Chapter 89 Heatstroke at Sea
The next morning, just in time for a neap tide, Sister Tang was already waiting at the Pei family's gate.
Qin Suisui was exhausted by Pei Jiuyan last night, but the allure of beachcombing was too great, and she got up quickly.
Pei Jiuyan had already left for his morning training. When Zanzan heard Qin Suisui washing up, he jumped out of bed. He had already told his mother last night that he would go beachcombing with her!
The mother and son quickly finished packing and, carrying buckets and tools, met up with Sister Tang.
Sister-in-law Tang is almost three months pregnant and her pregnancy is basically stable. She is not showing yet, thanks to Qin Suisui's occasional help in taking care of her. Apart from feeling nauseous occasionally, she has no other discomfort.
Qin Suisui held Zanzan's hand with her left hand and Tang's sister-in-law with her right hand. The three of them walked towards the sea as the sky began to lighten.
As they approached the beach, Zan Zan suddenly let go of Qin Sui Sui's hand, walked around her to Aunt Tang's side, gently touched her belly, and then put his ear to her stomach to listen. Afterward, he looked up and smiled, "Auntie, my little brother says he likes the sea!"
Aunt Tang and Qin Suisui exchanged a glance, and both of them were stunned.
Qin Suisui pulled Zan Zan over and whispered to him, "Zan Zan, what did you just say?"
Zan Zan looked at her, somewhat confused, and then pointed to Sister Tang's belly: "My brother said he likes the sea."
"How did you know that Auntie was pregnant with a little brother?" Even Pei Jiuyan didn't know that Auntie was pregnant, so Zanzan certainly wouldn't know either.
"I felt it! He even talked to me, Mom, didn't you hear it?" Zan Zan tilted his head, seemingly not quite understanding.
Aunt Tang covered her mouth, her voice trembling with excitement: "Zanzan, you really heard that?"
He nodded in approval.
"Then... is my little brother... doing well in Aunt's belly?"
Zan Zan then pressed his ear against Aunt Tang's belly and listened: "My little brother said he's swimming in there, drinking sweet water, and it feels very comfortable!"
Aunt Tang almost burst into tears. Since becoming pregnant, she had been constantly worried and on guard, fearing that something might go wrong with the child she had finally conceived. Her heart was always on edge.
Qin Suisui quickly comforted her, but couldn't help but sigh. She had often heard elders say that children have very sharp eyes and can tell whether a pregnant woman is carrying a boy or a girl. Qin Suisui had never believed it, but now that Zanzan said it, she suddenly exclaimed that it was really quite interesting.
But she was still a little worried: "Sister-in-law, is it really convenient for you to go beachcombing now?"
Aunt Tang wiped away her tears and nodded: "It's no problem. It's not that precious. The women in our hometown are still working even when they are about to give birth. Now Lao Guo wants me to quit my temporary job at the canteen and he won't let me do any heavy work at home. I'm just sitting at home all day anyway. Going to the beach is nothing. I don't go into the water."
Qin Suisui then said nothing more.
People come to the beach every day to collect seafood. Even a small mosquito is still food, and even picking up some shellfish can make a dish. Today is a low tide, so there are an unusually large number of people.
As usual, Zan Zan went to shuck oysters as soon as he arrived at the beach. Ever since he learned that Qin Sui Sui loved oyster sauce, shucking oysters seemed to have become his favorite thing to do while beachcombing.
Qin Suisui was "releasing water to attract fish" in a shallow puddle nearby. In fact, the seafood at home had never stopped during this period. The seafood that Qin Suisui had previously released into the space pool had increased many times over. Every day, Qin Suisui would secretly put a little bit into the large wooden bucket in the kitchen. Pei Jiuyan was often not at home and did not notice anything unusual.
But this kind of "deception" tactic can't last forever. Today, she's going to gather as much seafood as possible to keep at home. Of course, she hasn't forgotten her purpose for coming today: to get some jellyfish so that she can prepare all the ingredients for Wenlian's medicinal bath.
Everything was ready; they were just waiting for the fish to take the bait. The shallow pool Qin Suisui had chosen today was about two fingers below her knees. The seawater was crystal clear, but it quickly became murky after she released the water from her spatial pool.
Qin Suisui knew it was time! With quick eyes and hands, she put the small bucket in her hand into the water and scooped up a bucket full of lively fish and shrimp. Qin Suisui didn't have time to look closely and poured them directly into the large bucket next to her. Then she went to scoop a second bucket. She scooped four or five buckets in this way until the water in the shallow puddle slowly became clear.
Qin Suisui poured the bucket full of fish, shrimp and crabs into the space pool, and then continued to release pool water into the shallow puddle, repeating the above operation.
This was a method she came up with after accidentally catching an eel with her bare hands. There are too many unknown species in the deep sea, and to avoid accidentally catching some slippery creature again, she chose to scoop it up directly with a small bucket, which is both quick and convenient.
The second wave of seafood attracted a considerable amount, almost filling the large buckets and leaving some in the smaller ones. Seeing that Zan Zan was still enthusiastically prying oysters off the rocks, Qin Sui Sui simply took two buckets and hid under the rocks to start picking and choosing.
The bucket was mostly filled with shrimp and crabs, including blue crabs, stone crabs, and sand crabs. There were also many prawns and mantis shrimps, as well as abalone, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, scallops, clams, and cat's eye snails. There were also four or five octopuses and squids, seven or eight small yellow croakers, and two groupers. What surprised Qin Suisui the most was that there were two lobsters as long as her arms!
