Chapter 899: Catching Lampreys

Because Ye Yaodong had the basking shark on the shore on his mind, he couldn't fall asleep either; after exercising, he lay there half-awake.

He dozed for a while, saw the sky outside the window just beginning to lighten, heard the old lady opening the door outside, and he also got up quietly.

Seeing him get up, the old lady was extremely surprised.

"You didn't go out to sea last night? Was there a storm? I was wondering why I heard the door open again in the middle of the night—I thought it was Lin Lin Xiuqing getting up to check if the doors and windows were locked."

"Something came up with my dad last minute, so we turned back halfway."

"Then you should sleep a bit more—it's only just getting light now, only four-thirty…"

"I'm heading out for a bit later, you go ahead with your things."

He took his washbasin, Mao Jin, and toothbrush cup to the back door, quickly washed up, and headed outside again.

"So early in the morning, it's only just getting light—where are you going? There's no one on the road. Off to the workshop? In such a hurry…"

The old lady stood at the door watching his back, muttering to herself; but after he walked out the courtyard gate, she went into the yard, let the chickens and ducks out of their coops, and then went to the back door to let the big goose out too.

She also took the small trash fish and shrimp brought back yesterday, chopped them up, and fed them to the poultry. After a round of chores, she finally started the fire to cook porridge. While the rice was cooking, she swept the yard and the doorway, and watered the vegetable plot again.

No matter how early she got up, by the time she finished it was already six o'clock, and most of the neighbors had gotten up too.

That's why they say having an old person at home is like having a treasure.

With the old lady around, Lin Lin Xiuqing was spared a lot of trouble. Every day after waking up she only had to do laundry and look after the children—most of the chores the old lady took care of in passing, so she didn't need to busy herself, and there was even breakfast ready.

After Ye Yaodong went out, he stopped by the workshop to take a look. This time the youngsters were honestly sleeping inside the room, and hadn't been playing cards outside until dawn.

He didn't know how late they had worked last night, or what time the aunties left. He looked at the fishing nets spread all over the yard, walked along the path left clear, and at a glance saw they were all laid out flat and neat, with no overlaps.

The air was thick with the smell of fish, even stronger than standing on the beach.

The old aunties had spent their whole lives killing fish, so their knife work was exceptionally good and efficient. Ordinary households wouldn't kill as many fish in eight generations as these aunties had in eight months. One cut and both sides spread open—fast, accurate, and beautiful, like human-shaped machines.

Ye Yaodong took one look and saw every fish had been cut beautifully; he was extremely satisfied. After looking, he didn't disturb Wang Wang Guangliang and the others' sleep, went out and casually locked the courtyard gate, then headed outside toward the dock.

Early in the morning there wasn't anyone around yet. Those who had gone out to sea had all left in the night; they'd have to wait a while before anyone came out again.

Those along the coast waited until daylight, ate breakfast, and only then went out to haul and set their nets.

So when he came out to the dock now, it was still empty outside, nothing like the crowd gathered to watch the excitement at night.

He kept walking along the shore. At this hour the tide was just going out—there were two high tides and two low tides every day.

He checked his watch—only five o'clock. The tide had only just started going out; it would probably be seven before it reached its lowest, then it would stay at low tide for another hour or two before slowly rising again, and by noon it would be high tide again.

He walked along, scanning the sea surface, and the basking shark's huge body was not far off, by some rocks.

Now that the tide had gone out, it was especially conspicuous on the sea surface. Most of its body was exposed above the water, with only the underside still submerged.

Ye Yaodong tried to walk along the outermost edge, carefully continuing down along the rocks. The surfaces of these rocks were covered with quite a lot of barnacles, and a fair amount of green seaweed grew on them too—easy to slip on. When he went out in the morning he hadn't thought much about it and had just worn a pair of slippers.

Standing on a rock at water level, he could clearly see the basking shark's mouth hanging open, still drawing in seawater as best it could, while its tail flicked every now and then, splashing water over its body—presumably trying to keep itself wet.

He felt this was its instinctive will to survive.

Luckily, there was no sun so early in the morning, so it wouldn't get scorched. By the time the sun hung high in the sky and beat down, the tide would be coming in again, and then more of its exposed body could soak in the sea, and it wouldn't have to keep flicking its tail to survive like now.

