Upon seeing this, she was overjoyed: "Wow, a razor clam!"
Lu Wuyai smiled and said, "Yes, this is a razor hole. Don't underestimate this creature that lives in the sea; it is very sensitive to salinity. If the salinity is even slightly high, it can't stand it and will try to push the salt and sand out."
Lu Wuyai jumped up and said, "This is so much fun! Are there any clams in this cave?"
"They're gone."
"Then why are you still standing there? Hurry up and find another one, I want to catch a clam too." The female teacher said confidently.
Li Qianlai shook his head and said, "You can't..."
Lu Wuyai interrupted him, "Uncle Li, go ahead and get busy."
Li Qian said, "Okay, I'll go see. If I can catch crabs, Teacher Lu has definitely never seen them before. I've found you."
Lu Wuyai said, "Okay."
He shoveled a few more times, and another hole appeared in the sand.
Following Lu Wuyai's example, Lu Zhizi sprinkled some salt into the mixture, and then bubbles appeared, followed by more bubbles, indicating that the clam meat was about to come out.
Her eyes widened, and she held her breath. The moment the knife-wielding clam appeared, she gritted her teeth and grabbed it with a swift movement.
Full of motivation.
Then he opened his hand, and there was a handful of sand.
“How could that be?” Lu Zhizi stared in disbelief at Lu Wuyai, her face full of grievance. “What about the clam shell?” “I saw it very clearly just now.”
Lu Wuyai thought for a moment and said, "You look dumbfounded."
Lu Wuyai wanted to embarrass him.
After making the joke, Lu Wuyai explained, "Clams come out very quickly, so you have to be fast enough to pick them up. That requires hard training..."
As he spoke, he made a grasping gesture and shook his wrist.
Seeing his actions, Lu Wuyai had a strange expression on his face.
Lu Wuyai paused for a moment, then looked down at his hands, thought about what he had said, before looking up and saying, "Don't think about it, really, what I meant was that this requires practice..."
Lu Wuyai shook his head: "If I don't practice, I won't be able to do it."
Lu Wuyai buried himself in the Razor Hole and said, "You win. Just wait and see."
Lu Wuyai said, "Why did you block the hole? Put some more salt in to lure it out, and I don't believe we can't catch it."
Lu Wuyai explained, "The razor clam's burrow is very long. It doesn't come out to see the outside world, but to gather strength before going back down. So if you don't catch it the first time, it will be even harder to catch it when it dives to the bottom of the burrow later."
Lu Wuyai said, "Then you should grab it."
Lu Wuyai said, "Forget it. According to our local custom, we can only catch razor clams once. Since it escaped from our hands, let's spare its life and let it have good luck."
This area had razor clam colonies, and soon many razor clam burrows were discovered.
Lu Wuyai tried several times, but finally had to admit the truth: with her hand speed, she simply couldn't catch the cunning razor clam.
She angrily dug a hole with a shovel, but after digging for more than a meter, she still couldn't find any clams, which shows how deep the clams' burrows are.
Razor continued to run away, but Earl (the dog) couldn't take it anymore. It threw off its shoes and ran over. The moment Razor poked its head out again, Earl suddenly jumped forward and grabbed Razor in its mouth.
Lu Wuyai's pride was shattered: "Heavens, the little count (dog) can catch it, but I can't."
Lu Wuyai said, "You're insulting the little count (dog). The little count (dog) is best at catching clams and crabs. You shouldn't compare yourself to him..."
“Stop speaking to me, then speak to me again.” Lu Wuyai gritted his teeth and glared at him.
Lu Wuyai blinked, then immediately changed his tune: "Compared to that, you're belittling yourself. Look, even though the little count (dog) bit the razor clam, he actually flattened it."
The little count (dog)'s mouth wasn't serious, and the clams weren't the kind of oysters that could be easily caught. Its mouth was already sticky when it opened it, and its limbs and legs snapped off instantly. It was a death without a proper burial.
Lu Wuyai could only manage to catch them all later on, and his bucket was already half full of clams and razor clams.
The two were shoveling dirt on the beach when Li Qianlai waved to them, saying, "Yangzi, Yangzi, come here, come here, there's something good here."
