An Shuyi nodded, "Okay, but we need to get some food for the injured person first. It's not like Huahua and I can go."
She saw it yesterday; the man was injured in the chest. In this hot weather, he probably wasn't wearing any clothes. It's not a big deal if he wasn't wearing any clothes, but her husband is petty, so it's better to stay away.
"I'll deliver it. I'll just get something light," Cheng Yumo said.
He didn't want his wife to deliver the food either, lest she see something she shouldn't, which would be a huge loss.
"Okay!" He took out a few steamed buns (vegetarian), a cup of soy milk, and some porridge from the warehouse, put them on a plate, and asked Yu Mo to take them over.
Don't be fooled by the small quantity; it's a large portion, and you can finish even such a big thing.
"Honey, what would you like to eat?"
Xiao Yubai thought for a while, "Give me a few mutton buns, a bowl of mutton rice noodles, and two meat pies."
They don't have to stay in the wild, but on a cruise ship, so they have to eat well.
Ignoring Hua Hua's knowing look, she took out what he had ordered and wondered why he insisted on eating mutton. Couldn't he eat something else? Wouldn't that cause him to get a sore throat?
"Yu Mo, what would you like to eat?"
Cheng Yumo looked at the things on the table and said, "Add a copy of what's on the table to the list."
An Shuyi returned Xia Hua's meaningful look before taking out the food, adding a few of each kind, telling her to eat as much as possible, preferably to overeat.
"I'll just have a bowl of yam porridge and a jianbing guozi," Xia Hua said from the side.
It's so hot, I don't have much of an appetite.
She took out Huahua's food before taking out her own: a bowl of scallion oil noodles and a cup of soy milk.
After finishing their meal, she went to wash the dishes, while Xiao Yubai and Huahua went into the sea to catch seafood. Huahua took yesterday's seafood to the deck to dry.
After washing the dishes, we went up to the deck to wait. Although it was only eight o'clock in the morning, the sun was already high in the sky, making it warm and cozy. But in a little while, it would be unbearably hot.
Around nine o'clock, the two surfaced, threw up a rope, flew onto the deck, pulled up the sacks, and carried them two at a time to the kitchen.
"Honey, you two take your time washing. We'll go down a couple more times and then come back up to wash with you." The two of them picked up the sack and went back into the sea.
An Shuyi and the other person were in charge of washing, while watching TV. The kitchen had air conditioning, so it wasn't hot. After washing a basin, they would take it out to dry and then come back to wash it again.
The first thing they washed was abalone. It's not difficult to wash if you have the right technique, but those were small abalone. The abalone they washed were bigger than the palm of your hand, too big to hold.
After cleaning, we also scooped out the abalone meat and washed it until the water was clean before drying it. We also prepared oysters and prawns. As for the crabs, we didn't let the two of us catch them because they were too big; we'll catch them later.
There were a lot of sea urchins, so I set them aside and cleaned them later. I scooped out the sea urchins and put them in a container so that I can take them out whenever I want to eat them, and they will still be fresh.
Before the two of them had finished washing, Xiao Yubai and the other person brought it up again.
"You two can go later. It's already past midnight. Let's eat first," Xia Hua said.
Although I only went into the sea twice, each trip lasted two hours. Fortunately, there was plenty of seafood down there, so I could bring back a lot each time.
"Alright, let's eat first and then go. I'll go deliver food to Daqiang," Cheng Yumo said.
Time flies so fast. It feels like only yesterday, and it's already noon. I still need to deliver food to the injured person, otherwise they can eat later.
An Shuyi washed her hands clean, took out a plate of stir-fried bok choy, shredded pork with garlic sauce, and a large bowl of rice, and asked him to deliver them. She then took their food: sweet and sour pork ribs, stewed mutton, steamed baby bok choy with sliced meat, and stir-fried broccoli with wild mushrooms.
"Dinner's ready."
The group ate in the kitchen. After they finished eating, Xiao Yubai went to wash the dishes, while the other three continued to clean the seafood. Once they were no longer so full, they went into the sea to look for more seafood.
More than two hours later, they brought up a lot more seafood. This time, they didn't go down. Several people cleaned it together. With more people, the process was faster, but they still didn't finish cleaning until 5 o'clock.
This doesn't mean everything is fine. They still have sea urchins to process. Next, they cut the sea urchins, scoop out the meat, clean it, and put it in a white jar.
After everything was finished, the trash was collected and put into the warehouse. Then, Xiao Yubai carried An Shuyi to the small island on the right, dumped the trash there, and then returned.
I gave the food to Yu Mo so he could take it to Da Qiang. I took their food too. It was hot and I didn't want to drink alcohol, so I just had some soft drinks and ice water. After the meal, I didn't put away the seafood. I went back to my room to wash up and go to sleep.
The next day, after breakfast, we continued searching for seafood, brought it up, washed it, and dried it. Fortunately, the deck was big enough to accommodate all the seafood.
Because of the hot weather, the seafood that was dried yesterday can be brought in. The seafood is packed separately and placed in storage boxes. Although it was only one day's harvest, there are two boxes of dried abalone, one box of dried oysters, and two boxes of dried shrimp.
Moreover, they had found about the same amount of seafood that day, and they could harvest just as much after drying it tomorrow. For the next few days, the group seemed to feel no fatigue, searching for seafood, cleaning it, drying it, and bringing it back to the market every day.
They stopped ten days later, and by then they had harvested twenty-two boxes of dried abalone, fifteen boxes of dried oysters, twenty-five boxes of dried shrimp, and five cans of sea urchins.
"Finally, I don't have to smell that seafood anymore. I haven't wanted to eat seafood for the past month; I feel like I'm covered in fishy smells," An Shuyi said from the beanbag chair.
These past few days, I've been exhausted, like a dog. I sit and wash all day, then squat and arrange them neatly. When they're halfway dry, I have to turn them over to dry, and after they're completely dry, I have to bring them back and put them in a storage box.
Every night when I lie in bed, I feel like my body doesn't belong to me. It's sore and aching. Luckily, my husband massages my back, otherwise I wouldn't even want to take a shower.
Xia Hua said, "There's so much, enough to last for several years. But we won't be able to come back again. Let's rest for a few days and dry some more. We can't have come all this way for nothing. The fruits and grains on the island aren't ripe yet. We'll go up there again when they're ripe."
"We'll allocate the time properly. Once the seafood is ready, we'll get the meat—all kinds of meat, a lot of it. Next, we'll get the fruit, then the medicinal herbs and the grain. But the medicinal herbs are the most important; we'll dig them up whenever we see them."
They can only lie in this one set of clothes. Even if they can go in later, they won't come back. It's dangerous, not to mention the uncertainty of when they can get out. There are too many dangerous factors.
Cheng Yumo nodded, "My wife talks a lot. We'll dry more. It'll just smell a bit stronger, but otherwise it'll be fine. You guys complain about dried goods having additives, right? These don't have any. We dry them ourselves, so they're clean."
“If we work a little harder, we can make it whenever we want to eat it later. Besides, you don’t want to eat bad food when you’re pregnant, so it’s only right that we’re busy now.”
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