Mother Chen looked at the sea bass and thought it had such fine, handsome features. What a good fish-a goldfish of wealth and fortune.
"It's about time to make dinner. We'll eat before dark. I'll go clean the fish and cook; you go outside and help your sister turn the dried shrimp over."
"Okay."
There was a proper way to dry shrimp. They had to be turned over after about half a day, but not too often. Twice a day was best, so the shrimp meat could slowly shrink into the shape of a golden hook.
Shrimp dried in winter were the best; the wind-dried meat was the firmest.
Chen Pandi, the third child, watched him come out. "Abao, what were you and Mom talking about? You two were in there talking for ages."
"Nothing much. We were talking about finding husbands for you two soon, so I can get married."
"Hahaha, you want a wife already? If there's a girl you like, you can get married sooner. You don't have to wait for us."
"No, that won't do. Elders come before the young. I'll wait for you two; I'm in no hurry."
Chen Sidi, the fourth child, stood beside him and nudged him gently with her shoulder, waggling her eyebrows at him. "Who do you like? Do we know her?"
"Nobody. Get back to work. Why do you have so much to say? Where are Chen Xiaoliu and Chen Xiaoqi? Call them back to work. Where the hell did they go?"
Chen Haichao looked around and called out twice. Who knew what nook or cranny the two were hiding in? They answered him from one direction and then another before running out of a corner.
Their cheeks were rosy, and their clothes were filthy, especially at the knees and sleeves. Even on their drab old padded jackets, large black patches stood out.
"Did you two go work in the fields somewhere? Look how filthy you are!"
Chen Xiaoqi sniffed back the snot about to drip from his nose and wiped the tip with his sleeve, leaving it shiny.
He grinned. "We didn't work in the fields. We helped Xiao Yuan dry mustard greens."
Chen Xiaoliu added, "Her mom's pickling vegetables."
"You don't do the work at home, but run off to work at someone else's house. Are you stupid?"
Chen Xiaoliu opened her round eyes wide, puzzled, and asked in her babyish voice, "Mom just said we were too filthy and told us not to ruin our dried shrimp."
Chen Haichao looked them both up and down. Neither was much better than the other. Both their sleeves were stiff, and Chen Xiaoliu even had a hole in her knee. It looked like they were going to get a beating tonight.
"True. So you went and ruined someone else's instead?"
Chen Xiaoliu protested angrily, "We were helping!"
Chen Sidi smiled and waved them away. "Go on, go on. We don't need you here. Just looking at you, I can practically smell pickles."
Chen Pandi, the third child, frowned deeply at them. "Don't run off. Go inside and wash your hands first. Look how filthy they are! If you don't wash them soon, you won't be able to keep them."
The two looked down at their hands, turned them over for another look, then grinned.
Chen Xiaoliu struck first, sneaking a swipe of her filthy little hand across Chen Xiaoqi's face.
"Ah!"
Chen Xiaoqi immediately let out a wail and reached out to strike back.
Chen Haichao hurried over and separated them, picking one up in each hand. They might be grinning now, but soon they'd both be bawling, beating the daylights out of each other and ruining the dried shrimp on the ground too.
"Big Brother... let me go! Xiao Liu started it..."
"I was playing with you."
"You wiped your hand on me, so I'm going to wipe mine on you."
"Stingy..."
Chen Haichao's head buzzed. He rather regretted calling them back. He should have let them stay at someone else's house; they behaved a little better there. He hurriedly carried them to the back door and handed them over to his mother.
Mother Chen looked at the two of them baring their teeth and claws, ready to fight, and put down her knife. "What's all this?"
"Chen Xiaoliu wiped her hand on me." Chen Xiaoqi had gotten the worst of it and couldn't strike back, so he puffed out his cheeks.
Chen Xiaoliu looked just as self-righteous. "I was playing with him. I didn't do anything to him."
"Here, you take these two. They're filthy. Wash their hands and wipe their sleeves."
