Wei Donglai carefully washed the fishing rod, then set it beside the courtyard wall to dry.
"Yesterday you came along with us to pry oysters, and today you're thinking about going fishing. Is any of that useful?"
"How would I know if I didn't try? I'm developing my skills on multiple fronts."
"Looks to me like a monkey playing tricks. You sure have plenty of fancy moves."
Wei Donglai propped up the rod, then turned to Li Yue'e and complained, "Mom, if you put it that way, I'm going to be upset."
"What are you, a three-year-old? Do I have to coax you?"
"Never mind anything else. You've seen how lucky I've been these past few days, right?"
"I haven't become an immortal yet. I'm a mere mortal with ordinary eyes, so I can't see that stuff. Besides, what do you take yourself for, some chosen son of heaven with fortune on your side?"
Wei Donglai glanced at his fierce-looking mother and remained perfectly calm.
"I went out for a walk last night and accidentally made another eleven yuan and change."
Li Yue'e was struck speechless. Some accident that was.
That was a real bucket of cold water over her head.
"What did you catch that sold for so much?"
"A tiger fish."
Li Yue'e was at a loss for words. His luck really was something else. He'd found something while foraging on the shore that ordinary fishermen might struggle to encounter after months at sea.
What else could she say?
"Go fishing, then. Make plenty of money."
"Mom, aren't you going to say I've got fancy moves anymore?"
Watching Wei Donglai start acting up again, Li Yue'e composed herself and spoke the fiercest words in the gentlest tone.
"If you keep jumping around in front of me, I can whip you until you blossom."
"Oh, right, I still need to buy some shrimp at the dock for bait."
By the time Wei Donglai said this, he had already run out of the courtyard.
Watching the direction her son had gone, Li Yue'e felt a little sad.
Why hadn't he had any luck before? Could this luck have come from his misfortune in love?
Thinking about what her son had gained over the days since he and He Meijuan broke up, the more she thought about it, the more likely it seemed.
Half an hour later, Wei Donglai arrived at the shore with a fishing rod in one hand and a bucket in the other.
About five hundred meters south of where he had set the trap, there were noticeably more rocks.
As the saying went, plenty of rocks made good hiding places for fish, so Wei Donglai decided to try his luck here.
There was wind over the sea today, but it wasn't strong.
There were waves, too, though they were fairly gentle.
He found a large, protruding rock and picked out a crevice, then began taking the rig and shrimp out of the bucket.
Li Laosan had given him the shrimp, nearly two jin of them.
He threaded the line and baited the hook. With a cry of "Here we go!" he cast the line in a beautiful arc, and it landed squarely in the fishing spot.
The spot was a crevice between the rocks, and it wasn't shallow.
Because of the limitations of his rod, Wei Donglai planned to jig in the crevice.
In his later life, after Wei Donglai had found success in his career, he had spent plenty of money on fishing and bought a pile of different rods for his home, yet he had rarely had time to settle down and concentrate on fishing.
His tackle was crude now, but his state of mind was entirely different.
Though he had no fishing buddies with him, he still felt at ease.
Wei Donglai slowly moved the rod up and down as he waited patiently.
If there was no movement after about four or five minutes, he changed the bait.
After changing the bait twice, he cast it a third time. About a minute later, Wei Donglai felt a weight on the line.
He had a catch.
He jerked the rod up and then slowly lifted it. Judging by the curve of the rod and the pull he felt through his hands, the fish below wasn't very big.
When the fish was pulled clear of the water, a flash of vivid red came into view.
"A rockfish. Nice catch!"
This fish was hailed as the "king of fish soup."
And unlike fish such as grouper or yellowfin seabream, it wasn't farmed on a large scale. Even in later years, most of them were still wild-caught.
As a result, the price had remained high. These fish were small, though, and one weighing more than three liang was considered rare.
The one he had just caught was pretty good. He reckoned it weighed about two liang.
The fish's fins were quite venomous, and a prick would probably hurt for days, so Wei Donglai was careful when removing the hook.
Once he had removed it, he scooped half a bucket of seawater into the empty bucket before tossing the rockfish in.
Landing a good catch on his very first cast filled Wei Donglai with fighting spirit, and he continued the battle.
Two minutes later, he landed another rockfish.
This one was a little smaller, though, weighing only about one liang.
He pressed on.
The next one was another rockfish, neither big nor small at one and a half liang.
He kept going. Two liang.
One and a half liang.
Three liang.
This one was good.
Wei Donglai felt as if he had stumbled into a rockfish den, pulling them up one after another.
After he had caught about seven or eight, the bites suddenly stopped.
He changed the bait twice more, but there was still no movement. Wei Donglai reckoned he had more or less finished off this bunch.
Just as he was about to change spots, there was another tug on the rod.
From the feel of it, it was probably another rockfish.
Wei Donglai quickly lifted the rod, but when the hook came out of the water, he realized he had guessed wrong.
Hanging from the hook was not a rockfish, but a puffed-up pufferfish.
After removing the hook, Wei Donglai played with it for a while. He found it rather amusing to watch the pufferfish swell up like a balloon in his hand.
Although pufferfish was also a delicious ingredient, Wei Donglai didn't intend to keep it.
Mainly, he didn't really know how to prepare it. If he got it wrong and ended up in the hospital after eating it, he'd take a loss all the way to his grandma's house.
Off you go!
With the pufferfish's belly puffed up like a ball, Wei Donglai gave it a kick and sent it back into the sea.
Feeling that this spot probably wouldn't yield anything else, Wei Donglai decisively moved on.
He found another crevice and started jigging again.
But there didn't seem to be any rockfish in this spot.
The fish he pulled up over several casts were all gobies.
Goby was a general term covering quite a few species. Most of the ones Wei Donglai caught were striped gobies and short-lipped gobies.
Just as Wei Donglai thought he would be catching nothing but these, he pulled up a black seabream on the next cast.
Then, on the cast after that, he caught a conger eel.
Wei Donglai couldn't help feeling rueful. Sure enough, every guess he made was wrong.
Still, the uncertainty and unpredictability of fishing were part of the fun.
The only thing Wei Donglai found a little disappointing was that, after fishing for so long, he hadn't encountered a single grouper.
After all, grouper was what he had come for today.
Whenever he felt fish weren't biting in a particular spot, Wei Donglai couldn't be bothered to hold his ground.
A new spot brought new catches. He absolutely couldn't give up the whole forest for a single tree.
Moving around like this really did bring him quite a haul, with the number of rockfish and gobies steadily increasing.
He also landed two black seabream, and even the conger eel refused to remain alone: he caught another to make a pair.
Seeing that noon was approaching, Wei Donglai decided to catch one last fish before calling it a day.
This time, he didn't choose a crevice. He found a small cove that looked fairly promising, then baited the hook with a shrimp and cast it in.