Jiang Ye kissed her cheek and stood up. "Alright, I need to get ready for work."
"What are you doing today?" Cen Yemeng also stood up.
"Getting some food. We have enough water, so I need to stockpile at least three more months' worth of food, enough for you until you give birth. I hope someone comes to pick us up within three months. If not, I certainly can't let you starve," Jiang Ye said, patting her head.
"I'll help you!" Cen Yemeng's eyes lit up. "What do you need me to do?"
"You're pregnant..."
"Being pregnant is precisely why I need to exercise! Moderate exercise is beneficial for health and fetal development. If I just lie around in the spaceship all day, I'll go crazy!" Cen Yemeng exclaimed.
"Okay, let's go pick up some trash first," Jiang Ye mused. "Find some large plastic bottles and plastic barrels, and pick up some wire or rope. Get as much as you can."
The two put on their spacesuits and headed towards the garbage mountain.
There were quite a lot of plastic bottles and barrels, as these things don't decompose for hundreds of years. Jiang Ye first grabbed several large plastic bags and started dragging the bottles back.
In just an hour, they had dragged four large sacks of plastic bottles back to the spaceship.
The smallest bottle was 1.5 liters, and the large barrels were 20 liters.
Jiang Ye took a hand saw and scissors from the spaceship and began processing the bottles.
He first sawed off the mouths of the bottles one by one, then inverted them, inserting the mouths back into the bottles. He bent the edges forcefully and secured them firmly, completing a small fish trap!
With this structure, small fish could swim into the bottles, but it would be difficult for them to swim out, easily trapping them inside.
Cen Yemeng understood. "Should we put some bait in them? It might be easier to catch fish."
"Smart," Jiang Ye nodded. "Go get it."
Cen Yemeng turned and went back to the spaceship, soon returning with two large bags.
One bag contained dried seaweed, and the other contained fish innards. The innards of the fish caught a few days ago had been saved and stored in a corner of the spaceship, now proving useful.
Jiang Ye opened the bag of fish innards. A foul odor emanated from it, but the decay wasn't severe. Perhaps the bacteria on this planet were milder. If this were Earth, in this weather, it would have rotted into liquid within two days.
It took over two hours to convert all the plastic bottles and barrels into fish traps.
In total, they made 40 small traps from plastic bottles and 30 larger traps from the barrels.
Half were filled with dried seaweed, and the other half with fish innards.
This way, the fish caught would include both herbivores and carnivores, ensuring a more balanced diet.
Jiang Ye took off his pants and waded into the sea with bare legs. He first picked up a few small stones from the sand and stuffed them into the traps as weights to prevent them from being washed away by the waves, then firmly inserted the traps into the sand.
With a gurgle of bubbles, seawater filled the traps.
Cen Yemeng stood on the shore, continuously tossing traps to him.
It took nearly another hour to install all 70 traps.
These were essentially traps, similar in principle to animal snares. However, snares caught creatures that ran on land, while these caught those that swam in the water.
Both were exhausted and returned to the spaceship for lunch.
"So, we just insert those bottles and wait for the fish to go in?" Cen Yemeng asked between bites.
"Not necessarily. We're just trying it out," Jiang Ye replied. "If we catch fish, we'll set out more bottles. These bottles are for catching small fish. We still need to figure out how to catch big fish, as they provide the most meat. Small fish are only good for soup or snacks."
"I actually think we're quite lucky," Cen Yemeng said. "I once read a book about the nutritional value of various foods. Fish are a very balanced source of protein, fats, and vitamins. They provide nutrition and help maintain stamina. Landing in the sea and drifting to the coast, it's as if heaven doesn't want us to starve."
"Fortunate in misfortune, I suppose," Jiang Ye said with a wry smile.
Lunch was quickly finished.
Jiang Ye was impatient and immediately jumped out of the spaceship, rolling up his pant legs and heading into the sea to check the traps he had set.
The first one had no fish.
The second one had no fish.
The third one had no fish.
Jiang Ye was quite disappointed. He had started checking from the first trap he set. It had been nearly two hours, and still, no fish had taken the bait. Could there be no fish in the shallow waters nearby?
He checked over a dozen small traps, all empty.
Just as Jiang Ye was losing hope, he felt a vibrating sensation from something swimming inside the trap he had just pulled out of the water!
Inside the bottle were two small fish, thin and long, black like two pens. The little fish were desperately trying to find a way out, darting around the bottle in panic, but the opening was too small for them to escape!
Cen Yemeng stood on the shore, clapping enthusiastically, her face beaming with joy.
Jiang Ye tossed the trap onto the shore. "Take these to the analyzer and scan these two fish first to see if they're edible."
"You got it!" Cen Yemeng grabbed the bottle and ran.
Jiang Ye smiled and shook his head, then bent down to check the other traps.
For some reason, the traps further down were becoming more effective, with almost every bottle containing caught fish!
Jiang Ye kept tossing the bottles onto the beach, mentally tallying the catch.
Half an hour later, after clearing all the traps, they had caught a total of 24 small fish, weighing about three pounds, and 8 larger fish, weighing about five pounds.
A total of eight pounds of fish.
Both were in good spirits; the catch rate was more than enough to eat. However, Jiang Ye still felt it wasn't enough, so he put on his spacesuit again and headed to the garbage mountain to find more fishing gear.
Cen Yemeng didn't follow. She sat on the beach by the spaceship, gutting the fish one by one. The larger fish were cut into slices, while the smaller ones were simply cleaned by removing their innards. All the innards and scales were collected in bags to be used as bait later.
Jiang Ye didn't pick up more bottles; the current bottle traps were sufficient. Bottles could only catch small fish, and he needed larger fish with more substantial flesh.
After climbing only a few meters along the garbage mountain, Jiang Ye's eyes lit up.
Amidst a pile of rotten plastic pieces, a large clump of earphones was buried.
That's right, a large clump, at least several hundred cheap wired in-ear earphones, tangled together chaotically. The earphone wires were all thin and multicolored, but long enough.
Jiang Ye pulled out an earphone wire and tugged it hard. It was quite sturdy, showing no signs of breaking.
If he had a phone, perhaps these earphones could even produce sound when plugged in. Apart from the outer casing being slightly melted and decayed, they were almost like new earphones!
Such good quality!
A conscientious seller!
He immediately scooped up the entire clump of wired earphones and returned to the spaceship.
"So many earphones!" Cen Yemeng stopped gutting fish and stared at Jiang Ye in surprise. "Why did you bring these earphones? Are they for clotheslines?"
"I'll show you a fishing method called the night line method. This method is illegal in many ancient countries because it's too efficient and too inhumane to the fish," Jiang Ye said, throwing the ball of earphones on the ground and sitting down to untangle them one by one.