Because its swim bladder is extremely thick, it gets another name after being dried:
Fish maw!
Or you could call it fish maw!
It's the same "belly" character you often see in Hong Kong movies, like the one used to be in the belly of abalone, sea cucumber, and shark fin.
Therefore, the fish are sold separately; the fish meat is fish meat, and the fish belly is fish belly, and the prices of the two are vastly different.
Since it was a croaker, Ye Cheng didn't stand on ceremony. He found a knife and gutted it, taking out the swim bladder, which was indeed quite thick.
To be honest, Ye Cheng hadn't eaten this kind of thing much before.
Just as Ye Cheng finished killing this croaker, another one of similar size came up the rope, and he killed it too and took its swim bladder.
As for the fish, just leave it there and see if anyone will buy it. If not, take it back to feed the crayfish.
The ten sets of lines yielded a total of 18 croakers. Looking at the small pile of swim bladders in front of him, Ye Cheng didn't know how much he could sell them for.
"Uncle Duan, how much can this sell for?" Xiao Hu asked, looking puzzled.
Duan Chunsheng thought for a while, then said, "I remember someone else got a few before, each one cost over a hundred, but his was a bit smaller. I can't really say for sure about this stuff."
"It's alright, we'll ask at the dock later. Let's go get the fish traps first."
Xiao Hu started the boat and drove it to the bottom of the trap, where a large number of floats slowly appeared.
Ye Cheng hooked up the first one, and his eyes lit up as soon as he poured it out. "So many mantis shrimps!"
There were at least 30 mantis shrimp in the trap, and they were all quite large. Ye Cheng picked one up, and it was longer than his palm—definitely a high-quality catch.
"Wow, if there were this many of these, we'd be rolling in money today."
Duan Chunsheng said impatiently as he pulled up the second trap, which contained mostly mantis shrimp and some whelks.
With so many mantis shrimp, Xiao Hu quickly found a few baskets to divide them into portions, and soon filled one basket.
After all 50 traps were collected, a total of 12 baskets were filled, with an estimated 200 kilograms of mantis shrimp.
There were two baskets of whelks and conchs, and one basket of other small octopuses.
Overall, the trip went well; we'll see how much these mantis shrimp can fetch.
Before heading back, the three of them unloaded everything they needed to, and then began their journey back.
On the way back, Duan Chunsheng picked up a mantis shrimp, looked at it for a moment, and then pointed to its belly and said,
"Second brother, some of these mantis shrimps have roe. We should separate them; the ones with roe are more expensive."
Ye Cheng was so busy tidying up that he didn't notice anything amiss.
"Are there still yellow ones?"
Duan Chunsheng pointed to the mantis shrimp's belly, where the area near the head was clearly orange-yellow roe.
Ye Cheng immediately turned around and cursed at Xiao Hu, "Damn it, Xiao Hu, you can't even see the shrimp roe?"
Xiao Hu scratched his head. "Brother, I didn't notice either. You guys were doing too much. I was just focused on getting the job done."
Ye Cheng scoffed at him, "Luckily, Uncle Duan is cunning and shrewd, otherwise we would have suffered a huge loss."
Duan Chunsheng's face darkened as he stared at Ye Cheng. "I feel like you're insulting me."
"I praise you! I absolutely praise you! You get more and more charming with age, that's exactly what you are."
"roll!"
On the way back, the two sorted the shrimp again. Of the 12 baskets of mantis shrimp, 4 baskets had shrimp roe, 6 baskets were female shrimp, and 2 baskets were male shrimp.
Seeing this proportion, Ye Cheng glanced at Duan Chunsheng with a strange expression and asked mysteriously,
"Uncle, do you think this male shrimp can handle five female shrimp?"
Duan Chunsheng's expression froze, and his gaze towards Ye Cheng gradually became strange. He then gave Ye Cheng a thumbs up.
"Second brother, your line of thinking is quite strange. I never thought of that."
The two men stared at each other for a moment, then burst into laughter.
The laughter was inexplicable. Xiao Hu, looking around in confusion, turned to see the two men squatting on the ground, laughing. He shook his head and said disdainfully,
"childish!"
Just as he reached the halfway point, Ye Cheng's phone rang. He took it out and glanced at it; it was a text message from Duan Yong.
Upon opening it, Ye Cheng couldn't help but frown.
"Second brother, what's wrong? Did something happen?"
Ye Cheng held his phone, his face grave. "Nothing happened. It was a text from Duan Yong. He said the boss replied that only 60 jin of crayfish were sold."
"So few? Not even half of them were sold?" Duan Chunsheng exclaimed in surprise.
Ye Cheng hadn't expected this result. He had thought that since he was the only one in the city, everyone would be scrambling to get it.
How could they have only sold half?
Has everyone forgotten what this tastes like?
Or is the price too high?
"What should we do? There are still many shrimp in the pond." Duan Chunsheng asked, staring at Ye Cheng. Although this was Ye Cheng's business, it was also the result of his son's hard work, so it was impossible not to be anxious.
Ye Cheng touched his face, put his phone away, then turned to Duan Chunsheng and calmly said,
"Uncle, don't be in such a hurry. It's only been one day. Let's wait another day and see. We agreed to sell for two days."
Looking at Ye Cheng's calm demeanor, Duan Chunsheng was still uneasy and hesitated for a long time.
"What if they still can't sell them tomorrow?"
It was rare to see Duan Chunsheng looking so melancholy, which made Ye Cheng laugh. "Uncle, if you can't sell them, I'll just find another market. This stuff is good, you're not worried about not being able to sell it."
"Don't worry, everything will be fine."
"Are you sure there's no problem?"
"There's definitely no problem, so you can relax."
To be honest, Ye Cheng was very confident in crayfish. Farmhouse restaurants have only been popular for a little over ten years, but crayfish have been a top-tier staple since their inception.
Besides night market stalls, even Western fast food chains later launched crayfish burgers, proving that their own crayfish ponds weren't even enough to satisfy the competition.
If I can't sell them this time, I'll just wait until my agritainment business is finished and then sell them there.
Putting that matter aside for now, the three returned to the dock. Ye Cheng immediately told Xiao Hu to call Lao He over to collect the money, so they could ask Lao He about this Boss Kong.
"Get out of the way! Get out of the way!"
Just as he was waiting, an urgent voice reached Ye Cheng's ears.
He looked back and saw that Lao He's legs were swinging so hard on the dock that they were practically smoking.
"Uncle, what happened?" Ye Cheng looked around. Everyone seemed calm and there was nothing wrong. Was something wrong with Old He himself?
Ye Cheng stood by the boat, watching helplessly as Lao He rushed towards him, then grabbed him, sweating profusely and panting heavily.
"Where is the dragon... the giant dragon?"
Ye Cheng's expression froze. "Where did this giant grouper come from?"
"Huh? Didn't Xiao Hu say he got another giant grouper?" Old He looked up, a big question mark on his face.
"Little Tiger?"
Ye Cheng looked up and saw the guy walking behind him with a smile on his face, looking nonchalant.
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