A whole nest of blood clams!

In no time at all, Ye Yaodong had found five stone crabs, six or seven sword shrimp, and a few mudskippers. His best catch was that one big tiger prawn.

He kept wandering around the shallows. "Oh, blood clams! Holy shit, a whole nest of them!"

Few people were nearsighted back then, and he had never been much of a student anyway, so his eyesight was excellent. Even from a distance, he spotted several blood clams on the surface of the sand, their shells open and feelers sticking out. He quickly jogged a couple of steps closer.

"It really is a whole nest!"

"A whole nest of what?" Xiao Xiao, who was nearby, heard his excitement and turned to ask.

"Blood clams! I found a whole nest of blood clams. They're all sitting there with their shells open and feelers out, having a good time." Ye Yaodong crouched and picked one up. The moment it reached his hand, its shell snapped tightly shut.

He hefted it, grinning happily. "They're pretty big, too. What a haul! What a haul!"

It landed in his bucket with a thud!

Xiao Xiao ran over for a curious look. "Holy shit, what kind of luck is that? You actually found blood clams this big, and a whole nest of them..."

A-Zheng also ran over for a look. "What kind of dumb luck have you stumbled into? You've already got that many stone crabs in your bucket? Look at mine. Two sword shrimp, two mudskippers, and nothing else!"

"Same here! I've got even less-just two mudskippers." Chen Wei was farther away, but he raised his bucket and gave it a couple of shakes.

"You guys are just unlucky!" Beaming, Ye Yaodong picked up all the blood clams clustered together and tossed them into his bucket.

Listening to the repeated thuds, the others were green with envy.

"How many are in that nest? Every last one's huge. Those are going to taste amazing!"

He shook his bucket and eyeballed them. Judging by their size, they definitely weighed more than a pound. "Forgot to count. Eighteen or nineteen, I think. There's over a pound here."

"Dumb luck! Go on, get lost. I'm searching this patch now. You go somewhere else. My bucket's still completely empty-have you got no shame?" Green with envy, A-Guang waved his long hook and shooed him aside, ready to take over the patch he had been searching.

Ye Yaodong moved a few steps aside as A-Guang chased him off. "Hahaha! I was wondering why you'd been so quiet. Turns out your bucket's empty, so you haven't got the confidence to say anything!"

"Get lost, get lost! This side's mine now. Go look somewhere else and let my luck turn around for once!"

"I think your luck's bad because your dad didn't give you a very good name. Pei Guang sounds like 'lose everything.' Doesn't that mean ending up empty-handed and having everything go wrong? Haven't you noticed you lose more often than you win at cards? Yesterday was one of the rare times you won. And nothing else you've done over the years has gone all that smoothly, either."

He was actually rather serious about that. A-Guang had always had lousy luck. After A-Guang moved to Zhoushan, they occasionally talked on the phone, and all he ever heard was how A-Guang lost money at everything he tried!

It was only when A-Guang was in his forties that someone suggested changing his name to see whether it would turn his luck around.

Unexpectedly, once he changed his name, everything he did went smoothly. Within a few years, he paid off his debts and could even buy his son a home so he could get married.

Ye Yaodong felt he ought to give A-Guang a reminder. Better to believe there might be something to it than dismiss it outright. Country folk of their generation had always been quite superstitious.

A-Guang rubbed his chin. "I think my name's pretty lousy, too!"

"Why don't you ask your dad to change it to A-Wang? 'Prosperity'! Hahahaha!"

"Haha! That could work. That's a good name!"

"No way. If he's called A-Wang, he'll win at cards every day. We can't have that! I'll lose so much I won't even have pockets left."

"Right, right, he can't be called A-Wang. We can't let him prosper that much-he'll win all our money. Pick another one, another one. Nothing too prosperous!"

Everyone burst out laughing, taking turns teasing him.

"Piss off and get back to work!" A-Guang gave his rotten friends a disdainful look.

"Or you could change your name to Pei Shun! Smooth sailing in everything, with plenty of good fortune!" Ye Yaodong cheerfully walked over to the patch A-Guang had been searching earlier. In his previous life, A-Guang had changed his name to Pei Shun.

"Hey, Pei Shun could work. It rolls off the tongue and has a good meaning!" A-Guang was tempted.

"There really is something mysterious about naming people. I've heard it has to do with a person's fate, luck, prospects, and all that. When a child's born these days, don't fortune-tellers use the symbols and trigrams of the Book of Changes to work out their birth chart? I've got a copy of the Book of Changes at home. Want me to bring it over for you to study when we get back? Better to believe there might be something to it than dismiss it outright."

A-Guang looked at A-Zheng in surprise. "What's the Book of Changes? You've actually got something like that? Planning to teach yourself and switch careers to become a fortune-telling fraud?"

"Pfft, I just happened to dig it out at home. There's an Acupoint-Sealing Manual, too. Maybe my ancestors left them behind! Want to practice? It's a family heirloom. You might even become martial arts masters!"

"Holy shit, so your ancestors might not just have been fortune-telling frauds, but wandering martial arts heroes, too? You've even got an Acupoint-Sealing Manual. Got the Sunflower Manual? The Evil-Warding Sword Manual?"

"Want to practice those? I can write them out for you from memory. 'To master this art, you must first castrate yourself.' I wouldn't mind giving you a hand! How about a woodcutting cleaver? A blunt one will let your dick hang around a little longer."

"Have you already castrated yourself? Is that why you still haven't married? Holy shit, you're your dad's only son. That's pretty ruthless of you-even threw away your little pecker!"

"What little pecker? You're the one who's castrated! Mine's huge!"

While they were joking around, Ye Yaodong was surprised to spot a fish beneath the large rock beside him, its tail showing black and gray spots. He hurriedly interrupted them. "Holy shit, come look under this big rock! Is that tail sticking out from a grouper?"

"Where? Where is it?" A-Guang ran over excitedly and dropped down to peer beneath the rock. "Damn, it's a tiger grouper! I just went around this rock myself. How come I didn't see it?"

"Told you, your luck's bad. Move aside. I'll poke around with the fire tongs and see if I can make it swim out. We can't catch it while it's under the rock." Ye Yaodong was thrilled. A tiger grouper-now that was a prize catch!

The others gathered around again, unable to help complaining. "How come you're the one who finds all the good stuff? A-Guang spent ages looking around here and didn't see a thing!"

"Maybe my luck's finally turned?"

Or had things hit rock bottom and bounced back? I was so unlucky I fell into the sea and died just taking a piss. Now that I've been reborn and all that bad luck's gone, shouldn't my good luck be through the roof?

Chen Wei patted A-Guang on the shoulder. "As soon as your dad gets back, hurry up and change your name!"

A-Guang was frustrated, too. He really had searched around the bottom of this big rock earlier, thinking there ought to be something there, but he had never seen a fish swim out. As soon as he heard Yaodong say he had found a whole nest of blood clams, he had eagerly scampered over.

His luck really was unbelievably bad. He had spent ages searching here without spotting a thing, yet the moment Yaodong came over, he found a grouper. What complete bullshit!