"That's exactly how it works! Eating someone else's food costs nothing; eating your own costs money. Of course you eat someone else's! That's called sponging off the rich! Dongzi said so."
Ye Yaodong rolled his eyes. "You're the filthy rich one, with two boats at home. You brought in nearly 2,000 jin today, half Bombay Duck and half Toadfish, twice as much as anyone else. And you had two Large Swallow Pomfrets weighing over three jin each. You're making a killing without even doing the work yourself."
"Huh? Large Swallow Pomfrets over three jin? That good? Your luck was through the roof today."
"Yeah, everyone else's catches looked pretty good today too. Let's unload first. A-Cai went home to eat. He should be back soon."
As for that little incident with Rat, his father would naturally tell him when he got home. There was no need for Ye Yaodong to say anything.
Right now, he needed to hurry up and unload the boat. After nightfall, the sea breeze felt even colder. He had come out early that afternoon without a scarf, and the cold wind kept pouring down his neck, sending chills through him.
They had plenty of people available to work now, so they carried the baskets of fish off the boat in pairs.
Only those three baskets were to be sold directly for cash. After tipping them out, sorting them by species, and weighing them, Ye Yaodong borrowed A-Cai's scales to weigh all the fish they were taking home.
The more A-Cai watched, the more dismayed he became. "With this stunt of yours, our buying volume has shrunk across the board. We used to send out two or three truckloads a day. Now we can only manage one."
"The catches those little boats bring in from setting nets