"Are you from Dunhuang?" Ye Cheng suddenly asked.
"Huh? Dunhuang? Brother, I'm from our village, you know that, right?" Xiao Hu looked completely bewildered.
“If they’re not from Dunhuang, where would all these murals come from? Let’s get to work.”
It took Xiaohu a while to realize what was going on. "Brother, why are you cursing me in such a roundabout way? You used to just curse me directly."
"To just hurl insults is so uncultured."
"So you really only graduated from high school and didn't go to college, what kind of education do you have?" Xiao Hu muttered unconvinced.
"You talk too much. Hurry up and get to work. There are footprints all over this area. Dig along these lines, and you're sure to find something."
Ye Cheng pointed to the mudflats; there were quite a few footprints, crooked and uneven.
Digging for sea cucumbers is also physically demanding. Ye Cheng was exhausted after digging up more than a dozen. He had to keep an eye on them, dig, and squat down.
My thighs are still sore from yesterday, and I'm squatting like this again today. It's so tiring.
"Brother, look what I dug up!" Xiao Hu suddenly exclaimed in surprise.
Ye Cheng looked over and saw something similar to a sea cucumber, but thinner.
This is a sandworm, which looks a bit like a sea cucumber, but sandworms are really thin and long like earthworms, unlike sea cucumbers which are thick, and their color is also lighter.
There are many ways to cook sandworms, such as sandworm porridge, sandworm scrambled eggs, stewed tofu, or simply blanched. It can be considered a delicacy for people living by the sea.
Moreover, sandworms are not cheap, but the price has come down because more people are farming them in recent years.
"Good, good, keep it up," Ye Cheng encouraged.
He estimated that Xiao Hu had been following him and he had gotten more than a dozen sea cucumbers, while Xiao Hu had gotten a sandworm. It was hard to say whether this was related to his system.
Never mind, let's keep going.
There was quite a lot of cargo on this mudflat. Ye Cheng followed one of the sets of footprints and discovered a small patch of dense holes.
Ye Cheng was overjoyed. If all of these items were in stock, the harvest would be substantial.
Without further ado, Ye Cheng squatted down and started working. Unexpectedly, he got stuck in the first hole. He didn't know if it was a sea cucumber or a sandworm inside, but it was stuck very firmly. Ye Cheng tried to pull it out twice but couldn't.
"Damn it, you've grown teeth, haven't you?"
Ye Cheng cursed under his breath, then drew a line along the path on the mudflat, estimated the location, and then dug down a few times, bringing the depth down to twenty centimeters.
It was already visible to the naked eye; it was another sea cucumber. This guy tried to run away, but Ye Cheng grabbed him and pulled him out.
"Damn, it's so thick." Ye Cheng couldn't help but exclaim.
This thing is thicker than those two combined.
Dude, you've become a spirit!
Ye Chengxin tossed the food into the bucket with satisfaction and moved on to the next hole.
In this small area, Ye Cheng dug up a total of 20 sea cucumbers and 10 sandworms, managing to accumulate 50 points.
The sun has come out, the morning chill has faded, and Ye Cheng is feeling a bit warm.
He took a few steps forward and discovered another string of small holes. "Little Tiger, come dig over here, I have more here."
"Coming, brother." Little Tiger rushed over with a few quick movements.
"Wow, bro, how did you make so many?" Xiao Hu exclaimed in surprise as he looked at Ye Cheng's buckets.
"What a load of crap! This is nothing. Hurry up, there must be a lot of stuff in this area. Let me see how much you got."
Xiao Hu brought the bucket to Ye Cheng for a look. It was empty, with only two lonely sandworms and a few mussels.
Ye Cheng estimated that this was the normal income from beachcombing, and that what he was getting was a bit excessive.
"Okay, let's get started first, we'll talk about it later. You start from that side, and we'll dig towards the middle together."
After dividing up the tasks, the two began digging.
Ye Cheng's side has a 70-80% success rate in getting supplies, while Xiao Hu's side only has less than 20%, which makes him sigh with frustration.
By the time Ye Cheng had almost finished digging, his bucket was more than half full, with countless sea cucumbers and sandworms wriggling around inside.
Luckily, he doesn't have trypophobia, otherwise he would probably get dizzy just looking at these things.
The two dug for about an hour when three people walked over – it was Huang Hai and his group.
"Brother, Huang Hai and the others are here," Xiao Hu reminded him, standing up and gripping the shovel tightly in his hand.
Ye Cheng also stood up, handed Xiao Hu a cigarette, and the two of them lit them up, watching the three uninvited guests together.
"What, you can't find anything over there, so you want to come here again?" Xiao Hu spoke first, his tone impetuous.
Huang Hai and the other two didn't say anything, but walked over and looked at the two buckets. "Damn, you guys dug up so many sea cucumbers and sandworms."
Duan Yong and Yuan Jiansheng also came over to take a look, and couldn't help but exclaim, "So many!"
"Just lucky," Ye Cheng replied calmly.
Huang Hai looked at the mud and sand that had been dug up haphazardly on the mudflats, and the trails of footprints left by sea cucumbers, and couldn't help but nod. "There are so many here."
"This is what we found," Xiao Hu said, his neck stiff and veins bulging.
"What do you mean you found it? This isn't your property," Duan Yong retorted.
"Yeah, you think this is your business? You little brat, if you keep nagging me, I'll mess with you." Yuan Jiansheng raised the shovel in his hand without any politeness.
Ye Cheng's face darkened. He threw the cigarette in his hand on the ground, stomped on it twice, and then looked up at Huang Hai.
"What? Trying to take over our territory? Our brothers' beachcombing shovels aren't just for show."
As he spoke, he swung the shovel in his hand sharply, kicking up a cloud of mud and sand.
Xiao Hu rushed over and stood with Ye Cheng, staring at the three of them with wide eyes.
Two against three is not without a chance of winning.
Such incidents occur frequently in the village, involving disputes over water, land, and building plots. The main approach is simple and brutal: whoever is the most aggressive is right.
Ye Cheng knew that if he backed down now, he would be bullied to death in the future.
Seeing the two men's fierce appearance, Huang Hai smiled awkwardly and waved his hand, "We're all from the same village, there's no need for this. There's so much stuff, let's all dig together."
We have to go to work soon, so it's just half an hour of digging. There's no need to fight like this.
"Alright, the mudflats are so big, everyone can dig their own. If you guys mess things up, I don't mind fighting you. Anyway, I don't have to go to work."
"Ah Cheng, we're all on the same side, why fight? Here's what we'll do: we'll dig here, you guys dig there, draw a line, and we won't cross it." Huang Hai pointed to the ground.
Huang Hai's tone softened, and Ye Cheng, not wanting to cause any more trouble, silently drew a line on the ground with a shovel, "Let's use this as the boundary."
"Okay, let's use this as the boundary."
Huang Hai took a step back and led the three of them to start digging over there.
Xiao Hu was still unconvinced. "Brother, this is where we found it."
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