Back To the Small Fishing Village In 1982
Chapter 83

The four of them happily boarded the small boat again, their bodies full of energy. Indeed, making money was the best form of motivation.

“Dongzi, let me see the receipt,” Ah Guang said, rubbing his hands with a smile. “478 yuan, how much can each of us get?”

“I don’t know, definitely over 100. We’ll have my wife calculate it when we get back.”

Xiao Xiao chuckled, “The ones who didn’t come will probably be slapping their thighs in regret.”

“It’s good they didn’t come. Why have so many people? It’s perfect for us to split it, fewer people means more for each.”

“Exactly.”

Ye Yaodong spoke while rowing, “When we get back, you can use this money to partner up and get a boat.”

Ah Guang smiled as he folded the receipt and put it back in Ye Yaodong’s pocket, saying, “Alright, seeing you make such a big profit on your first trip with this small boat, I’m really envious. Anyway, I’m just lying around at home with nothing to do, the three of us can try getting a boat together.”

Ah Zheng, as if already seeing his mother praising him for his success, nodded happily.

Xiao Xiao had no objections either, having something to do was good.

The small boat slowly sailed towards the lonely island again. After all that busy work, it was only noon.

As soon as they got off the boat, they weren’t in a hurry to go beach combing. Instead, they gathered a pile of dry branches, planning to roast a few sea turtle eggs to eat and fill their stomachs.

Ye Yaodong went to dig up a pile of mud, intending to wrap the sea turtle eggs in mud and throw them into the fire to roast.

This was also a childhood memory for them. When they were young, they often stole eggs from home to roast like this outside. It was incredibly delicious.

“Wrap however many you want to eat yourself!”

“Ah, it’s been years since I’ve eaten like this.”

“Today’s a good chance to reminisce!”

“I wonder if roasted turtle eggs taste better than chicken eggs?”

“They’re sea turtle eggs, okay? Just wrap them in mud first, we’ll know how they taste when they’re roasted.”

After each person wrapped four or five sea turtle eggs and threw them into the fire pit, they used tree branches to poke at the fire, turning the eggs. Luckily, they all smoked, so everyone had matchboxes with them.

Sitting on the beach, feeling the salty sea breeze, it would have been even better if the sun wasn’t so strong!

The four sat on the beach, chatting while waiting for the sea turtle eggs to cook, looking quite content.

The fire in the pit burned more and more vigorously. After about 15 minutes, the mud was completely dry, and the sea turtle eggs were pretty much cooked.

They poked the sea turtle eggs out and went to the beach to fetch a bucket of seawater to extinguish the fire.

“It smells quite good. I’ve never eaten sea turtle eggs before.”

“It’s good for virility and kidney, you should eat more!”

Xiao Xiao rolled his eyes, “You’re about to be a groom, you should eat more. I’m not weak!”

…

Listening to them banter, Ye Yaodong pried off the mud from the turtle eggs, and because his hands were afraid of the heat, he carefully peeled a little bit of the shell and sucked directly.

It had been many, many years since he had eaten roasted eggs like this.

“Hm… why isn’t it solidifying? Is it not cooked?” Xiao Xiao looked surprised at the milky egg white, quickly sucking a mouthful, not wanting to waste it.

“No way, we roasted it for so long, the mud is completely dry, how can it not be cooked?”

Ah Zheng, not believing it, quickly peeled the egg in his hand, resulting in liquid flowing out. He hurriedly put it to his mouth to suck, and indeed, it wasn’t solidified.

Ah Guang looked at the sea turtle egg in his hand, then at the wet fire pit on the ground, “We just put out the fire, and it’s troublesome to start it again. Let’s just drink it, half-cooked is still edible.”

Ye Yaodong, who had just sucked a mouthful of egg white from the sea turtle egg, looked disdainfully at these three country bumpkins, “Sea turtle eggs don’t solidify in the first place. Even when fully cooked, the whites will remain liquid. Only the yolk solidifies, let me show you.”

He handed them the sea turtle egg from which he had sucked a large mouthful of egg white for them to see, and only then did they believe.

“Damn, it’s true. The yolk solidifies but the white doesn’t. We thought it wasn’t cooked.”

“Learned something new!”

“How did you know this, Dongzi?”

“It’s because I’m more knowledgeable than you guys!”

“Tch~” Everyone scoffed dismissively before eating in big mouthfuls. It was already noon, and they were all hungry.

As they were eating, Ye Yaodong said, “I heard that turtle eggs are considered one of the eight delicacies among mountain and sea delicacies.”

“No way? This?”

“Then aren’t our sea turtle eggs even more precious than regular turtle eggs?”

“They’re the same category, right?”

“How can sea ones and land ones be the same category?”

