Chapter Twelve: The Blackstone Grouper

Page (1/3)

With his sister-in-law proving dependable, Zhang Huacheng felt reassured. It seemed that in his previous life, he had been prejudiced against her.

That afternoon, when Mother took the little girl home, she brought ten jin of rice and half a packet of peach pastries. Since his eldest sister-in-law had said nothing, he could now safely send provisions back to his hometown.

It was already late when Tiezhu quietly slipped over. After meeting Zhang Huacheng, the two of them headed for the seaside.

“Your shoes will be finished tomorrow. In the morning, I’ll buy some pork and grain for you to take home to your mother and younger siblings,” Zhang Huacheng reminded Tiezhu along the way.

Tiezhu grinned shyly and scratched his head.

“Have you ever thought about leaving your current home? Never mind. We’ll talk about that another time.”

Leaving would not help anyway. Tiezhu had nowhere to go. His mother had remarried long ago—where else could he possibly go?

The cold air by the sea was biting. Tiezhu did not want Zhang Huacheng to work alone and wanted to go down with him, but Zhang Huacheng refused.

There was plenty of seafood. This time, they gathered a full basket and a half, and the crabs they found were larger than usual.

Splash!

Just as they finished collecting the crabs and were preparing to leave, Zhang Huacheng suddenly heard a loud disturbance in the water in the distance. He immediately realized that a fish had been stranded.

Under the moonlight, he crawled for quite some time before finding the stranded fish among the rocks near the water’s edge. It was a black grouper nearly half a meter long, with thick flesh and abundant fat. It looked to weigh close to twenty jin.

What a prize!

Zhang Huacheng was overjoyed. If he sold it at a good price, this one fish might be worth an entire day’s catch. But the seawater was icy cold, and the rocks were jagged and sharp. He studied the area for a long while, considering how to pull out the plump black grouper.

The fish was trapped in a narrow pool, darting back and forth in search of a way out. The tide would rise here during the night, and the grouper would certainly be swept back into the sea. Waiting until morning to catch it was out of the question.

Splash!

While Zhang Huacheng hesitated over whether to take off his shoes and wade in, the grouper made a frantic attempt to return to the sea, exposing half of its body.

Seeing this, Zhang Huacheng reached into his bamboo basket without hesitation, pulled out a large sea snail shell, and brought it down hard on the fish’s head.

When Zhang Huacheng returned, Tiezhu saw that he was carrying an enormous sea fish.

The two men hid the seafood and the grouper in a crevice among the rocks before heading back.

“If only we could fish,” Zhang Huacheng sighed.

The shore near Chen Tang Sanli Canal was surrounded by clusters of rocks. To fish, they would have to carve a passage through the rocks to the sea, but under the current circumstances, no one dared do such a thing.

A black grouper like this could fetch more than ten yuan if sold well.

Zhang Huacheng also knew how to fish in the sea, but at present he could not buy hooks and line suitable for sea fishing. At least, they were unavailable in their county.

As dawn approached and the sky was still dim, Tiezhu was already waiting outside Zhang Huacheng’s home.

“So early?” Zhang Huacheng looked at Tiezhu, who was shivering from the cold, and said helplessly, “Don’t we have a signal involving stones against the door? You could have gone to sleep without worrying.”

Page (1/3)

Page (2/3)

“Well… I was afraid I wouldn’t hear it.”

Tiezhu scratched his head awkwardly. He had not slept all night. Knowing that he would be seeing his mother today, he had tossed and turned restlessly.

After going inside to warm themselves by the fire, the two ate a little and hurried to the seaside to collect their goods.

When they reached the county town with their seafood, there was not a single person on the streets. Apart from two peddlers, they saw no one, which made Zhang Huacheng wonder whether they had arrived too early.

I need a watch. Life really is impossible without one.

But Zhang Huacheng knew he could not afford one now. Whether it was a Shanghai-brand watch or a Suzhou-brand watch, even the cheapest cost forty or fifty yuan, and one also needed a watch allocation ticket.

As for a mantel clock, he did not even need to consider it. It was even more unaffordable. A Shanghai-made Three-Five mantel clock currently cost 120 yuan, and it also required an industrial goods allocation ticket issued by Shanghai.

Perhaps I should buy a rooster?

An idea suddenly struck Zhang Huacheng. If a rooster crowed, he could probably tell the time. After all, a rooster’s biological clock was remarkably accurate. But there was no guarantee that its biological clock would correspond to his own schedule.

