Ji Huai caught the manta ray and sat half of his body in the water. Even though he was wearing waders, his clothes were quite wet.
He didn't care, got up and continued walking.
Others may go back to the sea in two or three hours. Ji Huai walked along the beach for who knows how long. He turned over the stones on the beach again and again.
If you are lucky, in addition to catching crabs, you can also pick up marine fish stranded on the beach. The dead ones are worthless. If they are still alive, they can be put in a bucket and then rescued.
He could also pick up a few conchs, and he kept throwing them into the bucket.
The best way to catch the mud fish is to go to the shallow water area, keep searching, use a light to illuminate, and catch one after another. The disadvantage is that this fish is really small, a few weigh only a pound.
Crabs are quite heavy, but they have to be fat to be sold at a good price.
He walked and walked, and the sky gradually turned white. The small bucket was filled with fish and crabs, which made his hands numb.
Immediately afterwards, the sun rose from the sea, like a huge fireball, which made Ji Huai's eyes tingle.
It's already dawning quietly.
He carried the bucket and walked back. He had to hurry up and get to the dock.
The pier in the early morning was not as lively as in the evening, but there were still many people coming and going. There are basically no fishing boats coming back at this time, so there are very few people selling seafood.
When he came up with the bucket, someone would immediately come up to ask for the price.
Ji Huai was so tired that he sat on the ground and reached out to pat back a crab that was trying to escape. He looked up at the visitor and said, "They are all alive and fresh. The big crab is 41 pounds, the mud fish is 38 pounds, and the There is a manta ray, the best braised one, this one weighs sixty-one pounds... "
He quoted the price.
The price of seafood at the pier is not fixed. If there are fewer fishing boats coming back, it will naturally be more expensive. Freshness and size also affect the price.
Bargaining is a local custom. The old lady muttered, lowered her head and poked the crab twice, "You are not fat at all. You can sell it at thirty-five."
"Auntie, I can't sell it for thirty-five." Ji Huai counter-offered.
"Thirty-five, don't miss the few dollars, pack it up." The other party said, already picking it up, urging.
"Thirty-eight, okay? Everyone takes a step back, three-eight-three-eight, you give it and I do it too." Ji Huai also put his hand in and grabbed a swimming crab, "This one is the biggest, one weighs a pound. Look at how many crabs there are. Fat."
The old lady put crabs in the bag: "Thirty-five!"
"Thirty-six, no more, six or six are great." Ji Huai said as he cooperated with her in choosing crabs and picked out the fattest ones for her.
"Thirty-five!" The old lady refused to give in.
"Okay! Then I'll sell you thirty-five, but you have to buy a few more." Ji Huai muttered and took the scale next to him, "Who can sell such a big crab for thirty-five? That means no one can sell it to you now. You, forget it, get two more."
"It's so cheap, hey."
…
Whether it is really cheap or fake, you cannot let the other party easily lower the price, so that the other party can be psychologically satisfied.
The electronic scale was borrowed from the man who sold dried seafood nearby. The other person kindly gave him a bundle of plastic bags, and he gave him a few mud fish as a gift.
The old lady bought eight crabs, which weighed nearly six kilograms. When she paid, she was asked to take a few yuan off, so she received two hundred yuan. The other party happily left with half a bag of crabs.
These crabs are the largest ones, and they can only be sold for twenty-five pounds per catty.
"How to sell the mud fish?"
"What kind of fish is this?"
"Eels are delicious. This is the only one. I'll give it to you for ten yuan. It's alive."
…
One after another, villagers driving electric cars passed by and stopped to take a look.
Ji Huai tried his best to sell his seafood, holding a mud fish in his hand, "Look, the meat is very fat, thirty-eight pounds per pound, I'll give you twenty for the little one."
"Do you want eighteen?"
"Ten dollars for the little crabs. There aren't many left. Eight or eight dollars. I'll give them all to you."
…
He moved quickly, and before the customer even said anything, he lowered the price while taking the bag, and even if the customer was not interested, he would be moved. He put it in a bag and got up to help him hang it on the front of the car.
