There were three men on the opposite boat; one was steering the boat in the wheelhouse, and another was squatting on the deck sorting the catch. Hearing the two men talking, they both looked up at her, initially appearing ready to fight at the slightest provocation.
The middle-aged man sorting through the fish looked Chen Hong up and down carefully before asking, "Are you from Yujia Village in Liyuan Town?"
"Huh, is this someone I know? I don't remember you."
“We are from Dayu Village, Qiaotou Town. My sister married into your village, so we are all family. It was all a misunderstanding. I’m sorry, sister. I will definitely teach this child a lesson when we get back. It’s his first time on a boat at sea, so he doesn’t know the rules. Please don’t take it to heart.”
"Oh, it's nothing. I just need to teach him a bit more about the rules at sea. Everyone makes a living this way, and it's not easy for anyone. It's best to be honest and upright. Whose wife is your sister? I might even know her if you tell me."
“Her husband’s name is Liu Qingshan. She’s been married to him for several years. My brother-in-law is also a poor fisherman. We all do this kind of work, and it’s not easy for either of us. You go ahead and do your thing, we’ll find another place to cast our nets.”
After speaking, he ordered the boat to leave. Once Chen Hong was out of sight, the young man still said defiantly, "Brother Meicheng, what were you saying to her, all all this groveling? I wanted to yell at her, and she even tried to ram our boat with that aggressive attitude!"
Zhao Meicheng angrily scolded him: "What do you know? You even cursed at her? Can you even win the argument? She just subtly and overtly insulted you without saying a single swear word, and you couldn't even utter a single word in response? Look at how capable you are. If you provoke her, even if she can't reach you on the ship, she can still come to your house and beat you to a pulp."
The young man retorted, "How dare she? She's just a little woman, and she thinks she can get away with anything. She even came to my door to beat me up. If she had two lives, she wouldn't dare to come into the village."
The middle-aged man steering the boat also scolded the young man: "I told you no, no, you can't touch their cage, but you wouldn't listen. You got caught, didn't you? They gave you a way out, so you should have taken it, but you're still not satisfied."
Even if a fight breaks out, we won't benefit. Everyone'll recognize us as part of the same group. And if we can fly away, even if we don't call the police after we get ashore, they'll come looking for us at home. It would be so shameful and disgraceful if things really escalated.”
Zhao Meicheng sneered, "You think you can benefit from this? Don't even dream about it. Do you know who she is? Chen Hong from Yujia Village! If you really mess with her, she'll beat you half to death or skin you alive. Go back and ask around; within dozens of miles of us, even the local thugs don't dare to mess with her."
"That's incredible, I really don't believe it. Does she have a powerful family member in government or some kind of strong backing?"
"She has no powerful backing whatsoever. Even if she did, she couldn't control ordinary people like us. We don't break the law, so they can't do anything to us. The real power lies with her. This woman is a formidable fighter; three or four people can't beat her."
The local thugs are all terrified of her. This woman always has a reason to beat people up and goes all out, sending them to the hospital every time, and nobody can do anything about it. If you're not happy, why don't you go find her and see what happens?"
The young man shrank back: "I'm not going. A good man doesn't argue with a woman!"
The two middle-aged men laughed heartily and sailed away into the distance.
Chen Hong used a crane to retrieve all six crab traps one by one. She untied the ropes and stored them in her spatial storage, planning to sort and select them later when she got home. She had just noticed a large group of shrimp nearby, mostly large mantis shrimp and slipper prawns.
Chen Hong had never seen such a large swarm of shrimp before! It seemed they were attracted by the scent of bait in the crab trap. Perhaps all the larger and faster shrimp from nearby came; it looked like a huge group.
Taking out a special fishing net for catching shrimp and crabs from her spatial storage, Chen Hong fixed the steering wheel and steered the fishing boat in circles along the set route. Chen Hong then quickly lowered the fishing net into the sea.
Mantis shrimp swim very fast, and Chen Hong was afraid they would escape, so she scattered a lot of space water and bait into the ambush area.
This net brought in another bountiful harvest. Seeing the huge pile of prawns on the deck, Chen Hong was ecstatic. There were so many, and they were enormous. Each mantis shrimp was about twenty centimeters long and two and a half fingers wide. There were also many slipper prawns and tiger prawns—it was truly a prawn convention!
Chen Hong had never seen anyone in the village catch so many and such big shrimp in a net!
Chen Hong took out a stack of five large plastic tanks from her spatial storage, each capable of holding three to four hundred catties of fish. Chen Hong used a large iron shovel to scoop all the shrimp on the deck into the five large tanks, without even having time to sort them.
They quickly returned to port by boat. On the way, Chen Hong called Uncle Village Chief and asked him to find a few people to come to the dock to help select the fish.
They also called Zhang Baiqiang of the Longgong Hotel and Liu Quantian of the seafood shop, asking them to drive to the dock to pick up the fish and shrimp themselves. Hearing that Chen Hong had caught over a thousand pounds of enormous shrimp, both of them were overjoyed and said they would go to the dock immediately to wait for her.
Chen Hong told them that the catch hadn't been sorted yet and asked them to come back an hour later. Fearing someone else would steal their catch, the two said they would bring two more people to help.
By the time we arrived at the dock, it was completely dark.
The village chief and his wife, along with Uncle Erhu and his daughter-in-law Yang Xiaofeng, were all waiting. Even Yu Yang and his son were standing together, waiting to see the prawns.
Zhang Baiqiang and Liu Quantian also arrived with their men. Chen Hong moored the boat, lowered the mooring rope, and set up the footboard. Uncle Village Chief and Uncle Erhu helped secure the mooring rope, and Chen Hong lowered the anchor, allowing everyone to board the boat and begin their work.
Zhang Baiqiang and Liu Quantian also scrambled to board the boat, which was brightly lit by all its lights. The two saw five large boxes full of prawns. Although they hadn't been sorted yet, at a glance, almost all of them were over 20 centimeters long, and there were no small ones in sight.
The two men then examined the live water tank and the dead fish used as refrigerated tanks; all the fish were large, not a single small one. This pleased them greatly. They quickly discussed the distribution with Chen Hong: the larger and more expensive fish would go to Zhang Baiqiang, and the smaller ones to Liu Quantian.
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