Chapter 412: The Boat is Broken?
Chapter 412: The Boat is Broken?
Zhou Chenglei sets off again to trawl for another net of fish.
Jiang Xia, Zhou Fu, and Zhou Mu sort and divide the fish.
After they finish, Jiang Xia lies down on a reclining chair to rest for a while.
The sun has been out for a while now, and at around nine in the morning, she basks in the warm sunlight and gentle sea breeze, floating on the vast blue ocean—an incredibly comfortable feeling.
The tide is likely to fully recede around noon, and if they want to go beachcombing, they can't afford to nap at lunchtime.
Jiang Xia closes her eyes, intending to take a short nap.
She thought she wouldn't be able to sleep, but surprisingly, she dozes off in no time.
Zhou Mu covers her with a jacket of Zhou Chenglei's.
Jiang Xia sleeps, and Zhou Chenglei takes a little longer with this net, allowing her to rest a bit longer.
When she wakes up, Jiang Xia smells the aroma of food.
Zhou Mu is cooking seafood rice noodles.
Jiang Xia glances at her watch; it's already 11:30 am, and she's been asleep for two hours.
"Hasn't the net been hauled up yet?" Jiang Xia asks.
"It's almost up." Probably due to the receding tide in this area, Zhou Chenglei feels the engine's sound is a bit mournful.
During the ebb and flow of the tide, the fish in the sea become more lively, perhaps fearing they'll be left behind by the ocean's mother on the beach.
Zhou Chenglei goes to help Zhou Fu haul up the net.
Zhou Mu has already used the coal stove to cook the soup noodles, and she serves a bowl to Jiang Xia, "Xia, let's eat something first; you don't need to worry about them."
Jiang Xia takes the bowl filled with seafood noodles and starts eating.
The freshest seafood is undoubtedly made from seafood caught just moments ago.
Seafood is all about freshness.
That's why seafood brought back by small fishing boats often tastes better than that from large fishing vessels.
Small fishing boats go out and return on the same day, while large fishing vessels have to stay out at sea for many days.
Jiang Xia eats while watching them haul the net.
This net feels a bit heavy; after trawling for over three hours, the two of them struggle to pull it up.
A large package of fish can be vaguely seen in the water, estimated to weigh over a thousand catties.
Upon seeing this, Zhou Mu quickly puts down her bowl and goes to help.
Without a crane, it would be difficult for two people to pull up such a large package.
After half an hour of struggling, the three of them finally manage to drag the fish onto the boat.
Once the fish are emptied out, it's clear that they've encountered a large school of fish again! It's a school of blue roundfish jellyfish.
Zhou Fu laughs heartily, "What good luck! Even the people who went out to net fish at night didn't catch as much as we did. This net of blue roundfish jellyfish probably weighs over a thousand catties."
Blue roundfish jellyfish tend to gather in schools and are attracted to light, similar to bonito, making them a primary target for local fishermen who use lights to net-fish at night.
Of course, they are also one of the main targets for trawling fishing boats.
Zhou Chenglei often encounters schools of these fish when he goes out to sea, but it's Jiang Xia's first time.
She quickly finishes the soup noodles in her bowl and tells them to go eat while she sorts the fish.
The three of them hurry to eat, knowing they'll be busy afterward with a deck full of fish waiting to be sorted.
This net of fish, aside from the blue roundfish jellyfish, is quite mixed. There are also many white shrimp, as well as various other fish, including mackerel, squid, yellow grouper, black grouper, and crucian carp.
Among them, the mackerel and squid are quite large, mostly weighing over three to four catties.
The yellow grouper and black grouper are smaller, only around six to seven liang.
Jiang Xia spots a lively humphead wrasse and immediately grabs it, putting it in the live compartment to keep it fresh.
This wild fish is quite valuable in modern times and isn't cheap.
As the New Year approaches, fish prices rise, and the prices fluctuate daily.
In just twenty days, it will be the New Year, and Zhou Chenglei plans to haul up and sell the fish from the net cages two days before New Year's Eve.
Zhou Chenglei sits beside Jiang Xia, holding a large bowl of soup noodles, eating and feeding her the seafood she loves.
"I'm full; you don't need to feed me," Jiang Xia says, glancing at the shrimp placed in front of her. She moves her head away, "You eat it."
"Eat more; otherwise, you won't have the energy for beachcombing later."
Zhou Chenglei insists on holding the chopsticks, feeding her the shrimp.
