Chapter 41: Weighing the Catch

Ye Yaodong rolled his eyes.

The evidence was literally right in front of her, yet his mother still kept questioning him, refusing to believe it.

“Mom, you’ve already seen it, so why are you still asking? Isn’t it obvious?”

“When did you go out to sea? Why didn’t you say anything beforehand? Whose boat was it?”

“Didn’t I say at noon that I was going out and asked A’Qing to cook noodles for me early? I left right after eating. The boat was rented.”

“It’s only been a few hours and you already netted…”

“Aiya, we’ll talk later. There’s no time right now. There are still fish on the boat. Let’s finish unloading and weighing everything first.”

Frowning, he interrupted his mother’s questions.

Now wasn’t the time to explain everything. Getting all the fish unloaded was the priority.

The nosy villagers all widened their eyes.

“There’s more? They still haven’t finished unloading?”

“Tsk tsk tsk… the Ye family’s getting rich again. Why has your family’s luck been so good lately? Did you go worship Mazu or something?”

Mother Ye grinned from ear to ear and said to the crowd watching the commotion,

“Of course we did! A few days ago was our first time going out to sea. Of course we had to properly worship Mazu and ask her to bless our family with smooth sailing.”

“When luck comes, you can’t stop it. Even Ah Dong managed to catch so many Spanish mackerel after going out to sea. He’s really become capable.”

“Yeah, those boys usually look like lazy good-for-nothings, but once they got serious, they actually became impressive. They even found a whole school of Spanish mackerel. Looking at all these baskets, there’s definitely a huge amount.”

“That’s right. There must be several thousand jin here, right? Every single fish is this huge…”

Under everyone’s envious and jealous gazes, Ye Yaodong and the others finally finished unloading all the Spanish mackerel from the boat.

Every one of them was drenched in sweat, their backs soaked through.

Ye Yaodong handed the bucket in his hand to his mother.

“This is the portion I kept—two Spanish mackerel and some seafood. Make fish balls with the mackerel tonight.”

“Why keep them? These two fish alone could sell for several yuan. Just eat the cheap mixed fish…”

The older generation had suffered through too many hard years.

How could they bear to eat something valuable?

“Aiya, we worked hard catching so many fish. We should reward ourselves a little. Besides, we already have this much. Two fish won’t make any difference. Just make fish balls for me. I want to eat them!”

“Eat, eat, eat. All you think about is eating. The money isn’t even in hand yet and you’re already spending it. One fish is worth almost a yuan…”

Lin Xiuqing pulled on Mother Ye’s arm.

“Mom, it’s only two fish. Dongzi’s friends probably kept some too. Let’s just bring them home and make fish balls. The kids haven’t had any in a long time.”

Only then did Mother Ye stop talking.

Since everyone else had kept some, she couldn’t exactly throw them back.

A’Cai smiled as he looked at them.

“Finished unloading? Can we start weighing now?”

“Let’s settle the price first. If it’s too low, we won’t sell to you. We’ll hire a tractor and haul them to Yujing Pier instead!”

Ye Yaodong wasn’t stupid.

There were so many fish here. A’Cai could make a huge profit just by reselling them without doing any real work.

“Twenty cents isn’t low. At most I only make one extra cent per jin from reselling them. It’s only because your father’s yellow croaker from a few days ago introduced me to several fish dealers, otherwise I wouldn’t even be able to handle this many Spanish mackerel. The profit really isn’t that high. Other people need to make money too. You have to leave some room for others to profit.”

The way he said it actually sounded reasonable.

By the time goods passed through several middlemen, everyone needed some profit margin. If there was no money to earn, who would bother?

A’Zheng draped an arm around A’Cai’s shoulder with a cheeky grin.

“Brother Cai has wide connections. Making money is much easier for you than for us. We all earn hard-earned money here, so just add a few more cents for us.”

