Since the wind started, we have been unable to go out to sea for seven or eight days in a row, which has been particularly hard on those who make their livings by the sea. The villagers have no choice but to take advantage of their free time to go to the dock and carry sandbags for the sake of the lake. There is no need to worry about a lack of work at the dock.
The women in the village also took advantage of the windy and sunny days to dry fish.
Every autumn and winter are the best seasons for drying fish in coastal fishing villages. This has become a lifestyle for these seaside fishermen. Without the harassment of mosquitoes and flies, the howling northwest wind can dry the fish to 70% in less than 3 days.
Walking around the village, you can see bamboo flats and fishing nets drying in the sun every few steps, as well as dried fish strung together with ropes. This is also a unique landscape of the seaside fishing village.
The weather was nice these days and it didn't rain. With the weak sunshine and northwest wind, the fish dried especially quickly.
Ye Yaodong dried nearly 4,000 kilograms of toad fish and other fish. After four or five days of drying, they became hard and elastic, exuding a faint salty smell and the scent of sea breeze.
He put them all into sacks and stacked them neatly according to category.
After collecting everything this morning, he even went to borrow a large scale to weigh the sacks of dried fish.
He used a wooden stick to pass through the rope opening on the wooden beam scale, and then he and his father each lifted one side of the sack of dried fish, while Aqing adjusted the weight on the side to weigh it.
After all the bags of dried fish were weighed, Lin Xiuqing weighed more than a dozen bags of dried fish and added them up.
She was writing and drawing with a pen and paper. Ye Yaodong also leaned over and stretched his head to look at her. "It doesn't seem to be much better than my handwriting."
Lin Xiuqing rolled her eyes at him and said, "You think the numbers you wrote are more correct than mine, right? Let's calculate it. The total is 1056 jin 6 liang."
"That's not a small amount. This fresh one is less than 130 yuan. If I can sell it for 40 cents, I can sell it for more than 400 yuan. After deducting the salt and labor costs, I can still make 2/3 of the profit..."
Ye Yaodong counted on his fingers, made a rough estimate, and suddenly his eyes lit up.
“There’s something going on!”
"You're thinking too well, aren't you? How can we sell all of this at once? 1,000 kilograms, how long will it take to sell them all?" Lin Xiuqing was not so optimistic. She felt that if she could sell 1/3 and get her investment back, it would be good enough.
"Think better of it and give it a try!"
"You figured it out, see for yourself!"
Father Ye also looked at him and said, "When are you going to send them to the market to sell? Are you going to wait until after New Year's Day, when the new wholesale market is completed and you get the store, and then put it in the shop?"
"No, that's too late. Today is only the 10th, and there are still 50 days until New Year's Day. If we don't sell these, how can we continue to dry them? There's no place to pile them. And if they haven't been sold, I'm not sure whether I should continue to dry them. By then, won't the 50 days in between be wasted? Half of the winter will be over."
"So you plan to send it in the evening?"
"I thought, I'll go to the morning market at night, when there are a lot of people coming and going, and see if I can be lucky enough to meet a dealer. It would be best if I can clear all the goods in one go."
In his previous life, he always heard that this era was the best golden age, you could make money by doing anything, you could sell anything, and there were people who wanted everything. This time he could try it out for himself to see if dried fish was easy to sell.
The old lady raised her head and interrupted, "Then let your father go with you. He doesn't have anything to do anyway. If you two go together, you will have company, and you can discuss anything if you are undecided."
Father Ye looked at his old mother who had made the decision for him and shook his head helplessly, "Well, I'll go with you that night and take a look at the store you bought. You three brothers spent so much money, but I didn't even take a look."
"casual."
"Then he shouldn't have taken all of them with him, right?" Lin Xiuqing was a little undecided and didn't know what he was planning to do.
"I definitely won't take all of it with me. If I can't sell it, I'll have to bring it all back. What if it rains? It will all get wet. Let's take 200 to 300 kilograms and try to sell them. If they sell well, I'll take all of it with me next time."
"Well, let's carry it into the house first, and then put it in the car when we leave in the evening."
"OK."
The room was not big to begin with, and couldn't hold more than a dozen sacks, so Ye's father and Ye Yaodong placed the sacks in the corner of the main room, placed them horizontally against the wall, and then stacked them up one by one. Those that couldn't fit in were taken to the children's room and temporarily stacked up.
"The dried fish is in your room, so you are not allowed to eat it secretly?"
It happened to be the weekend today, and all the children, big and small, were at home. Seeing their adults busy at work, they gathered around to watch the fun, following behind and wanting to join in the fun.
Ye Chenghu said disdainfully: "I won't eat it. It's too salty. It's not like I haven't eaten anything before."
Ye Yaodong turned his head, chuckled, and flicked his forehead. "Youth? Are you looking down on me? It looks like you've been eating a lot of delicious food lately. You've become picky. In the past, you even wanted to taste salt."
