzzled and hurried over.

"What's up? The wind's too strong, I didn't catch what you just said."

Ye Fu pointed toward Oarfish Island. "Looks like there's a boat over there."

The day had only just dawned, and a fishing boat wasn't out working on the sea but moored directly at a lonely island—that was rather puzzling.

"Looks like there really is a boat. Wonder what it's doing moored at the island? Should we change spots to set out?"

"Could it be from our village? Bringing women out to the island to dig for shells?"

"Huh?" Ye Fu thought about it and figured it was really possible. "Then let's not bother with it, we'll just set out our own cages?"

"We'll set out our own. The shrimp traps were just put down with no catch anyway, no fear of being stolen. We'll just work nearby in a bit."

"Mm, don't worry about it for now."

The sea island beside them—Ye Yaodong had picked up an oarfish there the year before last, buried a body there last year, and also picked up two gold nuggets.

It wasn't that he hadn't thought of going back to wander around the lonely island to see if there was anything else to gain; it's just that the island looked a bit small from afar, but wasn't small at all when you walked around it. There were even wild chickens and wild rabbits on it. He later idly ran a full circle around it, only picking up a pile of seabird eggs, finding nothing else, and gave up.

Thinking about the trend he'd recently set off, quite a few women in the village were itching to follow him out to sea, gathering shellfish.

Although he only accepted from his own brothers and immediate neighbors, their relatives were many—they could quietly take what their relatives had dried and bring it to their own home, then sell it all to him together.

Ye Yaodong had weighed it three times, seeing the quantity grow each round, and he knew full well, but it didn't matter—it was a win-win; the more that came, the more he could sell.

Father and son, holding this thought, paid it no mind, setting out their own shrimp traps, only casting glances over from time to time.

However, after they had finished setting out all the shrimp traps, the fishing boat at the island still hadn't moved an inch.

"Drag out the big fishing net from the cabin, don't bother with it—well water doesn't interfere with river water, we'll do our own thing." Ye Fu said.

"Mm."

Father and son coordinated and continued setting out the net.

Although they set out many and varied nets, if you asked them to just go back like this and come out tomorrow to haul them in, that would be too much of a waste of time for them; they'd rather drag two more nets out at sea.

Only, father and son discovered that after they had finished dragging two nets and returned to the area, that fishing boat was still moored at Oarfish Island, rocking with the waves, and hadn't sailed away.

Ye Fu frowned. "Dongzi, looks like that boat probably isn't from our village. If they were dropping women off to gather shellfish, they'd drop them off and then go back out to work on the sea—why would they waste a whole day just sitting there?"

"Maybe they specifically sailed out to gather shellfish? Haven't we done this kind of thing before?"

"When we brought your mother and the in-laws, we also pulled in to shore every so often, and when it was time to drag the net, we were dragging the net—we didn't sit there all day waiting. Maybe the boat has a malfunction."

"If it's a malfunction and they're asking for help, they'd definitely be able to see our boat nearby from their boat, right? If they saw us, how could they not wave a flag to signal for help?"

He figured his father was overthinking it. Wasn't he himself someone who had taken Ah Qing out specifically on the fifteenth to gather shellfish once?

Though they hadn't gone this far—just picked a small island nearby along the coast.

Ye Fu thought about it and figured it made sense. "Then let's haul in the longline and head back. The shrimp traps were only just set out not long ago, we'll come back tomorrow to haul them in."

"Alright."

They only had to wait until the small hours of the next day — after they had finished setting the longlines and came over to haul up the shrimp traps, they noticed a boat approaching the oarfish island, and it wasn't long before it pulled in and moored.

Father and son gave it a quick glance, assuming it was the boat from yesterday that hadn't finished scouring the sea around the island and had come back to continue. The two of them were drawn back to the sea cucumbers and small green lobsters inside the traps, so they didn't pay it any more mind and just focused on hauling the traps.

"Still have to set them around this area — there's another sea cucumber in this trap."

Ye Yaodong untied the mouth of the net in his hands and dumped the catch into the bamboo basket. When that black, plump little sea cucumber dropped into the basket, it even went *boing-boing* and bounced twice.

Ye Fu grabbed that sea cucumber with a grin and tossed it into the bucket. "Hauled in two rows, caught four sea cucumbers and three lobsters — not bad at all."

"This spot is a treasure trove of feng shui."

"A few more rows to haul up, then once we're done we'll keep on trawling. The catch hasn't been much these past couple of days — I don't know if they've all migrated off. Good thing the shrimp traps are catching a few sea cucumbers and lobsters to make up for it."

"Mm."

Ye Yaodong tied up the fish-aggregating bag again, then tossed the shrimp traps aside and left them for his father to sort out — they'd be set back down together later. Right now he still had to haul up the remaining traps.

Only, when he pulled on the buoy several times, he couldn't budge the trap at all.

"We're done for — only the first day we set them and already losing a whole row. It's snagged, Dad."

"Snagged?"

"Yeah, the bottom is all submerged rocks. Maybe the spot I set it on wasn't level, or the undercurrent caught the hook and it's jammed down there — can't pull it up."

"Let me try." Ye Fu, unwilling to give up, took the length of rope from his hands and gave it a go — and sure enough, he couldn't pull it up either.

"Forget it, stop pulling — don't snap the line. Tie the buoy on and just leave it here. If we're lucky and the waves don't wash it away, once it warms up a bit we'll see if we can haul it up when we get in the water."

"Mm, then I'll go try the two further along."

He didn't expect Ye Fu to try pulling one of those — and it wouldn't budge either, snagged again.

"That one no good too?"

"No good again, snagged again." Ye Fu's brows knit tight. They'd only just set them yesterday, and today they'd already lost two — that loss was just too big, wasn't it?

Ye Yaodong was speechless too. What rotten luck — only one day set and two rows already snagged. That was a big loss; thank goodness it was a no-cost business.

"There's one more row, let me try. If I can haul it up, we'll shift the spot — move it a bit to the side so we're not so close to the submerged rocks and less likely to snag."

As he spoke, he steered the boat a short distance further forward; the last buoy had been pushed a little off by the waves.

Fortunately, this one wasn't snagged and came up smoothly — three rows saved. And out of the ten traps in that row, they poured a total of two sea cucumbers and two small green lobsters.

"That's a small consolation, I guess."

"You go steer the boat, move it a bit to the side — don't get too close to the submerged rocks. I'll do the setting."

"Alright."

Ye Yaodong did as he was told and went to steer the boat. But as he moved forward, his eyes swept in every direction and he noticed the boat on the island again.

Once his father had finished setting the remaining traps, he said, "Dad, should we go closer and see which village that boat is from?"

"Sure — if you're curious, let's go take a look. If anything looks off, we can make a run for it first anyway."

A boat mooring at a deserted island for a day or two was no big deal, but if from now on that boat was around this stretch every single day, how was he supposed to set his branches to catch cuttlefish next month? It'd be another fight.

And once it got hot, how was he supposed to get in the water?

Since it had deliberately moored there, it was no big deal for them to steer over and see which village the boat was from. If anything happened, a boat moored there definitely couldn't outrun theirs.

As he was thinking this, he didn't expect it to actually come true.

By the time they steered the boat over — before they even got close, still a short distance away — they immediately turned tail and left in surprise.

Too tired — one more chapter will be made up tomorrow. I let my mind relax for a day, and I just slacked off for a whole day.