“You guys work hard? I heard you went out for only a few hours before coming back. Nobody has it easier than you.”

Xiaoxiao impatiently interrupted their bargaining.

“Aiya, who cares how many hours we went out? Just say whether you’ll raise the price or not.”

Mother Ye also chimed in.

“Yeah, yeah, just raise it a little. With this many Spanish mackerel, even if you only make one cent profit per jin, you’ll still earn dozens, maybe hundreds of yuan.”

A’Cai hesitated for a moment before gritting his teeth.

“I can only add one more cent at most. And that’s already coming out of my own profits.”

A’Guang frowned too.

“That’s too stingy. Only one extra cent?”

“It’s really not little!”

“How about twenty-two cents?”

“Normally there’s no bargaining at all. I’m only adding one cent because your catch is huge. Even if you hauled these to Yujing Pier, nobody would give you twenty-one cents there either. And you’d still have transport costs. Besides, if you don’t sell to me, I’m not lending you these baskets. Let’s see how you carry all those fish then.”

“Forget it, forget it. Twenty-one cents it is. No need to make things troublesome.”

At the docks, prices usually weren’t negotiable.

The attitude was always: sell if you want, don’t if you don’t.

Ye Yaodong also didn’t want unnecessary trouble.

Spanish mackerel wasn’t especially valuable fish anyway, and the middle profit margins really weren’t large. At twenty-one cents per jin, it was already considered pretty good for the time.

“Fine. If Dongzi says okay, then it’s okay. Hurry up and weigh everything.”

“Alright, alright. Then one of you record the numbers.”

Under the excited pointing and chatter of the surrounding crowd, they weighed every single basket of Spanish mackerel.

“How many jin?”

“Where’s the abacus? There are too many numbers to calculate in your head. Brother Cai, use the abacus.”

Not a single one of them knew how to use an abacus…

Ye Yaodong did know how to use a calculator, but calculators didn’t exist here yet. Everyone still used abacuses.

The crowd patiently watched as A’Cai flicked the beads back and forth with loud clacking sounds.

“Done. A total of 7,628 jin. At twenty-one cents per jin, that comes to 1,601 yuan, 8 mao, and 8 fen.”

The villagers watching exploded with excitement.

“Wow! Over sixteen hundred yuan! That’s even more than the yellow croaker net from a few days ago.”

“Can’t compare them, can’t compare them. How many jin of yellow croaker were there? How many jin of Spanish mackerel are here? Yellow croaker is still more valuable. If this were all yellow croaker, that would be truly incredible.”

“Who doesn’t know yellow croaker is valuable? But you still need the luck to catch it. Catching this many Spanish mackerel is already amazing enough.”

“With this much money, each person can split four hundred yuan. That’s equal to two months of trawling for most people.”

“That’s equivalent to four months of wages for regular workers!”

“Why has the Ye family’s luck been so good lately?”

“I’m going to worship Mazu tomorrow too…”

…

Unlike the excited crowd, Ye Yaodong himself was stunned by the calculation.

Why was it only sixteen hundred yuan?

He had thought it would sell for several thousand!

Maybe he still hadn’t fully adjusted from the prices of his previous life.

To him, sixteen hundred yuan felt so little…

“You calculated that correctly?”

A’Cai rolled his eyes.

“If you think I calculated wrong, then you do it yourself.”

“I can’t…”

“I’ll do it.”

At that moment, Lin Xiuqing stepped forward.

She had finished junior high school, could read and write, and had learned to use an abacus too—though she wasn’t especially practiced with it.

Carefully, slowly, she moved the beads one by one, afraid of making a mistake.

Ye Yaodong didn’t dare disturb her. Instead, he silently did the calculation in his own head and realized it really did seem correct.

A laborer only earned a little over one yuan a day.

One thousand six hundred yuan was already nearly equal to three years of wages.

Thinking of it that way, maybe it actually wasn’t little at all.

(End of Chapter)