Young people all pay online. He wiped his hands, took out his smashed and stuck mobile phone, clicked on the payment code and scanned it for the other party.
Seafood sold by locals generally sells faster because everyone knows it is authentic seafood. If you go to seafood greenhouses far away, they will be mixed with farmed seafood and sold together.
So when buying seafood here, even if the varieties are a bit more mixed, smaller, and the presentation is not good, everyone is willing to buy it.
In just half an hour, Ji Huai sold most of the bucket of seafood, leaving only a few miscellaneous fish and the manta ray.
Apart from the big crab, the most valuable thing was the manta ray. He inserted two fingers into the other person's mouth and lifted it up. When someone stopped, he said, "I bought this manta ray and braised it at home. It's sixty-one pounds." .”
"Fifty." The young man chopped off ten pieces in one go.
Ji Huai: "Fifty-eight."
How can I only cut two yuan? The young man glared, "Fifty-five, top name! I have to go home in a hurry."
You have to cut two more pieces to feel comfortable.
"Two pounds and two taels."
"Two pounds, one hundred and one." The young man took out his mobile phone and scanned the code before he could speak.
"No." Ji Huai shook his head, "You are driving down the price too hard."
"One hundred and fifteen, we have to reduce it some more." The young man also looked at him and continued.
How can locals buy seafood without reducing the price? Otherwise, you will be called a fool when you go home.
"Okay, okay." Ji Huai took out the remaining large conch in his bucket and put it in front of the young man's eyes, "Do you want it? Eighteen a pound, I'll give you fifteen, no need to weigh, three will count as ten dollars for you. Look. Look at these conchs, each one is so big, they must weigh a pound, there are only a few of them.”
The young man hesitated.
Ji Huai looked at him sincerely and continued to sell, "Eight yuan, put it in the bag for you!"
The young man ended up paying eight dollars more.
A bucket full of seafood was almost sold. Ji Huai returned the scale to the aunt and put another bag into the bucket from behind.
There was an orchid crab inside, which was bigger than the ones he had just sold, and a hairtail weighing half a catty, which he wanted to take home.
Large and small crabs sold for 400 yuan. The mud fish were a little expensive recently, so they were all sold out and sold for nearly 200 yuan. The manta ray and an eel sold for more than 100 yuan in total, and some worthless fish were half-sold. Half of it was given away, and only dozens of them were sold.
The total income is about 800 yuan.
This is very, very objective. It was mainly due to the high tide last night and the tide receded quickly. He had to walk along the beach all night before he caught so many.
After taking off the water shoes, the skin of the feet in the water shoes turned white.
When Ji Huai returned home, Yin Cai was already awake. She had to get up in the morning to weed and feed the chickens before going to work.
Seeing him coming back from the door and seeing what he was wearing, he frowned and said nothing. Seeing him with one side of his trousers rolled up, he chose to ignore it.
This is not the first time Ji Huai stayed up at night. Sometimes he drank too much with his friends and fell asleep at other people's houses. Or he would go here and there in the middle of the night because of his busy schedule.
She already regarded herself as a person without a husband, and questioning him would only make her even more angry.
Neither of them spoke, and Ji Huai walked in on his own. When he passed her, he said, "There is a fish and a crab left in the bucket. Let's cook it for Xiaoqing tonight."
Yin Cai turned around expressionlessly, saw the fish and crabs in the bucket, and then asked, "You didn't come back all night, just to catch this fish and this crab?"
Ji Huai has little patience with her, but he will not get angry with Ji Xiaoqing. He still values his daughter a lot and will give her a few more dollars to take her to school if she is in a good mood.
"The others were sold." He put the water shoes aside and began to pack them away.
Yin Cai was about to go to work, so she quickly took the seafood to the kitchen to process it. When she saw the big crab, she quickly washed it and then put it in the pot to cook.
Crabs cannot live long out of sea water, and they cannot be frozen. Once frozen, they will have no meat next time they are eaten, and they must be cooked immediately before freezing.
It is pitiful to say that they are close to the coast, but they are reluctant to buy seafood. Fresh sea crabs cost dozens of pieces when you go to the port. When the price increases during the holidays, it can go up to one or two hundred pieces.
