Catching jellyfish (two chapters combined into one; a little short on words, to be made up tomorrow)

Making a living at sea was hard everywhere, not just back home. It was the same here, and judging by appearances, the surrounding villages had plenty of conflicts with one another.

He wondered whether it was because this was a border region. There were all sorts of dialects, and more disputes too. The villages around their own were fairly peaceful.

Ye Yaodong immediately grew a little worried. They were outsiders. Staying a day or two would be fine, but if they stayed for a long time and made a lot of money, the villagers might get jealous and make trouble. They might not even be able to leave then.

As he tied ropes to the boats, he wondered whether they ought to keep moving from place to place. Or should they simply live aboard?

Only after taking out the ropes from both boats and tying them together did he return to his own boat and have Ye Yaosheng head back.

He also shared his concerns with his two cousins to see what they thought.

Both men froze for a moment, then considered it. There would be nothing wrong with outsiders simply renting a place in the village, but the key was that they were catching jellyfish too, and everyone could see them making money. Every place had people with bad intentions.

If someone really got jealous and a troublemaker stirred things up, the villagers might not let them leave easily. Or there might be bloodshed. They could not afford either.

"Then what do we do? Really live on the boat? But we won't have fresh water! And we still need to dry the jellyfish blood."

"Otherwise, do we just sell them whole? Then dock somewhere nearby and fetch a few buckets of water?"

Selling them whole would mean losing out