1983 Small Island, Starting From a Large Farmer

Hearing that the leader wanted to relax, Li Duoyu quickly said: "I have brought the boat over, and my fishing rods are also on the boat."

“That would be even better. The leader has been thinking about it for a year and wants to sit on your boat.”

Li Yunpeng also envied Li Duoyu. Not long after they arrived at Ludao, the leader asked him if he was here.

 In his eyes, the leaders were so kind to Li Duoyu that even he couldn't understand.

He is just an ordinary village party secretary. He is relatively lucky. He raises some kelp and exports some eels.

The foreign exchange he earned last year only accounted for about one thousandth of Rongcheng's foreign exchange, and his contribution was not particularly large.

 Because of this matter, he specifically asked Director Huang, but the answer he got made him a little confused.

 “Some people are just comfortable to get along with.”

 Later, he also tried to get in touch with Li Duoyu and found that he was indeed quite comfortable getting along with him.

 But he really didn’t understand why this was the case, he just felt that being with him would really make him feel at ease.

“Director Li, you have a good rest. I’ll go back and report to the leader. We tentatively plan to set off at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

 Li Duoyu's mind instantly recalled the tide situation on the 20th day of the lunar calendar.

“Yes, the tide will be good tomorrow, and we can still catch fish.”

Under the leadership of Section Chief Li, he checked in quickly. Li Duoyu was assigned a twin room because there were two people.

Zhang Sanming, who followed them the whole time, kept listening with open ears. The leader that Section Chief Li spoke of must at least be Director Huang.

But his intuition told him that it might not be that simple. After all, this overseas fellowship was led by a big leader.

He also wanted to go fishing with them, but for a while, he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Zhou Xiaoying can be regarded as someone who has stayed at the Jinling Hotel. She is no longer surprised by the TVs and various settings in front of her.

Although the appearance is not as good as the Jinling Hotel, the facilities inside are not bad at all.

 The service was a bit overdone, which reminded Li Duoyu of his previous life, when his son took him to eat a kind of hot pot.

The waiters inside want to stuff food into your mouth themselves. The waiters here don't seem to be serving guests, but more like serving leaders.

But the enthusiasm only lasted for less than three hours. They didn't know where they learned that after Li Duoyu became the village director, the original enthusiastic smile disappeared and turned into a professional fake smile.

Li Duoyu is also understandable. After all, these waiters are in contact with big leaders, and several of them have taken photos with the country's top leaders.

Although he smiles on the surface, in his heart he must look down on people like Li Duoyu who don't even have an administrative level.

Li Duoyu originally wanted to take Xiaoying to Ludao for a walk in the evening. It is very close to Ludao University and there are many ancient buildings near the hotel.

 The night market near the pier also has a lot of snacks, including sand tea noodles, fried oysters, and boiled noodles with red fish cooked with frozen bamboo shoots.

 “Would you like to go out for a walk?”

Unexpectedly, Zhou Xiaoying was under a lot of pressure these past two days. Almost as soon as she had time, she squeezed out time, put on headphones, and concentrated on learning English.

Even picked up the room service catalog and saw that there were words she didn't know in the Chinese-English comparison, so she looked up the dictionary on the spot.

Seeing that she was studying so seriously, Li Duoyu did not bother her. After all, in this era, if you can learn English well, it is really very popular.

If you do foreign trade in the future, you can save a female translator and just take Xiaoying out.

 Sit on the boat for a whole day.

Li Duoyu was also a little tired. After eating something simple, he went to bed early. He had to go fishing with the leader to relax tomorrow.

 As long as there is no mobile phone around, Li Duoyu is the kind of person who falls asleep immediately when he gets into bed, waiting until he opens his eyes again.

 It was already about five o'clock in the morning. At this time, he was not sleepy at all. Maybe he studied too late last night.

 Perhaps she was not familiar with the new environment. Zhou Xiaoying slept with the lamp on, and Li Duoyu did not wake her up.

 I brushed my teeth and washed my face gently, then tore up a piece of paper and wrote on it: I went fishing with my boss. I can have breakfast and lunch in the restaurant with my room card.

Since he woke up too early, the Ludao Hotel had not prepared breakfast yet. After Li Duoyu got dressed, he walked directly towards the first pier of Ludao.

Although Ludao is relatively south, it is quite cold in the first month of the year, especially when the sea breeze blows. If you wear too few clothes, you will still feel a bit cold and wet.

People this year get up very early. It's only after five o'clock, and there are already many pedestrians on the road.

