The next day.
Ji Ziqing got up much earlier than Ji Huai, and was very active, busy helping him prepare things.
Yin Cai saw that his daughter was busy working, while Ji Huai was taking the opportunity to be lazy, and was furious. However, he saw that his daughter was very motivated and interested, and was embarrassed to interrupt.
Ji Ziqing has a sensitive temperament and often gives off the impression that she is not very lively and cheerful. But now she looks a little more energetic and lively, which is also good.
Get your tools ready, bring food and water, and you're ready to go.
Today's meal was richer. Thanks to Ji Ziqing, Ji Huai had the meal cooked by Yin Cai. She got up early in the morning to prepare lunch for the two of them, which included vegetables, meat and soup.
After going to sea, they first have to put the eel cages. The eel cage is a black cylinder with dead fish and shrimps placed inside. It has a very fishy smell and will attract eels or other marine fish and shrimps to burrow inside.
Ji Huai brought three large cages and two small cages today. Each cage was tied with a rope, and the other end of the rope was tied with a piece of foam to mark it.
After setting up the eel cage, they set out the shrimp net.
Ji Ziqing sat on the bow of the boat, looking at the endless sea, and then looked at the shrimp nets. There was also a blue plastic bucket on the small boat. The shrimps caught in a while had to be placed in it for oxygenation, otherwise they would die. Not worth anything.
Ji Huai drove the boat, "We will be a little busy today. The shrimp net will be closed in two or three hours. We have to repeat it several times so that we can catch more."
Shrimp are hard to catch. If you don't get much, you have to keep setting off the net. It's common to stay at sea for more than ten hours.
Shrimps are also easy to sell, so you don’t have to rush back. People want them when you go back in the evening. The supply of this thing exceeds the demand. Wild shrimps are rare things, so there is a rush to buy them. Many people are waiting to place orders.
Ji Ziqing nodded in understanding.
He first went to lower the shrimp net, and then went to the island yesterday to let Ji Ziqing pry some mussels for fun.
Yesterday they dug a lot, but there were still quite a few on the island. He said to Ji Ziqing, who was about to start a big fight, "Don't pry the small ones now. Wait until they grow bigger before prying them. Pick the big ones first." It’s also easy to sell.”
"good."
The father and daughter began to work again, and they did not pry more than yesterday. They only pried one bucket in total. Ji Huai took Ji Ziqing away, promising to bring her back again, and said with relief, "I finished the prying at once, next time Where else? We have to take our time, we have to collect the shrimp nets."
It is really difficult to catch shrimps. When the first net was pulled up, there were only a few shrimps on it. Ji Ziqing untied them, put them in the bucket, and started doing nothing again.
Ji Huai said he was busy because the wait time was long. When a net was pulled up, there were only ten or eight shrimps at most. Then the shrimp net had to be put down again and the wait continued for another hour or two.
She was so bored that she lay beside the bucket and counted the shrimps she had untied, "One, two, three... twelve..."
"How many are there?" Ji Huai asked her.
"There are twenty-five red shrimps, thirteen Pipi shrimps, an orchid crab, a swimming crab, a small octopus, and two small yellow snappers..." Ji Ziqing looked at the harvest inside, sighed and looked at Ji Huai , "Dad, I don't have many shrimps and no money."
Just a little, so much yesterday.
"Shrimp is very valuable. A pound of wild shrimp sells for more than a hundred. How can yesterday's fish be as valuable as the shrimp?" Ji Huai sat on the bow of the boat, slowly lighting up a cigarette and smoking.
He didn't shave today, and he was wearing a straw hat. In order to stain his new clothes, he wore wrinkled old clothes, making him look several years older than he really was.
With a leisurely and comfortable attitude, he was actually enjoying himself a bit.
Hearing that it was valuable, Ji Ziqing was careful when removing the shrimp from the fishing net, for fear of killing it.
Retract the net, untie the shrimp, release the net again, retract the net again...
Ji Huai gave his daughter the task of unpicking the shrimps. He was so happy that he half lay on the boat to rest. He squinted and said to Ji Ziqing, "Do it well. When the money is sold, dad will give you half of it."
"Mom, too." Ji Ziqing said to him while wiping the sweat from her forehead, "Mom cooked and did the work."
"Hey." Ji Huai sighed, "Give it, give it, okay?"
After receiving his reply, Ji Ziqing smiled and Xie Xia worked even harder.
The sun gradually set in the west, and another net was collected. Ji Ziqing saw a big shrimp on the net, caught it and put it in a bucket. Ji Huai's voice sounded, "Look, it's a beautiful sunset."
