Chapter 830

Ye Fu was only disappointed for a brief moment, but when he felt the back of his feet being poked by his rain boots, he felt relieved again.

Since it wouldn't be pulled up for a while, he simply took out the gold ingot to play with. The golden yellow color was pleasing to the eye, and he beamed with joy again. He wiped it on his clothes and couldn't resist putting it in his mouth to bite it twice.

Ye Yaodong watched from the side and his mouth twitched; his father's feet weren't any more fragrant than his own.

Taste your own flavor.

Ye Fu also felt Dongzi looking at him and explained his repetitive behavior with a chuckle.

"Bite it, that's the only way it feels real. I'm not dreaming. We really got a big box of gold ingots. It doesn't matter if the boxes behind turn out to be glass."

"Bah! Say something auspicious!"

Although he thought the same, good fortune and prosperity—being a little greedy was fine.

Besides, he wasn't hogging it all; those who see it get a share. His father had some, and he had also made a proper offering to Mazu! He had made an offering!

Ye Fu also laughed and hurriedly spat twice, "Then let's open some more gold and silver treasures. How many boxes are left below?"

"Three more. We just need to go down two more times later."

"That's fast. You just need to tie the rope and come up... Come, come, come, this box is up."

The father and son couldn't care about talking and went to receive the box first.

As soon as Ye Fu touched it, he felt that the two boxes were about the same weight, "It's not gold."

"Of course not. How could a box of gold be that light?"

"I just hope it's not glass."

"We'll know once we open it."

Ye Yaodong picked up the kitchen knife, which already had a wavy blade; now he could only use the back of the knife to hack off the lock.

Ye Fu didn't have any expectations and just flipped the box open.

"What should we do with this?"

He stretched his neck to take a look, then reached out to take one out to examine, fiddling with it back and forth.

"Let's lift it into the cabin and store it first. At least it's better than the glass in the previous two boxes. This one is at least an inlaid mirror."

The small, round mirror in the middle reflected a person's face very clearly. The back should be made of copper, which had already developed copper rust from being soaked in seawater; it was quite green, and he didn't know if it was still useful.

This whole box was filled with various kinds of mirrors. It could be seen that the ancients made them quite exquisitely, but they had all turned green, corroded into copper rust by the seawater.

At least the mirror surface wasn't broken. Let's lift it into the cabin first. Anyway, if we lift it back and bury it in our own courtyard, whether it's useful or not will be a problem for future generations to worry about.

He was an uneducated person who had only attended a few days of literacy classes and didn't understand anything; he didn't know how to handle these things.

Even for that box of gold, he didn't know what to do. He only planned to bury it after lifting it back and keep it in his hands like a collection.

Poor people who suddenly get rich don't know how to spend money, so they have to save it first. Anyway, his philosophy had always been that having enough money to spend was enough.

The father and son lifted this box of mirrors into the cabin as usual, and Ye Yaodong also took a mirror and placed it on the altar.

Bribery couldn't be lacking. Mazu was a woman and must love to dress up.

After the offerings were done later, the gold ingots had to be put away, but this mirror could be kept.

Ye Fu didn't say anything about his actions and only urged him to hurry up and salvage the three boxes below.

Ye Yaodong went down two more times before salvaging all three boxes from the bottom.

Opening these boxes was really like opening a blind box.

One box contained two vases, but both were chipped. One was shattered into pieces, and the other had a notch at the mouth. He didn't know how they were damaged; did they get chipped because of the narrow crevice when they were hidden in the sea?

This box was undoubtedly thrown back into the sea by them, but Ye Yaodong still took out the broken vase separately.

He didn't know if it was still useful after being broken, but the patterns looked quite beautiful. He could take it back for his wife to put on the table for flower arranging; it didn't matter if it was chipped or not.

Another box contained a whole set of bowls and dishes that looked like blue and white porcelain. Some were broken, and some were good. He didn't plan to pick them out individually; he would just leave them to be buried back home.

It was a rare complete set. Although there were chips, what if they could come in handy? He heard that some collectors or masters knew how to repair them.

He could keep them for now. Anyway, burying one box was burying, and burying a pile was also burying. Let's just keep them as junk for now.

Or maybe they could be used as gifts in the future.

Ye Fu listened to him as well. If he said he wanted them, he wanted them, and they would be lifted to the warehouse; if he didn't, he would throw them into the sea. Anyway, they were all things he had salvaged.

"This is the last box. It's also light and airy, nothing important."

"It must be packed in a separate box again, that's why it feels light and we didn't hear any sound."

"Open it, let's finish early and go collect the ground cages."

Ye Yaodong opened the box, and undoubtedly, there was something packed in a box inside.

Without a second thought, he opened it directly, almost blinding the father and son.

"Guanyin!"

They had thought the box was light and airy, and that it would be some porcelain or something inside, but they didn't expect it to be a white jade Guanyin. This made the father and son's hearts tremble.

"It's a jade Guanyin!"

