Han Ruochen carefully cleaned the sand from the large pore that opened in the ground. Behind her, she could still hear the two brats quarrelling with one another. The two boys had reached a whole new level where they were now discussing whether Han Ruochen would get an octopus or a king clam.
"What if it's a peacock mantis shrimp?" Han Ruochen asked as she continued to dig deeper into the pore. She was getting a headache with the two brats quarrelling in her ear. Even Han Beijiang was now looking at the three of them, instead of paying attention to the book.
As soon as she finished speaking, the two boys stopped quarrelling and turned to look at her. Their eyes widened in surprise. Qi Boyan reacted swiftly. "You are dreaming! Do you even know how rare the peacock mantis shrimp is? There is no way you can catch that, and that too with a low tide."
"Exactly," Zhou Chen nodded and agreed with his friend, forgetting about the earlier quarrel. "We do not have any peacock mantis shrimp here. My grandma told me that it had been years since a fisherman caught a peacock shrimp."
The island where they lived was indeed close to the ocean, but the location was not too great. Because of this, their village had an abundance of snails, shellfish and seaweed, but they had never seen mantis shrimp, much less peacock mantis shrimp. Usually, some fishermen could still catch the mantis shrimp when they went out in the ocean, but peacock shrimp? It was simply impossible to catch. Normally, the mantis shrimp weigh between two grams and one kilogram. The price of the ordinary mantis shrimp was between twenty yuan per jin, but because the peacock mantis shrimp was really hard to find, the price of each peacock mantis shrimp was more than a hundred yuan per jin!
[Per Jin=500 g]
With its beautiful exterior and delicious meat, the peacock mantis shrimp could be counted as a rare and exotic variety. How could it be so easy to find them when even the most experienced fishermen couldn't catch them in the ocean? Thus, it was no surprise that Qi Boyan and Zhou Chen didn't believe a word that Han Ruochen said to them.
Han Ruochen didn't mind their mocking words. She had taken a look at the display of the scanning system; it clearly stated that the mantis shrimp inside the hole was a peacock mantis shrimp. And not just one but three. Han Ruochen had no idea how these shrimp came here, but she was not going to lose the opportunity to earn money.
On the side, the two brats had not quietened down either. They were still discussing what kind of seafood was buried inside the mudflat.
"I heard from my mom that during low tide, you will find a lot of clams. Most probably razor clams; I think this is a razor clam," said Qi Boyan.
"Don't be silly. Razor clams don't have these big holes," said Zhou Chen as he peered inside the hole that was in front of them. "I think it's either a king clam or an octopus. That would make the most sense, as the size of this hole is too big for razor clams. Even the sea snails don't have such big holes."
Han Ruochen didn't say anything. She was having a little trouble as the peacock mantis shrimps were hiding way too deep, but when she thought of how these shrimps were her first bucket of gold, she gritted her teeth and shovelled the mud away with renewed enthusiasm. She couldn't let more than five hundred yuan fly away like that! As she dug through the mud, she found a few apple snails, which she picked up and hurled into the buckets of the two boys.
When Qi Boyan and Zhou Chen saw her sharing some of the soup while she was looking for meat, they were quite touched. Heh, they thought that this woman was a bully, but it turned out that she was quite nice!
Han Ruochen continued to dig, but just as she was twenty or so centimetres away from the mantis shrimp, she was afraid that if she was not careful, then these shrimps would run away. She looked at the hole that had a subtle bend that led downward, and that was where the shrimps were hiding. If she were to use the eel pliers, Han Ruochen was certain that she would miss out on these shrimps, and they might even escape, which left her with no choice.
She rolled the sleeves of her shirt back and then, without waiting for another second, she shoved her hand into the hole. A good thing too, because just then the peacock shrimp started to run away.
When Qi Boyan and Zhou Chen saw her acting so recklessly, they immediately covered their eyes with their hands. This woman was really daring; she actually shoved her entire arm in the hole. Was she not worried that she would lose her fingers if there was a crab inside the hole?
However, as scared as they were, they were also curious what was inside the hole; thus, they peered through their fingers. When Qi Boyan saw Han Ruochen pull her hand back, he thought that the woman had failed in getting anything in return. He was about to laugh at her, but then he saw the peacock mantis shrimp in her hands!
"Wow, it's really a peacock mantis shrimp!"
"And it has roe eggs," said Zhou Chen with an awed look on his face. "This is really going to sell well."
Qi Boyan turned and looked at the mantis shrimp in Han Ruochen's hand and sure enough he saw the orange–reddish roe eggs clinging around the end of the mantis shrimp. He could not help but feel envious when he looked at the mantis shrimp in the hands of Han Ruochen; after all, this shrimp was really big—almost two jin (one kg), which meant that it could be sold for more than six hundred yuan alone! If only he were as lucky as Han Ruochen.