Chapter 80: Entering the Cave Again

Chapter 80: Entering the Cave Again

Chapter 80: Entering the Cave Again
Li Changle and Chen Yongwei strode towards the rock pile at the seaside at the foot of the mountain, and along the way they met many villagers who had returned from fishing in the sea.

Some of them were smiling happily, regretting as they walked that they had accidentally let go of the valuable seafood, while others sighed enviously and said that if they had known that they would not even earn enough money to buy batteries, they might as well have stayed at home.

Li Changle took Chen Yongwei to a pile of rocks not far from the foot of the mountain, and walked through the pile of rocks into the cave.

Chen Yongwei looked around and said, "Brother, is this the place you are talking about? We have been here before when playing hide-and-seek, and there is nothing inside!"

"Not here. Put your things here. Take off your clothes and put them here. Just follow me."

"We have been playing in this rocky beach at the foot of the mountain since we were little. Haven't we seen any caves there?"

"Just follow me. I dare say the location of the cave is beyond your imagination even in your dreams." Li Changle turned his head and looked at him proudly, "The big rice fish and big flower dragon were caught in the cave last time."

"Good boy, we don't want big rice fish this time. We'll be satisfied if we can catch two big flower dragons."

"The price of the big flower dragon is much more expensive than the rice fish, aren't you greedy?"

"Hey, hey! There's no one who comes out to shop who doesn't want to find good stuff!"

"That's true!"

The two men, carrying oilcloth bags, walked out of the cave one after the other, turned left, walked on the muddy beach, walked along the cliff for more than 30 meters, and stopped in front of the rock protruding from the cliff.

Li Changle pointed to the bottom of the rock and said, "Let's get into the water from here. You follow me. After we get into the water, if I go upstream, you go upstream. Wherever I turn, you follow me."

"Don't worry, you know how good I am at holding my breath." Chen Yongwei said as he put on his headlamp, followed his example and took out a rope to tie the bag around his waist, took a deep breath, and followed him as he dived into the water.

After they entered the water, there were still fish swimming towards them. Chen Yongwei followed Li Changle to the right and upwards. It felt like two or three minutes had passed, and then he followed him to the surface and found that the two were already in a cave.

He stared at the puddles, the jagged rocks, and the cave with no exit in sight.

"Boom boom! How did you find this place? If you hadn't brought me here, I would never have dreamed that there was such a place under the mountain!"

Li Changle glanced at him proudly, "The gods told me so!"

"What a boast!" Chen Yongwei smiled as he walked towards the cliff. When he saw the oysters on the cliff, he shouted excitedly, "Oh my god, they are really oysters. So big and so many!"

Oysters, in some places they are called sea oysters and in some places they are called raw oysters!

Oyster meat is tender, delicious and nutritious, and is known as the "milk of the sea".

"Compendium of Materia Medica" says that oyster meat "can cleanse the skin, nourish the kidneys and strengthen the yang, cure deficiency and relieve erysipelas if eaten more often."

"I told you, the big ones are bigger than the soles of my feet, but the price is too cheap."

Li Changle asked Zhou Ruonan, a small oyster is only two cents, a big one is five cents, those over half a catty are only 1 cents each, those over a catty are only cents each, and those over two catties are rarely found.

Although it is cheap, the quantity is large and he can make some money, but his main target is not the oysters, but the pearls inside.

In my previous life, pharmacies also bought oyster pearls. One coin of oyster pearls could be sold for several hundred yuan. Most of them were bought for children to be ground into powder to remove fetal toxins.

The color is beautiful and the quality is excellent. It is said that the price is as high as thousands of yuan per piece.

"That can't be helped, there are so many of them!" Chen Yongwei said, and then he shouted in surprise, "Brother, look, there are also Buddha's hand snails, and they are all large ones!

"Really?" Li Changle hurried over after hearing this, and saw a lot of Buddha's hand snails growing in the cracks of the rocks on the side of the cliff facing the water, as well as in the cracks of the rocks where oysters grew.

Moreover, the size of these Buddha's hand snails is much larger than those fine snails sold for thousands of dollars per pound in later generations.

The Buddha's Hand Conch is also known as Turtle Foot. In some places it is called Guanyin Palm, and in others it is called Sea Chicken Foot or Dog Claw Conch based on its peculiar appearance. It is yellow-green in color and looks like it is covered with a layer of scales from a distance.

Buddha's hand snails like to grow in clusters on the rocky cliffs of islands or in dark caves. The better the water quality and the faster the tide, the bigger and fatter they grow!

Because it grows in the cracks of cliffs and reefs, and its handle is very sensitive and elastic, once it feels the external touch, it will shrink into the cracks of the rocks, increasing the difficulty of mining.

Therefore, harvesting Buddha's hand snails is more dangerous than harvesting other snails.

"Brother, these Buddha's hand snails are much bigger than those on the island. After we pry them out, go and negotiate the price with A-dong and see if you can sell them for 50 cents a pound?"

"Such a big Buddha's hand snail is only 50 cents per pound. You are too unpredictable."

"Then how much do you want to sell it for per pound? You can't sell it for one dollar, right?"

"Let alone one dollar, it should be no problem to sell it at Phoenix Restaurant for seven or eighty cents a pound."

"With so many, how can they finish them all?"

"We didn't say anything and we're going to pry them all out and sell them. Let's pry some out and send them to Uncle Kun to have a look. If the price is good, we'll pry some out and sell them to the Phoenix Restaurant every day." "Brother, your idea is great. Then it will be just like raising chickens and ducks at home. We'll have eggs every day."

