It was inconvenient to wash on the boat, and there was not much fresh water. Everyone just brushed their teeth and didn't even wash their faces. The remaining half bucket of fresh water was used to cook noodles.
Fishing boats also left the random shore where they were docked and slowly headed towards the town, salvaging whatever they could along the way.
Everyone has earned a lot of money during this period, and they hold it in their hands. They take it out and count it every day, which makes them happy. However, when they are away from home, they feel unsafe with so much money in their hands. Everyone is willing to spend half a day to save whatever they can.
There weren't that many jellyfish floating on the sea along the way. They only encountered a few floating here and there occasionally. Based on the principle of not letting go of anything they had seen, they collected them all, which could at least subsidize the gas and wages.
We also encountered many small boats working nearby. Some of them had old men working hard on the sea, some had old couples working together, and some had entire families on board.
Ye Yaodong estimated that these families who were on the boat should be Tanka people, also known as Lianjia boat people, who are water dwellers who use boats as their homes in the southeastern coastal areas.
I didn't expect that besides their southern Fujian, this place can also be seen. He just glanced at it and passed it by.
The sky was gloomy and there was not a trace of sunshine, but it did not seem cool. Instead, it was a bit hot. Even the sea breeze brought by the ship could not relieve the feeling. After landing, there was no wind at all.
After Ye Yaodong docked the boat at a pier near the town, he left the job of distributing the jellyfish on the boat to other people, and he went to the post office with his two brothers and Pei's father.
Now the postal service and telecommunications departments have not been separated yet, so everyone calls it the Post and Telecommunications Bureau.
Chen Jianian also went to the shore. He had to make a phone call and ask a car to come to the town dock to pick it up this morning. He had to call in advance, otherwise the car would have to make a wasted trip to the village.
Ye Yaodong fanned himself with his hands as he walked, but when he felt that it was not enough, he pulled out the hem of his clothes and fanned himself upwards.
"It's so hot and muggy, even though it's almost autumn."
“This is called the autumn tiger.”
"I don't know whether I will be here or at home on August 15th next month."
"It should be about time to go back."
"You can come to town again and buy some things for the children at home."
"I have to buy some things to bring back. This time we are going on a long trip, out of the province..."
"This is the first time in my life that I've traveled so far. I thought the city would be the farthest place I've ever been, but I didn't expect to be out of the province now."
"Yes, in the past 30 years, the farthest place we have been is the county town. I never thought that one day we would even go out of the province. This time when we are going back, we will come to the town to stroll around and buy some things to bring back."
The two brothers learned their lesson, and even before they went back, they were already thinking about bringing some things back for their family.
Ye Yaodong also echoed, "I can also bring back a few mooncakes. I heard that the mooncakes here have meat in them. I don't know what they taste like, but it turns out that meat can be put in mooncakes."
"Yeah, the taste is quite strange..."
As they walked and looked, they all talked about what local specialties the town had and how they would buy some to bring back for their wives and children.
I asked three or four people along the way and after walking for more than ten minutes, I finally found the post office.
This town doesn’t look big. It should be said that most towns nowadays don’t look big, after all, they haven’t developed yet.
As soon as we arrived at the post office, we all felt a little embarrassed. We looked at each other and did not dare to go in.
Ye Yaopeng laughed awkwardly and said, "Dongzi, you go in first, and we will follow you."
Ye Yaohua also nodded and said honestly: "Yes, we are illiterate, but you are literate and you can speak Mandarin. We will do whatever you say later."
Father Pei also smiled and said, "I can't read, and I can't speak Mandarin, so I'll just follow you."
Ye Yaodong shook his head with a smile. He didn't expect that he would become the most educated one among all!
He walked in first, saying, "Big Brother, Second Brother, I suggest you take a literacy class. Learning to read is very useful. At least you can understand the bills and won't be easily cheated in the future."
"Yes, yes. It's hard to go out if you can't read. We don't even recognize the few words on the door of the post office."
"Yeah, it doesn't matter whether you can write or not, but you have to know it."
After Ye Yaodong finished speaking, he walked towards the counter. At first, the salesgirl was indifferent and spoke in the local Minnan dialect with a strange accent, but they could barely understand it and were very happy that they could finally communicate in the same language.
