Chapter 834: Chapter 797: This Bottle Is So Strange

With the help of two whales herding fish, not only did the Lin family reap abundant harvests today, but other nearby ships also enjoyed the fisherman’s luck, all with full loads.

Though everyone was chilled to the bone after spending most of the day in the cold wind on deck, looking at the fish in the water tanks, they no longer felt the hardship.

Today, Lin Wanwan also had a very fruitful day out at sea. She now sits around the barbecue grill with everyone, grilling fish, shrimp, starfish, sea urchins, and a large amount of barnacles.

People by the sea generally don’t need to add various seasonings when eating seafood, sometimes not even salt. Usually, it’s simply boiled or grilled, as the freshness of the seafood itself is enough. After all, with the living standards of the Tang Dynasty, ordinary sea folk couldn’t afford seasonings.

Despite the ugly appearance of barnacles, the meat is truly delicious.

Modern people like to boil in clear water, while the Tang Dynasty was a major barbecue country, preferring grilling. No matter how it’s prepared, it doesn’t affect its deliciousness.

In the cold winter at sea, after enduring the cold wind for most of the day, everyone huddled by the cabin door, warming themselves by the fire and eating seafood, Lin Wanwan even brought out chilled cola.

Everyone took a sip of icy cold cola and a bite of scorching hot barnacle meat, the mixed sensations of hot and cold really hit the spot.

After Lin Wanwan’s massage, Baye Feng’s seasickness symptoms improved greatly. Perhaps his strong physical constitution helped, and he could endure, appearing almost normal now.

He sat next to Lin Wanwan, eating seafood barbecue with iced cola along with everyone, curiously holding the emptied cola bottle and examining it intently.

Compared to cola, it seemed the large plastic bottle it came in was even more fascinating to everyone.

Everyone had already passed around the plastic bottle, regarded it as a treasure, and dared not touch it much.

Only Baye Feng wouldn’t let go of the cola bottle.

"What’s up? Looking at it so long and still not finished? Better eat, or we’ll eat it all up. This is our lunch on the sea, if you don’t eat more, you’ll be hungry later."

Lin Wanwan cast a sidelong glance at Baye Feng, unable to bear how he looked like a curious puppy.

Just a cola bottle, and you’ve been staring at it for ages!

"Oh," Baye Feng replied politely, without many words, still curiously examining the cola bottle.

Lin Wanwan didn’t mind him, knowing that once they were ashore, she’d collect these cola bottles to take back to modern times, so he could look all he wanted now.

Baye Feng, as the head of her troops, was inquisitive but very tight-lipped, so she wasn’t worried about any news leaking from him.

Lin Wanwan also invited Liu Rushi to sit down and join the meal. Liu was even more knowledgeable about noble etiquettes than Baye Feng, and showed no unusual reaction at seeing the cola bottle.

What touched Liu Rushi more than the cola bottle was Lin Wanwan’s invitation to sit together without regard to rank or class.

With her former master Xiao Chong, Liu Rushi felt more respect and fear than closeness, but with her current master Lin Wanwan, she was completely loyal.

Any servant who was fed fine rice and rare fruits by Lin Wanwan would quickly pledge loyalty.

Which noble in the world could show such respect and treatment?

It would be hard for people of the Great Tang to uproot Lin Wanwan, who cared enough to give pepper and fruits to her servants daily.

Even the Emperor didn’t have that kind of grandeur; his concubines didn’t have such fortune. Not to mention the less favored; even his primary wife Zhangsun advocated frugality and could not enjoy such luxury in food and drink.

The people’s inherent love for music and dance couldn’t just bury their heads in food during gatherings; singing and dancing were a must.

Being a group of fishermen, poetry and matching are beyond them, but drinking games were a universally loved entertainment.

If elegant games don’t work, there are common games: dice, drawing lots, hand signs, guessing numbers, etc., all of which can liven the atmosphere.

Though Lin Wanwan didn’t prepare any alcohol, no one could refuse cola as the "happy fatty water", and everyone drank it as if it were alcohol.

A few bottles of cola were quickly finished in the joyful atmosphere, and the wooden barrel by the grill was filled with various shells, mostly barnacle shells.

A few people briskly consumed over a hundred pounds of seafood (with shells).

The barnacle meat, costing sixty yuan per pound, shrimp at seventy yuan, sea urchins at eighty yuan, and fresh and pollution-free o-tuna sashimi at over one hundred yuan per pound - this would surely make an ordinary modern person envious to death.

Great Tang fishermen were so poor they only ate seafood, unable to afford white rice. Meanwhile, modern people who could afford white rice couldn’t possibly afford such a lavish seafood meal.

Everyone had their own envies.

After feasting on the seafood barbecue, Lin Wanwan hid in the cabin to read and study, while Lin Mengbo and others navigated the ship home.

The full sails swayed gracefully at sea.

When they returned to the dock, the afterglow of the sunset dyed the sea red, a truly beautiful sight.

The seafood Lin Wanwan wanted was carried back to the Lin Mansion by everyone, while what she didn’t need would be taken to the big fishing dock to sell to seafood merchants later.

Once home, Lin Wanwan noticed the absence of little Qingyu. After asking, she found out the little fellow went out with her maids to have fun again.

Cui Ying was about to go to the village to find little Qingyu, so Lin Wanwan accompanied her.

When they saw little Qingyu, the little girl was on the stone beach using her mini toy shovel to scrape barnacles off a big sea turtle.

Today, Lin Wanwan and little Qingyu, this mother and daughter pair, had an unshakeable bond with barnacles. The former helped the whales remove barnacles, while the latter did a good deed for the sea turtle.

Compared to whales, barnacles pose a greater threat to sea turtles because turtles swim slower and are much smaller, incomparable to whales.

In the ocean, sea turtles suffer the most from barnacles, which are dubbed sea turtle killers.

Too many parasitic barnacles can cause a turtle to become immobile and lose interest in eating, even leading to drowning.

The large sea turtle little Qingyu was helping clean today was a companion (or perhaps a mate) of the turtle that once saved her during a ghost wave.

Compared to the big sea turtle that often comes to this coast to find little Qingyu, receiving her regular cleanings, the other one was much worse off, covered in barnacles and barely recognizable.

Little Qingyu led Baya Naba, Song Sulan, a group of companions, and children from Lin Family Manor, all enthusiastically cleaning the big sea turtle. The cheerful group of kids was so busy that they didn’t even notice Lin Wanwan and Cui Ying approaching.

"Little Yu, not finished yet?" Lin Wanwan called out to her from a distance.

Hearing her voice, little Qingyu tossed aside her little shovel excitedly and ran towards Lin Wanwan.

"Mother!"

A troop of animals including a pony, a little elephant, chickens, ducks, geese, and a plump white piglet followed behind her like a general on tour.

Lin Wanwan even noticed two hunting dogs from the village among them.

Little Qingyu was serious about developing her animal troop!