Lu Wuyai rushed over excitedly: "Uncle Li, this is really a good thing."
"Crab? What else could it be? Are you stupid?"
Lu Wuyai gave a wry smile: "Oh, yes, you want to catch crabs, right?"
In the non-industrialized world, people catch crabs by hand or with pliers, but the old fishermen in southwest Hongyang have a set of skills for catching crabs.
Li Qianlai planned to catch crabs. He brought his tools, which were divided into two parts. One was a fishing rod, the main body of which was a bamboo pole about three meters long. The other was a crab hook.
There is another tool called a bait rod. As the name suggests, it is a fishing rod with bait. Its main body is also a three-meter-long bamboo pole and a three-meter-long line, except that the line is not a hook, but a small gauze bag.
The gauze bag contained raw pig liver, chicken intestines, and other items, giving the bag a strong fishy smell that attracted crabs out of their burrows.
Lu Zhizi looked at the two fishing rods curiously and asked, "After you found the crab, why didn't you lift it up with your hands instead of hooking it with a hook? That's less efficient."
Lu Wuyai explained, "Because crabs usually burrow in the mud, not in the sand, it's not easy for people to get up there, and they can easily sink in, so we have to use a fishing rod to catch them."
"Besides that, you also have to bend down to catch crabs. This skill is mostly used by the elderly. It's very painful for the elderly to bend over all the time. Catching crabs while standing is more popular."
He paused for a moment, then continued, "Well, you're right to think that way, but in the past there were many wild crabs, and for veterans, using a fishing rod was faster. Now the number of crabs has decreased, so there's no point in catching them anymore, and this skill is almost lost."
Li Qianlai carried fishing rods in both hands, walking carefully on the beach. The bait rods slowly dragged in front of him, the small gauze bag rolling around on the sand, leaving a lingering fishy smell.
Hearing his light footsteps, Lu Wuyai subconsciously lowered his voice: "Hey, didn't you say crabs hide in the mud? This is a beach, are there any crabs?"
Lu Wuyai said, "Yes, but it's not the big swimming crab, but a small sand crab. I don't know its scientific name, just wait and see."
The sandbag rolled on the beach for a while, and as it rolled, some sand was pushed aside, and a crab the size of a child's palm popped out.
This crab has a bluish-green shell with an uneven surface, and two large, strong claws, resembling an ancient warrior.
As soon as he came out, Ao Qianlai swung his bamboo pole with his right hand, and the crab hook landed right on it, causing Ao Qianlai to pull back, and the crab was brought back.
At this moment, Ao Qianlai had a small cage hanging around his neck. The crab swayed back and forth like a swing, slid down, and finally fell into the small cage.
Upon seeing this, Lu Wuyai couldn't help but clap his hands and exclaim, "Wow, amazing skill!"
Lu Wuyai also clapped and cheered. Catching crabs is a very difficult job, and this skill is not something that just anyone can master.
Li Qianlai wasn't particularly clever, so he had no ulterior motives. He worked diligently, without distractions, and could devote himself entirely to his work. This was an advantage in certain skills; he could learn what he understood.
After much effort, it was finally possible to achieve this.
Another crab was lured out from behind. Li Qianlai shot at it again and again, catching it time and time again. Then his small cage was full. He handed the fishing rod and the fishing rod to Lu Wuyai: "Yangzi, come here."
Lu Wuyai chuckled dryly, "I'm afraid, hehe, I'm afraid I won't play well."
Catching crabs is a difficult skill. It requires precise casting, and the crab must be hooked in one go.
This crab hook looks like an eagle's claw; a fishing line hangs from a piece of metal. There are nine hooks and barbs on the metal. You need at least three or four hooks to catch the crab.
Lu Wuyai did practice diligently when he was young, and what he learned at that time did have some effect. However, many years later, after having a child of his own, he would probably feel embarrassed to learn this again.
Lu Zhizi was incredibly intelligent; she could tell his embarrassment from his expression.
Now that she had regained her spirits, she urged, "Come on, come on, let me see your crab-catching skills, and I'd like to learn from you."
