Chapter 44: The Reef on the Isolated Island Is Full of Seafood

Their plan was to spend the morning dragging a few nets around the nearby waters to see if they could get lucky like yesterday and encounter another big catch. Once the tide was almost fully out in the afternoon, they would go tidal gathering on the isolated island.

They had no intention of heading too far offshore.

After all, they weren’t seriously trawling for fish. Real trawlers usually headed out around one or two in the morning, at the latest by two or three.

Just reaching the fishing grounds took over an hour, and each net needed over an hour before being hauled up.

If they went too far out, they wouldn’t even manage a few nets in an entire day, and it would just waste diesel going back and forth.

They simply wanted to test their luck like yesterday.

If they encountered another stroke of fortune, great. If not, they’d just gather seafood on the island. With this many people, as long as each person gathered a little, they wouldn’t lose out too badly.

As the boat pulled away from shore, Ye Yaodong no longer felt any fear in his heart today.

His expression was completely relaxed.

Once they reached the middle of the sea, he suddenly shouted toward the ocean,

“Sea, I, Ye Yaodong, am back again!”

“Hahaha, Dongzi’s too excited!”

“I’m excited too! Sea, I, Pei Guang, am back too! Send us tons of seafood!”

“Damn it, you’d better not say your name. If the Sea God hears it, he definitely won’t send us any seafood!”

“Get lost!”

“Aiya, stop talking nonsense already. Hurry and cast the net. How do we do this? I don’t know anything!” Fatty urged excitedly.

He was the only complete amateur among them. The others all knew at least a little.

“Don’t rush. This is still shallow coastal water, too close to shore. There won’t be much here. We’ll head farther out first,” A’Guang said with experienced confidence.

His father worked on large fishing boats, and his aunt’s family also owned a small boat. Back when his cousins were still young, his aunt often took him out to sea to help, so he was very familiar with all this.

Ye Yaodong was familiar too, but for now he couldn’t show it too obviously.

With a grin, he said,

“Let’s just see how our luck is today. If there’s a big catch, everyone happily splits the money. If not, we can still get some seafood for drinking snacks.”

“As long as I didn’t come for nothing!”

“Even if the nets don’t catch anything, there’ll definitely be seafood on the reefs. We won’t go home empty-handed. People from our village without boats can’t reach isolated islands. Those with boats are all busy trawling. Who’d waste time bringing a boat out just for tidal gathering? That’s overkill. The reefs on isolated islands definitely have lots of shellfish.”

Families in the village who owned boats all wished for calm seas every single day so they could go out and make money.

A’Guang once again steered the boat near the waters around the isolated island.

Since they’d caught so many Spanish mackerel around here yesterday, he still held onto fantasies that another big catch might appear.

“Haha, let’s do it here! Everyone get to work!”

“I’ll do it! I’ll do it!”

“Me too! Me too!”

Everyone excitedly fought over who got to help cast the net.

As the boat moved forward, the weighted fishing net slowly sank toward the seabed.

Fatty impatiently asked,

“How long before we can pull it up?”

“About an hour. I’ll circle around the area a few more times and see if we can catch more.”

“Let me steer the boat for a bit. I wanna try!”

Ye Yaodong spoke eagerly.

A’Guang looked at him suspiciously.

“You sure you can handle it?”

“What kind of man gets called incapable? You’re underestimating me.”

A’Zheng laughed mischievously.

“Haha, Dongzi already has two sons. None of you have more kids than him. Of course he’s more capable!”

“What’s so great about having two sons?”

“Still better than someone who can’t even find a wife!”

“Damn it!”

A’Guang looked depressed after getting hit right where it hurt.

In this era, rural villages placed huge importance on sons carrying on the family line. Having two sons really was something impressive.

Besides, now if your first child was a son, you weren’t allowed to have a second child at all. Only families whose firstborn was a daughter were permitted a second child after waiting five years.

Unless you secretly hid the pregnancy and gave birth illegally—but then you’d still get fined when registering the household.

With so many people around, joking and teasing was unavoidable.

Everyone laughed and chatted while waiting on the boat for quite a while. Once Ye Yaodong estimated enough time had passed, he told A’Guang to pull up the net.

Just as he expected, it wasn’t overloaded with fish.

Big catches didn’t happen every day. You needed luck.

This haul only had some mantis shrimp, swimming crabs, stone crabs, shrimp, and assorted fish—not even several jin worth altogether.

Everyone looked disappointed.

Ye Yaodong comforted them,

“It’s normal. These waters are too close to shore, so of course there isn’t much. At least we can bring some home to eat.”

Fatty unwillingly said,

“Then should we head farther out?”

“Sure. One more net should bring us close to low tide anyway. Let’s go farther offshore, circle around once, then haul the net back in on the return.”

The engine clattered loudly as the boat continued across the sea.

The group sat idly on the deck, bored.

A’Wei lazily remarked,

“We should’ve brought cards to play.”

“All you ever think about is gambling. Aren’t you sick of it yet? And how would you even play under this blazing sun?” Ye Yaodong rolled his eyes.

“Sigh. Still better than sitting here roasting under the sun doing nothing.”

“Instead of cards, we should’ve brought a pot. Once we got ashore, we could cook right there and eat fresh seafood immediately.”

A’Zheng’s eyes lit up.

“That actually makes sense. We should’ve brought a pot.”

Unfortunately, portable gas canisters still weren’t common yet. Otherwise they could’ve cooked seafood fresh right on the boat.

Nothing beat seafood caught and eaten immediately.

“Too late to think of it now. Next time.”

After another boring hour or so waiting on the sea, everyone completely lost their sense of direction.

Only when they hauled up the net again did they realize they had circled back around.

This haul still had no big catch.

Again, it was just the same kinds of seafood as before, though the quantity was slightly larger.

“Still only this little? We can’t even earn back the boat rental.”

“Sigh. I shamelessly tagged along too, and today there’s no lucky break at all,” Fatty lamented.

“That’s normal! If the shallow coastal waters had plenty of seafood, why would people bother sailing farther out? Diesel costs money too.”

After yesterday’s enormous haul of Spanish mackerel, Ye Yaodong and the others were already very satisfied.

Today they weren’t really expecting another miracle. They were simply trying their luck one more time.

If they found something, great.

If not, it didn’t matter. At least they’d still have seafood to eat and could enjoy some tidal gathering.

“Alright, no catch is no catch. That’s normal. The tide’s already going out. It’ll bottom out by noon. I’m docking now.”

Once the boat was tied against the reef, everyone jumped overboard one after another like dumplings being tossed into water, carrying their tools and buckets while helping secure the boat to the rocks.

“Holy crap, there’s seafood everywhere on these reefs!”

“Dongzi really wasn’t lying. This isolated island’s reefs are packed with stuff.”

Ye Yaodong smiled.

“Of course. The reefs near our dock get picked clean every few days. How much could possibly be left there? Nobody comes to this isolated island, so naturally everything’s grown wild.”

Everywhere he looked, the reefs were densely covered with mussels and clams, all large and plump. There were also countless juvenile shellfish and all kinds of sea snails attached to the rocks.

“Damn, this whole area’s covered in giant snails!”

“There are tons of goose barnacles over here!”

“Holy shit, wild abalone!”

(End of Chapter)