1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 131 The price is higher than that of the three-headed abalone

"In the entire Yanghai City, there are at least two hundred small islands. But among the islands I know, there is only one called Taiquan Island, which has some abalones!"

The boat he was driving today was Liang Ziqiang's own lotus-patterned boat. While driving the boat, Liang Ziqiang introduced it to Lu Feng and Jiang Wen'ang.

"It's also an island, why isn't it available in other places? Is it possible that this thing is particularly picky about the environment?" Jiang Wen'ang took over the conversation and asked.

"It's not necessarily picky, but it is a little special. The native abalone needs seawater just like abalone, but it can't be too salty. If it's too salty, abalone can tolerate it, but the native abalone can't. At the same time, the native abalone particularly hates the sun and likes to stay in the shade. It can only stay in places that are wet, dark, and have rotten mud!
The Taiquan Island we were going to had a mountain spring on it, which probably diluted the seawater. There were also many trees, and dead branches and leaves were rotting there, so there was a lot of rotten mud. Only islands like this are the best for abalones!" Liang Ziqiang explained.

"It's not easy to meet all the conditions you mentioned! If Brother Jiang and I were to look for it ourselves, we might not be able to find it even after a year or two. I'm sure I asked you!" Lu Feng was once again glad that he had specially looked for Liang Ziqiang.

Since we were not heading to an island for a trip this time, although we occasionally saw fish floating on the sea surface, the people on the boat automatically ignored them and had no intention of picking up the fishing rods to go fishing.

The Lotus Pattern Boat headed straight for its destination and arrived at Moss Spring Island in the morning.

Just as Liang Ziqiang said on the way, the whole island is covered with trees, which still give people a sense of shade even on sunny days.

After mooring the boat and tying the ropes, Liang Ziqiang took the three of them off the boat and onto the beach.

The beach here is different from that elsewhere. There is no long silver-white sand beach. The sand is darker in color, and there are many large rocks piled on the beach. The larger ones are not gray-black or yellow-brown, but... green.

The stones are almost covered with moss, and of course everything is dark green!
The area extending from the beach to the island is covered with fallen leaves and a lot of moss. It can be seen that the entire Moss Spring Island is indeed very humid and cool.

Jiang Wen'ang was eager to find the abalone. After taking a look at the scenery and environment on the island, he began to look for the abalone he wanted.

However, after looking around for a long time, he couldn't find any abalone. He asked anxiously:
"You must have encountered abalone on this island many years ago. I wonder if they are still there now. I wonder if they have disappeared after so many years?"

"It shouldn't disappear. The entire environment hasn't changed. It's still the same as I saw it before. There's no reason for the abalone to disappear!" Liang Ziqiang comforted.

"Do we have to look under the tree in the woods on the island?" Jiang Wen'ang asked again, worried.

"There will be some on the beach. I encountered one on the beach that year."

Liang Ziqiang suddenly bent down and picked up an oval stone-like object from his feet:

"Look, here we meet one, right?"

Lu Feng and the other two all looked puzzled, and they clearly saw that he was just picking up a stone from the ground.

It was not until Liang Ziqiang brought the small "stone" closer and turned it over that they all realized belatedly that there was indeed another secret on the back of the "stone".

I saw that the back of this "stone" was brown, completely blending in with the mud and sand on the ground, without the slightest color difference.

The back is covered with brown bumps that look like small tumors, which does look a bit like the skin of a toad, but it would be more accurate to say that it looks like the back of a sea cucumber.

After turning it over, the belly of the wild abalone looks exactly like ordinary abalone!
Half is sea cucumber, half is abalone. They only now believe that there really is a small thing in the world that is a combination of sea cucumber and abalone!

Several people came down from the boat with buckets. Liang Ziqiang threw the abalone directly into the bucket. The abalone was covered in mud, and he deliberately didn't wash it, because it would live longer in the bucket.

After a while, Liang Ziqiang bent down frequently and picked up five or six in one breath and threw them into the bucket.

Jiang Wenang saw this and quickly lowered his head to look for them in the wet mud. However, he still didn't find a single one.

"How come you see something, but all I see is mud and sand on the ground?" The more he searched, the more strange it seemed.