Lu Wuyai had no choice but to bite the bullet and go ahead. At that moment, the crowd on the beach suddenly erupted in excitement, all pointing at a ship on the distant sea.
Seeing this, he looked up. It was a bit far away, so he couldn't see what the spaceship was doing, but he could hear the roar of the machines running, as if it was doing some big project.
"What is this for?" Lü Zhizi asked.
Lu Wuyai covered his brows with his hands, shielding his eyes from the sunlight as he looked at the sea. His expression then darkened. "Who are you? A sand-dredging ship with no descendants?"
I saw the ship appear on the distant sea, and it pumped seawater with all its might. It shoveled seawater, along with mud and sand, up and sprayed it out from the stern.
In addition to the thick blowhole at the stern, there was an even thicker iron net. Mud and water flowed back into the sea through the net. Coral reefs, clams, shrimp, crabs, shellfish, and fish of all sizes were trapped by the net.
People were busy at the stern of the boat, taking out the stones that had fallen into the wire mesh and throwing them away. They then collected all the remaining stones, sorting the large ones and mixing the small ones together, and quickly packing them into box after box.
Lu Zhizi is nearsighted and can't see the situation on the ship clearly, but she knows it must be something very bad, otherwise Lu Wuyai, who always pays attention to his image in front of others, wouldn't have cursed.
She was wondering what bad things a sand dredging ship could do when the people around her started discussing:
"The boat from that small local village. Those people on horseback, doing something like cutting off their children and grandchildren, they're shameless."
“Last year, some people in the county did the same thing. You can see that this year, these harmful species are following suit. They are all using sand pumps to extract fish fry, shrimp larvae, and crab larvae from the seabed. It’s a real pity.”
"Call security to arrest them, and the things they're pulling up from the beach are getting less and less, what do you call that? That's what they call pulling things out of the water."
Listening to the angry discussion among the indigenous residents, Lu Zhizi understood what was going on. This was no ordinary sand dredging boat, but a fishing boat specifically designed to catch small fish and shrimp on the seabed during low tide.
In shallow waters with ample sunlight, the deeper the water, the richer the marine life, and the more fish, shrimp, crabs, and shellfish are hidden on the seabed.
They hide in the mud and sand on the seabed, making them difficult to catch with fishing nets or rods. Typically, the seawater is too deep for the required length of the dredging pump's pipes, rendering them unusable.
So these people took advantage of the low tide today to make the normally deep seawater shallower, and deliberately turned on the sand pumps to kill all the small fish and shrimp hiding in the sand on the seabed.
Young people from Gu Yuxin Village and Li Mupeng Village ran over to him and said, "Brother Yang, what can you do? If they keep smoking like this, this beach will be ruined in the next year or two."
"It'll still be this year or next, and it won't end next year either," Li Mufeng said angrily.
This is no exaggeration. Small fish, shrimp, and crabs not only play a role in reproduction, but are also an indispensable link in the underwater food chain. Once this link in the food chain is broken, the entire chain will collapse.
Gu Yuxin returned the shoe from the little count's (dog's) mouth to Lu Wuyai and said, "Wait here, I'll take some people over to see what's going on."
The ships at the island's trading post ran aground, so they had to carry rubber rafts out to sea and row near the sand dredgers.
As the raft climbed uphill, Lu Wuyai looked up and asked, "Brother, which local village are you from?"
On the boat, a burly man with a one-eyebrow was squatting by the side, smoking. When he heard the question, the man gave him a cold look and said, "What are you doing?"
Tang Congyang said, "Even the bastards from Wangjia Village wouldn't do something like this, unless they're from Qiantan Town."
Lu Wuyai said to the people on the boat, "Where did you come from? You're not allowed to use sand dredging boats to catch fish, shrimp and crab larvae here."
The middle-aged man said dismissively, "Who are you? The ocean is your home."
Living off the mountains and the sea, the fishermen truly regard the beach and sea area in front of their village as their own private territory.
In the past, when the world was in chaos, villages often fought over a piece of land on the mainland in order to occupy the corresponding sea area.
