[Liang Yusheng novels
In his previous life, he had cared only about having fun with his friends, never paying attention to what happened at home.
After waking up, he would go out to hang around with his friends, only returning drunk at dinnertime. All he remembered was that they had caught a netful of large yellow croakers. He had stumbled back to his room to sleep before he even caught how much they had sold for.
Large yellow croakers were already hard to come by at this time, but ordinary people had limited spending power, so they were not all that expensive-just several times the price of ordinary fish.
It was nothing like later years, when their prices were driven sky-high.
In 2022, wild large yellow croakers weighing around one jin sold for 600 yuan per jin.
Those weighing one jin and three liang sold for around 800 yuan per jin; those weighing one jin and eight liang fetched over 1,000 yuan per jin.
For fish weighing around two jin, the price was roughly 1,500 to 1,600 yuan per jin.
Those weighing more than two jin generally fetched over 3,000 yuan per jin.
Those were the prices offered directly by seafood-buying boats out at sea. Once they reached port, the price of large yellow croakers weighing one to two jin would double!
The price could also fluctuate depending on the quantity.
He might have lacked ambition and been something of a layabout, but he was still a born-and-bred fisherman. He knew quality seafood when he saw it.
At that thought, he could not help slapping his thigh. Damn it, if only I could have hauled in that net a few decades later!
Millions down the drain!
Everyone in the Ye family frowned at his bizarre thigh-slapping and the regret written all over his face.
What was the third son up to now?
Mother Ye knitted her brows and could not help asking, "What are you doing? Why slap your thigh so hard out of nowhere? Have you lost your mind?"
"Mom, how much did that netful of large yellow croakers sell for yesterday? I went back to my room to sleep before I heard."
Mother Ye glanced at Father Ye. Everyone in the family knew anyway, and even if she did not tell him, his wife would once they returned to their room. She might as well say it outright. "Twelve hundred yuan! They bought them for five yuan a jin. The weight was a little short, but the buyer was generous enough to round it up."
They'd been taken for a ride, and she was calling the man generous?!
Ye Yaodong beat his chest and stamped his feet. "Mom, do you know how badly you undersold them? You practically gave them away!"
Everyone in the room, young and old, men and women alike, frowned and exchanged looks. His eldest brother could not help asking anxiously, "How do you know we undersold them?"
"I'm out and about all day. How could I not know what large yellow croakers are worth?"
That was true. The third son might have been a bit of a good-for-nothing, but he was still the most worldly person in the family.
He spent his days wandering around town with a bunch of friends and knew people from every walk of life. How could he not know a thing or two?
Mother Ye's heart tightened too. "What do you mean? How much do they sell for elsewhere? We've always sold our village's catch to the buyers at the dock. It was only because yesterday's haul was worth so much that the dock contacted a buyer to come over."
"If you'd gotten some ice and hired a tractor to take them to the county town, you could have sold them for twice as much!"
Ye Yaodong's heart ached. Forget doubling the price-in later years, those two hundred-odd jin would have been worth millions!
Hearing that, everyone began to regret it. They had been too hasty...
Twice as much...
That was a whole twelve hundred yuan they had missed out on. What a painful loss...
Father Ye's heart was bleeding too. Even the hand holding his water pipe began to tremble. Twelve hundred yuan...
Ordinary workers only earned forty or fifty yuan a month now. It was enough to make him spit blood!
Father Ye's chest heaved as he rounded on him. "You good-for-nothing! You wander around all day and never do anything useful! If you'd come out to sea with us, we wouldn't have sold them off for five yuan a jin!"
"How is that my fault? I didn't know you'd catch large yellow croakers! If I'd known, I would've waited at the dock ahead of time! No, I would've found a rich buyer and had him waiting at the dock!"
This was infuriating! Two hundred-odd jin of wild large yellow croakers! If I'd died a day earlier, could I have been reborn a day earlier too?
Pah... I'm cursing myself!
Father Ye's chest rose and fell with anger, but in the end, all he could do was sigh. "Forget it. They're already sold, so there's no point regretting it. Maybe this was all the good fortune our family was meant to get for now. If we catch them again, we'll know better than to sell them off so hastily."
That was right. They were already sold. Regretting it now would do no good.
The whole family's good mood had come to an abrupt end at Ye Yaodong's hands.
When Father Ye's eldest and second-eldest brothers had come over hoping for a share, it had only dampened their spirits briefly. They had still been in a good mood.
Now... sigh...
It just felt like such a waste. They could have sold the fish for so much more.
After nursing their heartache for a while, the family accepted it. They had still come into a tidy sum, after all.
Ye Yaodong remained the most upset. "Dad, do you think large yellow croakers are as common as cabbages? Talking about knowing better next time you catch them..."
"Don't you know their numbers plummeted after several rounds of fishing with the boat-knocking and encirclement-net method? They're practically impossible to find now!"
"In 1954, the boat-knocking method spread from Guangdong Province to Fujian Province. It was so efficient and yielded such huge catches that it was widely adopted in no time. Large yellow croakers were caught at sea in enormous quantities..."
"In 1974, an enormous fishing operation in Zhoushan, Zhejiang Province, nearly drove large yellow croakers to extinction. These past few years, wild yellow croakers have barely been seen in the markets..."
"Dad, do you think you'll ever get that lucky again in this lifetime?"
It was even harder than winning the lottery jackpot!
The boat his grandfather had left them was only a little over ten meters long. It could only fish in coastal waters and could not venture far out to sea. Catching that netful of large yellow croakers really had been a blessing from their ancestors.
As he rattled on, spittle flying, his family listened in stunned disbelief.
The third son... when had he learned so much...?
The boat-knocking method... only Father Ye had even heard of it. Their family had no large boat for fishing farther out at sea, after all. They made their living gathering seafood along the shore, making nets, and doing odd jobs, so they had never paid much attention to it.
Information did not travel freely these days. Even his eldest and second brothers had never heard of it, yet the third son spoke about it with such authority. His parents, brothers, and sisters-in-law could not help seeing him in a somewhat different light.
Perhaps... the third son wasn't quite so useless after all...
Lin Xiuqing stared at him too. For the first time, she realized that when her husband spoke seriously, he looked rather... rather what?
That brightness in his face-was it the confidence that shone through when he spoke about something he knew well?
Perhaps her husband wasn't completely good-for-nothing either?
Father Ye put aside his disdain for his third son and asked with rare seriousness, "How do you know about the boat-knocking method? How do you know what happened in 1954 and 1974?"
Father Ye had only heard of the boat-knocking method himself. He knew nothing about the major fishing operations during those twenty years from 1954 to 1974. After all, networks were not well developed now, and information did not circulate freely.
Ye Yaodong had actually learned about those events in his later life, while working aboard large boats, from listening to other crew members talk.
Otherwise, having spent the first half of his life as a lazy freeloader living off his wife, he never would have paid attention to such things.
But he could not let his secret slip.
Looking at everyone's expressions, he knew he had managed to salvage a little of his reputation. That was a good thing, and he could not help straightening his back a little.
He had muddled through half his life. It was only in those last ten-odd years that he had finally grown up, matured, and gained some sense of responsibility.
Given another chance, he did not want to be useless again. He still had no great skills, but at least he could do manual work and gather seafood along the shore. If he worked a little harder, he should be able to support his wife and children.
He never wanted to depend on his wife working herself to death to support him again.
But change would take time. Otherwise, he feared they might think he had been possessed.
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