While Jiang Chengzhou and Yan Yuan were putting away the fishing nets, Linlin handed them their lunch boxes. Inside were dishes she had made herself, so they wouldn’t have to worry about going hungry even in summer.
Yan Yuan took a lunch box. “Do you want to come with us?”
“Huh?”
Linlin raised her head slightly, looking bewildered.
Jiang Chengzhou smiled beside him. “That’s right. Don’t you like the sea? Come with us today.”
Linlin picked at her fingers. “Would I be in the way?”
“No,” Yan Yuan answered immediately.
Jiang Chengzhou ushered his sister toward the house. “Go get the peach pastries we bought earlier. You can eat them on the boat.”
If Yan Yuan hadn’t suggested it this time, Jiang Chengzhou might have forgotten that ever since his sister had moved here, she had barely gone outside.
Linlin looked a little excited and hurried off to get the pastries.
Before it was completely dark, they were ready to set out.
It was Linlin’s first time going out to sea. Feeling curious about everything, she leaned over the side of the boat and dipped her hand into the water. Seawater slipped between her fingers, cool to the touch.
Under the protection of the night, she rarely had to keep her face hidden like this.
The wind swept her hair backward, as though it had lifted the curtain from a painting, revealing a breathtakingly beautiful face.
Yan Yuan was sorting the nets at the stern, but he kept watching her from the corner of his eye.
As if sensing his gaze, Linlin turned her head in his direction.
The moment she realized he was looking at her, she quickly pulled her hand back.
Yan Yuan withdrew his gaze and continued sorting the net. His movements were a little rough. “You can play in the water, but don’t lean out too far.”
He hadn’t scolded her.
Linlin’s lashes trembled. She quietly glanced up at him.
Yan Yuan had already lowered his head and resumed working on the net.
The corners of Linlin’s lips curved up. She slipped her hand into the water again and gently stirred the surface.
After the boat had traveled for about an hour, Jiang Chengzhou slowed it down.
The darkness around them was absolute, with only the lights of other boats visible in the distance.
Yan Yuan cast out the nets, and the boat continued forward, leaving only a line of floats trailing behind it.
Once they had cast out all the nets, they would steer the boat back to where they had first set them and prepare to haul them in.
The process would repeat throughout the night.
Linlin wasn’t delicate or spoiled. She had come to work too. When Yan Yuan and Jiang Chengzhou began hauling in the nets, she copied them and pulled with all her might from behind.
Neither man stopped her. They exchanged a glance, and a hint of amusement flashed in their eyes.
After helping with two hauls, the girl was visibly exhausted.
Yan Yuan said, “Take the fish caught in the net off the lines. You don’t need to help here anymore.”
Linlin simply didn’t want to hold them back. At his words, she hurried back to the middle of the boat.
Not every net came up with fish. The first two hauls had yielded only a few small miscellaneous fish, worth hardly anything.
Linlin looked even more anxious than Yan Yuan and Jiang Chengzhou, staring worriedly toward the stern.
Fortunately, the later nets brought in a good catch: one large rockfish and several large yellow croakers.
“Not bad, not bad,” Jiang Chengzhou muttered. “That covers the cost of the fuel. Everything else is profit.”
Linlin’s eyes lit up, and her little face flushed slightly.
They continued working through the night. At some point, Linlin dozed off, and the two men quietly hauled in the nets without disturbing her.
When Linlin woke again, dawn was just beginning to break.
She found herself leaning against the cabin wall, with a jacket draped over her.
Still dazed, she sat up and rubbed her eyes. She looked so helplessly adorable that it tugged at the heartstrings.
Yan Yuan shifted his feet, while Jiang Chengzhou had already crouched in front of Linlin. With a smile, he reached out and pinched her cheek. “You can sleep through all that rocking?”
His hands were covered in hard calluses from years of hauling nets, rough as sandpaper. After he gave her cheek a light pinch, a faint red mark immediately appeared on her pale, tender skin.
