Ye Yaodong held it in his hands and admired it for a while, then put the mud crab king into a basket by itself and continued hauling in the pots.
The remaining fishing pots held plenty of catch too. Every Fish-Collecting Bag was packed, though some of the catch was alive and some was dead. There were several moray eels as well.
Once all the fishing pots were up, he had another ten moray eels and two mud crabs. With the weather turning cold, mud crabs were hard to catch, so this was quite a rare haul. There was even a mud crab king.
He piled all the Fish Catch together, then continued cruising around the surrounding waters.
But after nearly an hour of searching, he had found nothing. By then it was almost four, the sun was gone, and the sea breeze was growing more and more biting. Frustrated, he had no choice but to head back. He returned to the original waters, lowered those fishing pots again, and only then headed ashore.
When he ran into Xiao Xiao and A-Zheng by the shore, they called out to him.
"Did you find your fishing pots?"
"Found four. Couldn't find the other two. I don't know whether they really weren't there or someone stole them."
"Hard to say, really. If they hadn't moved from their usual spot, that would be one thing. But with the waves scattering them all over, someone might well have stolen them."
"Forget it. I've spent all afternoon looking. If they're gone, they're gone."
Getting four back was good enough. Next time, he would have to be more cautious like the other villagers, instead of counting on his luck like this.
"What did you catch after all these days?" A-Zheng stood on his own boat, craning