1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 385 A strong and strange fragrance wafts from the deck

Both of them laughed, and their noses felt a little sore from laughing.

Without saying anything else, they walked towards their respective homes.

After walking a dozen steps, he looked back and saw that the vacant space left by them was filled by a few little kids.

Under the old palm tree, several half-grown kids, aged twelve or thirteen, swarmed out from nowhere and started a fight. They punched and kicked each other, and each one claimed that he was the most authentic "Mi Zong Quan".

Some people were shouting and some were crying out in pain. The scene was no different from several years ago. Only the faces of Ah Qiang, Ah Cai, Liang Zi, and Ah Xian had been replaced with childish expressions.

Liang Ziqiang fixed his gaze, then stopped and watched the boys fighting for a while.

Turning around and walking on the village road again, the sudden news from Deng Zhaocai today was still echoing in his ears.

There is always a sense of déjà vu.

In his previous life, he left Changwang Village with his wife Chen Xiangbei, left their hometown, and moved around in all kinds of ways, rain or shine.

At that time, he was burdened with two reasons. On the one hand, his father and two brothers were buried in the sea, and his mother was heartbroken and scared, so she made Liang Ziqiang swear that he would never touch the fishing industry again.

A young man who has no contact with fishing obviously has no reason and no possibility to continue to survive in the fishing village. Going out is the only way.

On the other hand, after he was released from prison after two years, he became a negative example for the whole village to point fingers at when educating their children, which also made it impossible for him to continue his normal life in the village with Chen Xiangbei.

Now, Ah Cai is because of Yan Zi. If he stays in the local area, Yan Zi's parents will come to quarrel and separate them. Going far away has become the only way for him and Yan Zi.

For different reasons, he somehow embarked on the same path as he did back then.

"Aqiang, what's wrong with you? Did anything happen when you went for a walk in the village?"

Liang Ziqiang didn't say much when he got home. His wife saw this, came up to him and asked him quietly.

He just squeezed her soft hand and said it was nothing.

In the next two days, the shrimp pond progressed faster than Liang Ziqiang expected. Liang Ziqiang had overlooked one point: last year was the first time the pond was repaired and renovated, which was labor-intensive and time-consuming.

This year, we plowed the mud, turned the soil, and compacted the pond embankment on the basis of last year. The workload was not as much as last year, and he hired a lot of people, so we finished the work in two days.

While the pond bottom is still exposed to the sun for a few days after being limed, Liang Ziqiang has to go to the deep sea to work again.

After a while, it will be the time for the parent shrimps to migrate and spawn. By then, the number of fish in the wintering grounds will decrease significantly, and many fish and shrimps will return to the shallow sea.

Now is the time to make two more trips while there are still plenty of fish in the wintering fisheries.

The sun was not too strong on the day we went out to sea, and the temperature remained at the normal low temperature for this season.

When we arrived at the wintering fishing grounds, there were not as many pomfret as usual for several consecutive days, but there were a lot more sea bass than usual.

In addition, although there were fewer horsehead fish this time, a lot of horse-faced pufferfish were caught.

Although both have the Chinese character "马" in their names and both have horse faces, their appearances are worlds apart. The horsehead fish is pink and small, less than the width of a palm; the horse-faced pufferfish, also known as the peeling fish, can weigh dozens of kilograms and look ugly.

In the past, he had caught a lot of skinned fish in shallow seas, most of which weighed about ten pounds, and the bigger ones could weigh twenty or thirty pounds.

But this time, all that was dragged onto the boat were large skinned fish, generally weighing 40 to 50 kilograms each, and the largest ones could weigh over 100 kilograms.

It's a pity that this fish can't be sold at a high price. It was only sold for 7 cents last year, but I heard that the price has increased recently and it can be sold for 9 cents now.

Over the past few days, Liang Ziqiang had obtained two or three tons of skinned fish alone.