Ji Ziqing turned around and was stunned.
On the other side of the sea, a big, round sun was hanging in the sky and slowly setting in the west. The sun is no longer dazzling, the sun is like a big ball, surrounded by colorful clouds, rendering half of the sky.
"It's so beautiful." Ji Ziqing's eyes widened when she saw it.
Ji Huai took his broken mobile phone and took pictures at the sun. Then he put the phone away and said, "Quick, quick, quick. I'm going to collect another net. I'm about to go back. I also have to fish for eel pots. I don't know how to do this." How much can you catch in a short period of time.”
Ji Ziqing continued to unpack the shrimps, while Ji Huai drove the boat to collect the eel cages and collected all the cages. He picked up one of the large cages and said to Ji Ziqing, "How about you guess how many eels are in it? Let’s see if you’re lucky.”
You can't see inside this eel cage, you have to pour it out to know what's inside.
"Gojo." She held out a hand.
"Five items?" Ji Huai laughed, "What if there aren't any?"
"Four." She changed her words.
Ji Huai glanced through the upper opening and asked, "Are you sure?"
"Yes." Ji Ziqing also stood up and leaned over to take a look.
He removed the top lid, grabbed the bottom, turned the cage upside down, and tipped it into the frame.
A few small crabs and some small fish came out first. Two small eels fell out. He looked at his daughter and shook the fish cage again. "It's gone. You can't have any of them."
If the fish is too small, it must be returned to the sea, and no one wants it if it is sold.
Ji Ziqing puffed up her cheeks, picked up the small frame, and poured the small fish, shrimp and eels inside into the sea.
Ji Huai picked up another large cage and said, "Guess how many eels are in this one?"
This time, Ji Ziqing lowered her expectations and stretched out two fingers, "Two."
Ji Huai took off the lid and poured it into the frame. In the end, there was only one eel, but it was not bad in size, weighing a pound, and a bread crab. The other small fish and shrimps were released.
After that, he asked Ji Ziqing to guess several times, but he never got it right. There were only one or two eels, plus a few crabs, or maybe two Shi Jiugong, which was so-so.
If the time is too short, there will be no big harvest.
In the end, there was only a small eel cage left, and he held it in his hand. "The last one, guess how many eels are in it?"
"No." Ji Ziqing saw that there were only one or two big cages. This cage was so small, so she was pessimistic.
"We only caught a few in total, so what's the point of not having a single one? We also bought dead fish and shrimps with money. Hurry up and guess, if you buy more, I'll sell the money to buy you snacks." Ji Huai seduced her.
"No." Ji Ziqing still insisted, looking at him with big round eyes, "There is no eel in it."
"How could there not be one? At least there is one." Ji Huai pointed at the cages and said to her, very unconvinced.
"There are little eels. If you want to let them go, there won't be any." She said seriously.
Ji Huai weighed it in his hands again, "Dad can feel it. It's true. You guess again."
Ji Ziqing was tired of guessing, so she lay down by the bucket, put her hands in the bucket to play with shrimps, and muttered, "Dad's feelings are all wrong."
"There must be." Ji Huai raised his voice, trying desperately to get Ji Ziqing to guess.
Ji Ziqing no longer wanted to pay attention to her childish father. While playing with her shrimp, she stretched out her hand without looking at him, "Liu Tiao."
She said an unlikely number.
Ji Huai also got angry and came to the frame with the eel cage, "Dad is going to fall. Come quickly and count."
"Okay..." Ji Ziqing trailed off, without turning her head at all, and continued to look at the prawn. It's really big. Dad said it's three taels. How much is three taels
Ji Huai turned the last small eel cage upside down and tipped it into the frame.
One, two, three, three eels came out. They were not small at all. He quickly said, "Look, three!"
Ji Ziqing then turned her head. When she saw the three eels, her expression changed and she leaned over to take a look. Ji Huai thought there were no more inside, but after shaking, two more entangled ones came out. He was startled, "There are five!"
"Wow~" Ji Ziqing's words were not perfunctory, and her eyes shifted from the shrimp to the eel.
There are actually five.
Oh, there was also a very, very small one. She caught it and put it back into the sea, grinning at Ji Huai, "I guessed it right, it's six."
Ji Huai: "That's just a random guess, it doesn't count."
"Guessing is just random guessing."
"no."
"Dad, you are unreasonable."