"It does look rather pitiful…"

After sighing at the sight, Ye Yaodong looked more carefully at its body, and sure enough, he spotted something—on the half of its body facing him, there were two holes, but the openings were blocked, with only a long, narrow tail sticking out the back, swaying.

He squinted and looked closely, and felt that what was swaying its tail was a lamprey, while its head must have burrowed into the hole to suck the basking shark's flesh and blood.

After thinking it over, he still rolled his pants legs up to his thighs and waded into the water.

But just then, someone on the shore called out to him—a middle-aged woman who lived nearby.

"Oh my god, what's that big thing? Yaodong? What are you doing?"

Ye Yaodong turned his head to look, and briefly explained, "Auntie, do you have a bucket and gloves at home? Lend them to me for a bit."

"Oh, sure, sure, wait a moment…"

Ye Yaodong stood in place waiting for her. Without gloves and a bucket, he couldn't catch it easily, and even if he did, he had no place to put it; throwing it back in the sea, he was afraid it would swim back.

The woman ran home, and after a while came running back—but she wasn't the only one who came back. Several other men and women had come too, all living nearby along the shore.

The people on the bank were pointing at the sea, chattering and discussing among themselves, while the middle-aged woman brought him the bucket and gloves, and asked a couple of questions about what that thing was and what he was planning to do.

"That's a basking shark. Didn't a big group of them appear along the coast yesterday afternoon? Lots of people saw them on the sea, but this one got stranded. I'm going down to take a look."

"Aren't you afraid…"

"It's already stranded, you can see it can't even move—what's there to be afraid of? I saw it had wounds on its body, and fish were burrowing into the wounds. I'm going to take a look."

Ye Yaodong took off his watch and put it in his pocket, put on the gloves, picked up the bucket, and kept going forward, leaving the woman behind, craning her neck and muttering, "Such a big fish, never seen one in my whole life, its mouth open that wide, its tail still moving, and he dares to get close…"

He waded through the water until it reached his upper thighs, and he had walked right up to the basking shark. The exposed wounds on its body had been soaked by the seawater and turned pale, with the white, tender flesh turned out and exposed.

The wounds above the waterline hadn't been soaked in seawater, so there were no lampreys there—some of the flesh had just turned pale and was exposed, while some had a few shallow little holes.

He figured the fish would feed for a while and then move to another spot—probably because the tide had gone out and its body was exposed, afraid of dying without seawater, so it only burrowed into the flesh-holes below the waterline.

Ye Yaodong saw on its side, underwater, about four or five flesh-holes were filled up, tails swaying outside, heads all inside sucking.

He casually grabbed one of the tails and felt an especially thick, sticky mucus; the seawater nearby had also been made somewhat viscous by the mucus it was discharging, little clumps like snot.

He yanked hard, and found the suction at the head was still quite strong—not easy to pull out.

He had no choice but to set the bucket in his other hand down on the water surface, and brace it with his knee so it wouldn't drift away. Once both hands were free, he pulled together.

Only then did he pull a slender lamprey, about thirty or forty centimeters long, out of the flesh-hole; its head was still twisting, swaying left and right.

And the people on the bank were all dumbfounded.

The sky was bright and the light was good, so everyone could see clearly: he had suddenly pulled a long, eel-like fish out of that big fellow's body, stunning everyone.

Some men on the bank shouted at him, but he didn't quite catch what they were saying.

Before long, two men came down from the bank, one on each side of him; they were both extremely curious.

Ye Yaodong had nothing to hide, so he told them about the lampreys feeding on the basking shark, which was why he was pulling these disgusting fish out of the shark's body.

Only then did everyone understand what he was doing. They looked at the eel called a lamprey from the same village, and indeed it was disgusting enough.

"So if you pull these weird eels out of its body, will this big shark be able to live?"

"No idea. Don't know how far it's already been eaten. If its insides have been hollowed out, then it definitely can't still be alive."

Still, he figured it probably hadn't gotten that far. This basking shark was enormous after all, and most creatures protect their bellies pretty well. If the lampreys hadn't burrowed in through the belly, they probably hadn't hollowed it out that quickly, right? After all, it had only been one night.