Linlin herself seemed not to notice. She obediently nodded at Jiang Chengzhou. “Mm.”
Jiang Chengzhou withdrew his hand. Looking at the red mark, he sighed. “Look at you. You’re a grown girl—why is your skin so delicate? You need to come outside and get more sun. Let yourself get a little darker and rougher, understand?”
“Okay.”
Linlin obediently nodded again.
She raised a hand to touch her cheek, lowering her eyes.
She also felt that looking like this wasn’t a good thing. Her brother was right. It would be better if she were a little darker, a little rougher, and a little less beautiful.
Yan Yuan was gathering the catch near the stern. Hearing the siblings’ conversation, he felt a headache coming on.
Was this really something they should be encouraging?
After they collected the last crab trap, which was filled with crabs and mantis shrimp, Yan Yuan placed them in a separate bucket to keep them alive.
There were still plenty of people waiting along the shore. Yan Yuan quickly sold all the fish.
Linlin kept glancing at the bucket of crabs and mantis shrimp, growing increasingly anxious, but she didn’t dare bring it up herself.
She waited by the boat. When Yan Yuan returned from making a delivery, he saw that she looked so worried she might start smoking.
“What’s wrong? Did something happen? Did someone bully you?”
Linlin shook her head and pointed at the bucket of crabs. In a small voice, she said, “Brother Yuan, these didn’t sell.”
The corners of Yan Yuan’s mouth lifted. “We’re keeping these for ourselves.”
Linlin nodded, then worked up her courage and bit her lip. “Crabs and mantis shrimp are expensive. Maybe we should sell them too.”
Linlin knew that Yan Yuan and Jiang Chengzhou had recently been saving money to open a shop.
If they could make a little more, they should make a little more.
Yan Yuan’s hands itched. He wanted to pat her on the head the way Chengzhou did, but he restrained himself. “We’re not short of that little bit of money.”
Linlin fell silent.
It had been nearly a month since Linlin left the Zhou family.
Song Fang had originally assumed that Linlin was merely throwing a tantrum. She had nowhere to go, after all, and would eventually return obediently.
Besides, what was wrong with the man Song Fang had found for her?
A thirty-nine-year-old logistics officer whose child was already in high school. Linlin wouldn’t even have to look after the child.
For an orphan like her to marry a man like that, she should be grateful enough to burn incense in thanks.
But day after day passed, and Linlin still didn’t come back.
The matchmaker had already visited the house several times, and Song Fang had no idea how to explain the situation.
On top of that, there was no one left to do the housework or tutor her younger son’s homework. Song Fang was beginning to feel overwhelmed.
She didn’t dare search for Linlin openly, either.
She had torn up Linlin’s college admission notice and forced her to marry an old man. It would look terrible if word got out.
If it damaged Zhou Jianjun’s reputation, Zhou Jianjun would never forgive her.
Then someone told her that they had apparently seen Linlin with two fishermen and asked what was going on.
Song Fang was trying to arrange a marriage for Linlin, so of course she refused to admit that the girl was Linlin. “You must have seen wrong. Zhou Lin has been home this whole time. She hasn’t gone anywhere.”
“Really?” The person rose onto their toes and peered into the house. “Where is she, then?”
Song Fang shoved them outside. “What business is it of yours? You’ve got nothing better to do than meddle in other people’s affairs!”
Song Fang was frantic. That girl was definitely Linlin.
Just like her vixen of a mother, she had gone out and immediately started seducing men.
Song Fang called Zhou Yue over. “Go bring Zhou Lin back. Tell her there’s something going on at home.”
Zhou Yue was secretly dating Gu Zhiyuan now and had no desire to look for that half-sister of hers. “I’m not going!”
Song Fang slapped her. “If you don’t go, you can forget about leaving the house ever again!”
Seething with resentment, Zhou Yue stormed off toward the fishing village by the sea.
