Chapter 11: Selling the Mud Crabs

At this moment, the Ye family also noticed Ye Yaodong’s harvest. Mother Ye was the first to exclaim in surprise.

“You even caught two mud crabs?”

As she spoke, she reached out and pinched them, happily saying, “They’re pretty solid too. Together they should weigh over a jin. They can sell for one or two yuan!”

“Sell them for what? We’ll take them home and eat them ourselves!”

“Eat, eat, eat, all you know is eating! You little spendthrift. Your wife can’t even earn one yuan a day making nets, and these two mud crabs can sell for one or two yuan, yet you actually want to eat them!”

Mother Ye glared at him while smacking him several more times.

Ye Yaodong quickly stepped back to avoid her hands. His mother worked all year round, and her palms were full of calluses. Being hit by her actually hurt quite a bit.

“Mom, I wasn’t planning to eat them by myself. It’s rare to catch two mud crabs. I just thought we could stew them to nourish the children at home…”

Mother Ye’s expression instantly softened, and even her tone became gentler. Thinking about the children was a good thing.

“There are so many children in the family. Who would these two be enough for?”

“Each person can have one leg and a bowl of soup!”

“There are too many children. They’d end up crying and fighting over them. These things are worth money, so we should sell them. Your father already kept a few swimming crabs and a jin of small sword shrimp yesterday. Eating those is enough.”

Ye Yaodong frowned. Together, the two mud crabs weighed only a little over one jin. At current prices, they would only sell for a little over one yuan. Compared to later generations, that was far too cheap.

Mud crabs were also called xun crabs. They also referred to farmed mud crabs as vegetable xun.

In later generations, wild mud crabs were cheaper at the docks, yet still sold for 150 yuan per jin. You couldn’t even buy wild ones in the market anymore. The market only sold farmed ones, and even those cost 150 yuan per jin.

Seeing him frowning deeply, Mother Ye quickly shot him a meaningful glance and snatched the rope away.

“I’ll take them to the dock buying station to sell. You stay here and keep digging some sand clams. The tide is about to rise.”

This fool. His wife worked herself to death earning money, and now that he’d finally managed to catch two mud crabs and the family was about to split up, instead of thinking about selling them and letting his wife save the money, he actually wanted to share them with everyone?

Ye Yaodong watched his mother stride quickly toward the shore and could only give up.

Selling them for a little money was still better than nothing. He simply hadn’t adjusted his thinking yet. At least money was valuable now, so selling them was fine.

Seeing her mother-in-law efficiently carrying off the mud crabs to sell, Lin Xiuqing also relaxed.

Those two mud crabs were worth several days of fishing net work for her.

Everyone had selfish thoughts. Her husband was already lazy and couldn’t compare to his elder brothers in earning ability. Now that they unexpectedly had an extra one or two yuan of income, she also didn’t want to take it out to feed everyone.

Second Sister-in-law curled her lips when she saw Mother Ye’s actions, but she said nothing. If it were her, she would sell them too. She simply squatted back down and continued digging.

Eldest Sister-in-law was instead somewhat curious.

“Yaodong, where did you catch those mud crabs? No wonder we couldn’t see you earlier.”

“Over there!”

After what had just happened, he no longer felt like talking with these people. He casually jerked his head in a direction before walking toward his wife and looking at the basin beside her, which was nearly full.

“Not bad. You dug quite a lot.”

Lin Xiuqing smiled faintly.

“It’s alright. Too bad the tide’s almost rising. The next low tide won’t be until tonight, so we can only come again tomorrow.”

She glanced at his pants rolled high up and then toward the rocks.

“Did you go outside the tide line to dig all this?”

At least she had given him a smile. Ye Yaodong nodded.

“Yeah. There wasn’t much near the rock walls around here. The sea melon seeds and snails were tiny, so I went farther out. Those oddly shaped giant rocks probably blocked my figure, which is why you all couldn’t see me.”

Had he really become hardworking?

He had actually dug seriously for this long?

