The things they had just left on the beach were untouched. No one would come to the beach this late.
"So many sacks, so many little shrimp~"
Chen Xiaoqi wandered around the sacks. He wasn't as tall as they were, but he still tried to jump up and look inside. He reached out and touched one, only to prick himself and wail.
"Don't be naughty, or we'll send you back. Sit right here and watch these three sacks of little shrimp."
"I know." He obediently squatted beside the sacks, watching everyone up ahead working busily by flashlight.
Plenty of small fish, shrimp, and sea snails had been stranded on the beach. Bored, he shuffled slowly around in the moonlight and the glow of the flashlights, picking them up and bringing them back until the pile in front of him looked like a little mountain.
He also dug a cat's-eye sea snail out of the sand. Its soft flesh, freshly dug out, was two or three times bigger than the shell on its back. He gave it a hard squeeze, and it squirted water all over his face. He had a wonderful time playing with it.
Meanwhile, Chen Haichao's family kept moving forward with the tide. It was already past nine, and they had an hour at most before the tide was all the way out and there would be nothing much left to scoop up.
The few of them had watched the excitement for a while earlier, which had given them a rest. Now they scooped at top speed. Time was running out, and the shrimp were dwindling as they gradually retreated into the sea with the tide.
The shrimp in the sacks kept piling up, their rustling, hopping sounds rising and falling one after another. The sacks grew heavier and heavier.
Chen Haichao walked furthest ahead through the shallows, steadily inching forward as he scooped shrimp. Just then, his flashlight picked out a large black object jutting above the surface ahead. It didn't look like a rock, and it was oddly shaped.
"What is that?"
Hearing him, Father Chen looked up. "I don't remember a reef this big around here?"
Chen Haichao followed the tide forward, and the feeling underfoot abruptly changed. Instead of soft sand, it was hard. He shone his flashlight ahead, but it didn't look like stone. He reached out and touched it; it was smooth and icy cold.
"Looks like wood."
"A piece of wood this big? It's much taller than a person," Mother Chen said in surprise. "It wasn't here when we came this morning. Did the tide push it in tonight?"
Chen Pandi thought nothing of it. "There's something in the way, so we can just move over a little."
Chen Haichao felt the wood, a faint stir in his heart. Only then did he belatedly realize something was wrong. Its surface was actually smooth-there weren't any barnacles on it?
Wood that drifted in the sea was usually covered in a dense mass of barnacles. How could a piece this big have none?
The piece of wood was more than three people could encircle with their arms. It was oddly shaped, with many branches rather than a cylindrical trunk, and it looked much taller than him. He stood a full 1.75 meters, tall by the standards of their village.
Wood that had soaked in the sea for years felt either rough and dry or soft and rotten, with the lightness of driftwood, and it would be covered in barnacles and young shellfish. But this piece was glossy black and smooth, with a fine, close grain. It wasn't like ordinary wood.
Father Chen came over and glanced at it, unconcerned. "Don't bother with that lousy wood. Hurry up and scoop. Once we're done, we can go home and sleep."
The important thing was to finish scooping shrimp and get home. Winter nights were bitterly cold, especially by the sea. The wind howled, chilling everyone's scalps numb and setting their noses running, and the seawater was icy too.
Everyone had just one thought now: finish quickly, go home, soak their feet, and crawl under the covers.
Mother Chen urged him on too. "Stop shining the flashlight on that lousy wood. Shine it on the water first. Let's hurry up and finish so we can go home."
Chen Haichao gave the flashlight to his father for the moment and used its spill of light to examine the wood closely. He kept feeling that it was no ordinary piece.
"This isn't lousy wood. It looks special."
He tried hard to bend one of its branches, but couldn't move it in the slightest. Even when he shook it with all his strength, it didn't budge.
"What's so special about it?" Mother Chen replied offhandedly. She didn't care about a piece of lousy wood. Weren't there all kinds of everyday rubbish along the shore?
Their attention was fixed on the little shrimp in the sea.
"There are no cracks, no wormholes, no rot, and not a single barnacle on it."