With that, Chen Haichao set them down in front of her and quickly fled. Whoever had given birth to them could deal with them.
The two were still arguing behind him, but when Mother Chen raised her hand, they turned into a pair of quails. Then came the sound of Mother Chen scolding them.
When he returned to the front door and could no longer hear the commotion at the back, he breathed a sigh of relief. It was better to work in peace and quiet.
"Hahaha~"
Chen Sidi laughed at him. "Serves you right for calling those two back! They can't accomplish anything, but they're more than capable of messing things up. And you wanted them to work? You'd better hope they don't make a complete mess of it."
Chen Pandi agreed. "We can't wait to chase them farther away so they won't get in the way here."
"I was thinking they should learn to work from a young age. What if they grow up just enjoying the fruits of other people's labor?"
"You're looking too far ahead. They'll only be five after the New Year. Instead of asking them to do this, you might as well send them to pull weeds or dig up sweet potatoes. They'd barely turn the shrimp over before the shrimp went into their mouths. They wouldn't need dinner, and then the two of them would tattle on each other about who ate more."
Chen Pandi laughed at her own words.
As soon as the boy-girl twins had washed their hands, they came running out again, all excited, and held their hands up high to show them off.
"I'm clean now~"
"I'm clean too~"
Chen Haichao nodded. "Mm, now that they're clean, you can keep those paws. Go play."
The two ran off again, giggling.
"We've finished turning these. Should we go turn the ones at the threshing ground too?"
Chen Pandi said, "No need. Those have only been drying for a few hours. We can turn them after dinner, then turn them again tomorrow morning."
Nobody wanted these little shrimp; they weren't worth anything. There was no need to worry about leaving them to dry overnight at the threshing ground. No one would stay up on a freezing night to steal something so worthless.
"Tomorrow morning, why don't we go back to the shore and dig up those mussels growing on the rocks? I saw whole patches of them."
"What for?"
"To bring them back and dry them."
The two sisters exchanged a glance and understood instantly, but it wasn't a good subject to discuss outside the front door.
Chen Pandi hesitated, then said quietly, "We shouldn't dig them all up. Some people in the village eat them too, and they go dig them up sometimes. If we take them all, what will everyone else eat?"
Chen Haichao paused. She was right. Although the brigade leader allowed everyone to forage by the sea and bring back a little seafood for a change of taste, stripping away whole patches was out of the question. After all, the sea belonged to the collective.
These mussels were different from the little shrimp. The shrimp came in with the tide every day. If they weren't caught, they would return to the sea, and the next tide would bring another great mass of them.
The mussels growing on the rocks were different. Once dug up, they took a month or two to grow back as the tides washed over the rocks. If his family really stripped away whole patches, they would be harming the collective's interests and would become the target of everyone's arrows, with no defense to offer.
"Forget it, then. We'll keep catching shrimp when the tide's about to go out."
Digging clams out of the sand wasn't easy either. It was even harder than digging mussels off the rocks. They weren't exposed, after all; you had to look for their holes and dig them out one by one, and even then you wouldn't hit the mark every time.
Catching shrimp with the tide was quicker by comparison, and dried shrimp could definitely be sold. People wanted them.
"Mm, we can keep catching shrimp. We can bring back a few of the barnacles and shellfish on the rocks for a meal or two, but not too many. There are so many pairs of eyes in the village watching."
"I know."
That road was blocked.
Alas, making money was hard!
Hard work alone wasn't enough. Everything belonged to the state, to the collective.
If it really were opened up, there surely wouldn't be anything left either.
These days, the ways to make money were all written in the criminal code, and they weren't things just anyone could do.
Chen Haichao felt utterly helpless. As his hands worked, he continued racking his brains for a way to make money. He didn't know when they would be able to contract land to individual households.
After turning it over and over, he decided the best thing would be to make a connection with that truck driver on the fourteenth. That was his best channel.
Strangers the first time, familiar faces the second, family by the third.