Ye Yaodong was so happy that his eyes were almost popping out. He didn't expect that besides a box of gold, there was a big surprise waiting for him!

"We can take it back for the old lady to enshrine in her room."

"Right, right. This Guanyin must be enshrined after being taken home; it can't just be buried underground. What if the Guanyin gets angry..." Ye Fu didn't finish his unspoken words.

"Right, just give it to the old lady and let her enshrine it, three sticks of incense morning and evening."

Anyway, no one would go into the old lady's room. Country folk didn't know how to value things and wouldn't study the Guanyin; at most, they would glance at it. It was very normal for an old person to worship Guanyin and Buddha in her room.

Besides Mazu, the old lady also believed in Guanyin the most.

Anyway, they didn't enshrine anything else in their house, so there wouldn't be any conflict. They went to the Tianhou Temple for daily Mazu worship.

It wouldn't be bad to take this jade Guanyin to the old lady for her daily Buddhist worship; she would probably be very happy.

"Then let's keep it in the box and store it in the cabin first. We don't need the box, just throw it back into the sea."

Ye Yaodong nodded.

The cabin was already half-filled with boxes stacked one on top of another. The space inside would be needed for fishing nets and other miscellaneous items later, so it was better to throw away unnecessary things to save space.

Having gone down four times intermittently, Ye Yaodong also felt quite tired. For the last trip, since he only needed to bundle one box, he didn't need to go down again afterward.

So after tying the box, he thought he couldn't waste time, so he touched the crevice where he had caught the lobsters earlier and caught three more by surprise.

The rest hid deeper and were out of reach, so he had to take out a sharp knife to pry off the large conchs attached to the top, along with a few abalones that were occasionally attached.

Then he wandered around the nearby reefs and searched for a while, finding quite a few conchs and abalones intermittently, and also picked up two sea cucumbers as a bonus.

He also encountered a few large scallops, but they ran away very fast in the sea, and he couldn't even catch up to them.

After filling the net bag halfway, he went up to let his father pull the rope, and together they opened the three boxes.

Seeing the boxes stacked neatly, Ye Fu said, "Everything is done. Let's go collect the ground cages now. The timing is just right; we can go home right after collecting them."

"Let's put the fishing nets into the cabin first, right? Anyway, we won't be trawling today. We can just store such a large net in the cabin, which will happen to cover those boxes. We can also pack up the things that need to be packed and put them inside, and then lock the cabin directly."

"After nightfall, around eleven or twelve o'clock, when there's no one at the pier or on the road, we'll come back to the boat to move them quietly."

Ye Fu nodded, "That works too. Then you store everything in the cabin and lock it up. I'll go drive the boat to where the ground cages are placed."

"Then we won't go out to sea at night. Let's go back and take a nap, and go out to the pier to move the boxes at eleven or twelve o'clock. We still have to dig holes and bury them after moving them back to the courtyard, so we won't have time to rest."

"Then we'll rest for a day tomorrow. It's just that we have to be early at this time. Otherwise, around two o'clock in the morning, your brother and the nearby neighbors will all get up and prepare to go out to sea. It won't be good if they hear the commotion."

"Then let's do it after 10 o'clock. Recently, the fellow villagers have been going to bed early because of going out to sea. This time should be fine. Tonight, let Aqing turn off the TV early and chase those children back to sleep."

"Mm."

Ye Yaodong thought for a moment. It was a good opportunity to take a day off tomorrow, sleep until he woke up naturally, and then ride his bicycle to the county town.

In the afternoon, he also caught 5 lobsters, three or four jin of abalones, and more than a dozen large conchs. These things didn't die easily and could stay alive after being raised for a night. It would be just right to send them to Director Chen tomorrow.

They could be considered some top-tier local specialties, plus sending a sack of dried squid would be decent and presentable.

The total cost was probably worth one or two hundred yuan. Looking at the quantity, it was quite a lot, and sending them wouldn't be abrupt. It wouldn't be considered bribery either; after all, they were local specialties, and they were all caught by himself and dried by his own family, which was valuable and full of sincerity.

After making up his mind, he stored the fishing nets and miscellaneous items in the cabin and locked them up. Then he went to check the goods in the bucket and carefully counted the quantity to be sure. It wouldn't look good if there were too few to give away.

There was also an octopus in the bucket. When he took it out to count the other goods, it kept crawling around and even escaped from the basket, crawling all over the deck.

He had accidentally touched this octopus while tying the boxes earlier.

It had been crawling on the side of the box, and when he first touched it, it almost gave him a fright. It was soft and sticky, and it even wrapped itself directly around his arm.

It wasn't well-behaved even when put in the net bag. Because the net bag was woven with nets and had tiny holes, its tentacles were particularly good at drilling through gaps. It could even stretch out through the small holes and wrap around his waist, moving back and forth, almost making him lose his composure.

"Hurry up and help collect the nets, don't dawdle there."

"Coming."

After catching the octopus back into the bucket, he immediately went up to help his father.