The moment he stepped onto the beach, he saw squid of all sizes stranded everywhere, scattered across the sand.
The surrounding tide was still pushing dead squid out of the sea and onto shore.
Father Ye said, his face full of delight, "Let's pick up as many as we can. If we can't finish, we'll come back tomorrow."
As he spoke, he had already crouched down and eagerly started gathering them.
"Hurry up. Stop dawdling and looking around. Get picking."
"I'm just checking how many there are around here."
"No need to look... what's there to... ah!"
Father Ye's voice abruptly cut off. Ye Yaodong turned to look at him in confusion. "Oh, shit! It's still alive?"
Caught off guard, his father had been sprayed all over the face with ink by a dying squid. Then he even reached up and wiped his face...
It turned even more pitch-black.
"I didn't think it still had any life left in it."
"Go wash it off in the water." With that, he crouched down and started picking them up too.
But before he had gathered more than a few, a squid sprayed his face as well. Luckily, he was a little farther away, and the spray went slightly wide, only hitting one cheek.
Yesterday he had been sprayed with white stuff, and today with black. White plus black.
He paid it no mind and left it there, continuing to gather squid. With so many on the beach, he would surely get sprayed again soon anyway.
There was a saying: "The blood and bile within a squid's belly are like ink and may be used for writing, but the writing fades away after a year."
It meant squid ink could be used to write, but would fade over time.
The reason squid were