With so many worthless skinned fish, there were relatively few other valuable big fish. Although there were some bomb fish and tuna this time, the number caught was less than the previous two times.

"This time, we didn't catch many yellowtail amberjacks like last time, and there weren't many golden croakers either. I'm afraid the income will be a little less!"

On the fourth day, Liang Chun estimated, "Who knows, there's still one day left, maybe we can suddenly catch a big fish like the bluefin tuna?" Lin Liming said.

As they were talking, Lu Song in the cab said that the time had come and they could start slowing down and raising the net.

Now several crew members are taking turns to operate the trawling operation. For example, Lu Song is operating in the cab, and Zhu Tianpeng is watching beside him.

"Liang Chun, go operate the winch, I'll watch!"

Liang Ziqiang decided to let Liang Chun practice the operation of the winch console. After that, the two went to the console located in the front of the ship. Liang Chun sat there and started the machine to retract the steel cable on the winch.

After the net was pulled onto the deck, Liang Ziqiang instructed Liang Chun on how to release the iron hook on the gantry. After the big iron hook was buckled on the ring on the net, he instructed Liang Chun on how to operate the retracted iron hook rope and slowly suspend the huge net in the air under the gantry.

Then he taught Liang Chun how to maintain the angle and tip the net bag.

"Strange, where does such a strong fragrance come from?" Under the gantry, Lin Liming twitched his nose and asked Liang Ziqiang.

"Really?!" Liang Chun also smelled the air and said curiously.

Liang Ziqiang also smelled it, a fragrance that was hard to describe, maybe it was honeydew melon or something else, faintly visible in the sea breeze.

He walked towards the fish-processing area under the gantry, and the closer he got, the stronger the special aroma became. When he arrived at the fish-processing area, the aroma was so strong that it seemed impossible to dissolve, and it lingered around.

It was afternoon now and I had already had lunch, so there was no way the food could smell good. As for the particularly fragrant fruits and vegetables, there were none on the boat.

He suddenly thought of a possibility: "Maybe it's a small sweetfish? Let's sort it out together!"

"Fragrant fish? That fish is very valuable!"

The boat temporarily stopped near the atoll, and the only five people on the boat all gathered at the fish sorting area to sort the fish together.

Liang Ziqiang first sorted out some sea bass and small yellow croaker. Soon, he found that there was a kind of extremely small fish mixed in, and each one weighed less than one or two taels.

This fish has a normal appearance and no special features. It is a regular long strip, with white sides and belly, and a little yellowish fins. It looks like a small crucian carp in freshwater.

Liang Ziqiang picked up one and smelled it closely, and a hint of fragrance indeed came to his nose.

"It's the Xiangfei fish. Quickly use a large bucket to fill it with sea water. Although this fish can be sold after being frozen, the price will be higher if it is kept and sold alive!" He ordered quickly.

There were plenty of barrels on the boat, and they were quickly hung with ropes to draw a few buckets of sea water.

When a few people were sorting the fish, they found some Xiangfei fish mixed in, and they put them all into the sea water in the bucket.

Of course, at least half of the small sweetfish can no longer be kept.

After all, the current situation is very different from last year. Last year, Liang Ziqiang used a high-legged fishing net to catch a batch of sweetfish, and all of them were alive and kicking, without a single damaged one.

But now the fish are caught with trawl nets, and a considerable number of the sweetfish have been injured or even dying during the trawl process.

Only those sweetfish that are still alive are kept in barrels. As for the other injured or dead sweetfish, they can only be put into baskets and frozen. The price is slightly lower but it is still very expensive.

During the process of sorting the fish, that special aroma became noticeably stronger.

Now, Liang Ziqiang also began to find it a little unbelievable.

No matter how fragrant the sweetfish he caught with his stilt fishing net last year were, they were not this rich in flavor.

There are actually not many Xiangfei fish mixed in with other fish and shrimps.

How could the fragrance be so strong and last so long? What was going on...

(End of this chapter)