Mother Ye would not let Father Ye go out to sea and told him to rest for a few days, but the work at home could not be neglected either. Choosing timber and getting the carpenter to make beams and such still had to be handled by Father Ye.
Luckily, it was only a mild cold, and he was fine once the fever broke. Ye Yaodong took advantage of the break after lunch to row his little boat out to sea.
It had been a day since he set the Fishing Pots, and he wanted to see what was inside.
When he reached the dock, he looked around but did not see the three men's new boat. Figuring they must have gone out early that morning, he rowed his little boat out to the middle of the sea, to the patch where he had set the Fishing Pots. The surrounding waters were only so vast; there was no way he could row to the wrong spot.
After finding the Fishing Pots' buoys, he brought the boat to a stop and began hauling in the Fishing Pots. First, he pulled up on the rope. Once the mesh compartments emerged from the water, he grabbed their wire frames and hauled them up one by one.
There were only sixteen traps in all, which he had laid in two rows of eight.
The first trap did not have much in it, just stone crabs, small sword shrimp, and little fish. He untied the fish collection net, emptied the catch into a bucket, and kept hauling.
He pulled up six traps in a row without finding anything big, just stone crabs, sword shrimp, eels, and the like. He was not disappointed; this was all within his expectations.
But the seventh trap was actually packed!