…
The boat drove to the pier, and the father and daughter on it were bickering. Ji Huai's broken cell phone continued to play love songs from the last century. He stood at the stern of the boat and sang in ecstasy.
Ji Ziqing was deeply poisoned, "Dad, your singing is so ugly."
"It's you who don't know how to appreciate it. Listen carefully." Ji Huai would not admit it, but continued to sing, taking on the posture of an international superstar, clenching his hands into fists as a microphone, "Your love is like the sea, I can't let it sink in." Enlightenment's poisonous wine, give me your love..."
Ji Ziqing covered her ears with a constipated expression on her face.
This time they came back late. Yin Cai had already got off work and was waiting for the father and daughter at the dock. Ji Ziqing saw her mother from a distance and waved to her from the bow of the boat.
Yin Cai stepped forward to help them carry their things and put them on the roadside to sell.
It was already dark. I didn’t catch a few fish today, but I caught more than ten kilograms of shrimps. Even though it was late, they were still selling well, and people came to buy them one after another.
The mussels and eels were actually sold cheaper than yesterday. The eels only cost 13 pounds, and the mussels only cost about 12 yuan, so they sold a lot.
Ji Huai was cleaning up and Yin Cai helped sell. When the customer scanned the payment code, she was not greedy and asked Ji Ziqing to go to Ji Huai to bring the payment code to the customer to scan.
The father and daughter had been out for a day and were both hungry. They stayed at the pier for more than half an hour and sold almost all of the shrimp, leaving only one or two kilograms and then packed it up and went home.
Very few elderly people go out to buy ingredients in the evening, and many elderly people are reluctant to buy such expensive shrimps. Today's payment collection is mainly through scanning QR codes, and there is no cash. Most of the collected money is also on Ji Huai's mobile phone.
Yin Cai steamed the remaining shrimps, mixed the dipping sauce, cooked the remaining mussels, and made braised fish. The soup was seaweed soup, and a delicious meal was ready.
Monday came in a blink of an eye, and Yin Cai sent Ji Ziqing to school.
There were strong winds in the past few days, and Ji Huai didn't go out to sea. He was riding his little electric bike around the town.
"Ji Huai, are there any drinks parties these days? It's been a long time since we had a drink together."
Some friends learned that he had gone to sea and might have made some small money. When they met him, they all asked to have a drink with him. He laughed and said carelessly, "It will be another day. I will be very busy and want to do big business."
The other party looked at him bragging and said nothing.
As soon as he left, several people complained together:
"Didn't you say that he made some money when he went to sea? He spent it long ago if he had money. He probably didn't make much money."
"Yeah, it's such a big deal, it makes people laugh!"
"If Ji Huai can do big business, I can become the richest man in the country!"
…
At the same time, Ji Huai came to the place where Ji Ziqing had dance classes and met the teacher.
Coming downstairs, with a rare heaviness on his face, he rode his little electric bike to the feed store where Yin Cai worked.
Yin Cai was busy ordering goods. Occasionally, a few handymen would sit in the store and chat with her. The landlady's mother was also here today.
The landlady's mother is a good talker and has a good mind, but she gossips and often says that Yin Cai would be better off marrying any man than marrying Ji Huai.
No, she started talking again: "The mentally retarded person in the village next to my hometown knows how to make money and take it home to his parents. What kind of man is a man who makes his wife and children suffer?"
"It takes two to three hundred days to move bricks, but you can't make any money? In this world, lazy people can't make money!"
"Nowadays, there are more boys than girls. The daughter-in-law that Zhang Bei's family brought back has been married twice and has two children. That woman is dark, ugly and fierce. She will still enjoy happiness after marrying into their family."
…
She was full of kindness both inside and outside her words. The town was suffering from serious population loss. There were many old bachelors in their thirties and forties, many of whom were married to women who had been married several times. These women were not living a good life.
They are close to the sea, and the breeding industry is developed. As long as they work hard, they can have a little money. Yin Cai is so beautiful and caring about her family, why can't she live well if she marries anyone
When she said this, Yin Cai didn't refute, he was numb anyway, but he said, "He has been going to sea during this period. I don't know how long he can last."
People, sometimes you have to have a good life or good luck. Obviously, God is not favoring her.
"Three days of fishing and two days of drying nets." The landlady's mother concluded directly. She wanted to continue, but Yin Cai saw Ji Huai coming and didn't know what was going on. She was actually a little afraid that he would hear these words. , hurriedly walked out, opened his mouth to stop the boss's mother from what she was going to say, and said hurriedly, "Why are you here?"