"Huh? Where are you going? This is the way home."
Seeing that he had taken the wrong turn, Chen Pandi tugged at him.
"I know. I have something to do. You go home first."
She looked him up and down and noticed that he was wearing rain boots and carrying rubber gloves.
"What do you have to do? Where are you going? I'll come with you."
Chen Haichao looked at the canvas shoes on her feet and thought it over. She could come along if she wanted, as long as she didn't step in the water.
"All right, you can come if you want. I'm going to the abandoned old salt field in the village. It's all broken-down and smelly there, so come along if you don't mind."
Chen Pandi was surprised. "What are you going there for? Nobody goes there. Everyone avoids it. It's filthy and smelly, with flies and mosquitoes buzzing everywhere, and loads of bugs."
"Then don't come."
"What are you going there for?"
"Just looking around."
Chen Pandi frowned hard enough to crush a fly between her brows. She didn't believe for a moment that he was just looking around. Who would go all the way to a remote, abandoned salt field just for a look? She was going with him.
"Have you been there before?" Chen Haichao asked curiously as they walked.
"No. Why would I go there for no reason?"
"Then do you like Wang Zhiwen? He was almost holding your hand just now."
His sudden change of subject caught Chen Pandi off guard. "I just thought he was fair and gentle-looking, and he spoke softly too. He wasn't like the other men in the village, so he probably wouldn't beat his wife in the future. That's why I thought it wouldn't be bad to marry him."
"I don't really know him well. We're just from the same village, so we know each other. He's two years younger than me, too."
"Someone came to propose a match between us. Mom and Dad thought it was good that he didn't mind me being older, so they had me meet him. It's not like I especially like or dislike him."
Chen Haichao gave a soft snort. That was because the guy liked them older!
He might not even like younger ones.
He could even gnaw on an old bag more than ten years his senior. His appetite was extraordinary.
"That's good, then. Don't be fooled by his gentlemanly appearance. He's a scoundrel in gentleman's clothing. Stay well away from him from now on, and his family isn't any good either."
"Mm, I'll listen to you. You've already said he's tangled up with a forty-year-old widow. How could I possibly have anything more to do with him?"
"Good. Three-legged toads are hard to find, but two-legged men are everywhere. Pick just about any one of them and he'd be better than Wang Zhiwen. There's no rush to get married."
"I'm already twenty-three. Sidi can only get her turn after I'm married, and she's twenty-one too. She's not that young anymore."
"What's the rush? You have to find someone suitable before you can marry."
The two chatted as they walked, and Chen Haichao took the opportunity to ask a few more questions about the old salt field, but he didn't get any useful information.
It was just as his father had said: an old salt field that had been abandoned and left unused a few years ago. Nobody in the village paid it any attention.
The farther they walked, the fewer people there were and the thicker the weeds grew. The village's rundown state became ever clearer, and he could take the whole place in at a glance.
In one word, it was "shabby"; in two, "shabby ruins."
His eyes were filled with deep emotion. He had never imagined that memories buried deep in his mind would suddenly become reality.
Even so, every villager they met along the way had hope in their eyes and an honest smile on their face.
There was none of the restlessness and anxiety of later generations. Life was simple, and though it was poor and hard, it felt as though there was something to strive for. Policies were improving day by day.
Chen Pandi walked beside him, the sea breeze whipping her hair about. She pulled the collar of her padded jacket closer.
"I used to run over here occasionally when I was little, but I never came back after the salt field was abandoned. There are quite a few abandoned salt pits here, so watch your step. Don't fall into one. They're really dirty, and there are loads of little bugs."
"Have you seen the little bugs in the salt pits?"
"Yes, there are loads of them. They're tiny and disgusting to look at."
Chen Haichao's expectations rose.
The farther in they went, the worse the path became. The mud and sand underfoot turned into stinking muck, and the once-strong salty fish smell of dried fish gave way to the bitter tang of salt, mixed with the stench of rotting dead grass and stagnant water.
"It's so dirty and smelly here. What did you come for? Is there treasure here or something? Why else would you insist on coming?"
"You got it."
Chen Pandi's eyes lit up. "There really is treasure? What treasure? How do you know?"
"Let me take a look first. I'll tell you once I'm sure."
"Are there clay jars buried under all that muck around here, with Yuan Datou silver dollars inside?"
Chen Haichao turned and glanced at her, speechless. "You've heard plenty of stories, haven't you?"
"The old folks in the village told them. They'd say so-and-so's family dug up a jar of Yuan Datou silver dollars under their land and made a fortune, or someone dug up Yuan Datou silver dollars in a vegetable patch."
"Then I'll send you to do the digging later."
"If there really are some, I'll do it!" Chen Pandi was eager to give it a try.
The view ahead gradually opened up, revealing a vast expanse of bare, gray, abandoned salt field.
The tidal flat had been divided into square salt pans, with an earthen and stone embankment over a meter high piled around the outside. It had collapsed in several places, and there was no proper wall enclosing the field.
Brine had pooled in the low-lying salt ponds, with a layer of whitish salt foam floating on the surface. The soil in the pans on higher ground had dried hard, and a white crust of coarse salt covered the ground.
Most of the water channels running in every direction were clogged with silt. They were full of muck, dead leaves, broken shells, rotten fish, and stinking shrimp. The bitter, choking stench of salty mud and decay assailed their noses.
Chen Pandi pinched her nose. "It stinks! Could there really be treasure here? How are we supposed to find it?"
"Follow me."
Chen Haichao headed toward the lower ground and stepped onto a crumbling ridge between the pans. A whitish crust of coarse salt covered the ground beneath his feet, crunching and rustling as he walked. Before long, a layer had stuck to his soles.
A salt field was essentially a series of shallow pits in the earth. Seawater was channeled into them, and the sun's heat evaporated the water.
The ponds were divided into several stages: reservoirs, evaporation ponds, regulating ponds, and crystallization ponds.
Before any salt formed, the pits at the earlier stages held shallow brine.
Only in the crystallization ponds at the very end, once the brine had reached saturation and been exposed to the sun, would the surface become covered in a layer of snow-white coarse salt.
Now the field had been abandoned, with no one tending it, and the earthen and stone embankment had collapsed. The clumps of sea salt in the crystallization ponds had been washed and dissolved by rain and tides, leaving only a thin, whitish salt crust on the surface. It wasn't covered with a thick layer of white salt all year round, and the villagers certainly wouldn't come here to collect salt to eat.
As they walked into the low-lying area, the ground underfoot turned into wet, briny mud. Quite a few little bugs swam back and forth in the brine. With the winter cold, they didn't look very active.
But the sight filled him with delight. These were the brine worms he was looking for, also called brine shrimp or fairy shrimp. They really were here.
In his previous life, he had worked in dozens of factories, and he had done this kind of work too.
Come to think of it, he ought to thank his extensive experience working in factories in his previous life...
Chen Pandi tugged at his sleeve, her face full of disgust. "There are so many bugs. They're disgusting! Don't go any farther. It looks like there are even more up ahead. You'll step right into a mass of them. Let's go?"
"You don't want the treasure anymore?"
"Could there really be treasure here?"
Chen Haichao handed her the gloves and pointed at the pond. "Here's your chance to show what you can do."
She shook her head like a rattle drum. "No..."