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Chapter 108: No Comparison, No Pain
Chapter 108: No Comparison, No Pain
Wen Wan felt a soft "pfft" under her feet, as if something had cracked beneath her.
She squatted down and dug, discovering a nest of eggs! But two of them were crushed under her feet.
Her heart leaped with joy, and she quickly collected the remaining eggs.
Zhou Guohua chuckled, "Little Wan, you're so lucky. You found a nest of sea turtle eggs as soon as you got off the boat."
Wen Wan smiled, "I was worried you'd think I'm causing you trouble. I'll share these eggs with you."
"No need," Zhou Bingqiang replied.
Zhou Bingqiang was about to get off the boat when he heard this and glanced at his foolish son. Feeling a bit disheartened, he decided not to get off the boat and instead looked towards Jiang Xia's boat.
Since Jiang Xia and Zhou Chenglei were cooking on Pearl Island, and cooking didn't require many people, Zhou Fu and Zhou Mu stayed on the boat to sort the fish.
Zhou Bingqiang surveyed the goods on the Zhou family's boat. Everything was already sorted and covered, making it hard to tell what they had. However, the pile on the deck being sorted contained many good items, including two devil rays. Based on his experience, this catch was worth at least fifty or sixty yuan.
Looking at his own morning's work, he had lost a fishing net and a fishing rod, resulting in a loss of several dozen yuan. Although the latest catch was decent, with over a hundred pounds of fish worth thirty to forty yuan, it barely made up for the losses.
No comparison, no pain!
He regretted bringing Wen Wan on the boat again. In his decades of fishing, he had never been as unlucky as he was today.
Finding a nest of eggs was considered good luck? Pfft!
Zhou Fu noticed Zhou Bingqiang's gaze and smiled mischievously, asking, "So, how was the fishing trip with your date today? Did you have a good catch?"
Zhou Bingqiang found Zhou Fu's smug expression irritating and replied with a smile, "Guohua brought his date out to sea for fun. They're just kids, messing around. I thought I'd let them have their fun since our three boats are out fishing every day. We don't lose much by taking a day off. So, I brought the kids to play on the island for a day. They wanted to pry open some oysters and collect some mussels to take home. They're tired of eating big fish and shrimp every day."
Zhou Fu playfully retorted, "Your three fishing boats are indeed wealthy and powerful. It's just a lost fishing net, some fish, and a couple of fishing rods, a few dozen yuan at most. You can afford to play!"
"Then have some fun! You're the lucky one who doesn't have to work! Our family can't afford to stop. This catch is several hundred pounds of fish, and we'll be busy dividing it among ourselves. We worked hard all morning and only made four to five hundred yuan. It's nothing compared to your three boats. We can't afford to play!"
Four to five hundred yuan? Zhou Bingqiang's expression darkened, and his heart sank further. "The kids said they wanted to pry open some oysters. I'll go take a look!"
With that, he jumped off the boat.
He hoped Wen Wan would find some pearl oysters; otherwise, today's losses would be significant.
Zhou Fu watched him flee in embarrassment, feeling delighted and almost whistling. Three boats, huh?
His small fishing boat had earned more in one morning than their three boats combined.
If they waited for the big ship to return from the deep-sea fishing...
He could almost see gold coins raining down.
Zhou Fu's fish-sorting speed even increased!
On the beach, Zhou Chenglei found two stones to prop up the aluminum pot and started a fire.
After the fire was lit, Jiang Xia asked him to go and pry open some oysters. She had just picked some shrimp and squid from the boat.
She planned to cook some seafood noodles.
After such hard work, they deserved a good meal.
Jiang Xia felt that the shrimp and squid alone weren't fresh enough, so while waiting for the water to boil, she went to the sand and collected some shellfish, ensuring a sweeter soup.
This secluded island rarely had visitors, so the beach had an abundance of shellfish. Jiang Xia quickly gathered half a bucket of white clams.
The water in the aluminum pot boiled, and she first blanched the shrimp and prepared squid in the water, then added the cleaned shellfish and blanched them.
Shellfish needed to be blanched to remove any sand and mud.
In the scorching summer noon, cooking on the beach, Jiang Xia wrapped herself tightly after the sun came out, feeling like a steamed zongzi in the flames, sweating profusely.
