Fortunately, they came back early. No fishing boats had docked yet and the dock was not busy. When the fishmongers at the nearby purchasing point heard the noise, they hurried over to watch the fun and exclaimed in amazement.
"Tsk tsk tsk ~ These abalones are all big. Adong is very lucky. Ever since your family caught a large yellow croaker, they have been lucky. It's as if they were blessed by Mazu..."
"Who said it wasn't? They said before that the new house had good feng shui, and the land for building the house had been bought by someone else. In the end, changing the foundation didn't affect it..."
"How can that be true?"
"These conches are not small, most of them are as big as a fist. You can't usually see so many at the dock, let alone several bags of abalone..."
"It's not easy to get abalone. Who would go into the water in the middle of winter? I didn't expect that there would be hidden reefs pushed up..."
"You are so lucky, your family deserves to be rich..."
"I don't know if that island will appear again..."
Mother Ye said happily: "Oh, it's hard to say. It's good to meet once. It's also very painful. Dongzi and his father soaked in the water, and their feet were swollen. His father also has rheumatism..."
"If I could meet him, I would soak myself in water..."
"Hahaha... come and help sort them..."
There is strength in numbers. Amidst everyone's envy and jealousy, the conches and abalone were sorted out. The sizes of these conches were not much different. Except for a few particularly large ones, there was no need to sort out the others.
"Lift them up and weigh them to see how heavy they are."
"Abalone, abalone first..."
"Then let's start with the abalone, weighing them one bag at a time..."
Everyone gathered there, craning their heads to look.
"This bag weighs 98 kilograms... carry it to the side, and then carry it over there..."
"This bag weighs 92 jin 6 liang..."
"This bag weighs 86 jin 7 liang... There is also a basket of conchs picked out here, also brought up... 54 jin..."
After weighing the weight, Acai read out the weight and wrote it down with a pen.
"Oh my god, how much do these weigh? Almost 300 pounds?"
"277 jin 3 liang."
"Oh my goodness... I'm rich... This abalone is worth a pound, right?"
"How much? How much did Ah Cai charge?"
Ye Yaodong was also looking at him. Based on the good relationship they had established during this period, he did not ask about the price. Now that the goods have been weighed, if he does not give a satisfactory price, he will not be given the good goods next time.
Ah Cai laughed and said, "The amount is too large, too large. Let me weigh it first. After weighing it, I have to contact a few more buyers."
After saying that, he looked at Ye Yaodong again and said with a smile: "Don't worry, we have known each other for a long time, I will earn the referral fee from this."
With such a large number, the referral fee is enough for him to earn!
Ye Yaodong nodded and said that this was possible.
After noting down the weights, he continued to weigh them, and Ye Yaodong also picked out the small blue dragons that he wanted to keep.
Mother Ye couldn't help but keep saying, "Leave the little one here... Leave the little one here..."
Ah Cai looked at his movements, stared at him and snatched the bucket from him, "What are you doing, what are you doing..."
"Save it for food, what else can you do?"
"Fuck, so extravagant? It's so expensive, how can you eat it? Sell it all to me, don't eat it, don't eat it."
Ye Yaodong tried to grab his bucket but he dodged it, and the two of them even had a tug of war...
"Give it back to me. I've collected so many abalones for you. Can't I keep a few small green dragons for you to eat?"
"You loser, how many of me are you going to leave for me?"
"What do you care about me... Go away, go and weigh the fish first..."
Ye Yaodong grabbed the bucket and continued to catch the little blue dragon, which made Ah Cai feel so distressed that he cursed him for being a spendthrift in his heart...
"Catch fewer... Eat less..."
Ye Yaodong rolled his eyes. He had such a big belly, how could he ask him to eat less
Ah Cai felt so heartbroken watching him keep catching fish that he had to go and weigh the fish first.
The giant cobia was quite big and was sold at 0.4 yuan per pound. The whole fish weighed 27.3 pounds and could be sold for 10.92 yuan.
The fins of the mackerel shark are valuable, but after being processed, the meat is of little value. The whole shark is sold for only more than 6 dollars, which is only equivalent to that of a large yellow croaker.
All I can say is that the quality is not good enough, but the quantity makes up for it.
After everything was weighed, he took the list and saw that the price columns for abalone, conch and small blue dragon were empty, while the prices of other goods were written down. He put it away only after confirming that everything was correct.
"I'll come over in a couple of days to settle the bill? Is that okay?"
At this time, fishing boats were also docking at the pier. As soon as they got ashore, they heard that Ye Yaodong and Ye's father had dug more than 200 kilograms of abalone. After putting down the goods in their hands, they did not even bother to go to the boat to carry them. They hurriedly moved closer to take a look at the sacks of abalone and listen to everyone's discussion.
Ye Yaodong looked at the increasing number of people, smiled casually and said a few words, then quickly squeezed out of the crowd
After Ye's father smiled and replied a few words, he also walked out of the crowd, and pulled out Ye's mother who was talking happily.
"Stop talking, you've already repeated it several times. Go home and take a shower and soak your feet. You're feeling uncomfortable right now."
"Let's go, let's go back soon. I was just too happy. Today's surprise is too big. Everyone is curious, so I told them about it." Mother Ye was so proud that she couldn't stop smiling.
Everyone has vanity, and country women are generally straightforward and do not hide it.
"Let's go, let's go back first. Your body is still wet. Don't care what others say. If they want to be envious, let them be envious." Ye Yaodong pushed the cart and went ahead.
Ye's mother said from behind: "Push it back and leave it at the door. I'll go over and kill the fish later."
"knew."