Then if someone else talks a lot...
The salesgirl shouted impatiently, "What do you want to do? Do you want to buy stamps, send letters, withdraw money, or remit money?"
When Ye Yaodong heard about buying stamps, he was stunned for a moment. He remembered that in his previous life, he heard someone say that the prices of some editions of stamps seemed to be very high, but... which edition was it
As a fisherman, he doesn't pay attention to this at all. He usually watches videos about various fishes, and pays attention to current political affairs, people's livelihood and marine fish in social information.
How could he understand this nonsense about stamps, antiques, stocks, etc.
Seeing that no one answered her, the salesgirl asked impatiently, "What are you doing here?"
Ye Yaodong came back to his senses, put aside the thought of stamps, and quickly said, "We want to save money, can we withdraw it across provinces when the time comes?"
The salesgirl looked them up and down with a skeptical attitude. They didn't look like wealthy people, but she still explained the deposit process to him and told him it would be easier if he chose to transfer the money.
Ye Yaodong also thought about it. At present, there were no computers and no national network, so it would be easier to transfer the money directly and let his wife pick it up.
Don't blame him for not knowing the process. After all, he never had any money in his previous life. He had no money to withdraw or save. He just heard the general idea. When Aqing was still alive, she took care of everything.
He doesn't even remember when the passbook came out, he only knows that it existed in the 1990s.
"Okay, then send the money."
"Do you want a wire transfer or a mail transfer?"
"Wire transfer, wire transfer faster."
“Wire transfers are more expensive.”
"No problem, just wire the money."
Mail remittance means writing a remittance slip, putting it in an envelope and sending it to the other party.
A telegraphic transfer is to write a telegram and ask the post office to send it to the payee.
At that time, both the intra-bank and inter-bank systems were extremely imperfect, and bank remittances were divided into mail remittances and telegraphic transfers, both of which were completed with the help of the post office.
There is only a post office in their town.
Ye Yaodong filled out the remittance form and handed the money to her, watching her take it in surprise, count the money and send a telegram.
When he finished, the three of them hesitated.
"Is that all? This... your wife can go to the village to get a certificate and bring the telegram with her so she can get the money?"
Seeing Ye Yaodong suddenly run out of money, they panicked.
"Yes, there happens to be a phone here that I can use. I'll give her a call and ask her to keep an eye out for it."
"Is this...safe? Can I get it?"
The salesgirl rolled her eyes and said unhappily, "This is a post office, it's state-owned, how can it be unsafe?"
They can barely understand the salesgirl's local Hokkien dialect, and the salesgirl can of course roughly understand their real Hokkien dialect.
"Yes, yes, yes..." They quickly echoed, "Safe, safe..."
"Is the handling fee so high?" Father Pei couldn't help but feel distressed. "Why don't we save some more?"
A 1% deduction is made on each remittance, with a minimum of two yuan and a maximum of 50 yuan. There is no upper limit for wire transfers, so they feel a little distressed.
Dongzi only spent more than 2000 yuan to draw a few dozen yuan!
The salesgirl urged impatiently, "Do you still want to process the remittance?"
Ye Yaodong glanced at her with such a bad attitude!
"Remit it quickly. It's not safe to keep it on hand. It's safer to send it directly. Let's make a phone call together later."
The three of them hesitated for a while, then gritted their teeth and ruthlessly took out all the money in the cloth bag. Like Ye Yaodong, there were Great Unity Banknotes, Mao Zedong Banknotes, and a few cents in coins, with Great Unity Banknotes accounting for the majority.
The salesgirl was really surprised!
I didn’t expect that these four poor-looking people actually had so much money on them. It really shows that you can’t judge a person by his appearance!
The attitude was much better when arranging the wire transfer next time...
By the time they walked out of the post office and felt the joy of their families, it was already an hour later.
"Why is the remittance fee so expensive? No wonder it's so deserted inside. Who would want to come here? Just coming in will cost you dozens of dollars."
"That's right, ask your wife to withdraw the money immediately and don't leave it at home in the bank. This is too cruel..."
Ye Yaodong smiled and said nothing. He shook his pockets, which were clanging, and said, "Let's go and buy some food for the boat. Buy some noodles, dry food biscuits, etc. We've been eating for so many days, and the food on the boat is almost gone."