Because everyone loves to treat the sea area in front of the local village as their own territory. Although the Wang family village is a bunch of scoundrels, they wouldn't do such an immoral thing. The boats that do this are all from some offshore island area; they're only in it for the money, without any regard for the environment.
Faced with the middle-aged man's question, Lu Wuyai confidently replied, "This was sent from my home, so what? Do you know what you're doing? Don't you know this could destroy this sea area?"
Another middle-aged man walked over, laughing as he said, "Damn, you're an environmental protection organization. This is an annoying bunch. Of course we know what we're doing; we're making money."
The person next to him laughed: "They're protecting the environment, they're just meddling. Whether the oceans disappear or not has nothing to do with us. Eat the salty stuff, hurry up, damn it."
Li Fugui had a very short temper and immediately wanted to get off the boat: "Draw it out and get out of here."
Someone on the ship kicked him from above. Gu Yuxin was climbing up the gangway with his head tilted back when he was kicked in the forehead. He lost his grip on the gangway and fell into the sea.
Seeing this, the young people of Coconut Grove Village were furious and got into a fight.
The people on the ship were not afraid at all. Some even took out harpoons, stood on the gangway to keep watch, and shouted, "I'll make two holes in someone!"
“Come on, record the video, leave evidence, and beat up those paralyzed people who dare to rush onto my boat. This is my boat, this is my private residence, we are not afraid of causing trouble at the police station.”
"An old man who looks like shit comes to beat your beach to give you face, and then a bunch of mud-legged country bumpkins come to give you face too."
Gu Yuxin climbed onto the raft, while he gritted his teeth in anger and tried to climb up again.
Lu Wuyai grabbed him and said, "Don't be impulsive, let's go back."
Gu Yuxin said angrily, "Yangzi, let's just go back like this. Riding a horse is too cowardly."
Liu Xiaole and others were also dissatisfied: "That's right, Brother Yang. I don't believe he would dare to lay a finger on us and instead paralyze the whole village to punish them."
"That's right, I can't kill these little girls."
Lu Wuyai said calmly, "I'll handle this. You can go back now."
They rowed back on the raft. Lu Wuyai, with his head down, led the little count (dog) away from the island's trading post and headed towards the local village.
The villagers anxiously asked how the matter would be handled. Liu Xiaole's family and others, with grim faces, recounted the outcome, infuriating the fishermen on the beach.
"What happened? Yang Zi wants to deal with it."
"What else can we do? Just keep going, numbly fuck them."
"Yang Zi is young and timid after all."
Seeing the anger of the indigenous residents, Li Zhijie felt that the people's support was attainable. He saw an opportunity, a chance to suppress Lu Wuyai and enhance his own prestige.
So after thinking it over, he stood up and said loudly, "You can trust Yangzi with this kind of thing. What can a junior do? Everyone get on the raft and come with me, everyone go across. You don't care about him, I'm going to kill these bastards."
"Alright, let's elect an island owner then." Immediately, someone responded enthusiastically.
"To hell with them."
Several rafts were pushed into the sea and headed toward the sand-carrying ship.
Li Zhijie was full of energy, waving his hands and shouting, "Give it to me!"
Suddenly, one raft after another rushed toward the sand dredging boat, and Li Zhijie's raft capsized at the end.
The people on the sand dredging boat were furious at the sight. The man with half an eyebrow said in an annoying voice, "You horsemen, you stinking peasants, you're asking for death! Second Marquis, you stand by the ship with the harpoon, in the area of the island, turn the sandblasting pipe for me. Don't you want to catch them? I'll give them to them."
The rafts are much shorter than the sand dredging boats, and the fishermen standing on them cannot reach the side of the sand dredging boats even if they raise their hands, putting them at a disadvantage.
As they approached the sand dredging vessel, the crew bent down and turned the sandblasting pipes, instantly splashing streams of mud and sand mixed with seawater onto the raft.
Sand mixed with seawater is sprayed out under pressure by a machine, even more powerful than a high-pressure water gun. People sprayed with it cannot even stand up and are swept directly off the raft.
The people on the ship laughed. Seeing that things were not going well, Li Zhiyi, who was lagging behind the fleet, quickly waved his hand and said, "Let's go."
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