The three of them reached the fork in the road and went their separate ways home.
When Ye Yaodong got home, he unloaded the pot trap nets, handed the sales slip to Lin Xiuqing, and gave the Fish Catch to his mother to clean. She started nagging him about being wasteful, actually splurging by keeping prawns for them to eat...
He hurried off with the handcart to escape her nagging. If he wasn't there, she would stop after a few remarks. If he stayed in front of her, she could keep going until dark.
But the moment he stepped outside, he actually ran into A-Guang.
"What are you doing? What's in that big box?"
A-Guang looked at him in surprise. "When did you get back?"
"This afternoon. What's in your box?"
"Bombay duck. I brought you a box to dry."
Now it was Ye Yaodong's turn to be surprised. "You stopped using the Trawl Net and switched to hauling Bombay duck?"
As he spoke, he reached out to help carry it. "Let's take it around back. They can clean it there."
"Of course not. Bombay duck is so cheap now. Why would I go hauling it unless I had nothing better to do? A friend of my dad's brought over two foam boxes today. We're going vegetarian the day after tomorrow, and we can't dry it all in time, so I figured I'd bring you a box to dry."
Mother Ye was already cleaning fish out back and heard him. She quickly smiled and said politely, "Why bring such a big box? You could clean them slowly tonight and borrow a few more long bamboo trays to dry them."
"It looks like a lot, but this fifty-jin box only fetches one yuan wholesale. That's just two fen a jin. It's