Early in the morning, Yang Chuxia got up early, had breakfast, and hurriedly went out with a wooden bucket. As Ye Zi’an went to the tavern in town every other day and had just gone yesterday, he didn’t need to go again today.
So when Yang Chuxia set out for the small beach, he naturally followed her, with Yang Qingrui and Yang Qingtong trailing behind.
The four of them quickly collected all the seafood left by the high tide at the small beach, returning with a full haul.
This time, she didn’t make drunken crab, but inspired by the shrimp paste, she thought crab could be made into crab paste too. However, when she opened the shells of the small crabs, she started to dislike the crabs she had been picking up.
Because the crabs were too small, there was too little meat – it was barely enough to taste in drunken crab, let alone make crab paste. Despite having a whole bucket, after removing the shells and crushing the meat, there wasn’t much left at all.
After some careful consideration, she decided not to make it just yet, and planned to buy larger crabs from the town market tomorrow to make the paste with.
As for the collected small shrimps, without much thought, she directly salted them to ferment. She had confidence in her homemade shrimp paste and believed it would be a great seasoning that could be easily sold. Therefore, she planned to make more shrimp paste, but it required fermented salted shrimps. She intended to collect more small shrimps and also buy some more shrimps from the town market the next day.
After finishing with those preparations, she saw the clear bubbles in the water basin full of shells and decided to pick out the scallop flesh inside, sun-dry it, and keep it for future use in congee. Selling them to the tavern during winter was also a good source of income.
And today’s shells were quite large, as Yang Chuxia found the flesh inside each one to be quite substantial. She couldn’t help but feel frustrated toward the people of Yangshu Village – how could they be so stubborn, ignoring such abundant resources and living in poverty instead.
These free shrimps and crabs were truly a bargain for her. The more she thought about it, the smugger she became, and the movements of her knife in her hand grew faster.
However, the clam she was holding was particularly difficult to handle, as the clam’s force was so strong that the blade could only go in a little. Feeling irritated, she refused to believe that she couldn’t open it. Putting down the knife, she scraped her fingernail lightly against the clam’s surface, and indeed, the clam slowly opened its mouth, only to close back up quickly.
Smirking, she thought, a person from thousands of years later shouldn’t have a problem dealing with a small clam. Yang Chuxia then tried scratching the surface harder a few more times.
But wait, she seemed to have seen a glimmer of light flashing in front of her just now. That light seemed to come from the object in her hand. Thinking of this, Yang Chuxia’s eyes lit up, and she hurriedly carried the clam back to the house. There, she nervously scraped the clam’s surface several more times. Finally, the clam opened its mouth wide, revealing the source of the sparkle.
"Ha ha..." She couldn’t help but burst out laughing. What kind of **** luck did she have? In such a small clam, there were actually two pearls, and both were black pearls.
Most importantly, they were not small at all; even the smaller one was the size of a large peanut. Pearls were not rare in modern times, as they were widely cultivated. Even natural sea-water pearls had become increasingly common as the techniques of navigation improved.