Catch the sea: start with a sand shovel and take over the entire beach

There are many types of horseshoe snails, and in some places they are also called saddle snails. Zhao Qin's family can also find them on the beach, but the varieties differ, and they all don't grow very large.

The snails in front of them each weighed at least half a pound.

These giant tower snails are quite rare, and they are more expensive than oyster snails, selling for around 30 yuan per kilogram locally.

It doesn't sound expensive, but right now, there are them all over the rocks on one side of the island. Each one costs ten or twenty yuan. Pick them up, and you pick them up one by one without making a sound.

Chen Xun had already started working on it. "Aqin, we didn't bring enough nets, so we can't sort them."

"No need to sort, just pick out whatever's there, we'll deal with it when we get back to the ship."

As Zhao Qin spoke, he also got to work. As soon as he started, several sea otters surrounded him, watched for a moment, and then scattered.

Just as he was wondering what was going on, a sea otter swam back, one of its front paws clutching a giant conch shell and the other an abalone, intending to put them into his net. However, its paws were already holding something else...

Unable to open the net, it became anxious and started meowing again.

"No need, you can eat what you've picked out yourself."

Then came the second, the third… each one approaching, its forepaws, resembling human forearms, clutching seafood.

Zhao Qin couldn't work anymore; he had to hold up the net opening.

Seeing a sea otter discard a giant yellow snail, he quickly said, "I want that one too. I want any snail or shellfish from the reef."

The sea otter understood; it dove into the water, and when it surfaced, it was holding the yellow snail it had previously discarded back in its arms.

More than a hundred of them, all helping with the work, so that Zhao Qin's net bag couldn't hold them all even if they didn't make one trip at a time.

"Brother Xun, give me your net bag. You take this bag back and bring a few more net bags. If you don't have net bags, bring a basket."

Chen Xun was staring blankly at the scene before him when he heard Zhao Qin's words, and he snapped out of his daze, "Oh, okay."

He couldn't help but laugh again, "These little guys are really clever. With their help, we really don't need to dig anymore. I reckon the seven of them might not be able to beat the two of us on the other side."

Zhao Qin laughed heartily, "There aren't just two of us."

After changing the net, Chen Xun swam towards the side of the boat. Zhao Qin noticed that the mother sea otter with her pups was also helping, and quickly stopped her, saying, "You don't need to do anything, just take care of the pups."

Hearing him say that actually made the mother sea otter put her cub down.

Sea otters are born swimmers, and the baby sea otter floated on its back on the surface of the water. The mother sea otter then pushed the baby towards Zhao Qin again.

"Well, you've given it to me again." Zhao Qin chuckled, reaching out to lift the cub and place it on his shoulder.

The little guy actually stuck out his tongue and licked his neck. "Don't be naughty, it tickles."

The snails were huge and took up a lot of space; one sea otter couldn't even get a turn in the net, and it was full again.

Left with no other choice, Zhao Qin pointed to a relatively flat area nearby and instructed them to place what they had pried off there.

When Chen Xun arrived with his net and basket, a small hill of snails had already been built on the reef.

Chen Xun had a great idea; he brought all the lifebuoys from the boat. The lifebuoys were just the right size to fit around the middle of the basket, allowing it to float steadily on the sea.

"Hey, you guys divide up the work, a dozen or so of you take charge of one basket, let's have a competition to see whose basket is full first."

After Simba finished speaking, he meowed at his pack. Zhao Qin realized that these little guys' organizational skills actually surpassed those of humans, because they completed such a complex division of labor in just half a minute.

Even humans couldn't accomplish this in that short time.

This indicates that the group itself must have a very clear management system, and it's definitely not a matter of Simba directly managing over a hundred people.

Perhaps the groups had already been divided up, and Simba only needed to emphasize the division of labor for each group.

"Ah Qin, can they really understand you?" Chen Xun was collecting snails from the rocks with a net.

Zhao Qin replied vaguely, "I'm not sure either."

"From my observation, it's definitely possible. It's strange, though, because they only understand what you say. But that's not quite right. You should say they only want to understand what you say."

Zhao Qin smiled and said, "Brother Xun, there are some things I can't explain."

Chen Xun nodded, believing Zhao Qin's words, and then smiled, "Now I'm starting to believe it too, maybe you really are the reincarnation of Mazu's grandson."

"Haha, maybe." Zhao Qin couldn't quite explain it. Sometimes he even thought that his destiny might have been bestowed upon him by Mazu.

With the wide-opening basket, Zhao Qin was finally able to free his hands. After observing for a while and finding that the sea otters were doing a good job, he got busy himself as well.

He asked the mother sea otter if her pups could eat meat, and she even used a shovel to pick up two snails, took the snail meat, and fed them to the pups.

Before long, Chen Xun had finished collecting the shellfish from the rocks, filling five or six nets. Zhao Qin gave a quick instruction to the sea otter, and then they helped each other carry the full nets back to the boat.

"Brother Qin, you guys are so fast!" Ah Chen, who was receiving the goods on the ship, couldn't help but exclaim in amazement.

"Haha, we have helpers." Zhao Qin laughed, untied the net and handed it to Achen, then had the other throw down a few baskets.

He said to Chen Xun, who was planning to return with him, "Brother Xun, don't rush. Help A-Chen unload the small boat tied to the back. Otherwise, it will be troublesome for us to get all those baskets back later."

The Unity fishing boat was exactly 24 meters long, which, according to maritime regulations, is considered a medium-sized fishing vessel and is required to be equipped with lifeboats.

Therefore, when the shipyard was building the boat, a 3-meter-long, simple plastic boat was provided. Of course, it was unpowered and was usually tied to the side of the stern.

When Zhao Qin returned to the work site, most of the baskets were already full. The sea otters were clever; they didn't foolishly pile more food into the baskets, nor did they stop working. Instead, they placed the newly picked pieces back onto the rocks they had previously collected.

He first replaced all the baskets in the lifebuoys before he started loading the loose cargo from the rocks.

He thought to himself, "It's really just as Ah He said. If I raise this batch, I can really just lie down and not have to work."

Don't underestimate this basket of seafood; it weighs about 80 pounds, with abalone making up about a third of it. Wild abalone has been fetching increasingly higher prices in the last couple of years, easily exceeding 100 yuan per pound.

Even at a price of 100, that's over 2,000 yuan worth of snails. If the other snails average 25 yuan each, that's another 1,000 yuan. So, the total value of this basket has already exceeded 4,000 yuan.

A bunch of little guys, if they fill ten baskets a day, that's forty thousand!

More importantly, they find their own food, so there's no need to prepare food for them at all—it's zero cost!

Of course, this is just speculation. Putting aside whether he can find such a resource-rich island every time, even if he does, he won't imprison these little guys. Freedom is something that not only humans crave.

A moment later, Chen Xun towed the small boat over. That's right, he towed it with a rope, not rowed it, because rowing would be too slow.

The two then began loading the full baskets onto the small boat. Although the boat wasn't large, it could easily transport more than ten baskets of seafood at a time.

So, the two of them, along with the sea otter colony, began working on an assembly line: Chen Xun was in charge of transporting the goods back and forth, Zhao Qin was in charge of changing the baskets, and the sea otters were in charge of collecting the seafood.

There's nothing they can do; unless he puts the basket in himself, the sea otters won't throw any seafood into it.

Chen Xun tried replacing one set of seafood with a new one, but the sea otters in that set preferred to throw their catch into another set's basket rather than put it in the new one, leaving Chen Xun extremely frustrated.

Did you smear dog poop on the basket before you put it in?