activa-t Chapter 264: Going to the Sea at Night
Chapter 264: Going to the Sea at Night
"Let me add the ingredients first." She took a wooden spoon and scooped two spoonfuls of sauce and a large spoonful of hot sauce and mixed them well.
Han Zhibai followed her example and made exactly the same one.
After taking two bites, they both looked up at each other at the same time, with surprise shining in their eyes.
“Qingyue, the rice noodle rolls are really delicious, and they go really well with the chili and sauce!”
"I think so too. Eat it. There's more."
After finishing dinner happily, Han Zhibai washed the dishes while Xia Qingyue sat by the stove and lit the fire. Looking at his busy figure, she suddenly said on a whim:
"Why don't we go fishing later and see what seafood we can catch."
"Just wait a moment, I'll be done in a minute."
The fire tongs in her hand plunged into the ashes, and she looked at him in surprise, "Ah, you agreed so quickly, don't you feel tired after a busy day, and it's too late?"
Han Zhibai, who was wiping the counter, turned around and smiled gently, "It would be a lie to say that we are not tired or late. We went to the beach tonight to catch seafood and slept late. We can get up later tomorrow morning and get a good rest. We can do the rest slowly. The important thing is to enjoy the happiness of the moment."
"Great!" She smiled with twinkling lights in her eyes, as dazzling as broken diamonds in the sun.
Since they had decided on this trip at the spur of the moment, the two little ones had fallen asleep after dinner and they did not wake them up. It was windy at the beach at night, so they put on an extra gown, held up torches to light the way, and headed for the beach.
They went to the cabin and got their equipment: shovel, bucket, fishing net and harpoon.
At this time, the tide has receded, and the places that were previously submerged have become visible. The sand on the shore is moist, and you can see hermit crabs crawling quickly on it, conchs wriggling forward, clams with their heads sticking out, and white clams with their shells slightly opened.
With their trouser legs and sleeves rolled up and each holding a torch to light the way, they walked barefoot on the soft sand. They first picked up the seafood they could see around them, and then stepped into the sea.
The sea water was neither cold nor hot, and except for the faint light around them, the rest of the place was pitch dark.
After walking a few steps into the sea, Xia Qingyue caught a glimpse of a creature quietly lying under the water in front of her. It was fleshy and had thorns on its body. When she got closer, she saw that it was a yellow, ugly fish.
"Hey, this isn't, isn't this the pufferfish?"
Han Zhibai next to him said, "This fish doesn't look good. Dad said that fish that don't look good must not taste good."
She was a little amused and helpless for a moment. Puffer fish is poisonous, but she didn't expect that they didn't eat it just because it didn't look good, thus avoiding poisoning.
"I've seen this fish in a book. It's called the sea dolphin and it's poisonous."
He nodded in sudden realization and pulled her away from the pufferfish.
As they continued to move forward into the sea, the water reached their calves and they frequently saw conches, crabs and clams at the bottom.
She bent down and picked up a nearby conch with brown and white stripes on its shell. The thick snail meat was exposed. She pressed it lightly with her fingertips twice, and a circle of water immediately spurted out from the outside of the snail meat like a small fountain.
The stimulated snail meat slowly shrinks into the shell.
She found it curious and picked up another snail and did the same thing.
Han Zhibai said: "They like to come out at night, they are all stupid and silly, you can't see them during the day. Look, we are so close to them, but they don't move much and don't run away."
As he spoke, he bent down, aimed at a blue crab at the bottom of the water and grabbed it. When he raised his hand that had entered the water, he was holding a large blue crab.
"Wow, that's amazing!" She looked at him in admiration.
"Qingyue, I'll swim down and cast the fishing net to a farther place. I'll be back soon."
She said worriedly, "Don't go too far."
"Okay." He handed her the torch in his hand, tied a fishing net around his waist, and walked away step by step until he was out of the range of the firelight and his figure gradually became unclear.
As he left, her heart ached. She no longer had the heart to go to the sea and just stared in the direction he left.
After a long time, the sound of splashing water was heard, and Han Zhibai broke out of the water, with the body below his neck soaked in sea water. "Qingyue, I'm here, I'm fine, there are a lot of fish under the water, I want to catch some."
"Okay, then be careful and don't go too far."
He dived into the water again and disappeared.
This made her feel relieved, and she looked around as she walked, looking for seafood, and clams were the most common, and they could be seen within a few steps.
After about a quarter of an hour, she harvested half a bucket of clams and conches. She wanted to look for other seafood, but when she saw clams and conches again, she didn't pick them up.
Suddenly, I saw a black, fat creature lying quietly on the sand in front of me, motionless. It was longer than my palm. I walked over curiously.
When I saw some tiny thorns on its body, I suddenly realized what it was, "sea cucumber!"
She suppressed her excitement and tried to grab it with holding her breath, but it was slippery and she almost slipped out of her hands.
Just as Han Zhibai said, all the creatures on the seabed are stupid at night.
She threw the sea cucumber into the barrel and turned around. Half a meter in front of her, she saw a slightly larger, brown, flat, blanket-like creature that caught her attention. At first she thought it was a big fish.
She walked over happily, and in the brighter light she could suddenly see its full appearance, and the smile on her face froze instantly.
It turned out to be a manta ray, and it had a whip on its tail.
She immediately took a few steps back. She had seen this thing on a video before, and Han Zhibai had also told her before that if she encountered it on the beach, she must not get close to its tail because there was a poisonous sting there. If she was accidentally stung, it would be life-threatening.
She hid far away and came to a pile of rocks. The rocks were black and smelled of salty sea water. She thought she could find some oysters on them, but she only saw some unknown shells attached to them. They had been soaked in sea water for a long time and were light white in color.
The bottom of the stone is soaked in sea water and has many holes and cracks. You don't need to look to know there are definitely crabs here.
She suddenly became excited. She bent down, looked left and right, and hit the stone with the shovel in her hand.
As soon as I hit it, something immediately came out from the gap. It had many tentacles under its body and moved very quickly.
It's an octopus!
The moment the octopus moved, she also locked its position, and acted quickly, her hand brushing against the slippery tentacles. She did not give up and chased after it relentlessly.
After several rounds, she caught the octopus. The moment she caught it, its body spurted out a ball of thick black ink as if in response to stress, and several of its tentacles clung to her arm like suction cups.
"You're quite strong. You're not small, you must weigh at least two kilograms."
After some effort, he pulled the octopus apart and threw it into the barrel.
During this process, she saw three crabs next to a hole on the other side of a stone in front of her, two sea cucumbers nearby, and several creatures that were black all over, a bit like the layer of thorns that wrapped around chestnuts.
That's a sea urchin!
She tiptoed over and grabbed the crab and sea cucumber one after another. Their reactions were slow and they were easy to catch.
Sea urchins have thorns, so she didn't dare to pick them up directly with her hands. After thinking it over, she held the middle part of the torch and used the lower part to push into the water to push them into the barrel.
Next, she began to search along the pile of rocks. Just as she was searching with great interest, she heard a sound of water and quickly raised her torch towards the source of the sound.
Ten meters away, a dark shadow was vaguely seen poking out of the water. The next second, Han Zhibai's joyful voice came over: "Qingyue, look what I caught!"