Ye Yaodong watched the mass of snakes in the distance, rubbed his chin, and said thoughtfully, "With so many sea snakes gathered together, a few are bound to get caught on our longline hooks."
Xiao Xiao stared at him wide-eyed. "Good grief, you're already thinking about catching them?"
"We could take a few home to steep in medicinal liquor. Most older people on the coast have some rheumatism. Making a little sea snake liquor would be pretty good."
"That's true."
The other two began to look forward to it as well. Too many would be out of the question-they couldn't handle that. As long as a whole bunch of live ones didn't come at them together, they weren't afraid. Having a few hooked wouldn't be a problem if they killed them one at a time before hauling them aboard.
There was no telling when the sea snakes would disperse. Ye Yaodong took a palm-sized rice cake wrapped in newspaper from his pocket. It had already gone cold, but still smelled delicious. Keeping his eyes on the sea, he took a big bite.
The two beside him caught the scent and turned toward him in unison. "Why do you still have rice cake to eat?" they asked together.
"My wife cares about me," he said smugly. "She was afraid I'd go hungry out at sea, so she specially bought two lengths of rice cake yesterday, fried them this morning, and had me bring them along for lunch on the boat."
Both men frowned so deeply they could have crushed a fly between their brows, looking at him with contempt. As if they didn't have wives too!
But why hadn't their wives prepared anything for them?
Damn it, were they losing even when it came to wives?
Ye Yaodong felt the cold