1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 256 Take the money and leave quickly. Don't stay.
When they arrived at the coast near the county town, Liang Ziqiang went ashore. His father and eldest brother got off the boat first and went to look for the places in the county town that sold fishing gear.

He continued to drive the boat towards the city.

After arriving at Sham Shui Po and docking safely, he carried the catch to Yue Hai Restaurant.

Manager Du was a little surprised:

"It hasn't been long since you brought the chicken snail here last time. Are you going to find a grouper for me this time?"

Liang Ziqiang was silent for a moment. Brother Teng, don't mention grouper to me...

It was a real pain in his heart that he could no longer get grouper.

Liang Ziqiang hummed and groaned twice: "There are still no groupers, but the fish this time are not much worse than groupers. There is one kind of fish that you will know after you see it, it is even rarer than the eastern star grouper!"

Before Du Ziteng was about to be disappointed, Liang Ziqiang quickly told him the most important point, which whetted the other party's appetite.

"It's not a grouper, but it's stronger than the eastern grouper? What kind of fish is this? Let me see!"

Without him saying anything, Liang Ziqiang had already opened the lid of the barrel.

"What's in the bucket..."

Du Ziteng actually muttered something.

It's no wonder. The black fish in the bucket were extremely black, and it seemed that they had absorbed all the light in the bucket. When I first looked into the bucket, there was nothing in it. Except for half a bucket of water...

Liang Ziqiang didn't know what to say.

He got to work right away, reaching his hand into the bucket of water and scooping up a black fish, which was surprisingly the biggest one.

Du Ziteng watched as a black fish suddenly appeared from the pitch-black bucket. It was as dark as the night from which one could not wake up. Every part of its body, including its eyeballs, was evenly black, but it was not ugly at all and even had a bit of beauty.

"Black hair?! Be gentle, don't pinch so hard! You've broken my black hair fish. Who would want to eat it without the flavor?!"

Du Ziteng's first reaction was to worry that Liang Ziqiang would pinch him and break him. In addition, he immediately said "my black-haired fish". In a second, the black-haired fish had changed its owner.

Liang Ziqiang put the fish back into the water. If he continued to pinch it, he was afraid that Du Ziteng would pinch him if he saw his eyes.

"What do you think? This fish is more expensive than the grouper, right?" Liang Ziqiang asked.

Du Ziteng had recovered from the surprise and said rationally:
"It's a black-haired Koutai, so it's indeed more expensive than the Oriental Grouper. It's only one or two yuan more expensive. The Oriental Grouper is twenty yuan, and I'll give you twenty-two yuan for this black-haired Koutai!" Du Ziteng thought about it and said, "If it can be the other two types of black hair, it will be more expensive than the Koutai!"

"Wait a minute!" Liang Ziqiang quickly took out another fish from the bucket.

"Look, this is the other kind you mentioned, with a long black hairy tail!" He himself didn't expect that the one he caught the second time would have the same long tail.

"Really? This one..." Du Ziteng identified the three subtle differences and confirmed it. After a little consideration, he said, "This one can be priced the same as Zhan San Dao, twenty-five dollars!"

Compared with the black hair of the mouth, the black hair of the tail is three yuan more expensive. If it can be the same price as Zhan Sandao, he naturally has nothing to say.

There were two other black ones, both of them were from the family. One was estimated to be a little over a pound, and the other was only a few ounces. The one that was a few ounces was my father's.

Black hair fish are hard to come by, there are only four of them. As for the eldest brother and Zhu Tianpeng, they caught a lot of other valuable fish, but they haven't caught any black hair fish yet.

A few black hairs are quite special, and are placed separately in the large bucket of water at this end.

The other fish did not have the same treatment and were all squeezed into the bucket at the other end.

We were afraid that they would hurt each other, especially the iron-toothed monster like the spotted sea bream, which might bite other fish, so different fish were separated by separate net bags and placed in buckets.

First, I picked up a wet net bag from the water, which was full of spotted rock snappers.

"Don't look at the spotted sea bream, four dollars, you have sold it before." Du Ziteng skipped it without even looking at it.

"That's different, take a good look at this one!"

Liang Ziqiang pulled it apart and revealed the largest spotted sea bream in the middle.

"Such a big one? I'm afraid it must be more than five pounds. I can give you a separate price for it. Seven dollars, almost double the price!"

Then Liang Ziqiang took out another cutlassfish. This one was not caught on the island, but a particularly plump cutlassfish he took from the floating barb net.

"Cuttail? Hold it tightly, it's slippery and won't fall to the ground and move around!" Du Ziteng shouted on the spot.

A minute ago, he told Liang Ziqiang not to pinch the black-haired fish.

Now, he asked Liang Ziqiang to squeeze harder...

Different fish have different destinies.

“Cuttail fish is not valuable, and the market usually doesn’t buy it. Yours looks like it weighs five or six pounds, and it tastes much better. Sixty cents, after all, it’s just a cuttail fish, it can’t be much higher…” Sixty cents was much better than the normal purchase price of two cents for cuttail fish, so Liang Ziqiang didn’t say much.

