Chapter 23: Chapter 23: Encountering a Giant Sea Turtle
Shen Yunlian smacked her son again.
"If you want to sing, sing by yourself. Jiaojiao’s voice is delicate. If you strain it, I’ll have your hide."
Wang Mei also put her hands on her hips. "Look at you all, acting like big shots. What’s there to listen to? Get digging."
The group of boys immediately scattered and started digging in the sand.
Wang Mei handed Yun Jiao a light little bucket and a small wooden shovel.
The little wooden shovel had even been custom-made for her at home.
"Jiaojiao, go on and play by yourself for a bit."
"Can I go in the sea?" she asked, eyeing the water, eager to go.
"Jiaojiao already knows how to swim. She’s amazing."
"No, you can’t."
Clearly, neither of the two adults would let her take the risk.
"Little kids can’t play in the sea. A wave could just come and sweep you away. It’s very scary."
Yun Jiao turned her head away. She didn’t like hearing that.
She squatted on the ground, poking the sand with her little shovel. She looked a little pouty, a tiny figure resembling a round, puffy pufferfish.
Wang Mei couldn’t resist and ruffled her cute, fuzzy little head.
"Such a good girl, Jiaojiao. You’re just too cute."
Yun Jiao: "..."
She poked the sand with even more force.
CRUNCH...
’I hit something.’
Her little hands dug it out. It was a pretty little stone.
’It’s blue. Pretty.’
She tossed it into her little bucket and started poking in a different spot.
This time, she poked out a sand clam.
CHOMP. She tossed it in her mouth.
"Jiaojiao, what are you eating now?!"
Yun Jiao was crunching away on it when Yun Xiaowu sprinted over and dug the sand clam out of her mouth.
"Why are you always so eager to eat? You’ll shove anything in your mouth."
Yun Jiao pressed her little lips together and stared at him.
Yun Xiaowu said, "Silly girl, you have to at least pry the shell open. But these sand clams are full of sand. Doesn’t it feel gritty in your teeth?"
Yun Jiao nodded. "It’s not tasty. The scallops in the sea are better."
"Come on. We can’t go in the sea, but I’ll take you to find some sea urchins. You can eat those raw, and we can also take them back for Grandma to steam with eggs."
Yun Jiao’s eyes instantly lit up.
But sea urchins weren’t easy to find. They searched for a long time around the reefs near the tide line. They didn’t find any sea urchins, but they did find a small white octopus.
And a blue crab weighing a few ounces.
"Sea urchin, sea urchin, where are the sea urchins?"
Yun Jiao heard a strange voice.
She glanced at the sea’s surface. Her dark blue eyes could see far into the distance, with remarkable clarity.
And because of this, she spotted a large sea turtle swimming toward them.
"Little sister, come quick! I think I see a sea urchin over there."
Yun Xiaowu took her little hand and walked toward the reef flat across from them.
"It really is."
A jet-black, spiny sea urchin was wedged in a crevice. Yun Xiaowu didn’t dare grab it with his bare hands; getting pricked by one of its spines would really hurt.
He used a pair of fire tongs to pull the sea urchin out.
"Jiaojiao, you play over here. I’ll open this sea urchin for you."
"But don’t you dare run into the sea."
Yun Jiao let out an "oh" and pointed at the snails clinging to the reef.
"Fifth Brother, spicy snails."
Yun Xiaowu took a pair of scissors from the bucket and began snipping away at the sea urchin’s spines.
Hearing her, he followed her finger and looked over.
"Hey, you’re right. There are a lot of them."
A dense patch of them clung to the reef, and some were quite large.
Spicy snails were a type of small, brown snail with a very hard-looking shell. They got their name because they have a naturally spicy flavor when eaten.
He had been so focused on the sea urchin that he hadn’t noticed them before.
"It’s a little steep over there, Jiaojiao. Don’t go over. I’ll head there after I’m done with this sea urchin."
