After returning from his phone call at the Village Committee, Ye Yaodong told Lin Xiuqing, "Boss Zhou will bring the Big Jiefang Truck over to collect the goods around noon tomorrow. Keep an eye on things and remember to take down the squid and dried fish and bag them up. The price is still what we agreed before."
"Also, your dad will send another truckload of fish back tomorrow morning. He said he'd come back with it. There's hardly anything left at the shop, just a few pounds, so your mum can look after it on her own. He'll bring back the money from the recent sales too. Otherwise, neither of them can eat or sleep properly."
"Ah, my dad's coming back too? Good, good."
"He'll stay a night before heading back. Uncle Zhou can take him then and bring another load back on the way. We should dry more, or we really won't have anything left to sell."
"We should've had my dad buy more fresh fish for drying ages ago. We could've made more money that way."
"We had plenty of stock before. Two months ago, we hardly had room to pile it all up. Last month, A-Zheng dried another batch every few days to replenish it, and that was enough to sell. I didn't want to make such a big operation out of it and keep the whole family busy. It's not too late to dry more now. There are just more flies, which is disgusting. Otherwise, winter and spring are the best times for drying."
"If there's money to be made, who cares how many flies there are in summer? It's not for us to eat. We put everything out to dry fresh, so it should be all right. Besides, my brother's watching things over there.