They might not have encountered any at first because they had still been near the edge of the area. In any case, the farther they went, the more fishing boats they saw, and everyone kept out of everyone else's way.
Sometimes, though, they went quite a long way without seeing any jellyfish. They were not distributed that evenly.
Seeing so many fishing boats harvesting jellyfish along the way finally put Ye Yaodong completely at ease.
If boats were harvesting them, there was a market and people buying them. They did not have to worry about finding a buyer.
The other three men were reassured too. They had actually been worried that nobody would want the catch and all their work would be for nothing. Although they were only earning wages, their employer losing money would do them no good either.
Father Ye also breathed a sigh of relief.
Just then, they saw many boats ahead heading east at the same time. All of them were towing fishing nets behind their sterns, densely packed with colorful jellyfish. Each net looked to hold quite a lot.
Father Ye figured they should be nearly there. Those boats were probably heading ashore at nearby villages. Their catches were too heavy to haul up by hand, so they were towing them along just as they were.
He simply steered toward the nearest boat and called out to ask directions in his broken Mandarin, thick with a Southern Fujian accent.
But the old fisherman on that boat seemed unable to speak Mandarin at all. He spoke to them in the local dialect, which they could not understand. Eventually, a young man aboard translated for them in less-than-standard Mandarin.
Only then did they learn that their village, Changfengjing Village, lay ahead. It belonged to Muhua Town in