He snipped off the sharp spines, then cut open the sea urchin’s shell, revealing the fresh, yellow roe inside.
"Here, you can eat this."
Yun Jiao took the sea urchin, and Yun Xiaowu suddenly pulled a small wooden spoon from his pocket.
Yun Jiao: "..."
’Fifth Brother really came prepared.’
She sat on a clean little rock and began to eat the sea urchin with the spoon.
Like a little monkey, Yun Xiaowu scampered over to the reef where the spicy snails were clinging, picking the larger ones and tossing them into the bucket with a CLINK and a CLANK.
Yun Jiao glanced at him, then went back to eating her sea urchin. She peeked again at a certain large sea turtle that was furtively poking its head out from behind a nearby reef, looking extremely sneaky.
Yun Jiao beckoned. "Come here."
The large sea turtle with its beady eyes looked at Yun Jiao for a few seconds before slowly shuffling over to her side.
From head to tail, the turtle looked longer than she was tall. Barnacles grew on its shell, which was larger than the foot-washing basin at home.
"Do you want me to help you get these barnacles off?"
A sea turtle’s shell is very hard; it’s their best shield.
Barnacles growing on a shell won’t cause them any life-threatening harm in the short term, but if too many grow, the sea turtle is like a swimmer burdened with extra weight, and it can also damage their shell.
In fact, it wasn’t just sea turtles; many creatures in the ocean were plagued by barnacles, such as enormous whales.
The sea turtle seemed to understand Yun Jiao’s words and actually nodded.
Yun Jiao didn’t have a suitable tool on hand to remove the barnacles from the shell, so she rummaged through her brother’s bucket.
Then she pulled out a shovel.
It was a bit big for her; it was Yun Xiaowu’s sand shovel.
She took the shovel, aimed it at the barnacles on the shell, and began to pry them off with grunts of effort.
"I’ll get the barnacles for you, and you have to catch fish for me, okay?"
Yun Jiao unilaterally stated her terms to the sea turtle. "The tasty kind."
The sea turtle lay there quietly.
When Yun Xiaowu finished picking the spicy snails and came back, he took one look and...
"HOLY SHIT!!!"
Yun Jiao peeked her fuzzy little head out from behind the large sea turtle, her big eyes looking at him.
Yun Xiaowu ran over. "No way, where did this giant sea turtle come from?!"
In a sweet, childish voice, Yun Jiao replied, "From the sea."
Yun Xiaowu was about to say something, but he shut his mouth when he met his sister’s clear eyes.
’He wanted to say, ’But little sister, you were brought here by a sea turtle, too.’’
But the family had told him to mention it less. They were raising Yun Jiao as their own child, and they were afraid that bringing it up too often would make her think they were constantly reminding her that she had been found.
"Jiaojiao, what are you doing?"
Yun Jiao held up the shovel. "Scraping barnacles."
Yun Xiaowu rolled up his sleeves. "Let me."
The two of them scraped the barnacles clean off the sea turtle’s shell. When they were done, Yun Xiaowu patted the large turtle’s shell.
"There. I wonder if you’re the same sea turtle from back then."
To human eyes, aside from different species, all sea turtles looked more or less the same, making them hard to tell apart.
The sea turtle nuzzled its head against Yun Jiao’s hand, then shuffled to the water’s edge and entered the sea with an incoming wave.
Yun Xiaowu stood at the water’s edge watching for a moment. "It’d be great if we knew where sea turtles lay their eggs."
’You can’t eat sea turtles, but you can eat their eggs.’
’And they’re really nutritious, too.’
Yun Jiao tilted her head, propping her chin on her little hand, lost in thought.
"Let’s go."
Yun Jiao shook her head, refusing. "We have to wait."
’The big sea turtle promised to bring her something.’
She tugged on Yun Xiaowu’s hand, then suddenly spotted a small, raised bump in the sand not far away.
She walked over and dug it out with her fingers.
It was a Cat Eye Snail.
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