Chapter 15: Chapter 15: Digging Clam Kings
Hearing Yun Xiaowu’s excited shout, the other Yun brothers ran over as well.
And their eyes all went wide.
They might have been young, but as kids who lived by the sea, they knew what was valuable and what wasn’t.
Small razor clams went for twenty or thirty cents a pound and were a pain to dig—you needed a ton of them to even make a pound. But these clam kings were worth at least a dollar a pound.
And their little sister had already dug up about three pounds of them all by herself.
"These things are tough to dig. How’d you do it?"
They burrow deep and scurry away at the slightest disturbance. You really couldn’t dig one up without a bit of strength, patience, and experience.
Instead of answering, Yun Jiao just gave them a demonstration.
First, she found a hole where a clam king was breathing, then she took her small shovel and started digging down with lightning speed.
With a single plunge of her shovel, she dug deep and effortlessly pried up the sand. The little chubby dumpling’s movements were surprisingly quick. Most importantly, she seemed to know exactly which way to dig.
In just a few quick moves, she had unearthed a clam king.
Her brothers: ...
Yun Xiaowu refused to believe it. "Is it really that easy? I’ll give it a try."
He found a small hole right next to Yun Jiao and started huffing and puffing as he dug wildly.
Following his lead, Xiao Liu, Xiaoqi, and Little Eight each found their own breathing holes and started digging.
But they didn’t know how to predict the clam’s direction, and after just a few digs, the clam king got away!
The boys were incredibly frustrated.
"I got one!"
Instead, it was Yun Xiaojiu, who had just been playing in the sand, who managed to dig up a clam king.
And in the time it took them to do all that, Yun Jiao had already dug up another one.
Her brothers: ...
’Seriously, you two are making us older brothers look completely useless.’
’Yun Jiao didn’t know how to teach her brothers, either. After all, she had no experience digging for clams herself; she was relying entirely on her intuition and strength.’
That’s right. Though Yun Jiao looked like a small, soft, doughy little thing, she was actually much stronger than an ordinary child.
It wasn’t ridiculously so—at three years old, her strength was probably just a little greater than her ten-year-old Fifth Brother’s.
She was always well-behaved and never showed it off, so her family had no idea about her strength.
By the time Yun Chenxi returned with a bowl of shucked oyster meat, they had already dug nearly half a bucket of clam kings.
Yun Xiaowu and the others were slow, but after struggling with the clam kings for a while, they got the hang of it and managed to catch a few themselves.
Yun Chenxi looked at the half-bucket of clam kings—probably six pounds or so—then looked back at the paltry amount of oyster meat in his bowl, and his spirits sank.
"There are clam kings here?!"
"Clam kings? Where?"
Not far off, a woman foraging on the beach had sharp ears. The moment she heard the words ’clam king,’ she dashed over like a gust of wind.
The Yun family had a lot of kids, and they were a rowdy, mischievous bunch. The other villagers out foraging tended to give them a wide berth. The beach was big enough for everyone, after all.
’Who knew this spot was a hidden treasure trove?’
The woman’s eyes went wide when she saw the clam kings in their bucket.
"Good heavens! These really are clam kings! And you’ve dug up so many!"
The woman was green with envy.
"You dug these up right here? This patch has clam kings?"
With that, she found a spot not too far from the Yun siblings and immediately started digging.
The Yun siblings could only watch helplessly. The beach didn’t belong to their family, after all. The woman hadn’t pushed them out of their spot, just started digging nearby. There was nothing they could do about it.
Yun Chenxi smacked his own mouth. "This stupid mouth of mine! Why did I have to blurt that out?"
Yun Chenxi quickly rolled up his sleeves and joined the fray.
The woman over there was clearly more experienced and soon dug up a clam king herself. She excitedly called her own family over at once.
Her excitement must have been too obvious, because soon, other people foraging on the beach caught wind of the news and flocked over.
"It is clam kings! This area actually has them!"
"Well, I’ll be. I’ve come here so many times and never found any clam kings."
Everyone chattered excitedly, but it didn’t slow down their work one bit. They all found a patch of sand, not too close and not too far, and started digging.
With so many people, it didn’t take long for the patch of beach to be picked clean.
Yun Jiao’s stomach went GURGLE GURGLE. She was hungry.
She looked at her brother with wide, pleading eyes.
A pretty little girl has a natural advantage. Just by looking up with those pleading eyes, Yun Jiao, looking like a pitiful, soft, white dumpling, could stir up endless feelings of tenderness in anyone.
"Hungry? Let’s go home."
Yun Xiao Liu had tossed his little shovel aside long ago and was sitting off to the side, resting. He looked like he’d already fallen asleep.
’It was a mystery how he could be so sleepy all the time.’
"We’re not digging anymore?"
Yun Xiaowu was drenched in sweat. The tan, ten-year-old boy seemed to have the boundless energy of a young bull.
Yun Chenxi called to his younger brothers, "We’re done. This area is pretty much picked clean."
’It was a shame the spot had been discovered. Otherwise, it could have been their secret base to come back to next time.’
Their bucket had to have at least eight pounds in it.
Yun Chenxi led his younger siblings home. Yun Jiao cradled the bailer shell in her arms, her eyes curving into beautiful little crescents.
The sun was blazing, and everyone was drenched in sweat. But Yun Jiao was barely perspiring, her skin so pale it almost seemed to glow.
Despite being out in the sun for so long, her skin wasn’t the least bit red.
The contrast with her sunburnt, dark-skinned brothers was stark. It was like a soft, white Tang Yuan that had rolled into a pile of charcoal briquettes.
Granny Yun, who was sitting by the door sorting vegetables, saw her grandchildren returning, and her face crinkled into a wide smile.
"Oh, Chenxi and the others are back! Just look at your Jiaojiao, she’s so fair! She looks like a little fairy from a painting of a Bodhisattva. Tell me, how can she be so much paler than the other children when they all grew up by the sea? She’s just so precious."
"And what’s that she’s holding? Is that a shell? It’s huge!"
Several other old women, around the same age as Granny Yun, were also sitting by their doors on little stools. They were mending fishing nets, a task that let them chat while they worked.
"Grandma."
Yun Jiao trotted over, still holding the bailer shell.
"Grandma, I found a big shell!"
Granny Yun’s smile grew even wider. "Yes, yes, very good. Our Jiaojiao is so capable!"
The tiny Yun Jiao leaned against Granny Yun’s embrace, her bright, dark eyes looking toward the other old women as she greeted each one of them politely.
Old folks have a soft spot for pretty, well-behaved children with a sweet tongue.
And Yun Jiao happened to be all of those things.
The old women all reached into their pockets and pressed little gifts into her hands.
They weren’t valuable things—a piece of candy that had been in a pocket for who knows how long, a small green jujube, a few strips of dried fish.
Yun Jiao didn’t show any disdain. She accepted them and thanked each of them with adorable politeness.
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