What surprised Li Duoyu the most was that not far ahead, there were actually many street lights on and crowds of people.

 Ghost market.

 When he was teaching on Ludao, he heard Teacher Fang tell him several times that there was a night market on the street near the pier that only opened around four in the morning.

This kind of night market happened in the early years of the late Qing Dynasty when the down-and-out bannermen did not dare to sell off their ancestral belongings during the day, so they traded privately in the middle of the night.

As soon as daybreak, everything dispersed, so it was called a "ghost market".

Most of the items sold in this kind of place are cultural relics, antiques and the like.

 If you want to buy good things here, you need to have certain skills, because some of the things sold here are genuine and fake.

 You may buy a fake for a lot of money, or you may buy a big treasure for a small amount of money.

Li Duoyu walked over and took a look, and found that most of the stall owners here had their heads lowered, neither hawking nor calling you. The main thing was fate.

There are all kinds of things for sale on the ground, including second-hand clothes, snuff bottles, gourds, rusty copper coins, and many kinds of porcelain and bronze.

In this day and age, there are still many people who are willing to visit ghost markets, and it seems to be the best time to hunt for cultural relics.

It is said that if you go to Fuyou Road in Shanghai or Panjiayuan in the imperial capital at this time, you can pick up money with a little bit of eyesight.

 It's a pity that Li Duoyu is completely ignorant in this aspect, otherwise he could really find some treasures.

 After Li Duoyu took a few glances, he planned to leave the place. He thought he had no chance of meeting these stall owners.

I never thought that there are good things in the ghost market. Some people are actually selling cassettes from Hong Kong Island and overseas provinces.

 The cover is quite explicit. Li Duoyu considers himself not a gentleman, so when he saw this thing, his eyes suddenly widened.

When he was in the island country, he didn't miss it, and it was a little solace in his dark life.

"How much is it?"

 “Twenty yuan a piece.”

Li Duoyu glared and said, "It's so expensive. Do you think I don't know how much it costs? It's ten yuan a piece. I'll buy five pieces."

The stall owner frowned and thought for a moment: "I'm going to suffer a bit. Don't tell others that I bought it for ten yuan. I have a colored little book here. Do you want it?"

Li Duoyu said disgustedly: "I already have a cassette, so why should I read such a villain book?"

Li Duoyu hid the five newly purchased cassettes in his arms. Action movies in this era were still relatively conservative. Most of them focused on plot, and the action scenes were not long. Many times, only the upper body is moving, but for Chinese people who have never been exposed to this kind of thing, this thing is definitely an "opium"-level existence.

 Now is also the time when video halls are popular. Late-night slots are often overcrowded, and most citizens are keen on taking night classes.

Now that cassettes are available, Li Duoyu still needs a player, preferably one that can record video, so that he can record the content played on the TV.

 After leaving the ghost market, Li Duoyu came to the pier, where there were several bright halogen lamps.

Although it is not yet dawn, there are already many fishing boats docked at the first pier.

 The first month of the year happens to be the season when hairtails are most plentiful, and baskets of hairtails are pulled to the pier.

These hairtails were pulled up by trawl nets, and their appearance is relatively poor. Many of them have bulging eyes and broken bellies.

Most of the hairtails with such poor quality are taken away by Ludao Aquatic Products Processing Factory at a relatively cheap price. Most of these hairtails are made into canned hairtails, and the rest are made into salted hairtails and sold to those not close to the sea. Cities and villages.

Those with good quality will be selected by fishmongers and sold in the morning market.

In addition to this kind of trawler, the most numerous small fishing boats at the pier are all kinds of small fishing boats, most of which are sampans.

 These small fishing boats catch small seafood, and these seafood are the favorites of Hong Kong people.

Fishermen here on Ludao often say: If you want to eat seafood, you should eat what is caught with sticky nets, not what is dragged up by big nets.

 There is a certain truth to what they say. Most of the seafood caught by trawl nets are not particularly fresh.

Coastal cities like Ludao are much more picky about seafood than inland cities like Rongcheng.

The level of pickiness is even worse than that of Dandan Island. As soon as these small fishing boats dock, many fishmongers gather around them.

Some of these fishmongers are shops at the fish market, and some are suppliers to some hotels.

Since Ludao was designated as a special economic zone, Ludao has been favored by investors from Hong Kong Island, and they have opened many seafood restaurants.

While investing, many eating habits have also been brought to Ludao, precisely because of these seafood restaurants.

