Hearing the cries of surprise beside him, Ye Yaodong dug faster too. He couldn't let his son outdo him.
He casually tossed each sand clam he dug up to one side, piling them on a patch of open ground.
A few months earlier, starfish had run rampant, leaving the beach without clams for a long stretch of time. Now, months later, clams from farther offshore had been steadily washed in again and buried beneath the sand.
Before long, a little mountain had piled up beside him. Digging them up took hardly any effort.
Just then, Ye Chengyang suddenly shouted, "Crabs... the crabs got away... Dad... the crabs got away..."
Ye Yaodong turned to look. Crabs were crawling everywhere around them. Two were still dangling from the rim of the bucket, their large claws gripping each other, with one suspended in midair. A moment later, both fell.
"Huh? I looked away for a second and they all broke out?"
Perhaps the bucket had been too full just now, and they had piled on top of one another to escape.
He had only come out to gather a little seafood, so he hadn't brought the big bucket he normally took out to sea, just an ordinary red plastic bucket from home.
He caught all the crabs scuttling around on the ground and put them back into the bucket, then added the clams he had dug up. It was packed a good eighty percent full.
A casual stroll had yielded a whole bucket. That was pretty good.
Seeing the crabs in the bucket begin climbing on top of one another again, he called to the two boys, "Let's go. No more digging. We're going home."
"So soon? We only just got here. Let's play a little longer, Dad. I haven't dug up very