The father and his two sons staged a chase-and-corner routine on the boat, followed by a two-man beatdown.
No, make that a three-person beatdown. Li Yue'e couldn't resist joining in halfway through.
If they hadn't been afraid of giving others a laugh, they would surely have shown Wei Donglai why the flowers were so red.
"Second brother, Mom, Dad, don't you think you hit a little too hard?"
"If I didn't hit hard, I wouldn't feel better."
"Big brother, couldn't you have helped me?"
"I'm just slow, not stupid."
Wei Fangchun made a suggestion to Wei Fanghua. "Big brother, you should've joined us in beating him."
Wei Donglai shot back through the pain, "You think big brother's like you?"
Wei Fanghua scratched the back of his head and spoke his mind.
"I was afraid I'd hit him too hard and have to pay for a doctor. It wouldn't be worth it."
Great big brother, you're really shrewd.
Wei Donglai felt as if all the love had vanished in an instant. What had happened to being one big loving family?
Li Laosan's stall was as busy as ever. When he saw the Wei family approaching, he promptly got up and offered cigarettes to Wei Guoqing and Wei Donglai, just as he always did.
"Uncle Wei, what good catch have you brought today?"
Wei Guoqing handed him the bucket Wei Donglai had been carrying earlier, though it no longer needed a lid to hide what was inside.
"Whoa, so many groupers."
"Old Wei, when did your luck get so good?"
Quite a few people were selling fish at the stalls just then, and the bucket of live groupers had many of them green with envy.
They were congratulating him, but the sour tang of envy was easy to smell.
Li Laosan was delighted to see the bucketful of groupers too.
He could make a tidy profit himself by passing such a fine catch on to his buyer.
"Uncle Wei, yesterday it was golden pompano, and today it's groupers. Your family must have Mazu's blessing."
Kind words cost nothing, but they could make people happy.
Wei Guoqing felt his face shine with pride. Though he hadn't caught these groupers himself, his third son had.
"When I get a good catch, I come straight to you, not anyone else. You'd better not shortchange me on the price."
"Uncle Wei, how can you say that? With the relationship we have, would I ever take advantage of you?"
"Old Wei, grouper prices seem to have gone up quite a bit again lately."
The speaker was He Yougui, who ran another fish-buying stall.
Li Laosan glanced at him, feeling somewhat resentful. Competition between stalls like theirs was a common enough thing.
One day you'd stab me, the next day I'd stab you. It was all about give and take.
Every cut hurt, but none was fatal.
Still, now that those words were out, he definitely couldn't offer a low price today.
After a moment's thought, Li Laosan began naming his prices.
"Uncle Wei, let's start with the groupers. I'll give you 1.6 yuan a jin for the green groupers, 1.7 for the tiger grouper, and one yuan for the dog shark. How does that sound?"
Li Laosan really wasn't cheating him on those prices, so Wei Guoqing nodded.
Next came weighing the fish and calculating the total.
"Four green groupers, 15 jin and 8 liang; the tiger grouper, 3 jin and 7 liang; the dog shark, 4 jin and 3 liang. That's 35.9 yuan altogether. Uncle Wei, have a look and see if that's right."
Wei Guoqing looked at the figures and found himself at a loss. He hadn't had much schooling. Simple addition, subtraction, multiplication and division were fine, but once the figures got complicated, he grew confused.
Wei Donglai suppressed a laugh as he took the account and worked it out in his head. Finding nothing wrong, he handed it back. "That's right. Let's go with that."
Li Laosan nodded. "Now that the groupers are settled, let's work out the rest."
Most of the remaining fish were scad and filefish, which were cheap.
Scad was worth a jiao a jin, while filefish fetched only five fen.
If the family hadn't always sold their fish at his stall, Li Laosan would have been reluctant to take the filefish at all.
There were roughly 150 or 160 jin of scad and over 200 jin of filefish. Together with the various other odds and ends, they sold for 43.8 yuan in total.
Since he planned to set the ground traps again tomorrow, Wei Donglai kept some of the assorted fish.
They settled in cash again. After leaving the fish-buying stall, Wei Guoqing gave Wei Donglai his share of 37.5 yuan.
That included the 1.8 yuan from the octopuses and black porgy Wei Donglai had sold over the past few days.