The prices of seafood in Ludao are increasing year by year.

The reason why Li Duoyu came to the pier so early was not to compete with these fishmongers for seafood, but to buy live shrimps and lugworms.

When you go fishing with your leader, you must prepare the bait first, otherwise it will be embarrassing if you don’t catch any fish later.

 Li Duoyu considers himself not a good fisherman, but as a farmer, he knows very well what sea fish like to eat.

 Fishing with live shrimp can at least ensure that you will not kill turtles, while fishing with lugworms can ensure that you catch more fish species.

Li Duoyu first went to his fishing boat, got a bucket, and properly placed the five "cassettes" he just bought.

His fishing boat is parked here at the pier, which is quite expensive. He has to pay a parking fee of five yuan every day.

Li Duoyu, carrying a bucket, imitated the fishmonger and started chatting with the fishermen.

“Abo, are there any live shrimps?”

 A fisherman replied: "My boat has no water tank, and it is all dead. If you want to buy live ones, you have to find those with water tanks."

 “Okay, thank you Abe.”

 Last time he came here, Li Duoyu discovered that the sampans here on Ludao had living water tanks.

Perhaps this is related to the fact that Ludao is originally located on the seaside. The fishermen here prefer to eat fresh seafood.

Li Duoyu also likes it very much. As a fisherman and a cook, he knows better, no matter how good the freezing technology is.

 There is a big gap between frozen seafood and live seafood in terms of umami taste.

 Li Duoyu asked several fishing boats in succession.

 “Abo, are there any alive shrimps?”

 Finally I asked him and met a fisherman who specialized in selling live shrimps.

The fisherman looked Li Duoyu up and down and said, "I told you in advance that live shrimps are more expensive and are usually sold to hotels."

Li Duoyu smiled and said, "How much is it?"

“Nine-knot shrimps cost eight yuan per catty alive, and green shell shrimps cost five yuan per catty.”

The price is a bit expensive, but it's still okay, but Li Duoyu couldn't help but bargain: "One catty is one yuan cheaper. I'll take two catties of each."

 The boss of the ship said: "At most, I'll give you a discount of five cents per catty."

“It’s only one yuan. It’s cheaper for the first cooperation. From now on, I will take care of your business.”

The boss of the ship said with disdain: "You look like you're from out of town. How can we have another cooperation? Forget it, I'll sell it to you for one yuan per catty."

Li Duoyu bought four kilograms of live shrimp at one time, but he was different from other fishmongers, who would definitely buy the biggest shrimps.

Li Duoyu, on the other hand, chose the smallest shrimp to buy. Seeing that he only picked small shrimps, the boat boss felt that he was not at such a disadvantage for a moment, but he still couldn't help but remind him: "Why did you buy so many small shrimps? Big ones are better."

Li Duoyu said: "I use it for fishing. This kind of small shrimp is more suitable."

 After hearing this, the boat boss was stunned on the spot, and several nearby fishmongers were also stunned. How could there be such a fool?

Live shrimps cost sixty-seven yuan per pound, and how much does fish cost per pound? Even the most expensive large yellow croaker currently is not as expensive as live shrimps. This is just a waste of money.

The boss of the boat couldn't help but said: "Young man, you will lose money when you fish like this, why don't you think about it again."

 “It’s okay, I’ll just fish for fun.”

After Li Duoyu paid the money readily, he asked by the way: "Uncle, where can I buy sea centipedes at our dock?"

“We don’t have it here at the pier. You can buy it at the Eighth Market later.”

 “Okay, thanks.”

Looking at Li Duoyu's leaving figure, the boat boss and several nearby fishmongers were a little confused and couldn't figure it out at all.

It wasn't until Li Duoyu jumped on the fishing boat that these people finally figured it out. It seemed that it was for rich people.

 After arriving at the fishing boat, Li Duoyu poured the live shrimps into the live fish bin on the boat, and then went to the nearby No. 8 Market to buy some fresh sea centipedes.

By the time he finished these things, it was already dawn.

Li Duoyu, who was a little hungry, did not go back to the Ludao Hotel for breakfast. Instead, he ate a bowl of noodle paste and a fried dough stick near the pier.

These days, everyone is yearning for the exquisite breakfasts in hotels, but Li Duoyu prefers street food, which feels more smoky.

As the first ray of sunshine in the morning hit the pier, Li Duoyu, who felt warm all over his body after eating a bowl of noodle paste, walked back towards the Ludao Hotel. (End of chapter)