The dozen or so men opposite him flushed, then paled. Every attempt to speak was shot down.
Eventually, a middle-aged woman at the back interrupted angrily. "That's nonsense! We're not here to ask you for money. We just want to know how much the Pei Family's dried fish sold for!"
She was Rat's mother-in-law.
Rat's wife chimed in, "Exactly! We came to ask a question, not demand money from you."
"Why should I tell you how much the Pei Family's dried fish sold for? With you all storming in like this, I thought you were gangsters coming to demand protection money. You scared me so badly I nearly sent someone to cycle to the Border Defense Station and report you!"
"What gangsters? We're all villagers. You know us." His words had taken some of the wind out of the mother and daughter's sails.
Rat's father-in-law stopped addressing Ye Yaodong and turned to Uncle Pei. "Old Pei, how much did the dried fish sell for today? My son-in-law isn't good with words, so he asked us to come take a look for him. We heard you'd wheeled the dried fish over here to sell, so we hurried over. After all, he caught those fish, and you agreed to split the money fifty-fifty..."
Father Pei interrupted, his face dark. "The agreement was that he'd hand over what he caught for us to handle, and we'd split the money fifty-fifty. If we're handling it, naturally we decide what to do with it. Whatever the pier offered, you get half of that. It's the same as me buying the catch from you. There's nothing wrong with that!"
"That's not how you calculate it. How can you use the pier's buying price? You clearly dried it to sell, so you should split the selling price