Chapter 119: The Shell Gatherer

In the early morning, as the sky began to lighten, the lights of the Bopu fortress were still shining brightly. The night sentinels yawned, staring impatiently at the duty clock on the battery, hoping the time for the changing of the guard would come soon.

On the beach two li away, several men with baskets on their backs, guided by the distant lights, had already arrived at the shore.

Although the sky was not yet bright, there were already many early-rising local fishermen on the beach, divided into several groups, each guarding a spot a few hundred meters apart. Seeing the newcomers, their faces were somewhat hostile. If not for the strict punishments for public order offenses by the Yuanlao Senate, it looked as if a fight was about to break out.

“Old Dai, where should we go?” Seeing people all around, the men were a little anxious. The rise and fall of the tide varied in direction. Choosing the wrong spot meant not only walking more but, more importantly, earning less money.

A man who looked to be in his forties stepped forward. He was dressed in a rough, short-sleeved outfit, covered in dust, and wore wooden-soled cloth shoes from the Lingao shoe factory. He frowned as he looked at the already churning sea, calculated the date, and then said in a low voice, “Come.”

The men bypassed the crowds that had already secured their positions and stopped at a slightly indented section of the beach.

At this time, the tide had begun to recede rapidly, and the beach instantly came alive. The people gathering seafood from the morning tide all began to move.

After the tide went out, the beach was covered with seaweed and algae, and live shrimp and crabs scurried about in a panic.

“Old Dai has great skill! There are so many! Everyone, hurry up and gather them,” the men exclaimed in pleasant surprise.

Smiling at his somewhat flustered companions, Dai Dehou, known as Old Dai, was in no hurry. He first took off his shoes, tucked them into his waistband, and then began to work. His target was not the conspicuous shrimp and crabs.

His attention was focused on the calmly lying shellfish. Avoiding the large, hard-shelled conches, he quickly picked up oysters, mussels, clams, and other small, soft-shelled mollusks. He rinsed the sand off them in the seawater before tossing them into his bamboo basket.

These children of the Sea Dragon King were a fortune bestowed by the Chiefs!

In a short while, the bamboo basket was already overflowing. Dai Dehou casually helped two of his companions who had not yet filled their baskets.

“Let’s go!” someone called out impatiently. The men had already started walking away quickly, while most of the shell gatherers on the beach were still busy with their heads down.

Carrying the wet and heavy bamboo basket, Dai Dehou’s steps were exceptionally light. The thought of soon exchanging it for circulation coupons made the fatigue from staying up all night fade away.

In the time it takes to drink a cup of tea, they had arrived at the Bopu port area. The innermost wharf was not accessible to just anyone, but the commercial street in the port area had a retail outlet for the Chiefs’ seafood processing plant, which both bought and sold. Every morning, there were very cheap seafood products for sale here. A while ago, they had suddenly started buying shrimp, crabs, and shellfish.

The large courtyard of the retail outlet had several gates, all open 24 hours a day. Dai Dehou and his group entered through a side gate. The place inside was very large, opening into a big courtyard where seven or eight unharnessed four-wheeled carriages were parked. Stacked against the wall were piles of wooden trays and bamboo baskets for transporting fish.

The air was filled with a strong, fishy smell of seafood. The ground was still wet with large puddles of water and littered with fish scales, bones, and other garbage.

Dai Dehou went to the purchasing station of the retail outlet. The gas lamps had already been turned off. The yawning purchasing agent rubbed his hands and beckoned Dai Dehou and his companions to come over and weigh their goods.

Behind the purchasing agent, the seafood processing plant could be vaguely seen. The buildings behind it were connected to the fishing port wharf, where it seemed there were always fishing boats returning to unload their catch. Baskets of fish were continuously transported to the workshop via rail carts. After processing, a portion would be sent to the retail outlet for sale.

“Hmm…” The purchasing agent carefully looked at the shells in the bamboo basket, consulting a small booklet in his hand. He then sniffed them with a pointed nose before nodding. “All soft-shelled. Freshness level two. Pour them on the scale. Thirty catties, right? Good, take this.”

The purchasing agent quickly wrote a few lines on a clipboard, tore off a slip of paper, and handed it to him.

Dai Dehou didn’t understand what “freshness” meant, but he was familiar with weights. He knew that thirty catties of level-two soft-shelled shellfish could be exchanged for fifteen yuan in circulation coupons. He counted it clearly, took the purchase order with a smile, and exchanged it for three yellow paper notes at the redemption counter, carefully placing them in his breast pocket.

Shell gathering was hard work, especially the first shift of the morning tide. The Chiefs’ rules were strict and numerous. Not only did the prices differ between morning and noon, but the price of what was caught from the sea also changed with every quarter of an hour. Anything older than an hour was not accepted. Large sea snails didn’t fetch a good price. Although live shrimp and crabs were more valuable, they were worthless if broken or damaged, making them less profitable than these small, soft-shelled mollusks. Moreover, they stopped buying after reaching a daily limit of three hundred catties, so several groups of people rushed to be the first every morning.

However, the income from this first batch of the morning was indeed good. This one hour was much better than the casual labor he did. Unfortunately, the morning tide was irregular, so he could only do this every few days.

His companions were all from Danzhou, and they had met while gathering shells. As fellow countrymen, they looked out for each other. Dai Dehou had previously worked in fish purchasing and was very familiar with the tides along the Danzhou and Chengmai coastlines, so he was implicitly the leader of the group.

