Chapter 731: A Pile of Dead Shrimp

After six lively days, Goddess Mazu's birthday celebration finally came to an end. For the past few days, none of the fishing boats in their village had been willing to head out to sea—everyone stayed in the village to watch the opera, enjoying a rare few days of rest.

It wasn't until today, after the feast, that fishing boats finally put out to sea at night.

Ye Yaodong sat with one leg crossed over the other, basking in the sea breeze, gnawing on a piece of brown sugar cake the village committee had sent over that afternoon—soft, fluffy, and just a touch sweet, quite tasty.

Those people were generous too—they'd sent over a whole slab of brown sugar cake, 1/8 of it his share. Ah Qing had cut it into five or six pieces, packed two for him to bring on the boat, one for him and one for his dad, to double as breakfast.

He finished eating, licked his fingers, then wiped them on his clothes and stood up, walking toward his father.

"Want to scoop up a ladle of water and see if the fishing season's close?"

This was something his dad was more skilled at—his dad had more experience. There were still things he had to learn from him.

"Let's head to the spot first. I wonder if we can still get close to that island area? Are the border defense squad people still there?"

"They should be. It's only been a day—how could they pull out that fast? If they have pulled out, I figure we can go ahead and take the boat in. Yesterday they were still warning us to stay away from the island area. Let's keep our distance for now and take a look. If no one chases us off, we'll just keep working around the area."

Switching to a new fishing spot was a hassle—too much trouble.

Ye's father didn't really want to switch spots either. After all, he was familiar with the place, and recently no one should be getting close to that area anyway.

"Then don't get too close. Let's take a look first."

But when they got a little closer, they realized they had just been guessing blindly.

In the dead of night, the wee hours—who would even be on shift? Where would anyone come from?

Not even a shadow of a ghost.

"As long as no one's chasing us off, go scoop up a ladle of seawater. I'll steer the boat toward the reef area. A few days ago we ran into a boat from Luzhoudao—they left their shrimp traps here and never came back for them. Perfect chance while the border defense guys aren't around—let's haul them up quick, before we can't do it in the daytime."

"I wonder if after all these days, they've been smashed by the waves? Or snagged on the reefs below? Can we still pull them up?"

"We'll know once we get there. If they're snagged on the reef, I'll go down in the water."

Ye Yaodong was actually getting restless. Seeing that after Qingming the weather had been warming bit by bit—lately the daytime temperature had risen enough that he could wear short sleeves, only a bit cool in the morning and evening—he was itching to dive in and take a look.

The weather wasn't hot enough yet—if he went down on his own, his dad would definitely object. But if the shrimp traps were snagged on the reefs below, then he'd have a perfectly good reason to get in the water.

After a year of rest and recovery, the abalone on the reefs below should have grown quite a bit again, right?

There must be plenty of small green dragons too—they'd even caught some not long ago.

Just thinking about it got him excited again. No wonder diving would become so popular later—even after going down just a few times, he was already looking forward to doing it again.

Not to mention diving—just beachcombing attracted countless people, mainly because there were real catches to be had.

Later he'd go haul up the shrimp traps. When he came back tomorrow, he could bring the ground traps too and drop them all at once—catch more small green dragons and sea cucumbers. Once the weather warms up, he can get in the water without worrying about snagging the bottom.

Ye Yaodong took the dipper to the side of the boat and casually scooped up a ladle—about a jin or so. He tried slapping the surface of the water with his hand, then observed carefully, but didn't see anything at all.

"Your turn, Dad. I'm not skilled at this—couldn't make it work. I slapped it several times and didn't see a thing. Maybe it's not time yet."

Ye's father slowly steered the boat toward the reef area. When he spotted the familiar buoy on the sea, he felt relieved—he hadn't expected that after so many days, it hadn't been swept away.

He deliberately dropped anchor before walking over to Ye Yaodong.

"The shrimp traps are still there. Good thing—probably the weather's been fine these past few days, no wind or waves."

Ye Yaodong glanced at the sea surface too. "Good that they're there—at least we can drop them a few more times."

He handed the dipper back to his father. "I just tried—didn't see a thing. You give it a go."

"Didn't see anything either. Probably not time yet. It's still early now—not even the end of the month."

"You take a look. Maybe I'm just no good at this. You try. We're only a few days from month's end—could be early, could be late."

"Mm."

Ye's father did just like Ye Yaodong—slapping the dipper with his hand, knocking it over and over, but inside the dipper he saw nothing at all.

"Not time yet. We'll go out again in a couple days and check."

Tap the container lightly with your hand—if you can see two to five glowing dots from noctiluca on the water's surface, it means the squid fishing season has begun. If the number of glowing dots reaches ten to fifteen, it means the peak squid season has arrived.

Seeing nothing at all meant the time hadn't come yet.

"Alright then. If we're heading out tomorrow, we'll try again. For the next few days, whenever we come out, let's try each time. When we first put out to sea tonight, I saw glowing dots all over the sea nearby. Feels like just a few days without going out, and there seem to be more fishing boats again."