Ji Ziqing likes shrimps and crabs the most, but she hasn't bought them for her a few times.
Yin Cai cooked the crabs and fried them for her daughter when she came back in the evening. She processed the fish and put it in the refrigerator.
The refrigerator was her dowry. It was one of the few appliances in the house that still looked new. The white refrigerator was particularly conspicuous in the dilapidated and dim house.
When she came out, Ji Huai had just finished taking a shower. She walked over and said, "Since the money has been sold, the food expenses for Ziqing's school will be paid immediately. You give her two hundred yuan."
He would only work for a few days when he had no money, and then continue to eat, drink, and brag.
"I have no money." He refused directly.
Sun Bin has to pay 700 yuan, and repairing the engine of the small broken boat will cost several hundred yuan. He doesn't have enough money now.
"Didn't you get money from the sale?" Yin Cai said patiently.
"That's not money either. If I have money, I'll give it to you."
Just when Yin Cai was about to scold him, he heard a sound in the house, stopped, turned around and entered the room to change clothes and go to work.
All she had to do was ask him for money, and even if he had money, he would say he had no money. She couldn't bear to let her daughter suffer, and she wouldn't treat her daughter badly no matter how much she saved.
Ji Huai didn't sleep all night and was very sleepy. When Yin Cai sent Ji Ziqing to school, he entered the room and fell asleep.
He was very sleepy, and he slept until six o'clock in the afternoon, but was still woken up by hunger. Yin Cai got off work early today and took his daughter home.
When Yin Cai entered the door, he saw him sleepy and yawning. He walked around him and walked to the kitchen to start cooking.
Today she has to stir-fry crabs and fish, which will take a long time, so she has to move quickly.
She was busy in the kitchen, while Ji Huai sat on the doorstep and continued to yawn. He was tired all night last night and was still a little out of his mind.
Ji Ziqing put down her schoolbag and came out with a basin of leftover rice from the kitchen, adding crushed corn and rice bran into it. Add more rice bran so that the chickens can lay more eggs after eating it.
The food was leftover from yesterday and was already a bit sour today. She wore a plastic glove on her small hands and squatted on the ground to mix the contents evenly.
There were so many things that she couldn't lift them up, so she could only push the basin toward the chicken coop little by little. As soon as she entered, the chickens immediately gathered around and pecked at the food in the basin.
The last meal was fed in the morning. They were already hungry and rushed to peck at it.
Ji Ziqing closed the door of the chicken coop and walked to the place where the water was boiled. She was young and had little strength. If the pot for boiling water is full of water, she can't lift it on the small stove, so she can only fill a third of it. The rest will be filled with a small basin, going back and forth, filling the pot with cold water little by little, and then lighting the fire. Boil water.
The outside of the pot for boiling water was extremely dark, and there were layers of black stains on it. The slightest touch would scratch the clothes into black paint. Ji Ziqing loved to be clean, so she was extra careful.
She lit the fire skillfully and added firewood, leaving a few gaps when adding firewood so that the fire could burn brightly.
When Yin Cai came out, she saw her daughter boiling water. She continued to work in the kitchen, washing vegetables, cooking, and making soup. She had to speed up. Her voice came from the kitchen, "Xiaoqing, go find some clothes first, and we'll get some water first." Once it's warm, you can take a shower, and mom will water the vegetables later."
"I can water it." came her small voice. She took a small basin to collect the water, carefully and carefully watered the vegetables in the yard, and squatted down to look at the young vegetable seedlings.
She likes to eat small tomatoes, and Yin Cai planted a lot of them, which produced small green fruits. She stared at them every day.
The sky was getting dark, the firelight flickered in the small yard, a small figure was busy in the yard, and the sound of Yin Cai cooking could be heard from the kitchen, accompanied by the aroma of the food.
Ji Huai, a big man sitting on the threshold, did not help, and the two of them agreed that he would not help.
He yawned lazily, as if he was still awake, leaning against the door frame and continuing to watch the two of them working. In the past, I felt that it was none of my business and that I was hopelessly lazy. Now I feel that the years are peaceful and peaceful.