"Then go quickly and buy something to fill your stomach for lunch..."
…
Father Ye and the others had finished their work on the boat, and even Chen Jianian had returned to the boat long ago after making a phone call, but they hadn't come back yet.
Everyone was looking forward to it, and Ye's father was getting anxious.
It was almost two hours before they appeared in everyone's sight. Looking at their brisk footsteps, everyone felt relieved.
When they came over, Ye's father asked complainingly: "Why did you take so long? You didn't even come back earlier, and you were wandering around everywhere."
"I didn't wander around. I just sent the money and went to buy some dry food and noodles to replenish the food. We were running out of food on the ship."
"Hurry up and get on the boat. It's already noon. Let's find a village to stay in. We have already spent half the morning. We can't delay any longer in the afternoon."
"It's time for dinner. Let's get off the boat and have dinner at the restaurant together?"
"No need. Why go to a restaurant? Food outside is too expensive. We can just cook something on the boat while we sail. Save some money and come up quickly." Ye's father urged him disapprovingly.
Everyone else also agreed and just ate dry food or cooked their own noodles.
They are all good at saving him money, Ye Yaodong sighed, but he won’t be able to eat either.
Drifting along the coast, they passed one village after another. Some villages had no educated youth centers and no empty houses to rent, some did not welcome outsiders at all, and some docking points were too small to accommodate only small wooden boats, not larger boats.
They drifted on the sea, asking questions all the way.
Ye Yaodong felt that they were very lucky to be able to settle down in that village in the first place. They had searched several villages before, but none of them were suitable.
It took them another hour to find a big village where they could rent a house for a few days, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
"It's hard to make money, but at least I have a place to stay for the next two or three days."
"If we move to a new place every two or three days, it will be quite troublesome. Not to mention moving things around, the key point is that the village is not that easy to find."
"We can't stay for too long. We are outsiders and we made too much money. We are jealous. It would be great if we can be quiet for two or three days."
"Dongzi is right. Let's move the things off the boat first. Fortunately, we have a lot of people and can move them all in one trip. Don't move the things that you don't need for the time being and leave them on the boat."
After settling down, they went out to sea to continue fishing under the curious gaze of the villagers, and the sorting was left to Ye Ersao.
In the following days, they fully demonstrated what it means to move to another place after each shot.
They would not stay in a village for more than three days before leaving, unless it rained, then they would stay a few more days.
It's a little troublesome, but at least it's safe.
They ran away before others could react or gather, otherwise who knows when the god of luck would stop caring about them.
In just over a month, Ye Yaodong felt that he had lost almost ten pounds.
"It's so hard to be a human being just for a few pieces of silver."
Having just moved from another village, they sent a boat out to find a village in advance during lunch the day before, and now they were rushing to their new place to settle down.
Everyone was a little tired. Although they were all family members and relatives, they were just working to earn money. They had to do whatever the host family arranged.
Father Ye also soothed him, "Hold on for a few more days. There are fewer jellyfish recently. I guess they will be gone in a few days."
"Indeed, the number has obviously decreased a lot in the past few days. I don't know if they were eaten by the group of sea turtles. The group of sea turtles must still be staying in the jellyfish group and eating a lot."
"It's a pity to let them eat it..."
"If everyone holds on a little longer, we should be able to go back in a few days."
Ye Yaodong also said, "Otherwise, why don't we find a small island nearby these few days? We can sleep on the boat at night and leave our second sister-in-law on the island to cook during the day? We can get a few more buckets of fresh water for her a day in advance, and also leave someone to help her with the work and collect firewood? It would save us from having to keep changing places, which is too troublesome."
"With fresh water, we can cook and dry food on the island. At night, we can sleep peacefully on the boat. We don't need to communicate with the locals, and we don't need to worry about the villagers getting jealous."
"Besides, we are almost back now, and there shouldn't be many days left, so don't let anything go wrong. We have asked many villages during this period, and these villages are bound to have relatives who are related to us. If everyone spreads the news, who knows which village might catch us all?"
The more he talked, the more he felt a sense of urgency. He thought it would be a good idea to live on the boat and learn from the boat people.