Say what you liked about Dongzi and all the strange odds and ends he tinkered with all day-however unreliable they looked, they really did come in handy.
The second time they hung up a whole row of fishing lines, they barely had to wait before the hooks started twitching again. Before Ye Yaodong could reach for them, Father Ye impatiently started hauling one in.
Father Ye felt that fishing with a whole string of lines was much faster than sitting there with just one. There was no waiting forever, just one fish after another without a break. Often, several lines twitched at once, and they couldn't haul them in fast enough.
The only trouble was sorting out the lines. It took far too long, especially when the sea breeze blew several of them into a tangled mess. That was sheer torture.
Ye Yaodong was dealing with exactly that now. His head was about to explode, and he'd nearly torn out a patch of his hair. He was wasting heaps of time on it.
Just as he was getting ready for the third round, the lines on the deck blew into a tangle. Luckily, only three were caught up in the battle; the rest had already been baited and lowered into the water.
Out of options and unwilling to waste any more time fighting a ball of line, Ye Yaodong simply picked up the scissors and cut the worst-knotted one.
That instantly cleared things up. One line came free of the melee, and a little straightening freed the other two. He had just breathed a sigh of relief when he heard his father calling for help.
He quickly dropped the lines in his hands and brought over two bamboo baskets, putting a bundle of line in each so they wouldn't blow