The rocks were packed with shellfish

Seeing so many shellfish on the rocks, everyone grew excited again, their disappointment from moments earlier vanishing without a trace.

Ye Yaodong was delighted too. The tide had only just begun to recede. Once it went all the way out, even more of the rocks would be exposed.

"Everyone, go find your own patch."

He didn't rush to start digging after saying that. Instead, he searched the area first, only bending down with his screwdriver when he found a rock covered in wild juvenile abalone.

The wild juvenile abalone clinging to these rocks were different from the abalone sold at the market. They looked completely different and were much smaller, only a little larger than a one-yuan coin, with oval shapes and very thin shells.

These were a favorite of his. Steamed with enoki mushrooms and scallion oil, they tasted incredible.

A little leverage with the screwdriver popped each one off whole. Beaming, he caught them in his bucket, pried off the entire patch, then continued searching nearby.

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a large patch of goose barnacles clustered densely in a crack between the rocks. Those were worth a little money too.

Goose barnacles were also called "brush rests," while their formal Chinese name was "turtle feet." The Song dynasty's Records of the Three Mountains stated, "Named for their shape, their flesh within the hollows is delicious, and the large ones are the size of a palm."

He put on his gloves first to keep the juvenile shellfish from scraping his hands, then reached into the crack and dug them out with his screwdriver.

Only after digging out the entire patch of goose barnacles did he move on to search elsewhere, picking up any large snails he spotted along the way.

Of all the snails covering the rocks, spicy whelks were the most common, along with horseshoe snails, green shrimp snails, sesame snails, and flower moon snails.

As long as they were big, he took them all.

He focused on things he could sell for a little money, gathering the valuable ones first and leaving the cheap blue mussels, sea melon seeds, and ox-eye limpets alone for now.

He didn't pry off the juvenile shells with oysters growing inside them either. Once he had gathered most of the valuable stuff, he could take his time with those.

As he searched, he ran into A-Guang. A glance into his bucket showed a bit of everything. He had apparently dug up whatever he saw without being picky, and his whole bucket was nearly full.

"It's full. Why don't you empty it into a sack?"

A-Guang said innocently, "I only brought a bucket!"

Ye Yaodong didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "So once your bucket's full, all you can do is sit and watch?"

"I'll keep filling it for now. I'm only picking up abalone and big snails now. I got carried away at first and put everything into the bucket. Now it's full and there's no room left, so I have to be picky."

Nearby, A-Zheng raised his head too. "My bucket's almost full as well..."

Fatty sat on a rock and sighed. "Mine filled up ages ago. I've been resting for a while already. Who knew there'd be so much to dig up on the Isolated Island?"

Ye Yaodong was speechless. They had seen him bring a sack yesterday, yet none of them had thought to prepare one today.

Then he couldn't help secretly rejoicing. Luckily, he had deliberately brought two sacks today. When they landed yesterday, he had taken a careful look and seen how densely everything grew. Figuring there would be plenty to gather, he had worried one sack wouldn't be enough.

"Dongzi, I saw a big bamboo basket in your bucket this morning too, didn't I?"

"Yep, and there are two sacks inside the basket. I specifically asked my wife to get them ready today. I told you yesterday there was bound to be plenty on the Isolated Island, but none of you bothered to prepare more. Well, now you can sit off to the side and rest once your buckets are full. You won't even need to go shore gathering when the tide goes out!"

"How were we supposed to know? Yesterday, we'd barely waded ashore before going back to the boat for tools. We didn't look closely."

Everyone regretted not preparing ahead of time. Once their buckets were full, they could only sit on the rocks and watch Ye Yaodong dig.

Ye Yaodong was brimming with enthusiasm. There was hardly anything on the rocks by the wharf; he always had to pick the best of a poor lot there. Nothing like the Isolated Island, where good finds covered the rocks, all of them nice and big.

Take the blue mussels, for instance. There were two wild varieties: one was emerald green, while the other was black with a purple tinge. The completely black ones sold at the market were farmed.

The emerald-green ones were each the size of an egg. The black-and-purple mussels had a little white at the head and were slightly smaller, but they were still quite large.

Once his bucket was full, he carried it down and set it on an open patch of ground, then took out a sack for the blue mussels. They grew in great patches and were especially easy to dig up.

After gathering the blue mussels, he dug up the nearby ox-eye limpets, tossing them in together to sort out once he got home.

They called them ox-eye limpets in the local dialect. He didn't know their official name, since they couldn't be farmed and weren't sold in markets.

They were a kind of shellfish too, similar to scallops, only with less meat. Their round shells were the color of stone, and they made wonderful soup with a little minced ginger and garlic!

While digging up blue mussels and ox-eye limpets, he also gathered sea melon seeds and picked up snails, taking whatever he saw. With a sack instead of a bucket, he didn't need to be as selective as he had been at the start.

Only when the entire sack was nearly full did he drag it onto the beach and shake another sack out of the bamboo basket.

"Aren't you tired, Dongzi? You really brought two sacks to fill? Since when were you so hardworking? Isn't one sack enough? Want to take a break first?" Xiao Xiao lit a cigarette and leisurely watched Ye Yaodong work.

"I have to work harder. Building the house takes a lot of money. My eldest and second brothers go out to sea with my dad, and all their earnings go toward the house. I have to do my bit too. Gathering more seafood for the workers' meals will help cut the family's expenses."

"Otherwise, I'll have to haul gravel and sand. If I still don't do anything, my dad will break my legs."

A-Zheng chuckled. "Ha! Your dad's just saying that. Doesn't he know you can't carry a thing, whether on your shoulders or in your hands? You've taken plenty of beatings growing up. What's one more?"

"You can't put it like that. My eldest son's already five by traditional reckoning. Don't I need to save some face as his father? Besides, building a house is a big deal. How could I just not care? Of course I have to help out. Once we split into separate households, I'll have a family to support too."

Xiao Xiao nodded. "Fair point!"

A-Zheng immediately offered enthusiastically, "We're not doing anything anyway. We'll come give you a hand tomorrow."

"In this scorching weather..."

"It's fine. We'll just help out with a few things."

Ye Yaodong thought for a moment. "How about I go home and ask whether we've hired enough workers? If we're short, you can come lend a hand."

"We can still help even if you have enough people. You don't have to pay us anyway. Just feed us."

"Sure, meals are definitely covered. Then do whatever works for you. Come if you're free, and don't worry about it if you're not."

As they talked, he had already pried off almost half a sack of juvenile shellfish. He didn't have time to shuck the oysters right now, so he dug off the whole shells and tossed them into the sack. Once he brought them home, the women could take their time opening them.

"Could you help me carry that sack onto the boat first?"

"Sure!"

But only after carrying the sack onto the boat did they realize they had done something stupid!