At last, they no longer had to eat vegetarian meals. The children were thrilled, finding even the salted fish on the table perfect with rice. They ate happily, chattering noisily.
Ye Yaodong also felt that salted fish went best with rice. After a week of vegetarian food, his mouth had practically forgotten what flavor was.
After lunch, he loaded the Pot Trap Nets onto the handcart, bringing along the newly made ones too. He would set them all out shortly.
No one had set nets for a week, and everyone had lost quite a bit. Now that the ceremony was over, the villagers who used Pot Trap Nets and Korean Nets headed out to sea after lunch to set them. Those who used Trawl Nets would have to wait until nighttime.
The fishing boats in their village mostly used those three types of nets. Their Trawl Nets were operated by single boats, not in pairs. There were also Hand Cast Nets, which took more effort but cost less.
Once everything was loaded onto the handcart, he said to Lin Xiuqing, "I'll go set the nets first. We can go shopping in town tomorrow."
"All right, go ahead."
He was about to leave when he hesitated, then turned and rummaged through the storage room by the back door where they kept firewood. He found a simple fishing rod he had made before: just a piece of bamboo a little over a meter long, some fishing line, and a hook.
But it had been so long that the hook was rusty and unusable; it would snap easily. He found an extra-thick needle used for sewing sacks, lit a candle, heated it red-hot, and bent it into a hook with pliers.
"Dongzi, what are you doing?" the old lady asked curiously, standing beside