Pei Yao looked at the two little brats with amusement, smiled, and poured them both a cup and a bowl: "Stop looking, there's enough for everyone, come and try it out."
Little Xuan'er quickly took a sip from her bowl, instantly transforming into a kitten who had just received a treat, shaking her head and exclaiming in a childish voice, "Wow~"
After taking a sip, Pei Yichen also looked at the lychee drink in his hand with shining eyes and took another sip without hesitation.
"Cousin, this is so delicious."
Seeing that they all gave the lychee drink a rave review, Pei Yao quickly took a sip to try it as well. Because it contained mint and had been chilled in well water for a while, it was refreshingly cool when she drank it. Although the mint was not as good as ice, the taste was still quite good.
The sweetness of lychee mixed with the honey sweetness of rock sugar is a delight to the soul. It's not an overly cloying sweetness, but a light and refreshing sweetness, mixed with the rich aroma of lychee. It's refreshing and helps cut through the greasiness of the summer heat.
"It's really good." Pei Yao was still a little unsatisfied after taking a sip.
After finishing their lychee drinks, everyone quickly ate dinner, as they planned to go beachcombing during low tide.
Because of the rain, no one has gone beachcombing lately. Today, finally the rain stopped, and everyone is itching to go.
Pei Yao hadn't tried using the fire tongs since they were made, and today was a good opportunity to give them a try and see if they worked well.
After dinner, everyone carried baskets and headed to the beach. Deyun Restaurant had a lot of orders for tomorrow, so they planned to collect as much seafood as possible tonight.
Deyun Restaurant's business is getting better and better. On a normal day, as long as it doesn't rain, they can get four or five taels of silver in orders. Even if it rains and they order less, they can still get two or three taels of silver.
This is currently the family's biggest source of income, so the whole family attaches great importance to orders from Deyun Restaurant.
When they arrived at the beach, the tide had just receded, and a large number of people had already gathered there.
Their family has a clear division of labor. They dried a lot of kelp when the sun was shining, and the walls of their house are covered with dried kelp. Even if they don't dry any kelp during this period, their stock alone is enough to last them for a long time.
What we're lacking at home right now are whelks, scallops, and sea urchins, so we're collecting these three things.
Pei Yao took Pei Yichen to the reef area to collect sea urchins, as there were many sea urchins there. The two of them were responsible for collecting more sea urchins and other seafood.
After all, Pei Yao knew more about seafood than they did, and she knew which ones were edible and which ones were not.
Pei Xuan was secured on the beach far from the sea. Pei Yao drew a large circle around her and told her not to leave the circled area.
The little girl was very well-behaved. Her older sister told her not to leave, and she really didn't leave. She sat obediently on the sand, drinking lychee drink and eating lychees that she had brought from home.
Pei Yao took the fire tongs and led Pei Yichen to the reef area.
As soon as he arrived at the rocky area, he saw a crab with blue pincers and legs hiding under the rocks not far ahead.
It's a blue crab!
Pei Yao stopped Pei Yichen, who was about to walk forward, afraid that he would stir up the water and scare the crabs.
Pei Yichen looked at Pei Yao with some confusion, and was about to ask her what was wrong when he heard Pei Yao make a shushing gesture at him. Pei Yao pointed to the crab under the reef: "Don't go over there yet, there's a big one."
Pei Yichen immediately froze on the spot, afraid that he would affect Pei Yao's performance.
Pei Yao took the fire tongs and aimed them at the orchid crab, then swiftly struck, grabbing the orchid crab in one go.
After being caught by the fire tongs, the orchid crab seemed to be greatly frightened. It was now frantically waving its two large pincers, its powerful claws clamping down on the fire tongs, seemingly trying to use the power of its pincers to force the enemy to leave.
But this time it miscalculated. It was holding onto the cold, hard fire tongs and couldn't feel the power of its pincers at all. Pei Yao was in a very good mood and put the orchid crab into the bucket. Only then did the orchid crab relax its guard, quickly release the fire tongs, and frantically retreat with its pincers raised, assuming an attack posture.
Pei Yao ignored all of its inner turmoil and calmly picked up the bucket and continued walking forward.
The orchid crab that Pei Yao just caught was big and fat. She planned to catch some more and keep them in water. She would go to town tomorrow to buy some rice wine to make raw marinated crabs.
The blue crab has plump and thick meat that can be enjoyed all year round. The jelly-like crab meat is delicious when used for raw marinating, earning it the nickname "ice cream of the seafood world."
Blue crabs and three-eyed crabs taste great when marinated raw, but it's only July now, so it's not the best time to eat blue crabs yet. Therefore, they taste slightly inferior to orchid crabs and three-eyed crabs.
However, Pei Yao's favorite food is still the taste of orchid crab.
After walking for a while, Pei Yao saw an octopus wriggling and crawling behind a reef. She picked it up with fire tongs, and it seemed startled as it frantically wrapped its claws around the tongs.
Pei Yao used the fire tongs to throw it into the bucket, and then caught several more blue crabs on that pile of rocks.
It is said that the best time to eat mud crabs is from September to November, especially around the Mid-Autumn Festival and National Day. At this time, the mud crabs are plump with more roe and less meat, with excellent taste and the most nutrition. However, Pei Yao thinks that mud crabs from May to November are also very good. She just says that mud crabs after September taste even better, but mud crabs at this time are also very good.
At this moment, Pei Yao deeply realized the benefits of these fire tongs. Not only could she catch crabs, but even shrimp, which were usually difficult to catch, became easier.
Using fire tongs to catch seafood requires quick eyes and hands, as well as the momentum and speed to break through the clouds, so as to accurately catch the shrimp and crabs.
Once those cunning seafoods are caught in the fire tongs, they have a hard time escaping.
In the end, Pei Yao's bucket was overflowing, and even Pei Yichen's bucket was full of sea urchins and crabs.
The group of people, still feeling unsatisfied, then went over to join the others.
Pei Yao had occasionally found one or two soft-shelled crabs before, and had taken them home to steam or boil them, so everyone was quite familiar with crabs.
But before, there were only three at most, since soft-shell crabs are rare. But today, Pei Yao caught a whole bucketful, which shocked Yun Niang and Chen Fang. The two of them didn't know how Pei Yao could catch so many crabs at once. Even if the crabs are delicious, there are too many to eat.
But as long as the kids are happy, that's all that matters. Anyway, there are plenty of crabs and rocks over there.
After returning home, the others went directly to the Pei family to sell them the seafood they had collected that day, saving them the trouble of carrying it back again.
The Pei family was short of goods at the time, so they quickly accepted the seafood brought by the villagers.
After harvesting the seafood, the family started preparing spicy cold seaweed salad.
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