Once he pointed it out, the others belatedly realized it too and gathered around.
"It really is..."
"It really isn't rotten, and there aren't any barnacles or shells attached to it. We didn't give it a second look just now."
Father Chen knocked on it twice, producing a deep, heavy thudding sound. "This is good material, good wood. I never thought we'd find wood this good by the sea. It's completely clean, too. I wonder where it washed in from?"
"Dad, should we carry it back and have a look? The wood's still good. We could take it home and make a table, chairs, or stools out of it. We wouldn't even have to buy wood from anyone."
Chen Haichao had a faint suspicion. In his previous life, he had done all sorts of jobs, including working as a mover for a moving company. This wood looked a lot like the material of a table-and-chair set he had moved.
At the time, they were moving it for a rich man, and the man in charge had asked about it. It was a set of table and chairs made from ancient bog wood.
It was supposedly an antique, a treasure worth a thousand pieces of gold, with a price but no market.
He had remembered what he heard and later looked up ancient bog wood out of curiosity. Only then did he learn that it was extraordinary.
Many kinds of timber could become ancient bog wood. Wood sank to the seabed for thousands or tens of thousands of years and carbonized into rare ancient timber that would not rot for a thousand years. It was known as the divine wood of the East, a plant mummy.
It could ward off evil, protect a home, and bring peace. The more he thought about it, the harder his heart pounded.
Ordinary wood would crack and rot after a few years in the sea, growing covered in seaweed and barnacles. Yet this piece was intact, as though it had been preserved for a long time. It was pitch-black and glossy all over, with an indescribable air of ancient solidity.
Was he really about to strike it rich?
But reform and opening-up had only just begun, and people had only just solved the problem of food and clothing. Who would speculate in this stuff? Gold in troubled times, antiques in times of prosperity.
Still, he could carry it home and ask a carpenter to make him a set of table and chairs. The old craftsmen these days were highly skilled, so it wouldn't be difficult.
Father Chen shone the flashlight as he circled the enormous piece of wood, touching and knocking on it, nodding as he went. He said,
"A piece this big should be enough. It's good wood, too. I wonder what kind it is. It doesn't rot or crack, and there aren't even any barnacles. That saves us the trouble of cleaning it."
Seeing that father and son agreed, Mother Chen said no more about it. "It looks really heavy. We can't even shake it. There aren't enough of us to carry it back."
"Let's go ask Eldest Uncle and a few of my older male cousins to help us get it home."
Father Chen disagreed. "Let's not do it tonight. It'd be too much trouble for them. It's the middle of the night, and it's cold by the sea. I'd feel awful calling so many people out of their beds for a piece of wood. They've probably just lain down and fallen asleep."
"This piece is so big, it won't be easy to move. There's no need to rush tonight. When the tide goes out tomorrow morning, call your eldest uncle and your older male cousins over to help carry it. It won't disappear anyway."
"Now that it's stranded, it won't get back into the water so easily. There's no telling how deep it goes under the sand. It might not even have been washed in by the waves; it could have come up from beneath the beach."
Although Chen Haichao was anxious, he knew his father was right. It was too late now, and above all, the light was poor at night. He wasn't sure either.
At worst, he could get up early and keep an eye on it so no one else could take it. In this freezing weather, no one was likely to come running to the shore. People had more fish and shrimp from the brigade than they could eat, so few would come to the beach early in the morning to stand in the cold wind.
Besides, the New Year was approaching, and the brigade had just begun its holiday. Every household had a heap of things to do. On top of that, the brigade leader's grandson had nearly been swept away by a wave yesterday, so people were even less likely to come to the beach.
Chen Haichao nodded. "All right, then tomorrow morning we'll push a handcart over and call them to help carry it. Bringing home a piece of wood this big is a gain either way."
He forced down his excitement and scooped shrimp for now. In his mind, he had already made his plans.
He would cut a slab crosswise from the part with the largest cross-section for a table, leaving it in its natural, irregular shape. If there was enough wood left for chairs, he would have several made. If not, two chairs and a long bench would do. Then he'd have a rustic tea table set!