Another debate unfolded…

Ye Yaodong, after eating five sea turtle eggs in a row, patted his behind and stood up, grabbing his bucket to work. He couldn’t be bothered with these three idiots!

“Ah, Dongzi’s done so quickly?”

“Quick your sister!”

Seeing him finish so fast, everyone else also wolfed down their eggs in one gulp, picked up their buckets and tools, and followed.

“Don’t follow me, spread out and find your own stuff.”

“Following you means we can pick up things.”

“Follow me to eat shit? Even if I find something, it’s mine. What are you picking up?”

“That’s true. Then give us some guidance!”

“Get lost~”

Well~ Since Dongzi wasn’t cooperating, they had no choice but to spread out and search on their own.

Without the tagalongs, Ye Yaodong felt more at ease. He specifically searched in the shallow water area, and soon his bucket was half full. It wasn’t anything valuable, but he was content. They had just caught a big haul, so this was just like small side dishes.

After wandering around the area, he was about to move to another spot when he saw many bubble holes on the beach beneath his feet. He tried digging with his hand but didn’t find any clams. He figured it might be razor clams again, and luckily, he was well-prepared this time.

His bucket was already half full, so it was a good time to go back and get an empty bucket, and some salt while he was at it.

After returning to the spot, he scraped away a layer of sand from the beach surface, revealing more obvious bubble holes. He opened a small jar of salt and sprinkled a bit into each hole.

Soon, the razor clams in the bubble holes rushed out one after another, standing straight up.

Ye Yaodong happily plucked them one by one, his hand full. “This method is really efficient!”

The whole patch had similar bubble holes, and he used the same method to harvest all the razor clams in this small area. It was incredibly easy and satisfying, taking less than ten minutes to collect five or six jin.

He shook the bucket, planning to move to another spot to see if there was anything valuable.

However, just as he reached the edge of a large rock, he saw a snake wriggling in the water!

His pupils constricted, and he couldn’t help but swallow. He quickly retreated a few steps and called out in a pinched voice, “Ah Guang, Ah Guang, come quickly!”

“What’s up? Found something good again?”

Hearing his call, Ah Guang excitedly scurried over, and the others curiously ran over too. But when they saw it, “Oh, it’s just a sea snake! You coward, you’re afraid to catch this?”

“You do it, you do it. I can’t handle this thing. You’re the snake-catching expert.”

“Watch me. We’ll have a special dish tonight!”

“This one is over a meter long!”

“Be careful, these sea snakes are very venomous.”

“No problem, what are the fire tongs for? I’m not using my bare hands.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the fire tongs in his hand clamped directly onto the sea snake’s head. Its body instantly twisted and struggled.

“Bring a sack to put it in.”

“It looks really creepy. Why don’t we just smash its head and kill it? We didn’t bring many sacks anyway, no need to waste one on this snake.”

“That works too. We’ll stew it when we get back anyway.”

After killing the sea snake, Ah Guang simply processed it a bit and then put it on the small boat, picking a banana leaf from the small island to cover it.

“This small island has a lot of banana trees.”

“Are there any bananas?” Ye Yaodong looked up, but couldn’t see without walking up.

“Yes, quite a lot, but they’re too high to pick, and not ripe enough. Let’s forget it.”

“We’ll come back next month.”

Ah Guang said carelessly, “It’s just bananas. There are plenty on the hill behind my place. Next month we can go to the mountain and pick as we like.”

They could be picked next month, and it would be good to take some back. With many children at home, who wouldn’t be tempted? His wife particularly liked eating bananas.

Ye Yaodong was still uneasy about that sea snake, so he simply changed locations. Unexpectedly, in a slightly pooled area under a rock, he found an extremely large blue crab!

“Holy crab, this one’s at least three jin!”

He was extremely delighted. This must be the king of blue crabs, right? Such a large wild blue crab, probably only existed in this era?

“What three jin? What big catch did you find again?”

Ye Yaodong grabbed its shell with both hands and held it up high for everyone to see, “A blue crab, a big blue crab. I’ve never seen such a big blue crab before. Its shell is bigger than my face. This is definitely the king of blue crabs.”

“Holy sh*t…”

All three of them cursed at once. They had never seen such a big blue crab either!

Ye Yaodong happily put the big blue crab back into the bucket, but unexpectedly, its large pincers directly clamped onto the edge of the bucket and couldn’t be put in.

Afraid of breaking its large pincers, he had to carefully remove it and put it in the bucket, but he felt the bucket was a bit small. The blue crab could only stand tilted in the bucket, its legs constantly moving, trying to climb out.

He felt the sack in his pocket and decided to put it in the sack for now. If there wasn’t enough room later, he could empty the sack.

