He pushed the hook back into the dark hole, probing slowly forward.
By now, he was practically lying in the puddle, and his arm was almost entirely inside the hole.
Still not at the end?
The next moment, resistance against the tip of the hook told him he had reached the bottom.
Where was it?
He stirred the hook around.
Suddenly, he felt it catch on something. He immediately put his strength into it and yanked outward.
He felt the creature darting farther inside. Wei Donglai pushed the hook forward again, then kept pulling it out.
When he pushed it deep into the hole again, he felt the tip catch on something else.
It wasn't the one from before. There was more than one creature inside.
Sure enough, as he pulled back, whatever was caught on the hook came loose, but halfway out, the hook caught on another one.
Get one out first.
Wei Donglai kept pushing and pulling the hook, giving the creature no chance to burrow deeper into the hole.
As he worked it back and forth, he felt the creature drawing closer and closer to the entrance. Unless he was mistaken, it was a mud crab, and a hefty one at that.
With one final pull, he hooked an enormous mud crab out of the hole. Its two claws alone looked like a pair of scissors.
Before it could escape, Wei Donglai pressed one hand down on the crab's back, quickly secured its claws, and tied it up with rope.
It was a male.
Looking at the mud crab in his hand, a good deal bigger than his palm, Wei Donglai broke into a delighted smile.
I'd guess this one is nearly two jin. Even if it isn't, it definitely won't be less than one jin and eight liang.
Thinking of the other one still inside, Wei Donglai was full of energy.
Sure enough, after another ten-odd minutes of tugging, he hooked out a second mud crab.
This one probably weighed less than one and a half jin, but it was a female.
Its claws looked noticeably smaller than those of the first crab.
Wei Donglai deftly tied it up and tossed it into the bucket.
He was already satisfied with a haul like this from an evening outing.
While everything was still fresh, he carried the bucket back to the old house.
He picked the big mud crabs and yellowfin seabream out of the bucket, found a basin, and tipped the three other things into it.
Then he put the mud crabs and yellowfin seabream back in the bucket. Looking at the sea bass, he hesitated for a moment before deciding to leave it behind.
I'll get the meat when I come back and make some fish balls.
Carrying the bucket, Wei Donglai hurried to the dock. When he saw that the light was still on at Li Laosan's stall, he quickened his pace.
Li Laosan was probably packing up and getting ready to close.
He was a little curious to see Wei Donglai coming over with a bucket at this hour.
"Caught something good again?"
Wei Donglai nodded. "I just took a walk along the shore and caught a few mud crabs. Good thing I made it in time, or you'd have closed up."
"If I had, you could've come tomorrow. Mud crabs don't die that easily anyway."
"I was worried about the chance they might. If they died, I'd lose a lot."
"What, are they big?"
As he asked, Li Laosan walked over.
When he looked into the bucket, he was stunned. There were five mud crabs, all of them good-sized. The biggest one in particular was probably close to two jin.
"You caught all these just now?"
"Yeah, I had pretty good luck today."
"More than pretty good. You stepped in dog shit, that's what you did."
"Cut the chatter and weigh them for me."
Li Laosan weighed the big mud crabs separately. The two smaller males weighed one jin and one jin one liang, respectively. The small female weighed about eight liang, the biggest male weighed one jin nine liang, and the other female was close to one jin four liang.
The bigger the crab, the higher the price. Each size grade brought a higher price.
"I'll give you one yuan a jin for these two males and one yuan one jiao for this smaller female. As for the two big ones, the male and the female, how about one yuan five jiao a jin for both?"
"I've got no problem with the price for the three smaller ones, but that's a bit low for the big pair."
"Come on, brother, my price is already plenty high."
"If you won't raise it, I'll keep them and sell them in town tomorrow morning."
"Then I'll add two jiao. Will one yuan seven jiao do?"
Wei Donglai made a quick calculation. "One yuan eight jiao."
Li Laosan started protesting again, but seeing that Wei Donglai wasn't budging in the slightest, he finally gave in.
Li Laosan then rattled away on his calculator.
"The two yellowfin seabream come to six jiao. Altogether, that's nine yuan three jiao eight fen. I'll make it nine yuan four jiao."
After collecting the cash, Wei Donglai happily headed back to the village.
Perhaps because he had been so lucky on his first trip to forage along the shore since his rebirth, even the moonlight overhead seemed unusually bright.
After returning to the old house, Wei Donglai looked at the sea bass in the basin. It was already half-dead.
There hadn't been room in the bucket earlier, so he had kept it in a woven sack. It had probably been suffocating in there too long.
If only I had a freezer or a refrigerator.
But Wei Donglai was only thinking about it.
The sea bass probably wouldn't live until tomorrow, so Wei Donglai didn't plan to keep it. If he really waited until tomorrow to prepare it, the meat probably wouldn't be fresh anymore.
He gutted the sea bass, removed the meat, sprinkled it with a little salt, and put it in the kitchen cupboard to prepare the next morning.
As for the stone crabs and the rest, he couldn't be bothered to deal with them now. Keeping them alive overnight shouldn't be much of a problem anyway.
By the light from the house, he pumped a bucket of cold water in the courtyard and took a bath.
He had to admit, the water from the pump was rather cold.
Only a young body with plenty of heat could stand being treated like that.
After all the activity that evening, Wei Donglai felt a little tired and soon drifted off to sleep.
Perhaps he had overlooked it during the day, but Wei Donglai hadn't put up a mosquito net over his bed, and he had forgotten to buy mosquito coils. He was bitten awake several times in the middle of the night.
It went on like that until the second half of the night, when he finally managed to drift into a somewhat deeper sleep.
When he got up early the next morning, he had several mosquito bites on his arms and thighs.
I have to get a mosquito net today.
The little shop at the village entrance didn't seem to sell them. It looked like he would have to make a trip to town.
He also needed to buy some vegetables while he was there.
He had originally had five or six yuan on him, his father had given him another ten yesterday, and with the nine yuan four jiao he had earned last night, he now had twenty-five or twenty-six yuan, enough to last him quite a while.
After cooking a bowl of noodles, Wei Donglai tidied up a little, then went out, ready to head to town.
He had just closed the courtyard gate when he saw the gate next door open and a young woman walk out.
The young woman looked at him. Her bright eyes were like stars, sparkling and clear, and her delicate features were fair as flawless jade, stirring admiration in anyone who saw her.
"Good morning!"
Wei Donglai greeted her with a smile, but got no response.
The young woman quickly put on her hat and hurried toward the shore, seemingly unwilling to have anything to do with him.
Wei Donglai caught the trace of disgust in her eyes, and thinking of his reputation in the village, he couldn't help feeling a little awkward.
But he didn't dwell on it. He turned and headed toward town.