Ye Eldest Sister-in-Law said with a smile, "Digging up shellfish on those islands isn't that easy either. Who knows how long it's been since anyone set foot on those rocks? They're slippery, and several times we nearly fell off."
Ye Second Sister-in-Law hurried to agree. "Exactly. Look at our hands. Even with gloves on, we still got several cuts."
"And don't be fooled by how much we bring back, cartload after cartload. There really isn't much meat once we dig it all out, and there'll be even less after drying."
"It's exhausting, too. We stand there all day, then come back and get straight to work again. We don't even sleep properly. This money isn't that easy to earn, and we don't even know how much we can sell it for yet. We've only dried a little so far, just enough for a taste. We haven't even started selling."
"That's right. We've been busy for days and haven't seen any money yet. Altogether, we've only got that tiny bit dried. How could we ask A Qing to weigh it and pay us already..."
The two sisters-in-law took turns laying out all the drawbacks, simply because they didn't want anyone cutting into their profits.
Actually, what they said wasn't wrong. The dried blue mussels weighed out yesterday had only had their weight recorded. Since there wasn't much, no money had changed hands, and they had said they would settle up once everything was dried.
But the others had their eyes on a slice of this pie. How could they give up so easily without even trying?
The neighborhood women continued, "That's still pretty good. It has to be better than sitting at home making fishing nets for a few mao or a yuan."
"Yes, you've got quite a lot spread out