"No way, I just wanted to taste the sugar before, not the salt. You guys were teasing me with the salt on purpose."
"You have a good memory. I didn't expect you would still remember it."
Ye Chenghu groaned twice, but his eyes rolled in an instant, and he immediately smiled and greeted him, pulling his sleeve in a flattering manner, "Dad, I have helped you with the work for many days. If you go to the city, can you bring me a reward?"
The others also looked at him with bright eyes.
They were not his biological sons, so they were embarrassed to ask for it. The adults in the family had taught them many times. But since Ye Chenghu asked for it, everyone couldn't help but look at him hopefully.
Ye Yaodong refused mercilessly, "What do you want? You want a reward for doing a little work? Isn't it your duty to help the family? Haven't you eaten enough during this period? Whenever a hawker passed by with a load on his shoulder, you didn't miss it."
Lin Xiuqing also glared at Ye Chenghu, "Not getting a beating is good enough, and you still want a reward? A few days ago, when Popcorn passed by, I was killing fish and didn't have time to take care of it, so you all secretly grabbed a handful of rice to exchange. Don't think I don't know, I just don't have the hands free to beat people."
Ye Chenghu suddenly shrank back, not daring to speak, and ran out quickly, fearing that his mother would take revenge on him later.
Others also ran away, fearing that they would be implicated.
Lin Xiuqing watched them all run away before looking at Ye Yaodong, "Don't bring anything back this time. They've gotten used to it. Other children are not as happy as they are. They can eat whatever they want. Don't spoil them anymore."
"knew."
He agreed to it, but when he got to the city and saw vendors selling all kinds of things at the stalls around him, he felt itchy and wanted to buy something for his child.
In the past, he didn’t have the conditions or the money, but now that he has some money, he always wants to take care of the children at home.
Nowadays, there is nothing that children don’t eat.
Just then, when he saw the stall next to him selling boiled peanuts, he spent fifty cents to buy a big bag of dried fish even before the stall in front of him opened.
He held a large newspaper in both hands and handed it to his father, "Try it? It smells delicious, and the grains look full."
"Why buy so much? The sale hasn't even started yet and you've already spent money." Father Ye grabbed two and shelled them at random.
"Take it back to the little one at home later."
"Didn't Qing tell you not to buy anything?"
"Doesn't this smell good? It's just a bag of peanuts." He would never admit that he was greedy. It was boring to squat on the ground waiting, so peeling some peanuts and eating them could help pass the time.
The father and son started squatting at the entrance of the market before dawn. In front and behind them were sacks of dried fish. The strong smell of salted fish could be smelled from afar without them having to shout.
Among the aromas of breakfast, the smell of salted fish is particularly prominent.
Therefore, even though the morning market had just begun, there was a constant stream of people coming and going in front of their stalls. However, they were all casually weighing a few pounds or a few pieces of fish, and the maximum weight was no more than ten pounds.
The father and son were not picky, as long as someone bought the goods, it was fine. No matter how much or how little they bought, at least they could sell some, and they could sell them at a higher price at retail. Even 45 cents would sell well. Occasionally, if he liked the goods, he would give the seller a few cents off.
To this end, Ye Yaodong shamelessly gave all the peanuts he had just bought to the owner of the stall next door, and even borrowed his small scale.
He was not well prepared and had no experience. He just hoped that if he met a dealer, he could just weigh all the goods and take them away. He even brought a large scale with him. But the reality was that he was selling them in small pieces…
Moreover, he didn't even prepare change and had to exchange it with the person next to him.
It is true that ideals are full and reality is skinny.
But for the father and son, every pound they can sell is worth it.
Don't underestimate retail sales. People nowadays still have strong purchasing power, especially when it comes to food and clothing. Dried salted fish can be stored for a long time. Before dawn, the father and son had already sold two large bags.
Ye Yaodong was afraid that his frequent borrowing of scales would annoy the stall owner next to him, so he was very considerate and took out ten salted fish for him when he had some free time. He put the fish into the basket next to him without hesitation, regardless of the stall owner's polite refusal.
"Brother Wu, you're welcome. Meeting is destiny. What's more, you're a very kind and generous person. You've been lending me your scale frequently. I'm just showing my appreciation. Take it. Don't be polite. These are all dried fish from our home. They're not worth much. Let's just consider this as friendship."
The middle-aged man called Angkor looks to be in his early 40s, but his face is weather-beaten and not much better than his father's. People nowadays look old because of their hard work.
His stall was selling dried shrimps. No one knew where he got them from, but there were a lot of them. On the cart behind him was a large nylon bag filled with dried shrimps. He estimated that there were probably hundreds of pounds of them.
In front of him were two baskets, each with a round bamboo plate on top, which were piled with sticky shrimps. As long as someone took some away, he would grab a handful of more from the basket below.
Business was very good and sales were very fast. A scale was passed back and forth between the two of them.