The fishing boat worked its way along at a steady speed, the sea wind whistling past their ears. The cold cut to the bone, but it was all for a living.
During the trawl, they encountered another fishing boat. He spotted it from a distance and steered clear, each doing their own work without interfering with the other.
Only after the boat had been working for two hours did Ye Yaodong decide to haul in the net. Leaving value aside, this net yielded a very good quantity.
A bulging bag of fish was hauled aboard. The catch was gratifying, far bigger than the net they had dragged before dawn.
Most of this net consisted of rabbitfish, each larger than a palm and weighing about half a jin. Rabbitfish were at their fattest and tastiest this time of year; in summer, they generally weighed only about two liang each.
In the southern Fujian dialect, they were called "niang'ai," while some places called them "stinky-bellied fish." Around their area, most people still called them rabbitfish. Every place simply had its own name for them.
Along their stretch of coast, there was a rhyme: "First the stingray, second the scorpionfish, third the eel catfish, fourth the spotted scat, fifth the rabbitfish."
This folk saying summed up the ranking of fish in the ocean with venomous spines but delicious flesh. The fifth on the list referred to rabbitfish.
Their spines were not only sharp but venomous, and getting pricked hurt like a bee sting. It was especially easy to get stabbed by their spines while cleaning them.
But these fish really were delicious. They had no scales, and you needed scissors to cut open their bellies when cleaning them. You had to be careful not to rupture the intestines inside and remove them intact,