At midnight, the moon hung high in the sky, casting a silvery glow that enveloped the entire Dongtou Village in the tranquil night.
Feng Ye, Feng Xuan, and A Can set off again with dried fish.
This time, they took all the food they had at home, leaving only some for themselves.
They don't plan to travel back and forth until they sell out; they'll eat and sleep on the boat.
After all, it consumes quite a bit of diesel fuel.
For three days in a row, they sold dried fish in the county.
This time, they didn't encounter any big bosses either; they were mostly selling retail items.
On average, they could sell about 200 jin (100 kg) a day, and even on the afternoon of Ghost Festival, there were still more than 100 jin (50 kg) left unsold.
They close the shop at four o'clock in the afternoon because they have to rush back to burn paper money for their ancestors.
As for the unsold dried fish, just leave it in the shop and come back to sell it when you have time.
...
Just after the Ghost Festival, around 2 a.m. the next day, Feng Jiaqing and his two sons got up and went to the dock together.
After a few days of rest, Feng Ye's arm has almost recovered, with only a little soreness and stiffness remaining. Perhaps in another day or two, she won't feel it anymore.
Feng Jiaqing, Feng Xuan, and the other people from the Harvest ship were sent up, while Feng Ye and A Can sailed to their destination sea area.
More than two hours later, they arrived at their destination.
Feng Ye moved the trawl net from the cabin to the stern and lowered it.
As the sun rises in the east, the sky gradually turns a brilliant orange-red, and a red sun slowly rises.
The sea surface seemed to be covered with a thin layer of golden gauze, shimmering and breathtakingly beautiful.
Feng Ye sat quietly at the bow of the boat, admiring the beautiful sunrise over the sea.
Although he had seen it countless times, each sunrise was different, giving him a unique feeling.
In other words, he didn't read many books and didn't have much literary talent; all he could say were things like, "Oh, the ocean, you are all water."
Otherwise, he would have composed a whole poem to praise it.
Sunrise is fleeting, but the wait is long.
Time slowly passed and it was past seven o'clock.
"Ah-Can, stop the boat. It's almost time to haul in the nets. Come and help."
"good."
Ah-chan turned off the diesel engine, ran out of the wheelhouse to the stern: "I wonder how the net is doing, whether it's caught anything good."
"The internet hasn't even been launched yet, so don't speculate. Remember, the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment."
Feng Ye smiled and started the diesel engine that came with the net-raising machine.
He knew perfectly well that today's harvest would most likely not be very good.
They haven't gone out to sea to fish for several days, and most of the fish that had gathered in the sea have dispersed.
"Hey, Ye-ge, that sounds a bit discouraging. We fishermen have to rely on a bit of luck, you know, maybe we'll catch something good in this net!"
As Ah-Can spoke, his hands moved swiftly, deftly winding the trawl cable onto the drum of the hauling machine.
With the roar of the diesel engine, the net-hauling machine slowly turned, and the heavy fishing net was gradually pulled out of the cold seawater.
"Oh, why is there so little stock? It's questionable whether there are even two hundred pounds of it."
Seeing the flattened shape of the net bag that came out of the water, Ah-chan was greatly disappointed.
"Didn't I tell you not to have too high hopes and just keep a normal attitude?"
Feng Ye was mentally prepared, so he wasn't too disappointed.
"Yeah, it really is."
Ah-Can sighed, but then cheered up again, "However, just because this net didn't catch anything doesn't mean the next one won't. Let's try harder and cast a few more nets; we're bound to find something good eventually."
However, reality was more brutal than expected.
Three consecutive tests failed to yield anything of value, falling far short of their expectations.
Each net brought up a jumble of fish, shrimp, and crabs, with almost no decent catch and nothing of value.
"This is tough, really tough. Will this net yield nothing again?"
Ah-chan shook his head, got out of the driver's seat again, and prepared to start the fourth round of testing.
"Even if it's tough, we have to do it. We can still earn something, which is better than staying at home idle, right?"
Feng Ye also knew that things would be difficult in the next day or two, and the results would not be good.
But there was no other way; we had to grit our teeth and keep going.
He needs to stay in the sea long enough for the fish to increase.
In fact, their current catch is the normal catch for most fishermen when they haul in a net.
Although the harvest was small, it was still enough to make some money.
Unlike twenty or thirty years later, when nearshore resources were almost depleted due to overfishing.
Moreover, with the price of diesel soaring, going out on a trip is a risky business; you'd be lucky to break even, let alone make a profit.
The larger the ship, the more diesel fuel it consumes per unit of time.
At the same time, the number of crew members required will increase.
Of course, the more you lose, the more you lose.
That's right, to avoid losing money, you have to stay as far away from the coastline as possible...
"It's not that we're idle at home, we can still collect dried fish and sell them, right?"
Ah-chan responded jokingly while adjusting the cable.
"Then you shouldn't go out to sea anymore. You might as well stay in the county and sell dried fish."
"No way, I don't want to be bored in the shop. Going out to sea is much more fun."
"Alright, that's enough talk. We need to get started."
Feng Ye smiled and shook his head.
He also had little hope for this current situation.
Sure enough, once the net bag surfaced, it didn't look like there was anything of value in it.
It doesn't look heavy, and it really isn't heavy, maybe a little over 200 pounds at most.
The net bag was hoisted up, and after the knots were untied, the various contents inside poured out and landed on the deck.
Half of the area was filled with silt, sand, and other garbage, while the fish, shrimp, and crabs weighed only about a hundred kilograms.
After deducting the worthless items, only about thirty kilograms of usable goods remained.
Of these, the only items worth anything are some mantis shrimp, two sea bass, one black sea bream, one yellow sea bream, and two swimming crabs...
In the past, when the quality was poor, they could make up for it with quantity, and the results were still quite good.
Today is even worse; we can't even get the required quantity.
I don't know what happened today, why was the harvest so poor?
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