Except that the house is a bit dilapidated, everything else is pretty good.
The fire in the small stove became hotter and hotter, and the water gradually heated up. When Ji Ziqing was about to use a small basin to scoop out water and put it in a bucket to take a bath, he quickly stood up and stepped forward.
Ji Ziqing was burned by water once when she was in first grade, leaving a lot of scars on her hands.
Children have weak awareness of danger and boiling water is dangerous.
He walked up to her, picked up the pot easily, poured half of the water into the bath bucket, and glanced at her, "How long do you have to ladle out?"
Ji Ziqing put away the small basin and watched as her father could carry the bucket to the bathing shed with one hand, fill the pot with water and then carry it back and put it on the small stove.
Then he continued walking back and lazily sat on the threshold with his feet up.
Ji Ziqing took a towel and silently walked into the shed to take a bath.
At eight o'clock in the evening, it was completely dark.
Yin Cai cooked the food, and Ji Huai was the first to walk in and sit down.
Don't work if you can't help it. Lazy people eat the fastest and eat more. He had already taken the bowl by hand, filled it with a full bowl of rice, and was ready to start.
Yin Cai ignored her, called Ji Ziqing to come for dinner, and served his daughter a bowl of rice.
Ji Huai sold the money this morning. She thought that he would not come back for dinner and would use the money to eat with his gang of friends. She never thought that he was still at home. It was really annoying.
Fortunately, she cooked all the fish, otherwise there wouldn't be enough for him to eat, let alone for his daughter.
As soon as Ji Ziqing moved his chopsticks, Ji Huai had already picked up a large fish head. He didn't eat at noon, he was so hungry that he ate everything.
It tastes delicious.
"Eat crab." Yin Cai quickly picked up the fattest piece of crab meat for her daughter.
She cut the crab from the morning into several large pieces and fried it with onions, garlic and various seasonings. It looked very good.
"Thank you, Mom, I'll have a piece, too." Ji Ziqing was still very happy looking at the crabs, and swallowed unconsciously, grabbing them with her little hands.
"Mom doesn't like crabs." Yin Cai smiled.
Ji Huai spit out the fish bones and looked at Ji Ziqing, "Don't you like eating crabs?"
"Yes." Ji Ziqing nodded, her bright eyes flashed, and she licked her mouth.
"If you like to eat, eat all of it to make you full." Ji Huai said.
Yin Cai: "..."
She thought Ji Huai's next step would be to compete with her daughter to eat, but he wasn't that far. If his daughter likes it, he will still keep some.
He quickly finished a bowl of rice and ate it deliciously. He finished a third of a big fish. But if you look closely, you can see that he only ate the head, tail and most of the parts with bones.
Seeing that Yin Cai didn't move his chopsticks, he took a big piece of fat meat for her, "Eat more, what are you doing standing there?"
She didn't have much appetite, but she didn't say much, lowered her head and started eating.
When Ji Huai ate his second bowl of rice, his speed seemed to be much slower. From time to time, he would look at his daughter who was eating crabs and teach her how to eat them.
Ji Ziqing ate a big crab weighing more than a kilogram and was full without much food. When Ji Huai finished eating, he quietly waited for Yin Cai to finish eating before he continued to quickly finish the rest of the meal.
Yin Cai put some shellfish he picked up into a pot and made soup. He drank all the soup in the pot and was completely full.
He touched his belly and looked at Ji Ziqing, "Are the crabs delicious?"
"It's delicious." She nodded seriously, it was really delicious.
In the past, her mother would only bring her crabs when she attended banquets, but they were not as delicious as this one, and they were not as big.
"It's delicious. Let's eat it tomorrow!" He said, got up and went back to the bedroom.
Yin Cai returned to the house after washing the dishes and saw him lying on the bed again, sleeping like a dead pig. He was really angry.
The space in the room is small, not even a desk can be accommodated, and it is packed to the brim. Ji Ziqing was sitting on a small bench next to the bed, lying on the bed writing homework.
