Linlin knew that Lu Zeyu had powerful connections, so she did exactly as promised and told her mother about it as soon as she got home that evening.
Lin Zhilan didn’t know much about the relationships in the residential compound, so she asked her in-laws about them.
The two families didn’t live in the same compound, but it didn’t take much asking around to find out what had happened.
As it turned out, the only person in the Lu family who still held any real influence in the government was his eldest uncle. He could be considered fairly successful.
But the Lu family had now fallen out with the family to whom they had previously planned to betroth him.
Who would want their daughter to date someone who was already eyeing another girl while still holding on to the first?
Lu Zeyu was harshly scolded by his family as well, and they didn’t let him leave the house for the entire summer vacation.
That summer, Jiang Chengzhou graduated and was assigned directly to the Yingtian Military District.
Yan Yuan had taken on several projects and was now busier than ever.
Compared with having a boyfriend, Linlin still missed home more.
Su Pei had already begun working, and she returned to the island with Su Yao.
Su Yao had grown into a proper young lady by now.
However, she still hadn’t gotten rid of one particular habit: she liked good-looking people.
The youngest uncle’s family was full of attractive people—the women beautiful, the men handsome. Aside from Su Li, who was currently as dark as a Black Egg, they were, as a whole, an exceptionally pleasing family to look at.
Still, apart from appreciating good looks, Su Yao liked her youngest aunt the most, because her youngest aunt was the best at having fun.
Lin Zhilan felt that the children were growing up and that she could no longer fob them off with a boat ride in the park as she had when they were little. She decided to take them properly out to sea.
In fact, over the past two years, Lin Zhilan and Su Lang had often gone out to sea to fish, though they had secretly kept it from Su Li.
If one counted carefully, this was also Su Li’s first time going out to sea.
They borrowed a boat from a local fisherman and had to prepare the diesel themselves.
Su Li was so excited that he didn’t fall asleep until midnight. When he got up early the next morning, there were dark circles beneath his eyes.
Fortunately, he had already become quite dark over the summer, so they weren’t particularly noticeable.
After a simple breakfast, everyone gathered their things and headed to the pier.
Fishing boats filled the harbor. There were large trawlers as well as small, ramshackle boats. Gently blowing sea breezes carried the salty scent of the ocean through the air.
With the country now opening up and reforming, life for the island’s fishermen had not changed much. However, more and more households were entering the contract system. The village collective contracted out fishing boats and nets to boat crews, collecting only a fixed contribution. The crews kept all the profits from the fish they caught.
Under their contracts, the fishermen turned over part of their catch to the aquatic products company. Any surplus fish and shrimp could be sold freely at fairs or in the markets.
Going out to sea was hard work, but the income was fairly good.
Many able-bodied young men made their living fishing. Some joined large trawlers and would be gone for several days or even weeks at a time. More commonly, they took old, small fishing boats that could not travel very far and returned the same day.
If luck was on their side, they could bring in dozens of pounds of fish in a day and earn ten or twenty yuan—sometimes even more—which was higher than a worker’s wages.
Even so, fishing remained dangerous and exhausting. If there had been more job opportunities, people would still have preferred to become workers.
Lin Zhilan had prepared rubber boots for the children and had them change into them at the pier. She then reminded the children to put on their life jackets.
Once they were on board, Su Lang started the engine. Thick smoke began pouring from the stern, and after they untied the mooring rope, the little boat slowly moved forward.
“Ahhh!” Su Li cried excitedly as he sprawled across the deck.
The sea breeze was chilly that early in the morning, so Lin Zhilan pulled the two girls into her arms.
Linlin handled it fairly well, but this was Su Yao’s first time experiencing anything like it.
As the boat gradually moved away from shore, the two girls were frightened at first. Soon, however, they were captivated by the ocean. They leaned over the side of the boat, gazing out at the sea with shining eyes.
The ocean looked different from out at sea than it did from the beach.
Here, they could reach out and touch the water.
Once they left the coastal aquaculture area behind, they could venture farther into the open sea.
Su Lang first brought the children along to set the nets.
This time, he had prepared a gill net. A rectangular lead weight ran along the bottom, pulling the net downward. When fish or shrimp swam into it, they would become “stuck” in the mesh.
The children were all excited, practically itching to pull the net back up immediately to see whether they had caught anything.
Unfortunately, the process would take several hours.
Lin Zhilan and Su Lang began teaching the children how to fish.
It was an ultra-simplified version. They didn’t even have fishing rods—only sturdy silver wire.
The bait consisted of dead shrimp that the fishermen hadn’t been able to sell and had thrown away on the pier. Su Lang had picked them up.
They tied a thin strand of line to a hook, placed a dead shrimp on it, then held the other end of the silver wire and lowered the hook into the seawater. All they had to do was sit there and wait for a fish to bite.
Linlin and Su Yao silently stared at the only fishing rod in Lin Zhilan’s hands.
“Dad/Youngest Uncle, why don’t we have fishing rods?”
Su Lang was fastening a shrimp onto Lin Zhilan’s hook. Without even looking up, he said, “You should be grateful we brought you along at all. Where would we get so many fishing rods? If you stay home and keep us company every day, Dad and your youngest uncle will buy you some.”
Su Li was lying on his stomach by the side of the boat. Hearing this, he turned around.
“What about me?”
Su Li had once hated his name because it had so many strokes.
Later, a teacher at school had asked the students to write an essay about the origins of their names. Su Li had asked Lin Zhilan about his and learned that the character “Li” had been taken from his mother’s name.
After that, Su Li came to love his name.
His older brother and sister had both gone to the capital to attend school, leaving him behind at home to “keep his parents company.” And now he didn’t even have a fishing rod. How could he possibly accept that?
Lin Zhilan smiled. “How about this? If you catch a lot of fish today, we’ll keep enough for our family to eat, and you can take the rest to sell at a stall. We’ll use the money to buy you fishing rods.”
The three children’s eyes lit up. They all nodded and began pulling their fishing lines taut with great seriousness.
Sea fishing was not easy. By noon, only Lin Zhilan and Su Lang had managed to catch a few small fish, and the fish were too little to keep, so they released them back into the water.
Linlin and Yaoyao had gotten bites several times, but neither of them was skilled enough yet. Before they could reel the fish in, it had already wriggled free and escaped.
They hadn’t caught any fish, but everyone was hungry. Lin Zhilan brought out the rice balls she had prepared.
She had learned how to make them from the fishermen.
First, she steamed japonica rice and let it cool until it was no longer hot to the touch. Then she rubbed a tiny bit of fine salt onto her palms to keep the rice from sticking, pinched off a handful, and pressed it into a small round patty. She placed fish floss and pickled radish in the center, gathered the rice around the filling, and repeatedly squeezed and rolled it until it became an oval shape. Finally, she wrapped it in a layer of roasted seaweed.
The salty, savory fish floss soaked into the grains of rice, while the radish added a refreshing sweet-and-sour tang that perfectly cut through the fishy taste of the sea. The flavor was fresh and perfectly balanced, growing more fragrant with every bite.
Although they hadn’t caught any fish, the rice balls made by Mom/Youngest Aunt still soothed the children’s hungry stomachs.
They had already been at sea for several hours. Since they hadn’t caught anything, the two older girls were beginning to get bored. Fortunately, they had each brought a drawing board, so they began sketching to pass the time.
Su Li often called his sister a little bookworm.
But Lin Zhilan felt that she was the real bookworm.
She had no special talents and no particular hobbies. In her previous life, she had done little besides study. Even cooking—a thing she enjoyed—was simply a way for her to relieve stress.