Lin Xiuqing was surprised that he came back so early today, and was also very surprised when he heard what happened at sea today.
But when she heard that he had been soaking in the sea for most of the day, she felt sorry for him. She didn't even bother to look carefully at the list handed to her. She hurried to the back door to dig out two more pieces of ginger and boil water for him. Soaking his feet in ginger water could at least relieve the symptoms and remove the moisture.
After Ye Yaodong took a comfortable bath and soaked his feet, he felt alive again and his body was warm.
Lin Xiuqing brought him some cooked snacks. "I knew you'd be eating noodles all day at sea, so I didn't cook any noodles. This is the nine-layer cake I bought this morning. I put some sand clams I dug at the beach today in it. They're very fresh.
"I wanted to bring some for you tomorrow to change your taste, but now you don't have to bring it. Eat it while it's hot and fill your stomach. You can have dinner later."
"Well, you went to the beach to dig for clams this morning? You're so brave!"
"I couldn't see it, so I took my two children to dig on the beach at the entrance for a while and then came back. My eldest sister-in-law and the second sister-in-law went to dig outside the pier, but there were too many people there, so I didn't dare to go."
“Don’t go to crowded places.”
"I know. I'll get you some more hot water. Soak for a while longer."
"okay."
After finishing a bowl of nine-layer cake, he felt warm all over and a little sleepy. With his feet still soaking in the water, he lay on his back in bed.
"If you feel sleepy, take a nap. I saw several baskets of frogfish on the cart at the door. How come there are so many left? All the ones dried last time are still there."
"I gave half of what I dried last time to my husband, and the rest won't last long. I'm not going to go out to sea in the first month of the year, so if there's no fresh food, I can eat some dried food to change the taste. The temperature has been dropping day by day recently, but the weather is still good. It's almost the winter solstice, so it's a good time to dry some more."
"Okay, then you stay in the water for a while longer and lift your feet up before the water gets cold. I'm going to kill the fish."
"Wait until mom comes before killing the fish at the door. It's not convenient for you to squat there now."
"It's okay, it doesn't matter, there's a small bench."
Ye Yaodong originally wanted to take a nap after soaking his feet, but after hearing the running and jumping sounds in front of and behind the house, and the noisy noises of children, he had no choice but to go to the door to check.
But he just happened to see that when Lin Xiuqing stood up, her whole body shook, which scared him.
Fortunately, he reacted quickly and took a few steps to help her up, "What's wrong with you?"
"Ah... It's okay... I just stood up too hard and my vision went dark..."
Ye's mother was also shocked just now, and thought something was wrong with her. "You are anemic. Do you have red dates at home? Cook some brown sugar and red dates soup occasionally, or cook some spinach and pork liver soup and eat more."
"Take a rest, go lie down in the house, and stop working."
Lin Xiuqing was a little embarrassed. "I'm fine. I'll be fine after I recover. I just stood up too hard."
"No, you should go lie down and rest for a while. If I hadn't supported you just now, you would have fallen down."
"I'll bring you a few free-range eggs tomorrow, and you can use them to stew red dates."
Ye Yaodong was also thinking about buying pork liver tomorrow morning, as she was now eating it for the benefit of two people.
Seeing that she was still squatting down and preparing to use the scissors to kill the fish, Ye Yaodong quickly took it away and said, "Let me do it. Go wash your hands and cook dinner. Be careful."
If you ask her to lie down, she definitely won't be able to do it. It would be better to ask her to cook dinner.
"Okay then, I'll go cook."
Ye Yaodong took a pair of scissors and pulled a basket of fish to his side. There was no need to wash the fish, just kill them directly.
To kill the toadfish, you need to use scissors to cut open the belly along the mouth, quickly remove the internal organs, and evenly rub a proper amount of salt on it. The belly and liver are good things and should be put away separately.
After the fresh fish is pickled, it is washed with mountain spring water and dried in the sun. In order to dry quickly, each rack is tilted towards the north. Because the wind is blowing from the north and there is little sun, they can only rely on cold wind.
After resting at home for two days, he strolled around the village when he had nothing to do.
It may be because the weather has been good recently and there are so many fish after the earthquake. Various kinds of dried fish fillets are drying in front of and behind every house. The air in the whole village is filled with a faint fishy smell. The small village is filled with a busy and joyful scene.
He passed by the doors of every household and saw that some families did not use long bamboo poles, but fish racks, about 3 meters wide and 5 meters long. The fish racks were neatly arranged with fish, such as mackerel, skinned fish, eels, bluefin bream, and the most common fish was toad fish...
Under some eaves, fish fillets are neatly hung with ropes, emitting attractive colors facing the sun, which is extremely dazzling and constitutes a unique scene of a fishing house.
After finishing his breakfast early in the morning, Ye Yaodong leisurely strolled around the village for a few times. He heard some gossip about him digging abalone. The rumors were so outrageous that he was already a millionaire. Damn, he was clearly still far from that.
However, the fishing boats have had a good catch these past two days, and the village is filled with a festive mood and the joy of a good harvest.
After listening to the gossip, he was about to go back when he saw a large truck driving into the village. The villagers walking on the road stopped and stared with curiosity.
Some people in the house came out when they heard the noise, or opened the window and stuck their heads out.
The truck stopped right in the center of the village, and a middle-aged man with a crew cut and a square face got off. He said directly to the curious villagers around him, "Pick out the shrimp skins, pick out the shrimp skins, pick out the small fish cubes inside, 10 cents per pound..."
When everyone heard this, they immediately gathered around and asked, "How do you pick it out? Do you pick out the useless small fish mixed in?"
"Yes, yes, anyone can do it..."