"No wonder that shark kept gobbling down one fish after another. Its joy turned to tragedy."
"Mm... hey, hey, hey... look..."
"What?" Ye Yaodong was hauling in the line. Hearing him, he looked up.
The dolphins that had surrounded the shark surfaced again, though many were still scattered far apart.
The three or four dolphins farthest east were repeatedly leaping out of the water and somersaulting forward in midair.
The surrounding dolphins immediately swam east from all directions, their movements churning the water into several trails of waves.
Ye Yaodong thought the dolphins that had first started tumbling in the east must have been calling their companions. He just did not know what they intended to do, or whether they were gathering to leave together. After all, they lived in groups.
But after they gathered, the two men intermittently heard the dolphins squeaking again, and the pod slowly began swimming from east to west.
"They're playing, aren't they? Let's finish hauling in the longline hooks before we watch. This is the important business." Ye Yaodong glanced over and felt the dolphins were playing. Dolphins were playful sea creatures by nature.
"No, don't you see how they've formed a circle?" Father Ye reminded him. "Look closely. There seem to be fish thrashing inside that circle. Those dolphins are herding them."
"Huh?"
Ye Yaodong took another careful look, and sure enough, the dolphins had formed an oval around them, with little fish occasionally jumping out of the water inside.
So the dolphins that had swum over from every direction earlier had been heading over to cut off the school of fish.
He immediately said excitedly, "Oh! See? I told you dolphins could help fishermen herd fish."
"Herding is herding, but doing it for themselves is one thing. Helping fishermen do it is