Jiang Huashu pondered the matter and decided to talk to the fishermen to see if he could buy seafood directly from them. He approached one fisherman and politely asked, "Brother, you sell all your seafood to the supply and marketing cooperative. The price must be low, right?" The fisherman glanced at him, sighed, and said, "There's nothing we can do. If not him, who else can we sell it to? We don't have any other outlets."

Jiang Huashu smiled, handed over a cigarette and said, "I have a way. How about you exchange your seafood for food?" The fishermen looked at each other and were tempted.

Jiang Huashu continued, "I can advance a portion of the grain as a deposit. Don't worry, I won't treat you unfairly." After some bargaining, Jiang Huashu successfully reached a cooperation intention with the fishermen and gave them half a bag of grain as a deposit.

Jiang Huashu left the dock in a happy mood.

He was thinking that he had to find a place to store these seafood first before he could transfer them all into the space.

After searching for half a day, I finally found an abandoned warehouse.

Although the warehouse was a bit run-down and old, it was spacious and more than enough to store the huge amount of seafood. After paying 2 yuan for the right to use it, he quickly contacted the fishermen to deliver the goods.

After a while, Jiang Huashu, watching the fishermen push carts of seafood, realized his provisions, including food and pork, were clearly insufficient. The old captain gazed at him with a smile that was too much for Jiang Huashu to bear. It was a plea, a request for more food, and a hope that he would buy more seafood. In short, Jiang Huashu finally lost his patience and, without hesitation, added a few half-skewered pork and dozens of bags of flour to his "warehouse," continuing to work as if nothing had happened.

People rushed to bring out all sorts of "goodies" from their homes. One pound of flour could be exchanged for five pounds of sea fish or shrimp, and one pound of pork could be exchanged for a large lobster or crab weighing four or five pounds. However, despite such tempting options, almost no one wanted rice.

It wasn't that Jiang Huashu was greedy, but rather that seafood here was cheap, earning only one work point per kilogram. Therefore, white flour was more practical. The villagers lit torches in the middle of the night, swiftly moving thousands of kilograms of seafood and hundreds of lobsters and crabs into the warehouse. Once all the food had been shipped out, he closed the door and signaled the fishermen to leave. Once everyone had left, Jiang Huashu entered the warehouse and, with a wave of his hand, sent all the seafood into the space.

As a child, Jiang Huashu had a special fondness for the rich, fragrant shrimp paste! He could enjoy it raw with steamed buns, with green onions, with scrambled eggs, or with tofu stewed with shrimp paste—all of them were incredibly delicious. Suddenly, he recalled that fishy yet delicious taste. He ran to the back, patted a young comrade who had fallen behind, and asked, "Hey, who in our village makes shrimp paste? I'd like to exchange some for some and take some back home."

The villagers took him to a family that was recognized for making delicious shrimp paste and exchanged them for five jars of shrimp paste.

Jiang Huashu had exchanged five catties of sugar and thirty catties of eggs for these five large jars of shrimp paste. The woman who sold the shrimp paste was so delighted that she even gave away the jars.