"First, the grip on the knife should be moderate. Your right thumb and index finger should pinch the blade, while the other three fingers grip the handle firmly. Your wrist needs to be flexible yet strong when holding the knife.
Bend your fingers, using your little finger and thumb to secure the vegetable under your palm, or place your ring finger and little finger, or all four fingers on top of the vegetable. Slowly move your right chef's knife close to the joints of your left hand's fingers. Your thumb must be bent, with the knife pressed against your index finger, middle finger, or the first or second knuckle of any finger.
Be careful not to lift the knife too high, and don't let your thumb slide underneath it. Try it again as I've instructed."
Murong Yanran was being hugged, feeling Li Haochen's virile aura, her heart pounding intensely, filled only with the sound of her heartbeat. She had no mind to listen to Li Haochen's instructions.
"Um, could you say that again?" Murong Yanran blushed and stuck out her tongue slightly.
"Uh... alright."
"Say it again..."
"..."
After seven or eight times, Li Haochen's face darkened. "I'll cook again when I get back."
"Where are you going?"
"To make money to buy a car."
After Li Haochen left, Murong Yanran held the chef's knife. Although the cuts were uneven in size, she looked the part. Pouting, she muttered discontentedly, "I got it the first time, you dummy!"
Arriving at the entrance of Butterfly Bay, he tied a slipknot with the safety rope around a large rock nearby, found the previously inserted anchor in the rock crevice, clipped himself in, and slowly moved forward. After about ten minutes, he finally entered the bay.
Checking the time, it was past seven in the morning. The sun had already risen high. The tide hadn't come in yet and had receded to the bottom of the reef.
Generally, people who go foraging for seafood do so in the early morning, right after the tide recedes. If you go at this hour, you probably won't even find a minnow. Moreover, foraging isn't easy; you have to constantly bend over, searching through rock crevices for fish, shrimp, and crabs washed ashore by the waves, or stranded there, as well as conch shells.
Fortunately, Butterfly Bay is a treasure trove with natural barriers. Almost no one wants to come here. Even if they do, they can't take much of their bounty with them, and one wrong step could mean feeding the fish.
He heard from the village chief, Huang Haiyuan, that many people used to venture into Butterfly Bay. However, after several accidents, few dared to go anymore. For a small amount of money, their lives weren't worth losing. Over time, it became a forbidden area in the area. Of course, some people still came to take risks occasionally.
Li Haochen went to a hidden spot and took out his tools from his spatial dimension. Carrying a fishing net and holding long tongs with a plastic bucket, he clipped on his net bag and walked down towards the base of the reef.
The past few days had seen strong winds and heavy rain, making the waves quite rough. Thus, there were many small fish and crabs washed into the crevices of the reef, but most were dead and useless.
Li Haochen walked for a while, not encountering anything good. He did pick up quite a few conch shells, and the net bag at his waist was getting a bit heavy.
"Splash~ splash"
Not far ahead, in a small tidal pool, something flipped and splashed a lot of water. Seeing this, Li Haochen's heart leaped with joy. He took out his net and scooped it up.
"It's got some fight."
Looking at the lively sea bass in the net, he smiled. Weighing it, it was about 2 catties. The current wholesale price for wild sea bass is at least 40 yuan, so this catch alone would bring in at least 80 yuan. The money came quite quickly.
Li Haochen picked up the plastic bucket, filled it with some seawater, and then threw the sea bass in. With the restriction of the net gone, as soon as it landed in the bucket, the sea bass somersaulted a few times, splashing Li Haochen all over.
"Still daring to show off? I'll steam you later."
The top of the bucket was sealed with a net, so it couldn't get out once inside. You had to remove the seal to get it out, so it was very safe, and he wasn't afraid of the catch escaping.
With a successful catch, his mood couldn't be bad. Humming a little tune, he happily continued his search.
When one is happy, one's spirits are high, and luck also improves. As it happened, Li Haochen caught another stone crab weighing half a catty. Although it wasn't large, its ferocity was no less than the previous "Crab King," and it was a female, which delighted Li Haochen. His space could now have another money tree.
It took some time to tie it securely before he dared to put it in the plastic bucket, otherwise, the sea bass would have been done for.
After walking for a while, he caught a black sea bream from a rock crevice, stunned by the waves. It was decent, weighing seven or eight taels.
Within half an hour, the plastic bucket was filled with more catches: spotted scat, golden threadfin bream, marbled groupers, and some small starfish. He saw they were still alive. These weren't valuable, so he considered them new residents for his spatial ocean.
At this time of day, his haul from foraging was unmatched.
The sun began to beat down fiercely, and the sea waves rushed towards the shore. Checking the time, it was 9 o'clock. Li Haochen picked up the plastic bucket and walked towards higher ground.
He had been busy catching fish and picking shells. When he picked up the bucket, it was quite heavy, weighing about thirty catties. Most of it was conch shells; the fish and shrimp only weighed seven or eight catties.
Looking at his harvest, Li Haochen's mind flashed with the idea of starting a live stream. This was real foraging, much more reliable than those messy fake foraging streams. Perhaps he could become a famous foraging influencer.
Forget it, without a team, what kind of influencer could he be? Li Haochen shook his head, returned to the hidden spot, scanned the area again, and after confirming it was safe, entered his space with today's harvest.
The harvest was good. Among the conch shells, there were mostly turban shells and queen conchs, with a good number of red conchs, razor clams, and spicy conchs. There was also a coconut whelk weighing about a catty.
Li Haochen, satisfied, poured all the conch shells at the bottom of the reef on the seashore of Jiuzhou Island. There was no need to take these conch shells home; his space had plenty, and he could get them whenever he wanted to eat.
He left the sea bass and black sea bream. The other spotted scat, golden threadfin bream, and marbled groupers were thrown back into the sea, perhaps to become schools of fish in a couple of years.
He had picked enough coconuts for two days yesterday, so he didn't need to rush today. Sitting on the beach, gazing at the vast expanse of the sea, he recalled the changes since acquiring his spatial dimension. His income had transformed dramatically. The two coconut shops were like money-printing machines. Although they only brought in small amounts of money, it was still better than most people.
Li Haochen's venture into foraging today wasn't a whim, but rather a result of being stimulated. Last night, when he brought ginger soup into Murong Yanran's room, he saw a few bottles of cosmetics with "la" letters on the table were almost used up. He thought about buying a couple of sets for her.
No sooner had the thought occurred than he acted. Li Haochen excitedly returned to his room, took out his phone, opened Taobao, and searched. "Holy cow!"
Li Haochen was instantly petrified, thinking he was hallucinating. He rubbed his eyes and looked again. "Holy cow!"
Such small, thumb-sized items cost thousands? Then those seven or eight oddly shaped cosmetic bottles on Murong's table... Just thinking about it sent a shiver down his spine.
He had previously thought that with his two shops, he could face any situation without panic. However, this incident taught him a lesson.
With his current income, he could only afford to buy one or two sets of cosmetics per month. Poverty truly limits one's imagination!