Upon closer inspection, it read, "Cuttlefish."
This squid is brown, weighs about three pounds, and is about the size of a palm. It kept squirting ink after being caught by Mingjing.
Mingjing breathed a sigh of relief, thankful that it wasn't a giant squid. If it had been a ten-meter-long squid, her arm would have been ruined.
The squid was slippery, its tentacles clinging tightly to Mingjing's palm, black ink dripping down her glove, and the teeth at the top of its mouth still biting at her glove.
"Give it to me."
Ming Dahai handed over the bucket, and Ming Jing straightened up, trying to pry open the cuttlefish's tentacles with her other hand. Just as Ming Jing was holding the cuttlefish...
The squid fired a black bullet at Mingjing.
"Pooh!"
Mingjing's face was covered in ink, and even his white teeth were completely black.
"Third Aunt, you've turned into a black egg!" Ming Lei laughed heartily.
Mingjing flung the squid into the bucket, bent down, scooped up seawater, washed her face, and then slurped up a few mouthfuls of black ink.
If there's only one little squid today, she'll definitely put it in the pot; if there are many little squid today, she'll still definitely put them in the pot.
Cuttlefish are actually quite expensive, but if they are small, they won't fetch much money.
With a couple of dips in the net, two stone crabs were pulled ashore.
"Give it to me. Stone crabs' claws can pinch and hurt. Son, go and pick some pitcher plants, twist them into rope, and tie these crabs up," Ming Dahai instructed.
Tiger crabs can walk upright, and other crabs also like to run around, so they can't be kept under control if they're not tied up.
Mingliang muttered to himself, "When there's trouble, it's his son; when there's no trouble, it's Mingliang. Is he even his biological son?"
Mingjing, holding the net, felt something was hiding from her. After several failed attempts, she jumped into the puddle and searched for it with her bare hands.
"Mingjing, why did you go down there?" Ming Dahai asked worriedly.
"It's okay, you won't die."
Mingjing was quite scared at first, but then he thought that the saying "fortune favors the bold" is not without reason; the bigger the storm, the more valuable the fish.
As soon as she went down, she felt something bump against her leg.
"Come down quickly, it's not deep, it's alright." Mingjing waved to the people above.
The pit is narrow at the top and wide at the bottom, with a large space underneath.
I heard that Ming Dahai was the first to go down, and then the others stood in the pit, bending over and feeling around underwater.
"Grandpa, I want to go down too," Minglei said, standing on the edge of the puddle, hesitant to go down.
"Come on, there are sea snakes here. Be careful not to get bitten," Mingyue said in a scare tactic. Minglei stood frozen in place, too afraid to move, and even took a few steps back.
"Wow, there's a lot of stuff here." Ming Dahai scooped up another tiger crab with his net, this one was smaller than the one before.
It's about five centimeters long and weighs a little over a pound.
Ming Dahai complained that there was still too much water, so he took a bucket and continued to dig water out.
Crabs and miscellaneous fish are occasionally brought ashore by buckets.
"It seems this is a natural rock pit. Fish and shrimp swim in at high tide and are left behind at low tide," Ming Dahai guessed.
Just then, Bai Xiaoye shouted, his face turning ashen, "Damn it, that fish jumped up and bumped into me!"
He clutched his genitals, breathing deeply in pain, his face flushed.
"You dare touch my brother Bai's manhood? I'll avenge you!" Mingliang turned around, took the net, and prepared to scoop up the fish.
"Wow, that fish is fierce!" Mingyue pointed to the fish's shadow darting in the water. "There it is!"
The big fish darted wildly beneath their feet.
Mingjing spotted it and pounced forward, catching a white silver fish.
Is it ribbonfish?
"No, it's a tarpon," Mingjing said, glancing down at it.
The tarpon has a slender body and a wide face. It can adapt to both freshwater and saltwater. It has small bones and tender meat, but many people dislike it because it is difficult to avoid the bones, and local people do not have strong purchasing power.