There are also barnacles knocked off the turtle in the gillnet, all collected together, waiting to be shipped today. This is still the old price.

Go to the warehouse to weigh it.

The most valuable one is the one with long black hair on its tail. It costs one pound and two ounces, and costs twenty-five yuan per pound. This fish alone is exactly thirty yuan!

Two pieces of black hair fish weighing 2.5 jin (6.5 kg) in total. The price of black hair fish is 22 yuan per jin, so the total price for two pieces is 55 yuan.

Then the fat grouper was indeed 5.4 jin and priced at 7 yuan, and this one was 37.8 yuan.

The remaining smaller grouper seabreams, those that Liang Ziqiang and the other three people had, were separated by net bags. Liang Ziqiang's grouper seabreams weighed a total of 7.2 jin, 4 yuan per jin, and 28.8 yuan in total.

A large hairtail weighs 5.1 jin, 60 cents per jin, which is 3.06 yuan.

Finally, there were the barnacles pried off the sea turtle, weighing 3.6 jin (1.5 kg), and 4 yuan per jin, which came out to 14.4 yuan.

These are Liang Ziqiang’s own catches.

The other three people, Liang's father, a black hair of several taels, and a few spotted rock bream, a total of thirty-five and twenty cents;
My brother bought a few grouper bream for twenty-one dollars and fifty cents;
Zhu Tianpeng bought a few spotted sea bream for twenty-one dollars and seventy cents.

All the fish he caught added up to 172 yuan and 6 cents, and with the income from his father, elder brother, and Zhu Tianpeng, he received a total of more than 200 yuan from the conference room, which he put into his pocket.

Du Ziteng watched him stuff money into his pocket and asked casually:
"You came to the city alone today. Are you going to go home directly or stay in the city for a walk?"

Liang Ziqiang was a little confused: "What's wrong, Brother Teng? I'm a grown man shopping, are you still worried about me being in danger? There are a lot of female hooligans in the city recently?"

"..." Du Ziteng gave him a look that he could understand for himself, and then told him, "The city has been a bit dangerous recently. Two accountants from the bearing factory took money from the bank to pay the factory's wages, but they were shot in the head on the way, and all the money was taken away without a penny left!"

"There's such a thing?!" Liang Ziqiang was no longer in the mood to joke, "He ran away for fun?"

"I heard there were two or three people who committed the crime. These reckless criminals will definitely be caught soon. But before they are caught, who can guarantee that they will not continue to commit crimes? The money in your pocket is not too little, but it is not too little. If you don't have anything urgent to buy in the city, you'd better not wander around the streets in the next few days. Take the money and go home quickly!"

"I don't plan to stay in the city today. I'll go to Sham Shui Po to take a boat! Thank you, Brother Teng, for reminding me." Liang Ziqiang didn't expect that Du Ziteng could be so kind-hearted sometimes.

"It's best not to stay, so go back soon."

Fortunately, Liang Ziqiang had no plans to stay in the city today, so he immediately rushed back to Sham Shui Po and boarded a boat to the county town.

They soon arrived at the coast near the county town. After docking the boat, he walked to the county town, the place his father had agreed with him on in advance.

When they got there, Liang Ziqiang was surprised to find that there were several shops selling fishing gear, but he couldn't find any trace of his father and older brother.

Since we didn't have mobile phones like in later generations, it was very inconvenient to find each other.

After searching for a whole circle, I finally saw two people walking hurriedly from the other end.

"Have you come here after selling the goods?" Liang's father said when he saw him.

"Yeah, where did you go?"

"We had almost finished watching the longline fishing. Seeing that you didn't come back, Dad said he wanted to go to the area near the high school to see Afeng. Didn't Dad go last time, so I went with him!" Liang Tiancheng explained.

It turned out that my father went to see Liang Zifeng. He was very good at seizing opportunities and didn't waste any time.

"Count it, this is your money. Dad has over thirty dollars, and you have over twenty-one dollars, brother."

Liang Ziqiang had folded everyone's money in his pocket, and now he took it out and gave it to the two of them. As for Zhu Tianpeng's, he would give it to him tomorrow when he saw him.

After collecting the money, we started to talk about business.

Liang's father briefly explained that they compared prices from several stores and found that the price of ready-made longline fishing rods was relatively expensive no matter which store they went to.

After hearing the prices they mentioned, Liang Ziqiang felt that they were beyond his expectations and not cost-effective no matter how he looked at it.

Liang's father's suggestion was to buy the network cable, rope and hook yourself, take them home and make them on your own time.

If these things are bought separately, although the quantity is still extremely large, with each boat needing thousands of hooks alone, it is still cheaper than ready-made ones.

Liang Ziqiang also agreed to buy a batch of materials and go back to make them himself.

"Your wife and your mother usually weave nets. It's better for them to stop weaving fishing nets for the time being. Let them help make longline fishing whenever they have time. They will be able to make it slowly!" Liang's father suggested again.

Of course, the nets are not worth much. It is better to make longline fishing sooner rather than casting nets on the sea surface!

Burst

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(End of this chapter)