Liang Ziqiang understood that the main reason was that this thing looked too much like a lump of mud and was completely integrated into the environment. If you didn't have good eyesight, you might not be able to spot it even if it passed by you in a swaggering manner.

"There is a way. The abalone eats and poops at the same time. It eats slowly, crawls along the way, and poops along the way. If you see something like rice grains arranged in a line, look forward along that line, and there must be abalone!" Liang Ziqiang pointed out the method. So, the four of them bent over and looked for rice-sized feces along the way.

After more than ten minutes, Jiang Wenang gave up completely and shouted to Liang Ziqiang:

"It's too much trouble for me to find a few! Ah Qiang, how about this, you two help me find them, and sell all the ones you find to me. I'll charge you 20 yuan per pound, do you think it's okay?!"

Liang Ziqiang was picking up a local abalone that was moving more lazily than a snail with his fingers. When he heard this, the abalone slipped through his fingers and fell to the ground.

Twenty yuan per pound, this is almost close to the price he sells for grouper and saury!
Three-headed abalone only sells for ten yuan per catty, but this local abalone is priced higher than the three-headed abalone.

He and his father once picked up half a bucket of abalone and made soup with it. It tasted really good. Not only does it look like half sea cucumber and half abalone, but the texture of the meat is actually a mixture of sea cucumber and abalone, which is quite magical.

But even so, it is definitely far from the high price of twenty yuan per kilogram!
He felt a little guilty, thinking that he was taking advantage of the other party's father's need for abalone to treat his illness to make money.

At this time, Lu Feng, who was closest to him, blinked at him quickly and whispered:
"Just agree! He's richer than you think..."

Liang Ziqiang nodded quickly, and at the same time he became curious again. Jiang Wenang said that he was in the fish business, which was related to the ocean, but he also said that it was not the seafood business. What kind of business was he in? It seemed that it was a business that made a lot of money.

Liang Ziqiang and Lin Baixian immediately agreed to sell him all the abalone they picked up at 20 yuan per catty.

"Let's go a little further ahead. There are a lot of rocks in the shallows ahead. Abalones like to hide in the shady places like cracks between rocks or under rocks. Maybe we can find a lot of them there!"

Liang Ziqiang also began to feel that it was indeed a bit too tiring to find the abalone on the mudflats, so he decided to see if it would be easier to find them near the rocks.

As soon as I walked near the stone, I saw piles of large snails scattered all over the ground where the shallow water met the stone.

"Oh my god, these snails look like human ears. How can there be so many of them?" Lin Baixian stopped and shouted.

"If it's not ear snails, what else could it be? This snail is rare in other places. Hurry up and put some in the bag. You can sell it for money!"

Fortunately, Liang Ziqiang also brought a snakeskin bag and a shovel. His hands were no slower than his mouth. He picked up the shovel and scooped up the pile of snails and threw them into the snakeskin bag.

Abalones need to be caught, but since there are so many big ear snails, it is just a matter of shoveling a few away. It won’t waste too much time catching abalones anyway.

"What's that a little further away? It looks like a Parasaurolophus scutellaria guarding a snail."

Liang Ziqiang had just shoveled out a few ear snails when he saw a lot of another kind of snails around the corner of the stone.

He found that abalone, ear snails, and pearl crab snails are rarely seen in other coastal areas. Strictly speaking, these seafood are iconic creatures of the marine mangrove zone.

Just now he saw that there were tung trees, sea olives and candel trees on the beach of Taiquan Island, which were all plants unique to marine mangroves.

Perhaps it is because there are several mountain springs and streams on Taiquan Island that dilute the salinity of the sea water, creating an environment of alternating salty and fresh water, so small patches of mangroves grow and breed unique mangrove organisms.

"There are not only snails, there are also a lot of crabs! What kind of crab is this, a saw-eyed mud crab?"

A group of crabs that emerged from the pile of rocks looked different than usual and quickly attracted the attention of the two men.

Liang Ziqiang quickly put aside the newly discovered Pearl-banded Crab guarding the snail and went to catch the more valuable Saw-eyed Mud Crab.

For a moment, I couldn't even pick them up with my hands, and I became unexpectedly busy...

(Three pictures of abalone have been posted in the comments section at the end of the previous chapter)
(End of this chapter)