"You found it when you came out this morning?"

"No. Last night, when everyone went out to sea, we spotted it on the shore. But everyone was in a rush to head out to fish and didn't want to waste time on this big fish. I was curious, so I didn't go out to sea. Everyone said to have someone call the village cadres to deal with it the next day."

Ye Yaodong kept talking as he went to grab the second one.

The two men who came down also tried to grab some along with him, and he reminded them to watch out for the lampreys' heads and not get bitten.

The three of them huffed and puffed, busy from one side to the other. It took them the better part of half an hour to go through every hole they could see.

The bucket of lampreys was now nearly half full—eleven or twelve of them. Their heads, bristling with sharp teeth, looked awfully dense in the bucket. A bit unnerving to look at.

"Is that all of them?"

"What are you going to do with those weird-looking eels in the bucket? They're so gross."

"Then what do we do with this big shark?"

"It's so huge, it must weigh several tons, right?"

Ye Yaodong shrugged. "Ask the village committee. A lot of people saw it. Let's see what the village committee says."

He handed the bucket to them to carry, then went back to flip the basking shark's belly himself, wanting to have another look and see if there were any wounds on it.

But the shark's tail suddenly brushed up his back, sliding down from top to bottom a couple of times. It startled him so badly he nearly fell into the water.

He turned his head to look. By now its tail was already swaying happily in the water—no longer the listless splashing from before. It had probably felt more comfortable, with no more worms sucking its blood.

Ye Yaodong slapped his chest hard. "Scared the hell out of me. I thought it was going to smack me dead with one tail swipe."

"Heh, it does seem a bit more relaxed. It's drawing more water into its mouth."

"I feel the same. Its tail is flicking more often."

"It should have pulled through, right? Its fins are moving too. Let's go call the village committee people over to take a look in a bit."

"Should we head back up?"

"You guys go up first if you want. I'll keep looking around a bit more?"

"Then let's all flip it over together and have a look? No idea how it got stranded…"

The three of them kept groping around in the water, flipping over the parts of its belly that were pressed against the sand. They flipped as much as they could and checked everything. They did pull out two more near the tail.

Those two had burrowed in pretty deep, leaving only a hole about five centimeters across. No tail was visible at the opening—they almost missed them.

"Sneaky bastards. Good thing I've got sharp eyes."

"This big shark seems pretty gentle too. It doesn't thrash around…"

"Could it be that it got stranded and can't move even if it wants to?"

"Heh, that's true…"

"There shouldn't be any more. Whether there are any under its belly, we don't know. We've flipped everything we could. The only thing left would be climbing into its mouth to look, and the rest we can't move anyway. Let's leave it at that. Let's head up. I'm starving to death—haven't even eaten, and my feet are about to prune up."

"Alright, let's go up then."

Ye Yaodong stretched his back, rolled his neck, then followed the two men up toward the shore.

The few people on shore had already started asking impatiently, craning their necks to peer into the bucket to see what they'd just caught.

"Can you eat this fish?"

"This thing looks so gross. Why does its head look like our buttholes?"

This auntie sure knew how to describe things. Apart from being covered in fine, dense teeth up top, it really did look similar. Ye Yaodong burst out laughing at her words. "You just called it so gross—are you still going to eat it?"

"Forget it. It's not like I haven't eaten things before."

"Th-then what do we do with that huge shark? How are we supposed to get it up?"

"I told you, leave it to the village committee. Let's not worry about it."

"Then why did you guys run down there to catch those weird-looking eels?"

"We just saw it out of curiosity, didn't we? We saw Adong catching them over there, so we joined in."

"Then let's go tell the village committee…"

"What about this bucket of fish then?"

After they all chimed in at once, they turned to look at Ye Yaodong again.

"I'll take them home for my mom. When she goes to the village committee later, I'll go with her and say something. You guys just stay here and keep watch—don't let anyone else come up and start hacking at it with a knife."

"That works."

He had no idea whether this basking shark would live or die from here on, or what the village committee planned to do. Anyway, seeing how it had followed them all the way and given them such a show, he'd done what he could. From here on out, it was up to fate—whether its life was tough enough.