"The fact that there is a cave here must not be disclosed to anyone. If anyone knows about it, all the things inside will be taken away in a day at most."

"I know." Chen Yongwei pointed to the puddle and said, "Brother, look, there are blue crabs in there!"

Li Changle calculated the time and said, "Let's go check the puddle first, and then we can pry out the oysters and conchs. We'll also take out 50 to 60 kilograms of them and have a look."

"Oh oh!" Chen Yongwei untied the rope around his waist and went into the water to catch blue crabs.

Li Changle thought that there were many crevices in the cave, and it was dark and the water quality was very good. It was the environment that lobsters liked best. There might even be big flower dragons. So he walked towards the puddle inside.

Although he didn't find the big flower dragon, he spotted a tiger eel covered with yellow-brown stripes at a glance. After being dazzled by the headlight, it quickly fled into the crevice of the rock.

As the name suggests, tiger eels are ferocious and extremely strong. They live in reefs on the seabed and feed mainly on small fish, shrimps, octopuses, etc.

Even if it was injured, as long as it had something to cling to, it would straighten its tail, with its head standing upright like a cobra and its body curled up into a ball, as if someone had deliberately tied it into a knot that could not be untied or straightened.

The tiger eel has a smooth skin, delicate meat with few bones, and a fragrant and nutritious taste.

Li Changle went into the water with a scoop net, and saw the small fish in the puddle running around, and two black sea breams swam quickly into the crevices of the rocks.

"I'll deal with you later."

He walked to the crevice while muttering to himself and blocked the opening of the crevice with the scoop net. When he looked down, he found that there were several oyster snails bigger than Xiaozhou's fist clinging to the reef wall.

Li Changle picked up the pliers and quickly clamped the tiger eel. The eel swung its tail and swam into the net.

Looking at the tiger eel in the net, which was about 1.2 to 1.3 meters long and thicker than his arm at its thickest part, he grinned and said, "You've walked into the trap yourself, why are you trying to escape!"

The tiger eel had been caught in the net. Li Changle began to pry open the oyster snails. After a few attempts, he found that they were still quite tightly attached. He used some strength to pry one off and put it on the reef.

When he had broken off all the oyster snails and put them into the net bag, Chen Yongwei came over with the net bag in his hand, "Brother, I caught two blue crabs and a tiger eel weighing four or five kilograms."

Li Changle picked up the landing net placed beside the reef and looked at him cheerfully, "I have one here too, it weighs about 6 or 7 kilograms."

"Oh my, there's a black sea bream here." Before Chen Yongwei finished speaking, he had already picked up the scoop net and went over.

"I saw two when I came down. Find them and fish them out." Li Changle left him with the black porgy net and stepped into the last puddle.

Where the light shines, an eagle pomfret and a group of small fish and shrimps quickly flee towards the darkness.

The front end of the eagle pomfret's mouth is hooked like an eagle's, and its whole body is silvery white. It is also called "silver pomfret" and its price is higher than that of white pomfret.

The bones of eagle pomfret are soft and crispy, and the meat is tender. It is delicious whether fried, deep-fried or steamed, and has an excellent taste, even better than white pomfret. There is also a saying that you can eat pomfret without spitting out the bones.

Li Changle chased after it with a scoop net. The pomfret quickly escaped to a crack in a reef. He put down the scoop net and flipped the reef open. "Fuck, you turned out to be a traitor."

I saw seven or eight stone fish weighing nine taels squeezed in the small crevice of the reef. The two big ones weighed about eight or nine taels, and the small ones probably weighed less than one tael.

The hard spines on the fins of the stone nine croaker are poisonous. In order to avoid being stung by them, Li Changle rolled up his gloves, first caught the eagle pomfret and put it in the scoop net, then caught the two big stone nine croakers, and left the small one alone.

Li Changle thought there should be more goods under the reef, so he simply hung the scoop net on a stalactite and turned over the reef.

After turning over the first rock, I caught three large lobsters. This kind of lobster is also called red-back shrimp. It has a smooth and hard shell. It looks somewhat similar to crayfish, but the color is brighter.

Just as he caught the lobster and put it in the net bag, a tiger eel suddenly jumped out from the crevice of the rock nearby, scaring him.

Fortunately, Awei, who came over, was quick-witted and quick-handed. He stepped forward and scooped up the tiger eel and put it into the net bag.

"Brother, I found two eagle pomfret in the cracks of the rocks. They weighed about two or three pounds. I also caught some shrimps."

"I just caught one, it weighs more than one pound." Li Changle picked up the scoop net and the net bag, "Let's go up and pry the oysters and conchs."

"okay!"

The two men went ashore and put the three eels into a net bag, and the fish, shrimp and oyster snails into another one. The main reason was that tiger eels were too fierce and they were worried that the fish and shrimp would become their snacks.

Li Changle took out a special chisel and a small hammer, and first pried it up from the bottom of the cliff. It was difficult to exert any strength while half-squatting, and if he was not careful he would be scratched by the sharp oyster shells. It was much more tiring than fishing in a puddle.

After prying off a large oyster, he was about to pry open another one to have a look, when Chen Yongwei held up an oyster and said to him happily:
"Brother, look at this one I pried off. It weighs more than one pound. I'm really losing money at 15 cents per piece."

Li Changle pointed at the oysters at his feet and said, "Yours is nothing. Mine is at least 2.5 kilograms. I'll just lose a dime."

(End of this chapter)