It turned out that he hadn’t found any good catches earlier because they were all waiting for him here.

After this big blue crab, Ye Yaodong found three more orchid crabs in a row, each over half a jin. He was delighted; these were much better than rock crabs.

The shallow water area near the rocks had the most crabs and abalones. After continuously finding good catches, he simply carried two buckets, one for abalones and miscellaneous items, and one for various crabs!

Maintaining a lowered head position for so long made his neck sore. Occasionally, he needed to lift his head and twist it. As he looked up, he saw clusters of gooseneck barnacles in the crevices of the steep slope above.

Huh? There are gooseneck barnacles here?

He was surprised for a moment, then quickly put down the buckets in his hands. He decided not to waste any more time on the beach. Taking out a sack, he planned to collect these gooseneck barnacles first.

Gooseneck barnacles, scientifically known as Pollicipes pollicipes, are nicknamed “seafood from hell.” They were once popular in various European countries. They can be found in many places, but he hadn’t seen them on the rocks near their dock.

They grow on rocks in the high tide zone of the intertidal area, constantly battered by waves. This living environment gives them a sweet and delicious taste, high in trace elements.

In their sea area, they had only seen Buddha’s hand/pen holder barnacles, which look very similar but are not the same thing. It’s easy to confuse them at first glance, but careful observation reveals that gooseneck barnacles have a long, thin stem, like a swan’s neck, hence the name gooseneck barnacle.

Buddha’s hand/pen holder barnacles have stems, but they’re very short, and the color is green. So, with careful observation, it’s quite easy to distinguish between Buddha’s hand barnacles and gooseneck barnacles.

It was rare to see them here, so he definitely couldn’t pass them up.

Growing in rock crevices made them difficult to pry out, but no matter how difficult, he had to get them out.

After finishing this small area, Ye Yaodong wasn’t in a hurry to dig for others. He first searched for these gooseneck barnacles, which were worth 200 euros per jin, equivalent to about 1500 yuan in RMB.

Higher quality gooseneck barnacles could even sell for 4000-5000 yuan.

Now… hehe…

He’d look around first. If they weren’t valuable in this era, it wouldn’t be a loss to keep them for himself to taste. He could try what’s called “seafood from hell.”

Seeing clusters of Buddha’s hand barnacles on the rocks, he distinguished between them. Laypeople would think they were all the same.

To avoid mixing them up, he decided to pack them separately later. Otherwise, it would take forever to sort them out.

If there weren’t many gooseneck barnacles, he could pour them into the bucket with the sea turtle eggs.

But after searching around the surrounding rocks for quite a while, he only pried out about five or six jin. The others were curious about what he was looking for and glanced at his sack.

Ah Guang asked, “Are you looking for Buddha’s hand barnacles? Aren’t they all over the place here?”

“Who told you these are Buddha’s hand barnacles? Go away, go dig your own stuff.”

“If what’s in your sack isn’t Buddha’s hand barnacles, then what is it?”

“Gooseneck barnacles, ever heard of them?”

“What nonsense is that?”

“I told you, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Tch~ I’ve already dug almost a whole sack!” Ah Guang shook his sack, a bit proud that for once today, his harvest was more than Dongzi’s.

“Keep working hard. I have 5 sacks. When you fill yours, help me fill mine!”

Ah Guang’s eyes widened, “Damn, I still have to dig for you?”

“Not just you. When all three of you fill your own sacks, you all have to help me dig! You still need me to row the boat back!”

Xiao Xiao and Ah Zheng also turned to glare at Ye Yaodong. So that was his plan!

No wonder he wasn’t in a hurry, just wandering around there!

“You’re going too far. We each only brought 2 sacks, and here you are, leisurely strolling around with 5 sacks. You were planning to use us as laborers!”

How infuriating!

Ye Yaodong smiled mischievously, “So what if I want to use you as laborers? Are you going to do it or not?”

“We’ll do it! We’ll work you to death!”

He slowly took out the receipt from selling the catch earlier from his pocket, blew on it, and said, “Over 400 yuan~”

Xiao Xiao immediately plastered a smile on his face, “Oh my, it’s just 5 sacks. There are four of us. If we all pitch in, we’ll fill them in no time. What’s so difficult about that?”

Ah Zheng also patted his chest and guaranteed, “Just 5 sacks, we’ll definitely fill them before the tide comes in.”

Ah Guang looked resentfully at the receipt in his hand, “Sigh~ When you’re under someone’s roof, you have to bow your head~”

“Haha, good that you understand. Did I have to bring out my trump card?”

Ye Yaodong smugly put away the receipt and also hurried to dig. If they delayed any longer, they wouldn’t be able to fill the sacks before the tide came in.