Qin Suisui quickly used the "one-click view" function to check the bucket of seafood that had just been put into the space. Most of the seafood in it was similar to this bucket, except that the previous bucket also contained two large yellow croakers, several golden pomfrets, and three large lobsters!
Qin Suisui was overjoyed; the golden pomfret and lobster were new species she had caught since she started beachcombing! It was a pity there were no jellyfish, so Wenlian would have to get them himself.
She picked through the seafood in the bucket outside and threw some into her spatial dimension before picking up the bucket and calling out to Zan Zan to go check on Sister Tang's situation.
Just as she emerged from behind the rocks, she heard a commotion coming from Aunt Tang's side. Her heart skipped a beat. Could something have happened to Aunt Tang? She quickly grabbed Zan Zan and ran over there.
When she got closer, she found that Aunt Tang was also standing far away outside the crowd watching the commotion. When she saw Qin Suisui coming over, Aunt Tang quickly pulled her over and whispered, "It's the fishing boat that went out to sea the day before yesterday. I heard that some of the team members fainted from heatstroke, and they're making a fuss right now!"
Qin Suisui was taken aback: "How could someone get heatstroke so early in the morning?"
Aunt Tang slapped her hand, both amused and exasperated: "She must have suffered from heatstroke yesterday, but we were far out at sea at the time, so we could only take some medicine and bear it. We had to rush back now to take her to the hospital!"
Qin Suisui had heard before that although the brigade's main occupations were planting and rubber tapping, fishing had not stopped, as it was the livelihood that the residents of the coastal area of Qiongtan Island had depended on for generations. Several surrounding brigades also had dedicated fishing teams, whose members would participate in agricultural work during the off-season.
However, since agriculture is the main occupation now, the size of the fishing teams has been greatly reduced. The Guangmingding Brigade and the Hongqiding Brigade simply merged their fishing teams and usually go out to sea together to cooperate. With more people, there is more strength, and they can help each other if they encounter any problems at sea.
Wenlian was a member of the fishing team.
Just then, Qin Suisui saw Wen Lian getting off the fishing boat. She was about to go over and ask him if they had any jellyfish on their boat when someone suddenly screamed from the side.
Qin Suisui turned her head and saw a crew member who had been carried off the ship suddenly foaming at the mouth, startling the people next to him.
Qin Suisui was shocked; this was one of the symptoms of severe heatstroke! And the situation was already extremely critical!
Without a second thought, she quickly squeezed through the crowd, turned the man who had been lying supine on the stretcher to his side, and while clearing secretions from his mouth to prevent choking, she instructed the people nearby to call a car immediately to take him to the hospital. The patient's condition was unsuitable for a bumpy ride; calling a car was the fastest and easiest way.
She suddenly appeared, startling the two crew members carrying the stretcher. Seeing that she was still giving them orders, the crew members, who were already annoyed by the unsuccessful trip, became even more furious.
"Where did this girl come from? Can't you see we're in a hurry to save people? Don't you know any better?"
Mai Xizhou, who had followed them off the ship, saw Qin Suisui and quickly squeezed over to reprimand the two crew members: "Are you blind? How dare you speak like that! This is Comrade Qin Suisui! Do as she instructs!"
Mai Xizhou is Mai Defu's eldest son and is currently the captain of the fishing team of Guangmingding Brigade. He had met Qin Suisui in the village and knew how much his father respected this Comrade Qin, so he naturally dared not neglect him.
After giving instructions to the two crew members, he bent down and said to Qin Suisui, "Comrade Qin, what do you think we should do now? Besides Along, two other crew members on our ship have also suffered from heatstroke."
Qin Suisui frowned: "Are they all that serious?"
Mai Xizhou hurriedly waved his hand: "No, it's not that. Ah Long's condition is a bit more serious. He mainly suffered from heatstroke yesterday during the day. We didn't have any medicine on the ship, so we could only keep giving them herbal tea to tide them over. If it dragged on for too long... who would have thought that someone who has been fishing for so many years could suffer from heatstroke at sea..."
Qin Suisui understood; this was a severe illness that had developed from mild heatstroke.
Using the cloth bag as cover, she took out a bottle of special pills from her spatial storage, poured out one, and handed it to Mai Xizhou so that he could feed it to A Long.
Mai Xizhou, holding the pills, was a little bewildered: "Comrade Qin, this... should I take them with water?"
Qin Suisui shook her head: "Just feed it to him directly, the pills will melt in his mouth." These are pills specially made by Grandma, which are very useful for heatstroke caused by high temperatures like Ah Long's.
"Okay, okay!"
Mai Xizhou immediately did as instructed.
At Mai Xizhou's request, Qin Suisui also checked on two other crew members who had suffered from heatstroke. As Mai Xizhou had said, their symptoms were much milder than A Long's, but they were also not very conscious.
Qin Suisui took out another bottle of medicine from her spatial storage, poured out two pills, and had Mai Xizhou feed them to them.
Wen Lian hurriedly stepped forward to thank her, and Qin Suisui then learned that one of the two crew members was from the Hongqiding Brigade and was Wen Lian's cousin.
After the hospital arrived and took the three crew members who had suffered heatstroke away, Qin Suisui finally told Wen Lian about the jellyfish.
"Jellyfish? There should be some. We'll know when we get back and sort the goods!" Wen Lian was thrilled to learn that he only needed this last ingredient to begin treatment. He was still young, with many unfulfilled ambitions, and a beautiful wife waiting for him at home. They didn't even have a child yet. He didn't want to die. If he had a chance to live, he would seize it with all his might.
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