Ye Yaodong gave up on the tapping too. He figured maybe when it was just getting light, he could go over to the island and see if there were any squid to pick up.

Last year, before they even started fishing, they found a bunch of squid stranded on the island. A flock of seabirds fought them for them, but even so, he remembered they'd still picked up 200 jin.

"Could be. Some people who booked fishing boats would rush to have them delivered before the season, so they could catch the fishing window."

"Mm, anyway, no need to worry about other people. We'll just fish in this one spot. If Mom has nothing on tomorrow, maybe ask her to go up the mountain and chop some firewood—get prepared in advance. No use scrambling when the season suddenly arrives—we'd need a day or two to chop wood."

"Ask her tomorrow. If she's busy, get Ah Qing to watch the kids for her, and have her take them to work. Ah Qing can go chop firewood on the mountain instead."

"Or we could wait a couple days and see."

As he spoke, Ye Yaodong went to pull up the anchor, then steered the boat closer to the buoy.

It had been so many days since the shrimp traps were hauled up—the fish and shrimp inside were probably all dead by now.

But at least the traps were still there. As long as the green hills remain, there's no fear of running out of firewood. Pull them up and drop them back down to keep fishing.

He hauled up the buoy, gave it a tug, felt no resistance, and felt relieved—but at the same time a bit disappointed. If it had been snagged on the bottom, he could've gotten in the water once it was light.

What a pity.

Ye's father, on the other hand, felt relieved. "Good thing it wasn't snagged."

"The fish and shrimp are probably all dead. Let's pull it up and take a look." He spoke as he hauled.

Ye's father stood by shining a flashlight, watching him haul the shrimp trap up.

In the fish-collecting bag at the bottom of the trap, there was actually a big bundle of fish and shrimp—densely packed, and quite heavy…

"Ah, lobsters—dead?" Ye's father shone the light carefully and saw they really weren't moving. "What a pity."

"Dump them out first. There should be some live ones too. When we have a free moment later, sort through them—set aside the fresh ones, the not-so-fresh ones we'll take back to feed the dogs. Not sure if the geese have arrived yet."

Raising a few more poultry was good—gave them a place to use up the fish and shrimp from the sea, no need to dump them back into the ocean. Unless they were live and small, in which case tossing them back could let them grow.

When the big bundle of catch was dumped into the basket, only a few shrimp on top were still hopping around. On the surface layer, some had their heads already blackened, and two small green dragons were completely still—making Ye's father ache with heartache.

He picked up the two small green dragons and took a look. One was no longer fresh; the other looked like it had just died and could barely pass as fresh.

"This one's still fairly fresh, let's keep it back to eat ourselves. Once it's dead, it won't fetch a good price."

"Pull these two out and put them in the bucket over there. We'll gather up all the shrimp traps in a bit, then sort through them. The shrimp in this basket need sorting too — keep the good ones and we can still sell them."

Just as expected, nothing to be disappointed about.

It's best not to leave the shrimp in the traps for more than two days, otherwise after too long the shrimp inside will suffocate and die from the lack of oxygen. Same goes for lobsters.

Most of the time, these traps are set in the morning and pulled at night, and at the latest it's set today and pulled tomorrow.

This time they really were left out there for many days. Damn Luzhoudao — got caught, serves them right.

Ye Fu nodded. "You keep gathering yours. Pull them all up first, then when we go haul the net later, we can sort through them slowly."

Ye Yaodong tossed the trap aside and went on to the next one. The second trap had quite a haul too — looking at the fish-collecting bag, there seemed to be seven or eight jin, fish and shrimp both. Over these five or six days, it didn't look like they'd caught any less.

With this many, it really was a bit of a pity. He estimated that once everything was pulled up, they'd get around a hundred jin of shrimp, plus a good amount of mixed fish — worth several dozen yuan at least.

Ye Fu watched him pull up trap after trap, the basket at his feet growing fuller and fuller, and his heart aching more and more.

"So many, I wonder how many jin of fresh ones we can sort out. I just looked at the fish — most of them have gone bad. The shrimp probably won't have much left either. We don't have many chickens or ducks at home either; I doubt we could eat it all even if we tried."

"If we can't eat it all, then just set it aside. Tomorrow we'll use it as bait for the longline fishing — you think we can't stomach it all? Didn't Mother go buy geese today too?"

"It's just that it feels like a waste — it's all money."

"Think about the boat we got for nothing, and it won't feel like a waste anymore. I still have another boat at reserve price — we're making a killing."

Ye Fu chuckled twice. "Thinking that way works too."

"It is what it is. At least two of the lobsters are still alive, and two are dead but still fresh. Don't give them to the kids — we adults can eat them."

"Mm, and three sea cucumbers are still good too — we can sell them for a decent amount. Tomorrow we'll bring in the bottom cages as well."

"That's what I was thinking too. There's a shrimp trap stuck on a reef down below. I was planning to look for it these next couple days — go down when it's warm during the day, pull it up. At least we can set it out again. No point wasting it; making a new one costs several yuan too."

"Wait a couple days first. Wait till it's a bit warmer, or you'll catch a cold easily."

He knew his father would say exactly that.