"It's only five yuan a pound, not worth much," Ming Dahai muttered.
Mingjing heard that it was worthless, so he simply threw it on the shore.
"There should be more. Let's pour the water out a few more times," Ming Dahai said, continuing to fill the bucket with water.
With many hands making light work, the seawater reached our ankles in just a few minutes.
"Sister, there are so many stones underneath!" Mingyue almost tripped over the stones under her feet. After staggering a few steps, she bent down and moved the stones, exclaiming in surprise.
"Sis, tiger crab."
She grabbed the tiger crab's claws and said.
This tiger crab is seven or eight centimeters long and weighs half a pound.
"Tie up Mingliang," Mingyue said, throwing him directly onto the shore.
Mingliang instantly felt that she had no status in this family, but she didn't dare to say anything and obediently tied up the crabs.
The bottom of the pit was full of rocks, so naturally there were plenty of crabs. Besides crabs, Mingjing also caught a lot of shrimp.
Bai Xiaoye flipped over a large rock and exclaimed, "Mingjing, did you notice that the seawater has risen again? There seems to be a hole here."
"It seems so." Mingjing looked down and said that the seawater was just up to their ankles a moment ago, but now it had already reached their calves.
She walked up and looked at the hole, which was about the size of Ming Lei's fist. Seawater was seeping into it, but the flow rate was not fast.
Mingjing found a large rock and used it to block the hole, reducing the amount of water entering.
"Sis, look what this is!"
Mingyue pointed curiously to a corner at the bottom of the puddle. The water there was deeper than where they were standing, and there seemed to be several fish diving into the water.
Mingjing, wearing gloves, touched it. It had scales on its back, but wasn't very long.
She was relieved as long as it wasn't a stonefish or a tiger grouper, as long as it wasn't poisonous.
"Mingliang, bring the net and bucket."
Mingjing took the net from Mingliang and cast it down. A bunch of animals jumped around in the net.
"Small yellow croaker?"
The net contained four or five small yellow croakers, each weighing about five or six ounces.
Mingjing threw the small yellow croakers onto the shore for Mingliang to pick up, keeping the larger ones and releasing the smaller ones. Mingjing then stirred up the water in the puddle.
Another net full of small yellow croakers, this time a total of eight, each weighing seven or eight ounces.
Once he was sure there was nothing in the puddle, Mingjing stopped and bent down to fish at the bottom of the water.
Although the hole was blocked, the water was still flowing into the pit and soon reached Mingjing's knees.
"Alright, you guys go up first. The water's rising. Then go check other places to see if any fish have escaped."
Mingliang pulled each person up one by one from above, leaving only Mingjing in the pit to continue catching fish with a net.
After the people left, the fish seemed to emerge. Mingjing caught three stone sculptures, a tiger crab that had been trying to escape, and a Bluetooth fish.
It's called the Bluetooth fish because its teeth are blue and its back pattern resembles marble.
The water rose to Mingjing's waist before she climbed up with her belongings.
Strangely, the water in the puddle rose to the top but didn't overflow; the inflow and outflow remained balanced.
When the group got tired of collecting seafood, they sat down together to count the catch and put all the fish they had collected into a nearby puddle.
They have all kinds of fish. That silver carp is over a meter long and weighs about ten kilograms. Besides that, there are all kinds of sea bream and inexpensive crabs.
The tiger crabs were collected, filling a whole bucket. Mingyue then encountered a large green dragon among the nearby rocks.
Bai Xiaoye caught a colorful eel in the puddle. He saw it suddenly while he was catching crabs, and the thing even bit his hand and drew blood.
"Aside from small yellow croakers and tiger crabs which are worth some money, there's nothing else of value."
"Not bad, no empty-handed today, and you even caught a tiger grouper. Today's starting price is seven or eight thousand, which is enough."
No sooner had he finished speaking than Minglei, who was playing nearby, pointed to another puddle not far away and shouted, "Third Aunt, Grandpa, there's a big fish over there!"
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