By that reckoning, after deducting the fuel cost, the three of them had earned less from a full day at sea than Wei Donglai had made setting ground traps at home.
Wei Guoqing was quiet on the way back. Whether he'd been stung by the comparison or not, the wrinkles on his face were nearly bunched together.
Wei Donglai wanted to laugh, but seeing the look on Wei Guoqing's face, he thought he should rein it in a little. Even so, he couldn't keep the corners of his mouth from turning up.
When they passed a small shop, Wei Donglai ran in and bought two packs of Qianmen cigarettes at 48 fen a pack, then bought ten ice pops for another 50 fen.
Seeing him waste money again, Li Yue'e was just about to say something when an ice pop was stuffed into her mouth.
As for Wei Guoqing, a pack of Qianmen was tossed his way, and the wrinkles on his face immediately smoothed out. "You get a little money and start wasting it. What's wrong with smoking Workers and Peasants?"
"If you don't want them, give them back. I'll go buy you Workers and Peasants."
"It's fine to smoke them once in a while."
Wei Guoqing promptly tucked the Qianmen into his trouser pocket without another word about Workers and Peasants.
"Big brother, second brother, help yourselves to the ice pops."
"Better save them for Xiaohai, Yuanyuan and the others."
His honest, down-to-earth big brother was always thinking of the little ones.
"There's enough for everyone. I bought one per person."
Hearing that, the two brothers stopped being polite and took theirs.
"Did you really catch several big mud crabs last night?"
Seeing that Wei Fangchun seemed tempted, Wei Donglai knew exactly what he was thinking.
"Yeah. What, want to come with me tonight?"
"You're going out to sea tomorrow. Aren't you planning to sleep tonight? Besides, do you think big mud crabs are stones by the roadside, waiting for you to pick them up every day?"
Hearing Wei Guoqing's words, Wei Fangchun's restless heart immediately settled down.
Going out to sea was more important. Besides, catching mud crabs really did depend on luck; there was no way to catch them every day.
Seeing Wei Donglai grinning beside him, Wei Guoqing turned and glared at him.
"And you, try not to go to the shore alone at night. If anything happens, there won't be anyone there to look after you."
"Dad, I know. It's not like I go every day."
As soon as Wei Guoqing heard that, he knew Wei Donglai hadn't taken it to heart.
But Wei Donglai had only just learned to make money, and Wei Guoqing didn't want to dampen his enthusiasm. He could only wait and talk to him about it gradually later.
The family had barely entered the courtyard.
Wei Donglai saw Wei Hai charging toward them, crashing between Wei Guoqing's legs like a cannonball.
Wei Donglai watched his dad expertly stick his backside out. It seemed he'd been hurt that way plenty of times.
"Ice pops! I want an ice pop!"
Sure enough, he was always quickest off the mark when there was something tasty.
"Grandpa, Grandma, where are the ice pops?"
"Go ask your third uncle."
Seeing the bag of ice pops in Wei Donglai's hand, Wei Hai immediately crowded up to him.
"Give one each to your little brother, your little sister, your mom and your aunt. Got it?"
"Got it."
"Go on."
Wei Donglai gave Wei Hai the bag, then watched him excitedly go off to hand out the ice pops.
Dinner that night was another feast, without a doubt. There were fish balls, meat and dog shark, plus a plate of oyster omelet and scad cooked in soy sauce. Life couldn't get much better than this.
With good food and good liquor, a couple of drinks were only natural.
Though Li Yue'e kept a close eye on him, Wei Guoqing still steeled himself and poured a cup.
He could drink less, but going without a single cup was absolutely out of the question.
The springy fish balls were a great favorite with the three little ones.
Yuanyuan especially loved them. Both her cheeks were stuffed full, and she still had to clutch one in each hand.
"Third brother, how did you make these fish balls? They taste great."
"Second brother, that's a secret recipe. If you want to eat them again, it'll depend on how you behave."
The corner of Wei Fangchun's mouth twitched. He shouldn't have bothered asking.
Seeing that, Wei Donglai stopped teasing him. "I've already told first sister-in-law and second sister-in-law how to make them. If you want some, just ask second sister-in-law to make them for you."