Zhou Chenglei returned with a plate of oyster meat. He approached Jiang Xia and said, "Let me cook. You go and hide from the sun in the shade below the ship."
"It's almost done. Just pour out the water in that pot," Jiang Xia said as he scooped up the white clams and rinsed them with clean cold water, then proceeded to wash the oyster meat.
Zhou Chenglei poured out the water and added water to cook the noodle soup.
Twenty minutes later, a large pot of seafood noodle soup was ready! Zhou Chenglei called for his parents to come down from the ship to eat the noodles.
Jiang Xia filled four enamel bowls with noodles, each containing half a sliced egg that Zhou Mu had cooked and brought aboard earlier, along with four shrimp, three plump oysters, various shellfish meats, and two green vegetables.
The arrangement in the bowls looked so appetizing! Zhou Fu couldn't help but marvel, impressed by his son-in-law's cultural refinement, as even a simple bowl of noodles seemed to evoke a poetic sentiment.
His daughter-in-law was so good at managing the household, paying attention to the finer details, and she was lucky, too, bringing prosperity to her husband!
Jiang Xia took out a bottle of pickled bamboo shoots in fermented bean curd, a dish Zhou Mu had made in her free time. It was the perfect accompaniment to the seafood noodles, enhancing the flavor.
Zhou Chenglei opened the bottle, and each family member took a piece to add to their bowl.
The noodles were perfectly cooked, the oysters plump and delicious, the shellfish meats sweet and refreshing, the shrimp tender and sweet, and the pickled bamboo shoots tangy and spicy. Even the soup was exceptionally sweet. Everything was just right.
Zhou Fu had never tasted such delicious noodles before; the flavor was so intense that it seemed to melt his tongue.
In the past, his wife and eldest daughter-in-law's noodles always turned into a mushy mess with barely any soup left, and he actually disliked eating noodles.
He never expected noodles to taste so good!
Wen Wan and Zhou Guohua searched the island but couldn't find any pearl oysters.
Zhou Bingqiang's expression grew darker, and Wen Wan, unable to bear it any longer, decided to return to find Zhou Chenglei and Jiang Xia. She wanted to see where they were.
And then she saw the family eating noodles, so delicious that it made her mouth water.
Zhou Guohua's mouth watered as well. He said, "Tomorrow when we go fishing, let's bring some things to cook noodles on the island."
Wen Wan, who had been reborn, had never had a decent meal since her return. But seeing Zhou Bingqiang's expression, she shook her head and said, "Never mind."
Zhou Guohua whispered, "Tomorrow, we don't need my dad to come. Just you and me. I'll borrow a ship from my aunt. They're not going out to sea tomorrow, so we'll split the money we make from fishing."
Wen Wan's heart stirred at the mention of money, and she nodded quietly, "We don't need to split the money. I just think that Jiang Xia might have seen our ship following them and intentionally led us to a different island. This might not be the island where they found the pearl oysters."
"That's possible. Tomorrow, let's secretly follow them and see."
As they saw the family still eating, they decided to go and pry open some oysters.
Zhou Fu ate three large bowls, Zhou Chenglei ate four, Zhou Mu ate three, and Jiang Xia was full after one bowl, mainly because Zhou Chenglei had peeled many shrimp for her. The family ate until they were sweating.
The aluminum pot was spotless, not a drop of soup left.
After the meal, Zhou Mu went to wash the bowls.
Zhou Fu said to Zhou Chenglei, "Let's drag the net a bit later in the afternoon. Let's pry open more oysters and collect some white clams to cook noodles when we get back."
He wanted to eat this seafood noodle soup again tomorrow morning!
It was so delicious! Zhou Chenglei had no objections. He turned to Jiang Xia and said, "You and Mom can collect some white clams on the beach, and I'll go with Dad to pry open oysters?"
Prying open oysters was hard work and could be dangerous, while collecting some shellfish on the beach wouldn't be as tiring.
Jiang Xia agreed, "Okay."
Collecting shellfish wasn't easy either. They had to dig where the bubbles rose.
Jiang Xia dug and dug, and soon, she struck something hard. A silver corner peeked out from the yellowish-brown sand.
(End of Chapter)
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