"Can you walk back by yourself?"
"Dad, do I look drunk to you?"
Wei Donglai didn't know why, but although he could normally only hold half a jin of liquor, tonight he'd drunk almost a full jin without feeling drunk.
His two older brothers had long since drunk themselves under the table, and even his father was a little foggy by now.
"Dad, do we have a flashlight? Could you get me one?"
"Yes, I'll get it for you."
Wei Guoqing staggered into the room and took quite a while to come out with a flashlight.
It felt fairly heavy in Wei Donglai's hand. It was an old-fashioned flashlight that took two large D batteries.
Wei Donglai tested it, and the light was still pretty strong.
Wei Guoqing then handed him a ten-yuan note. "Take this ten yuan."
Wei Donglai didn't take it. "Dad, there's no need. I still have a few yuan on me."
"I'm giving it to you, so take it. Buy whatever you need, just don't spend it playing cards."
Moved, Wei Donglai accepted it. "I know! I won't play cards anymore."
"I hope you'll keep your word. All right, head back early."
Wei Donglai waved and left the courtyard.
Li Yue'e had just finished cleaning the kitchen. When she entered the room and saw Wei Guoqing holding a teacup and gulping tea nonstop, she couldn't help frowning.
"Drinking so much tea this late at night? Aren't you planning to sleep?"
"My mouth's really dry. Oh, right, I took ten yuan from the drawer and gave it to our son."
"Aren't you afraid he'll spend it playing cards?"
"I thought he really did seem to have changed a little today."
"What can you tell from just one day?"
Even so, Li Yue'e didn't reproach him over the ten yuan.
She sighed. "Guoqing, do you think our third son resents us for making him live on his own?"
"Probably not? He seemed pretty eager working at the old house this afternoon. What, are you feeling sorry for him again?"
"What's there to feel sorry for? Seeing him underfoot every day just gets on my nerves."
Wei Guoqing knew his wife well enough.
"You've got a knife for a tongue and tofu for a heart."
"I hope this will help him make something of himself."
"He can cook for himself now, so what's there to worry about? If we keep him tied to our side and spoil him like this, he'll really be ruined."
Li Yue'e thought he had a point, so she stopped dwelling on those troubles.
"Let's get to bed early. You still have to go out to sea tomorrow."
"Mm."
Back at the old house, Wei Donglai sat in a daze for a while.
Unlike in later years, the internet wasn't so developed in this era, and there were no phones or computers to pass the time.
It was probably only seven or eight in the evening. It was a little too early for bed, but staying up was a little boring.
Today was the fifth day of the seventh lunar month. The tide should have gone out by now. Why not take a look around the shore?
Once the idea came to him, he found it hard to resist.
Wei Donglai decided to change into rubber shoes and put on gloves. He picked up a bucket, tongs, an iron hook, some rope, and a woven plastic sack, then headed for the shore with his flashlight on.
His old house wasn't far from the sea to begin with, and he reached the shore in a few steps.
Sure enough, just as he'd expected, the tide had mostly gone out.
By the light of his flashlight, he slowly searched along the tide line.
Passing a small pool, Wei Donglai saw bubbles rising in it and probed with his tongs.
A red crab claw immediately emerged from the sand.
Wei Donglai picked it straight up with the tongs. It was a red crab, not very big, about three liang.
Wei Donglai tossed it straight into the bucket.
Then he felt around in the pool again and found two spotted babylon snails. Not bad at all.
After searching like that for half an hour, he had quite a few things in his bucket.
There were stone crabs, sand crabs, white clams, and black tiger prawns.
Most of all, though, there were spotted babylon snails.
Passing a stretch of reef, Wei Donglai found lots of mussels and rock snails.
The rock snails and mussels clinging to the rocks came in all sizes, and he chose the larger ones as best he could.
There were plenty of them; gathering them was so easy anyone with hands could do it.
Without a suitable tool, Wei Donglai simply pried them off with his tongs.
It was a little slow, but at least he could get them off. Once he had enough for about two meals, he stopped.
He could come back for them whenever he wanted to eat them, so there was no need to gather a huge pile.
The moment he stood up, Wei Donglai felt as though the beam of his flashlight had swept over something.
He swung the flashlight back and saw an enormous claw sticking out from beneath a crack in the rocks.
It was a mud crab.
Wei Donglai held his excitement in check. He took the iron hook out of the bucket and slowly brought it toward the mud crab from the side, along the rock face.
When the moment was right, Wei Donglai suddenly sped up, thrust the hook into the crevice, and gave a sharp pull. A mud crab came tumbling out.
Seeing it raise its enormous claws and scuttle sideways, Wei Donglai planted a foot on it.
Trying to run, are you!
After pinning the mud crab down, he took a rope from his pocket, held its claws down with his hand, and tied it up in a few quick moves.
He hefted it. It was a male, a little over one jin.
A pleased look appeared on Wei Donglai's face. He hadn't expected his first catch to be a one-jin mud crab. He continued searching among the rocks.
After making a circuit, he really did find quite a few, though only two were large.
One was male and one female. The male was about the same size as the first, while the female was smaller, probably less than one jin. The other three were around half a jin each.
There were also about six or seven stone crabs.
With a haul like this, tonight's trip had already been well worth it.
Wei Donglai continued farther along the shore.
He searched as he walked, and the spotted babylon snails and white clams in his bucket began to pile up again.
In one pool, Wei Donglai also caught two yellowfin seabream, weighing around seven or eight liang.
Huh, what's that up ahead?
Wei Donglai shone his flashlight over and saw a large fish thrashing in a bigger pool ahead.
He hurried forward and took a closer look. It was a sea bass, and it looked to weigh six or seven jin.
Wei Donglai grabbed it with both hands, but unexpectedly, the fish flicked its tail and gave him a hard slap across the face.
Lively one.
Although his face stung a little, Wei Donglai was still quite pleased.
Gripping the fish by the mouth, he tossed it straight into the woven plastic sack holding the rock snails and mussels, then continued searching.
His luck seemed to turn after that. Apart from a few shrimp and gobies, he didn't find anything good.
Looking at his haul, Wei Donglai was thinking of calling it a day, but when he saw a large reef rock not far away, he changed his mind.
I'll take a look. If there's nothing to find, I'll head straight back.
Wei Donglai reached the rock and walked around it, but found nothing.
It seemed his luck had run out for the day.
With that thought, Wei Donglai picked up his things and prepared to head back.
Wait, no.
I seem to have missed a spot.
Wei Donglai put down the bucket, switched on the flashlight, and bent down to shine it beneath the rock.
After going halfway around, he saw a dark hole.
Two small stones propped up the rock in this spot, which was why he'd overlooked it earlier.
The flashlight beam shone through the water into the hole. Something moved faintly inside, but he couldn't see it clearly.
Wei Donglai took out his wire hook and reached into the hole with it.
There was something there. The wire seemed to have caught on a hard shell or something like it, and it was fairly heavy.
He was eager to hook whatever was inside and pull it out, but even with his whole arm extended, he still couldn't reach the bottom.
He couldn't help stirring the hook around a few times, but he felt nothing. Whatever he'd hooked earlier had probably retreated deeper into the hole.
He stood up and circled the huge rock, but saw no other exit. Clearly, the hook he had wasn't long enough.
He immediately searched the area with his flashlight, looking for a suitable tool.
Before long, he found a wooden stick.
He tested its strength and flexibility and found them adequate, so he took the rope from his pocket and secured the iron hook to one end of the stick.
Looking at its length now, he decided that if it still didn't work, he'd give up.