Chapter 017: King Crab

After taking a few steps, he stopped, feeling that he had stepped on something hard—something that didn’t feel like a stone, and it moved!

Gu Tingzhi was reckless as ever. After moving his foot away, he kicked the object again.

It turned out to be a crab! A gigantic crab! He had just stepped on one of its legs.

Mimicking Qinghe, he held up the crab’s two largest claws, his eyes squinting with a smile. “Manman, tonight you’ll get to eat crab!”

“Help! Is that really a crab in my husband’s hand?” Zhen Mier and Gu Qinghe both turned pale with fright.

The creature did resemble a crab, but its size was enormous—when fully stretched out, it looked about four and a half feet long! Its body was covered with sharp protruding spikes, but it only had one pair of pincers and three pairs of walking legs. Its back was brown, while its underside was lighter in color, giving it a strange and somewhat terrifying appearance. Could this be the ancestor of all crabs?

“Hu-husband, quickly bring it to the shore and secure it properly. Be careful not to get bitten,” Zhen Mier urged.

Gu Tingzhi nodded and started walking toward the shore.

Hmm? What’s that? Right where the big crab had been lying, there was a faintly glowing cluster of something.

Gu Tingzhi grabbed the crab’s two large pincers with one hand, bent down, and curiously picked up the white object.

It looked like a large white shell.

Gu Tingzhi found it beautiful—round and white, somewhat like Manman—so he picked it up and brought it ashore, placing it into a bucket.

“Third brother, doesn’t this look like a turtle?” Gu Qinghe touched the white object curiously. She had seen turtles before, but this didn’t quite look like one.

“Maybe it’s a different species of turtle,” Gu Tingzhi guessed.

He intended to put the crab into the bucket as well but found the bucket too small. The crab was just too large to fit!

It was still a bit early to return home—they hadn’t caught any fish yet.

Gu Qinghe came up with a clever idea. She dashed into the forest, pulled some vines, and hurried back.

Together, the three of them bound the creature tightly like a zongzi (rice dumpling), ensuring it wouldn’t escape.

They didn't rest but headed back to the river, quickly noticing that, for some reason, the fish nearby had suddenly increased in number.

Perhaps they were just excited from catching the giant crab, or maybe the heavy fishing upstream had driven all the fish downstream.

Gu Tingzhi struck repeatedly, catching over twenty fish with his bare hands alone! Zhen Mier and Gu Qinghe gasped in amazement. Eventually, they stopped fishing and picked up the fish behind Gu Tingzhi.

Gu Tingzhi’s strength was extraordinary. With one strike of his stick, four or five fish leapt out of the water, too fast for the others to catch.

In the end, their three large buckets were full, and only then did they stop.

Gu Tingzhi had taken a particular liking to crabs that day. Besides the giant one, he had caught about thirty smaller ones. With no buckets left, he glanced at the bound strange creature and, mimicking the method, tied up the smaller crabs too, stringing them together like a vine of gourds.

Fearing too much attention, the three took a shortcut home.

When they arrived, everyone else was already back. They were discussing the fish sold to Wenyue Restaurant today—fifteen wen per jin for live fish, nine wen per jin for dead fish. Although the price was lower for dead fish, the quantity was substantial, earning nearly one or two taels of silver.

Mrs. Zhou held the copper coins joyfully.

Heaven had closed a door on their family, but hadn’t sealed the house completely; a small window remained open on the side. With Sanlang’s hunting and fishing skills, even if things couldn’t improve much, they wouldn’t go hungry. This gave her some peace of mind for when she and the old man eventually passed on.

Gu Lizong patted her shoulder silently, his worldly-wise eyes full of quiet satisfaction.

Mrs. Zhou put the silver away and went to the kitchen. Neither daughter-in-law was skilled at cooking fish, so she planned to prepare the meal herself.

The three of them busied themselves in the kitchen when Mrs. Zhou heard her husband calling her, his voice trembling slightly. She hurriedly washed her hands and left the kitchen.

Soon, a stifled exclamation came from the yard. “My heavens! How on earth did you catch this?”

Lin Huiniang and Su Hehua exchanged curious glances. After washing their hands, they also went to the front yard.

Seeing the three large buckets brimming with fish and a long string of crabs, everyone was momentarily speechless.

Gu Lizong was different. He paced around the giant crab again and again, his face flushed with excitement, whispering, “I can’t be mistaken. I definitely can’t be mistaken!”

The family looked at him puzzled, not understanding.

Gu Lizong quickly stepped forward and bolted the yard gate.

Then, trembling, he lifted the enormous crab and said softly, “Follow me.”

Once everyone was inside the main hall, Gu Lizong anxiously peeked outside several times to ensure no one was around, then quietly closed the hall door.

His nervousness infected everyone, who tensed up.

Gu Tingzhi had been playfully pinching Zhen Mier’s hand but stopped when he sensed the shift in atmosphere.

Gu Lizong, seeing their tense faces, lowered his voice and said, “This is not an ordinary crab. It is the king of crabs, also known as the Emperor Crab.”

The family was confused, unable to grasp the meaning fully, but hearing “Emperor” knew this was no ordinary delicacy.

“When I was young, an elder in the village caught one too, though not as large as this. I was fortunate to see it.”

“Legend says the Emperor Crab is a rare delicacy from the ocean, living at depths of over seventy feet. This one must have floated from the tributaries of Litang River into the Changyun Canal.”

“What happened to that elder after he caught the Emperor Crab?” Gu Qinghe asked, unable to contain her curiosity.

“No one in the village really knew. The old man thought it was just a big crab and sold it at the market.”

Everyone held their breath at this.

“The old man got ten taels of silver for it, selling it to a merchant in town.”

They all sighed in relief—silver was silver, and ten taels would support their family for a long time.

“The merchant then resold the Emperor Crab to the county, fetching one hundred taels of silver!”

A chorus of gasps filled the hall.

One hundred taels! They had never seen so much silver in their lives!

“The old man was so happy to get ten taels that he boasted about it to everyone. A young man studying at the county school heard about the merchant’s hundred-tael sale and told the old man.”

“At that moment, the old man spat out blood in anger.”

“Before he could recover, he disregarded his family’s advice and went to the county himself to investigate.”