A-Zheng scratched his head and said innocently, "I didn't say anything wrong!"
Xiao Xiao laughed so hard he could barely straighten his back, slapping his thigh and coughing fiercely.
"No, no, that comparison was so vivid, so apt! Nothing wrong with it at all! Hahahaha!"
A-Zheng rolled his eyes and slapped away the hand clutching his trousers. "What's wrong with you? Get lost! Stop pulling my trousers!"
"Hahaha! I never knew you could make a comparison like that. That year in first grade really wasn't wasted!"
"Piss off!"
Ye Yaodong watched the pair speechlessly. How had he ended up with such bizarre friends?
"How many blue-banded sea snakes did you catch?"
Xiao Xiao had laughed himself breathless. A-Zheng rolled his eyes at him and said, "Not many, just seven or eight. Maybe we were too far away."
"I'll give you some of mine. I've got too many. Bring the boats alongside and take some over. Take plenty. They're dead anyway, so they probably won't fetch much back ashore."
"Sure." A-Zheng hooked Ye Yaodong's gunwale, pulled the two boats together, and stepped across.
But once he got close, he hesitated, not daring to reach out. "Could you grab them for us?"
Ye Yaodong raised his eyebrows. "I'm giving them to you, and you want me to pick them up too?"
"Shouldn't you show a little sincerity when you give someone something?"
"Piss off. Take them or leave them. If you don't want them, I'll give them away back home."
He swallowed, still finding them disgusting. "Xiao Xiao, you do it!"
"You're that useless?" Xiao Xiao came over wearing gloves, suppressed his disgust, and grabbed a snake off the deck. Its tail flicked, frightening him into throwing it back down. "Fuck, it can still move!"
"What are you scared of? Its head's