“Old Dai, let’s go for a drink?” His companions had also quickly finished weighing their catch and warmly invited him.

“I’m not going. I need to go back and get some sleep. I have to work the night shift,” Dai Dehou replied with a smile, declining the offer. Staying up all night was too tiring.

After parting with his companions, Dai Dehou went to the main entrance of the retail outlet, where the catch from the morning’s returning boats was already on display.

Although it was still early morning, there were already many people buying the cheap, discounted fish. Some had even come from the county town, as the train now made travel convenient.

Unlike the common fish stalls and small shops in the area, the retail outlet of the seafood processing plant here was much larger than the direct sales store at the East Gate Market. It originally only did wholesale, but after the train service started, it began retail sales. It was like a specialized fish market. Not only did the local people like to buy here, but it was said that even merchants from Guangzhou came here to purchase goods. One could buy many rare fish here at prices cheaper than in Guangzhou. Moreover, they also provided ice-packing services. Wooden boxes filled with ice and seafood, loaded onto the fast liners of the Dabo Shipping Company, would arrive in Guangzhou fresher than the fish caught at Huangpu.

The retail outlet was divided into several sections. The dried goods section was full of seafood products: kelp, seaweed, fish fillets, dried fish, fish sauce, oyster sauce, shrimp paste, fish balls, and fish sausages were all available, wrapped in coarse paper or small bamboo baskets and straw bags, and stacked on the shelves. The fresh goods section was the largest. Large yellow croaker, grouper, blue-spotted spinefoot, mackerel, yellow-fin sea bream, hairtail, prawns, and flower crabs—all sorts of common, uncommon, and even unnamable fresh fish, live shrimp, and live crabs were all alive and kicking, kept in small pools. A thick iron shaft on the ceiling was constantly turning, driving water wheels in each pool with a leather belt to keep the water churning. The most novel section was the iced-fresh section. The Chiefs had an endless supply of ice year-round. The fish were all laid out in bamboo baskets and wooden trays, covered with crushed ice. Although they were dead, they were just as delicious when cooked at home. The key was that the price of iced-fresh fish was only half that of live fish, and there were special discounts of 20-30% in the morning and evening.

This was not Dai Dehou’s first time here. Although he had dealt with fish for half his life, he was still a little dazzled by the variety.

The Chiefs are truly capable, Dai Dehou thought to himself. Although some of the fish here were common, some were very rare this season. For example, hairtail liked to hide in the deep sea in winter, and ordinary fishing nets couldn’t catch them. Using a long-line rod, one could only catch a few after half a day’s work. But here, there were dozens of them in a single bamboo basket, and he had never seen this retail outlet run out of any kind of fish.

However, he also wondered why the Chiefs, who could catch so many fish and shrimp, still needed to buy live shrimp and shellfish from the market. Couldn’t they catch enough themselves?

Nowadays, the fish catch in Lingao was so cheap that many nearby fishermen had lost their livelihood. Most had to join the Chiefs’ enterprise: those with some savings and large boats joined the fishery cooperative, while those with no money and small boats had to work as fishermen for the Lingao Fishery Company. The number of independent fishermen was dwindling. Dai Dehou naturally did not know that this was a deliberate act by the Lingao Fishery Company to make the most of the special human resources of the fishermen. Besides, the cost of these iced-fresh fish caught in bulk from the high seas was not high.

Thinking of visiting his daughter at school in the afternoon, Dai Dehou gritted his teeth and went to the fresh goods section. The prices here were double those outside, and usually only the wealthy households and restaurants in the county would come to buy.

After entering, Dai Dehou saw that all the pools had price tags. He could read, so he went from one to another. Many of the fish names were different from what he was used to. For example, the large yellow croaker, which the Chiefs called “da huang yu.” Most of the fish here were also available in the iced-fresh section outside, but they were much larger here and all alive and kicking.

He walked around again. There were many fish with names he had never seen before, and the prices made Dai Dehou’s heart tremble. He hurried back to the entrance and asked a shop assistant to help him choose a smaller large yellow croaker. After weighing it and putting it in a wooden bucket with a ladle of water, he reluctantly took out two yellow notes. This money was enough to feed his family for more than a day. Then he went to the dried goods section and bought a small bag of fish fillets with the change. His daughter liked to eat this. He also bought a bag of fish balls and a jar of shrimp paste.

The fish balls were the most cost-effective, with a price only slightly higher than rice and much cheaper than the discounted miscellaneous fish. He naturally did not know that this stuff was made from sweet potato starch and fish paste from various low-grade miscellaneous fish, and was mass-produced semi-mechanically, requiring little labor, so the cost was naturally low.

Dai Dehou carried the bucket in his hand, put the fish fillets, fish balls, and shrimp paste into his basket, and walked to the Bopu train station. He took out his monthly pass and showed it to the gatekeeper for inspection.

His workplace was in Maniao. This monthly train pass was really convenient. Without it, he would have to walk for several hours back and forth, and he would not have been able to earn these fifteen circulation coupons.

It was a coincidence that a train arrived soon after he entered the platform. There were not many people in the morning. Dai Dehou got on the last flatcar, found a place to put the wooden bucket on the ground, and then sat down, holding the bucket. The train started quickly. He fought off his sleepiness and looked out the window.

Not far away was the main road from Bopu to the East Gate Market, or as the Chiefs called it, the highway.