Lost in such wild thoughts, Zhang Huacheng finally let out a sigh of relief when they reached the morning market. Several vendors had already set up their stalls, proving that they were not excessively early.

Before long, people began arriving at the market one after another, and Zhang Huacheng started calling out his wares.

“What a huge fish! How much does it cost?”

Someone who spotted the enormous black grouper could not resist asking.

Several others gathered around, all staring at the grouper.

“This one weighs about twenty jin. Eight mao per jin, so sixteen yuan altogether. It’s a black grouper, brought in fresh this morning!”

Zhang Huacheng quoted a high price.

“Sixteen yuan? You’d have to be eating gold from heaven…”

“You can buy a jin of yellow croaker for five mao. How can you charge so much for such an ugly fish?”

“This is black grouper. It tastes excellent!”

Clearly, selling the black grouper would not be easy. People kept asking about it, but no one bought it—not even one person tried to bargain. After all, who could finish a fish this large at home?

“Where did this grouper come from? How much is it?” While Zhang Huacheng was still giving change to an old man, a middle-aged man in a Sun Yat-sen suit came over, pushing a bicycle. With four pockets on his jacket, he was obviously an official.

“Sir, this black grouper was brought in fresh this morning. It weighs about twenty jin and sells for eight mao per jin, so this fish costs sixteen yuan.”

Zhang Huacheng repeated the price.

The official in the Sun Yat-sen suit hesitated slightly.

There’s a chance!

Zhang Huacheng’s heart leaped, and he immediately said, “If you really want it, fifteen yuan will do. I won’t insist on sixteen—I’ll give you a one-yuan discount.”

“All right. Tie it to the back of my bicycle. And how much are these crabs? I’ll take whatever you have left. I’ll take all these octopuses too.”

Page (2/3)

Page (3/3)

“Excellent!”

Zhang Huacheng happily went to tie up the fish. It seemed he would be able to return home early today.

Tiezhu came over to help as well.

Zhang Huacheng guessed that the official had bought the seafood to entertain relatives or perhaps a superior. Otherwise, he would never have spent so much money.

The remaining fish failed to sell even after half an hour, so Zhang Huacheng had no choice but to exchange them for goods with the other vendors. He traded away everything he could, and before long, all the fish were gone.

“Come on, let’s go eat noodles!”

Zhang Huacheng took Tiezhu to a noodle shop.

He felt somewhat anxious. Things were different from the previous few times—the seafood was becoming increasingly difficult to sell. It had only been a few days, but although the crabs were of decent quality, they were too small, so they attracted very few repeat customers.

I’ll go home, borrow a gun, and head into the mountains!

He had made up his mind. This could not continue. Today, he had been lucky enough to encounter a wealthy official. Otherwise, he probably would have had to sell the grouper cheaply or take it home to eat.

“Tiezhu, come into the mountains with me tomorrow. Do you dare?”

While eating noodles, Zhang Huacheng asked Tiezhu.

“Yes!”

Tiezhu nodded without hesitation, not giving the dangers in the mountains a thought.

“All right. Tomorrow we’ll head into the mountains and try our luck.”

Animal hides were expensive at the moment. Not to mention wolf or fox pelts—even a complete weasel pelt could sell for six yuan, while rabbit skins could fetch one or two yuan.

As long as they encountered prey, Zhang Huacheng was confident he could bring it down.

If they encountered wolves, that would be good news for him!

The two men ate four bowls of noodles and drank five bowls of noodle broth. Watching them leave, the proprietress rolled her eyes. It was rare to see anyone eat so much so early in the morning.

At the department store, Zhang Huacheng bought a pair of cotton shoes for Tiezhu and another pair for himself. The old-style cotton shoes cost five yuan a pair. They were ugly, but truly warm. He also bought several pairs of cotton socks for adults and children.

He bought Wang Lin a pair of women’s cotton shoes for eight yuan.

For Tiezhu, he bought a packet of candy and two packets of peach pastries. When he went to buy pork, however, he could not get any—the line was simply too long. Fortunately, there was still meat at home, which he could give Tiezhu to take along for now.

Even buying meat required standing in line. If he managed to hunt a roe deer or a sika deer and brought it to the morning market to sell, he feared there would be a line for that too.

Go home and borrow a gun!

Head into the mountains!