They had an early breakfast, and beachcombing is a tiring task. How can they have the energy if they don't eat enough? Jiang Xia takes a bite.
Zhou Chenglei took a bite of noodles and ate a shrimp himself.
After Jiang Xia finished, he fed her a baby octopus, just the right size for her to eat in one bite.
Shrimp, squid rings, baby octopus, whatever Jiang Xia liked, he fed it to her, sometimes even feeding her a sip of hot soup.
The couple shared a bowl of noodles.
Zhou Chenglei was sitting with his back to his parents, using his body to shield Jiang Xia, trying to prevent his parents from seeing what they were doing.
Zhou Fu, looking at the young couple in the distance, smiled like an aunt.
Don't think that just because they're blocking the view with their backs, they don't know what they're up to!
Feeding each other food, a new way to get rich!
Zhou Fu also picked out the shrimp from his bowl and put it into Zhou Mu's bowl.
Share more, and get richer!
Due to the circumstances of their birth, the two had been married since they were teenagers. His wife had accompanied him through the years, enduring hardships, hunger, and exhaustion, rarely getting to eat meat.
The error-free version is available to read on 69shu! 6=9+shu_ba, the first to publish this novel.
Finally, in their old age, they could enjoy a life of eating meat to their heart's content.
There was no need to worry about leaving enough for the children, fearing they wouldn't have enough.
If there wasn't enough, they'd simply cook more.
Zhou Mu smiled and said, "That's enough, don't give me any, you eat more."
The two elders quickly finished eating and went to divide the fish.
Zhou Chenglei felt that Jiang Xia should be full by now, so he stopped feeding her and quickly ate two large bowls of soup noodles and two sweet potato pancakes before going to divide the fish.
In the distance, Li Father saw that Zhou Chenglei's boat had been stopped in the middle of the sea for quite some time, so he said to his son, "I'm not sure if the in-law's boat is broken, let's go take a look."
Li Qingmin: "There are so many boats going out to sea together, if it's broken, it's broken. It's not like there aren't other boats to help them. What are you worried about? Let's continue trawling! We haven't caught any fish today. And this net has only been down for a short while. Look, Zhou Chensen's boat just passed by."
Li Father disagreed, "Seeing it can't be ignored, let's go take a look."
On the other side, Zhou Chengxin saw that Zhou Chenglei's boat had been stopped for too long, so he pulled up the net and went to check if the boat was broken.
Then, several people stopped their boats there to divide the fish. Could the boat really be broken? After all, they could divide the fish while continuing to trawl.
"Why are you stopped here? Is the boat broken?" Zhou Chensen asked loudly.
Zhou Fu laughed and said, "No, we're about to go to the North Bay to beachcomb. The tide is ebbing there, so we're dividing the fish first."
Tian Caixia felt a pang of envy seeing their deck full of fish, "You caught so many fish!"
Damn, she even suspected that Zhou Chenglei and Jiang Xia might have cast a spell to attract fish into their net!
Otherwise, why would they be so lucky?
It was known that they had trawled twice in the morning, catching only three hundred fish in total.
Even when added together, it wasn't as much as Jiang Xia's single net!
It was all Zhou Chengxin's fault, that unlucky egg!
If Jiang Xia had been on their new boat today, it would have been a grand opening, and they would have had a bountiful catch.
At this moment, the second wife's boat also arrived, and Li Father asked loudly, "In-law, is your boat broken?"
Zhou Fu smiled and said, "No, we're just taking a break here and dividing the fish."
Li Qingmin was stunned to see their boat full of fish!
"Where did you go trawling?"
It had been dark before, so they didn't know where they had gone.
Zhou Fu asked, "We plan to go beachcombing at the western bay. The tide is ebbing there, do you want to go?"
Zhou Chengxin shook his head, "I'll continue trawling."
Beachcombing was something done when there were no fishing boats or when they couldn't go out to sea.
Li Father asked, "Is it close?"
Zhou Fu replied, "It's about a half-hour drive away."
They had just finished trawling and were already far from that stretch of beach.
Li Qingmin shook his head upon hearing this, "Never mind, we'll continue trawling here."
It would take more than half an hour to drive there to beachcomb, and they might just end up exhausted, collecting worthless conch and mussels, not even earning back the fuel cost.
Tian Caixia said, "I'll go!"
She didn't want to stay with Zhou Chengxin!
She wanted to stay with Jiang Xia!
Beachcombing, beachcombing, who knew if they'd find the sea or gold?
(End of Chapter)
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