No wonder they hadn’t seen him nearby. He had gone all the way beyond the tide line.

“These sea melon seeds and spicy snails are still a bit small.”

She reached into the basket and sorted through them.

“I already tried my best to dig out all the edible ones. The sea melon seeds are alright. Once cooked, they’ll open by themselves. Even though they’re smaller, they should still have decent meat. The snails are a little small though. Once we get home, separate them and let the children smash them open with stones before steaming them with scallion oil.”

“What? Scallion oil? You want to use oil just to cook snails? Just boil them in water and pick out the meat to eat. Where did you even learn that? Using oil for snails?”

Lin Xiuqing frowned as she stared at him in disbelief.

A person who didn’t manage the household truly didn’t understand how expensive daily necessities were!

“Uh… heh… I just heard about it somewhere. Then let’s just boil them plainly.”

Ye Yaodong laughed awkwardly. Out of habit, he had brought over the way his family cooked in later generations and momentarily forgotten that they currently used pork fat. They couldn’t afford to cook so extravagantly.

Fresh seafood only needed plain boiling anyway. Their family usually cooked things plainly now too, since that saved money on seasonings.

Lin Xiuqing frowned and glanced strangely at him again before squatting back down.

“Mother hasn’t come back yet. I’ll dig a little longer. You can take our son up to the shore and wait first.”

“Alright!”

Perfect. He didn’t want to work anymore anyway! Soaking in the water for too long made his feet uncomfortable too.

Ye Chengyang had buried both his feet in the sand and was giggling happily there. Ye Yaodong directly picked up the child, tucked him under his arm, and carried both him and his harvest back toward the shore.

The moment the child was tucked under his arm, he began wailing loudly and flailing all four limbs around, speaking in two-word bursts.

“Wanna play! Wanna play! Don’t go home!”

“The tide’s rising. Everyone’s going home now.”

“No! No! Yangyang wanna play!”

“We’ll come again next time. There’s still corn at home. Don’t you want to eat it? If we go back too late, your older brothers and sisters will finish it all.”

The moment food was mentioned, the child stopped struggling and instead said:

“Want eat! Yangyang want eat!”

After reaching the shore, Ye Yaodong set him down on a rock.

“Sit here obediently and wait for your mother to finish digging so we can go home together.”

“Hungry hungry…”

“How come you weren’t hungry while playing just now? Just wait for me!”

Ye Yaodong had spent decades dealing with his two sons constantly complaining, talking back to him, and making him furious for failing expectations. Facing them now in such tiny, babyish forms with soft childish voices really felt unfamiliar. The contrast was too huge, and he couldn’t even feel much tenderness yet…

Ye Chengyang pouted pitifully, looking like he wanted to cry but was holding it in. Just then, Mother Ye arrived with Ye Yaopeng and Ye Yaohua, who had finished securing the boat.

Mother Ye immediately felt distressed.

“What’s wrong, Yangyang? Who bullied you? Tell Grandma and Grandma will beat them up for you!”

Now that he had backing, Ye Chengyang instantly opened his mouth and howled loudly.

“Dad! Daddy!”

Mother Ye immediately pretended to smack Ye Yaodong twice.

“Grandma already beat your daddy for you. Be good now, don’t cry anymore.”

Ye Chengyang instantly shut his mouth and stopped howling. His tears disappeared as quickly as they came. Only the dampness on his eyelashes showed any trace of crying.

The corner of Ye Yaodong’s mouth twitched uncontrollably.

What a little brat!

No wonder he still wasn’t lovable after growing up!

“Grandma, hungry hungry, corn!”

“Alright, alright. We’re going home to cook now.”

After soothing her grandson, Mother Ye shouted toward the women on the beach:

“Time to go home. Stop digging. It’s getting late. We should head back for lunch.”

The three daughters-in-law were already starving, their stomachs growling. Hearing their mother-in-law call them, they each carried their basins and buckets back up to the shore.

In any case, the tide was about to rise soon.

(End of Chapter)