Chapter 12 How long can it be concealed?
Seeing Yuan Qiuying carrying 40 to 50 kilograms of fish and shrimp to sell at the dock, Kuang Haixia, who had just beaten the baby, walked up and said tentatively:
"Mom, this time it's really heavy..."
Mother Liang looked at her daughter-in-law, nodded with a smile, then turned to Liang Ziqiang and said:
"Your sister-in-law is right, it is indeed very heavy. Ah Qiang, just carry it to the dock by yourself!"
The smile that had just appeared on Kuang Haixia's face froze.
At first she thought it was full of hope, but the following sentence caught her off guard.
If I gave her such a large load of fish and shrimp, I could make a lot of money from it! What a pity.
She originally wanted to say that Ah Qiang had worked hard to set up the traps last night, and let her husband Liang Tiancheng carry them to the dock to sell, but then she thought that Liang Tiancheng was so stupid that he would never deduct a penny from her! So forget it.
Liang Ziqiang didn't care about his sister-in-law's mixed feelings at the moment. He picked up two large plastic barrels and went to the dock to find Zheng Liu.
He also put the bird shell he picked up on the beach last night into the bucket and took it to sell.
Arriving at the dock, Zheng Liu saw the bird shell on top of the bucket on the right and asked in surprise, "When did you go out to sea? Such a big bird shell must have been caught from the sea, right?"
Liang Ziqiang strode forward and said, "What sea trip? Yesterday, I was walking on the beach and this guy jumped up to me."
Zheng Liu was dumbfounded when he heard this:
"Is there such a thing? Which beach is it? Tell me, I'll go there and take a look around later!"
Liang Ziqiang put the bucket down and said, "You are done. Put a scale here and you can easily make a fortune. Even if there is gold and silver on the beach, you don't have time to pick them up!"
"Oh! I don't have the ability to catch fish, so I'm just trying to make a living. But you, you pick up gold and silver every day." Zheng Liu pretended to sigh and picked up the bird shell to weigh it.
"Four catties and three ounces!" He reported the number, and then mentioned the price. "To be honest, bird shells are not worth much, only a few cents. But yours is really big, so I'll triple it for you, sixty cents a catty, is that enough?"
Looking at Zheng Liu's generous expression, Liang Ziqiang secretly cursed him as a profiteer.
"It's more than four pounds. How can it be compared with those weighing one or two ounces? I'm not asking for a blind price. One dollar, no less!"
Zheng Liu naturally refused to agree readily, but this time Liang Ziqiang insisted on not giving in. Zheng Liu spent a lot of time talking to him but to no avail. In the end, he had to agree with a bitter face.
At one yuan per pound, the whole cockle was sold for four yuan and thirty cents.
When it was the sea bass's turn, Zheng Liu wanted to pay the regular purchase price for sea bass, 40 cents per pound. Liang Ziqiang had to argue with him again and finally got 60 cents.
After all, such a big one is there. Most seafood sells better the bigger it is, and the price of small and big ones is completely different.
The two sea bass weighed five pounds in total and were sold for three dollars. Adding the money from the clams, the total profit for these two items was seven dollars and thirty cents.
Yellow croaker costs 40 cents per pound, and two of them weigh exactly two pounds, so I sold them for 80 cents.
The prices of other shrimps and crabs were different, and red shrimps, prawns, and mantis shrimps were three different prices. In short, 40 catties of shrimps and crabs were sold for 18.60 yuan.
The total cost of the clams, sea bass, shrimps and crabs was twenty-six dollars and seventy cents.
Generally speaking, the income from ground traps is not as good as that from stilt nets, but this time, it actually exceeded that of stilt nets.
Of course, sea bass are not always this fat, and cockles are not always available.
Zheng Liu was counting the money while saying with a bitter face:
"The cockles and sea bass are really expensive. I'm just working for you. Don't bargain with your uncle Zheng next time. The money he makes is pitiful compared to what you guys make when you go out to sea!"
As soon as he finished speaking, two old fishermen nearby kindly testified for him:
"Boss Zheng is indeed a pitiful man. He has at least four or five lovers in the nearby villages who ask him for money every day! He also has to support a family for others. It's not easy!"
Hearing this, Liang Ziqiang was filled with respect for Zheng Liu.
Although Zheng Liu had a gloomy face, he sternly refuted the old fisherman's nonsense on the spot.
The place where the fish are collected is not the same as where the fishing boat is moored. One is a large pier and the other can barely be considered a small pier.
Liang Ziqiang was walking back with the empty bucket on his shoulder. When he passed the small pier, he glanced towards the sea.
Looking from afar, there were only five or six fishing boats left out of the dozen or so that had been parked there last night, as most of them had gone out to sea.
The place where his boat was originally docked was naturally empty. But so far, it seemed that no one had noticed that his boat had disappeared out of thin air.
In that case, Liang Ziqiang pretended not to see it and quickly turned his head away.
If the ship can be found a few hours later, it will be found a few hours later. If the ship is allowed to drift on the distant sea for a while longer, the chance of being found will be even slimmer.
Although, from the second half of the night till now, it is actually unlikely that anyone will find him.
When he got home, Liang Ziqiang put down the bucket and saw his mother busying around, preparing rice and dry firewood, and then preparing mountain spring water for the three of them to drink on the boat when they went out to sea.
Liang Ziqiang suddenly felt apologetic when he thought that the ship had disappeared long ago and his mother was kept in the dark and was busy packing supplies for the sea.
However, compared with the disaster that lies ahead, apologies are nothing.
"You're back? You must have made a lot of money this time."
Liang's mother glanced at him and asked.
"Twenty-six dollars and seventy cents."
Liang Ziqiang walked forward, took out the bills and handed them to his mother.
Although she knew that it could be sold for a lot of money, Liang's mother was still surprised when she saw the two big unity notes and a few yuan bills in front of her: "So many? At this rate, the money to buy a new boat seems to be not far away!"
"There's still more than a hundred left."
Liang Ziqiang replied.
He thought, a gap of more than 100 is not small. The key is that luck is too mysterious. Is he really born to be a fisherman since he was a child, or will his good luck come to an abrupt end one day? Who can predict this? At this time, Liang's father also came in and asked:
"Have you prepared the water and rice? Bring a little less rice. If we take it all on board, what will we eat at home?"
Rice was a real problem these days, and every family was short of money. Take Liang Ziqiang's family for example. Although they had rice for lunch, they sometimes had porridge at night, using it instead of dry rice.
In order to resist hunger, just add sweet potatoes to the porridge.
If all the rice prepared at home was taken on the ship, then the old and young who stayed at home would have to turn even their lunch into porridge.
"Look at what you said. Bring too little rice. Will you starve on the boat? Fishing on the sea is tiring. How can you work on an empty stomach?" Liang's mother was more worried about Liang Defu and his two sons.
"You won't starve. Just bring less rice and more sweet potatoes!"
Liang Defu said, without listening to Yuan Qiuying's nagging, he picked up two hoes and put one of them in Liang Ziqiang's hand:
"Come with me to the fields behind the village and dig up some sweet potatoes. We can use them on the boat and at home."
Liang Ziqiang took the hoe and followed his father to the back of the village.
I walked quickly, but I felt a little weak in my heart.
If my father knew that even the fishing boat had disappeared, would he still be so anxious to go with me to dig sweet potatoes?
He didn't know how many hours this matter could be kept secret.
At the latest, my father would discover that the fishing boat was lost when he carried the supplies to the boat at night.
If you do it early, you may find it at any time.
(End of this chapter)
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