The light was dim, and she was afraid that her daughter would hurt her eyes, so she spent more than 200 yuan to buy a rechargeable eye protection desk lamp.
Ji Huai slept soundly and snored slightly. Yin Cai gritted his teeth and walked over, reached out and patted him twice, "Get up!"
He turned over slightly, turned his back to her and continued to sleep, and murmured, "I'm going to catch the sea in a while, so I'll take a nap first."
Yin Cai didn't hear clearly, "You sleep all day long, are you a pig?"
He didn't listen to what she said at all, and responded in a daze, "... um."
“…”
Ji Ziqing raised her head to look at her parents. When she heard her father's answer, the corner of her mouth twitched slightly, and then disappeared quickly.
Yin Cai didn't bother to argue with him.
At half past two in the night, Ji Huai got up.
Yin Cai thought he was going to the toilet and ignored him.
Ji Huai put on the light again, put on waders, put on gloves and carried the bucket, and came to the beach.
He had picked up a lot of things yesterday, but his luck was not so good today. After walking for a while, he encountered two crabs as big as thumbs.
He grabbed the crab and threw it into the sea. "What do you think you can do at such a young age? Stuff it between your teeth?"
There were also fewer mud fish, and it was not easy to catch one. After finally catching a big one, it ran away. Ji Huai was unwilling to look for it for a long time, and almost pissed him to death.
Later, I caught a blue crab, an orchid crab, and after digging under the rocks for a long time, I caught a stone crab. He looked at the average-sized man and said, "Forget it, considering that you are worth dozens of dollars a pound, I forgive you for only having a few taels."
I lowered my head and kept searching, my neck felt sore, and there wasn't much in the bucket. Compared to yesterday, it was very little.
But he still had to find it. He had been gone all night again today, and at dawn the bucket was not even half full.
There are various types, and they are not big in size. They barely sold for more than 300 yuan.
Today's crabs were small, so he kept the bigger ones and took them home. Yin Cai cooked them for Ji Ziqing in the evening. There were also some miscellaneous fish, which he braised in braised sauce. They tasted great, very fresh and sweet.
For two consecutive days, he went to catch the sea in the middle of the night, and suddenly became diligent. Yin Cai was still a little uncomfortable. She asked him for money, but he said he had no money. Thinking of his past experience, it was in vain to ask, and she was too lazy to care.
I can bring back some fish and crab every day to improve the food, which is better than before. In the past, I always took it to eat with others, and had to buy wine to drink with others. It was so stupid.
However, Ji Huai's appetite was a bit large. In the past, he cooked too much food and could save it for the next day. However, he finished it in one meal now, and Femi wasted more food.
The third time Ji Huai went to catch the sea, he didn't go there in the middle of the night. The tide ebbed in the afternoon, so he went there in the afternoon.
Since it was daytime, there were many people going to sea, including people having fun and old men and women. So many people had divided up the little things, how much was left
Moreover, from the afternoon to the evening, the fishing boats will slowly dock. When the fishing boats come back, there will be more seafood and the prices will be cheaper, which will lower the prices.
He picked up quite a lot of crabs. He picked them up twice and sold them for more than 100 yuan in the evening. At night, the later the crabs became cheaper, the price was reduced to 12 yuan per catty. In the end, the remaining crabs were sold for more than 100 yuan. I simply didn’t sell the ones I bought and took them home.
Just when Yin Cai thought he was on the right track, at least much more diligent than before, and they could rely on him to improve their food, he stopped going again.
For several days in a row, even if I wasn't going to drink or eat, I was just wandering around. My water shoes and waders were never touched again, and the bucket outside had not been moved for several days.
The little hope she had just raised was completely wiped out, and she never paid attention to him again without laughing at herself for being stupid. Do whatever you love, go wherever you love.
The other end.
Ji Huai gave 700 yuan to Sun Bin, and then he found a few masters and spent 200 yuan to repair the engine of the small broken ship at the lowest price. A little repair here, a little more there, and a small broken ship that can go to sea was born.
He looked at his work and smiled with satisfaction.
If the weather is nice, you can head to the sea!