Daily life of fishing and hunting in the 1980s

Chapter 53: Bragging

"Last time, Ah Dong from Chen's sent me a large flower dragon and a large rice fish, saying that they were also found by a sea fisherman. That person's luck is better than yours."

"Oh! That's pretty good luck!" Li Changle didn't bother to ask Chen Ji how much he sold it for, so as to avoid being upset.

Ah Kun came out with a bucket and handed the money to Li Changle. "It's almost dark. Take the money and go home."

Li Changle took out three yuan and stuffed it into his hand, "Uncle Kun, don't think it's too little!"

Ah Kun stuffed it back into his hand and said, "When you have collected a hundred yuan, you can give me the cut."

"Okay!" Li Changle accepted it readily, "Thank you, Uncle Kun. I'll go first!"

Ah Kun nodded, turned around and went to the kitchen, and ordered someone to fry two soft-shell crabs and send them to the private room upstairs.

……

Not long after Li Changle rode his bicycle out of the town, it became dark. Thinking of Chen Yongwei who was alone at the beach, he quickly took out his headlamp, put it on, and quickened his pace to rush back.

He was the only one riding his bicycle on the dark road. Occasionally, a car would whiz past on the dilapidated road covered with mud and gravel, stirring up a cloud of dust and rushing towards him.

It looked like it was raining at the seaside, but not a drop of rain fell in town.

As soon as I entered the village, I saw Li Xiaoyang and Li Xiaotao, following a group of children, running towards the Party Secretary's house. "Li Xiaoyang, why don't you go home when it's dark?"

"Uncle San, let's go to the Party Secretary's house and watch some TV. It's a martial arts movie. It's really good."

Seeing him riding a bicycle, Li Xiaotao stopped watching TV and said, "Uncle San, I want to ride a bicycle."

"You are not allowed to go back. I won't be able to watch TV if you go back." Li Xiaoyang hurriedly held him back and shouted at Li Changle, "Uncle San, go back quickly. I will take my brother to watch TV for a while and then go home."

Li Changle saw a group of children running into the party secretary's house, shook his head, and rode his bicycle back.

When I got home, I saw my two sons and their cousins ​​playing sandbag throwing in the yard. Mrs. Li, who had not been seen all day, and her sister-in-law Zhou Ruonan were weaving a net in the yard to enjoy the cool air.

Hearing the noise, she turned her head to take a look, then went back to knitting.

"Mom, Dad is back." Li Xiaohai turned around and shouted to Zhou Ruonan.

"Mother saw it." Zhou Ruonan smiled and put down the ruler and shuttle, and went to meet him, "You're back!"

"Yes!" Li Changle took off the backpack, "Give the bicycle back to Aqing, I'll go see Awei."

Seeing him coming back and about to leave again, Zhou Ruonan asked distressedly, "Aren't you going to eat?"

"A Le, we ate without waiting for you." Mrs. Li also said.

"I ate corn before fishing, so I'm not hungry yet!" Li Changle strode into the house, took out the money in his pocket and stuffed it into the straw under the mat, then changed into the dirty clothes and walked out.

As soon as I reached the foot of the mountain, I saw Chen Yongwei walking down with a headlamp and a bucket in his hand. He said loudly, "You're back. I said I would pick you up."

"Brother, you're back too!" Chen Yongwei walked down the mountain in two or three steps, "I wanted to stay there for a while, but after dark, there were too many mosquitoes and horseflies.

I applied wind oil and cooling oil, which worked at first, but after the smell wore off, they all surrounded me and sucked my blood, leaving ulcers all over my body." He said as he scratched himself a few times.

Li Changle felt itchy after seeing this. Suddenly, an idea came to his mind and he said, "When we set up the trap at night, let's take some mothballs with us."

Chen Yongwei nodded repeatedly after hearing this, "Yes, that's right, even cockroaches that big are afraid of it, mosquitoes and gadflies must be even more afraid of it."

"You guy, no matter what I say, you always say it's right. Aren't you afraid that I will lead you into a ditch?"

Li Changle felt that he was no different from those brainless fans in later generations, who supported others regardless of whether they were right or wrong.

"Hehe!" Chen Yongwei laughed innocently, "Your brain is better than mine. If you're right, then it must be correct." "You just want to enslave me!" Li Changle rolled her eyes at him and took the bucket. "Why don't you go to the dock and sell the fish before coming back?"

"Adong always asks me to dig blood clams and send them to his house. The blood clams we picked up today are big, and he will definitely ask me to sell them to him when he sees them. I'll go this way and pick out the blood clams first before leaving."

"The things are yours. If you don't want to sell them, why don't you just refuse?" Li Changle said, "A man like you can't even refuse. If you meet a shameless person, it would be strange if he doesn't treat you like a beast of burden!
"Brother, Adong is a nice guy, I feel embarrassed to refuse."

"Fool!" Li Changle glanced at him, "Did you find any fish or crabs after I left?"

"I caught two tide-watchers, a blue crab whose claws I broke, a black sea bream weighing two to three pounds, and several pounds of razor clams."

Chen Yongwei paused and said, "I also dug up some mud snails. They probably only weigh half a pound in total. I think we should not sell them. We should keep them for pickling and eating."

"Okay, take it back and pickle it for your grandma."

"I still have a jar of it left at home, you can keep it for yourself."

"Then take the blue crab with the broken claw home and eat it."

"Oh!"

As they were talking, the two of them arrived outside the Li family's yard. Zhou Ruonan, who was tying the trap with Li Dasao, saw them coming back and quickly put down the work in his hands.

"Awei, I've told your grandma that you can have dinner at my house tonight."

"I'll go back and wash them and come right back." Chen Yongwei put down the backpack, "Brother, pick out the blood clams and mud snails, I'll be right back."

Li Changle handed him the blue crabs in the bucket and said, "Hurry up, I'll wait for you to come back for dinner."

"oh oh!"

After Chen Yongwei left, Li Changle began to clean the catch in the bucket, and Zhou Ruonan took out the sack from the backpack and hung it on the bamboo pole under the eaves to dry.

"Anan, have you cleaned up the conch?"

"I've cleaned it up. I made some celery and fried it." Zhou Ruonan said with a smile, "I didn't know how to do it, but my sister-in-law taught me to use a hook to hook the snail meat so that the snail meat can come out of the shell by itself. This way the shell won't be damaged at all."

Li Changle then remembered that she had never done it before and had forgotten to teach her.

Mrs. Li came out and saw him picking up the blood clams from the porcelain basin and said, "Wow, I haven't seen such big blood clams in a long time."

"Hehe! I told you to go but you didn't want to go!" Li Changle put a blood clam in the porcelain basin with a proud look on his face, "There are fewer people going to the sea to fish today, so we can pick up some good stuff on the muddy beach."

“Did you pick these up?”

"Some were picked up, and some were combed with a rake. Wei and I hadn't finished picking up clams when more clams were washed up by the water."

"Xiaoyang said you picked up a yellowfin fish weighing five or six kilograms. So it's true?"

"Of course it's true. Have you forgotten how good I am at shipping? When I'm involved, all the goods are good!"

"No wonder your eldest brother said you were just bragging!" Mrs. Li laughed, "You can even make the dead come alive!"

"If you don't believe me, just wait and see me bringing back good stuff every day!" Li Changle picked up all the blood clams and found that there were quite a few, about six or seven pounds.

He carried Zhou Ruonan, who had folded the oilcloth bag into the house, and said, "Wife, give her some water to nourish her so that she can eat it tomorrow."

Zhou Ruonan took a look and said, "There are so many of them, and they are all big ones. Why don't we sell them for money?"

(End of this chapter)