Chapter 295: The Sea Eagle Again

After finally seeing off the crowd of onlookers, it was already lunchtime.

"Let’s go, let’s go! We’ll eat on the boat."

Instant noodles and big white steamed buns.

Of course, they still had to make some preparations.

With so many people, one boat definitely wasn’t enough, so they had to find another one.

The main plan for today was to give Chu An, the two Shen family brothers, and Wang Hongfei a taste of the sea. They decided to just find an island to have some fun on instead of fishing.

Shen Yunlian and Wang Mei couldn’t get away. The family was raising two pigs, and now they had to gather pig feed for them every day.

When they first started raising the pigs, Yun Jiao and her older brothers were quite excited, but the novelty wore off after a while.

The two pigs ate a lot every day and were a hassle to deal with. Most importantly, they stank.

They pooped everywhere after eating, so the pigsty had to be cleaned out every day.

Pork is delicious, but pigs are genuinely hard to raise. Plus, you have to raise them for about a year before they’re ready to be eaten.

"Mommy, Little Aunt, bye-bye! Jiaojiao will bring something back for you!"

Wearing a wide-brimmed straw hat and carrying a small cattail-leaf fan, her little bucket, a burlap sack, a water bottle, a small pouch, and some snacks, Yun Jiao marched proudly behind her father and little uncle.

Chu An was worried. "Let me help you carry some of that. It must be tiring for you to hold so much, Jiaojiao."

"Not tired at all!"

Yun Jiao insisted on carrying her own things.

Yun Chen Nan laughed. "You should worry about yourself. Jiaojiao’s a lot stronger than you are."

"Heh, I don’t believe it."

Yun Chen Nan glanced at him. "Are you sure you don’t want a straw hat? What if you get a sunburn?"

Chu An glanced at Jiaojiao. "It can’t be that bad. I do plenty of work at home, I’m not that delicate. Besides, didn’t you say Jiaojiao goes out to sea all the time? Why is her skin so fair and smooth?"

The two men of the Yun family, Yun Linhai and Yun Linhe, on the other hand, were indeed deeply tanned.

"She just doesn’t tan. She was born that way."

By the time they finished talking, they had already reached the dock.

Yun Linhai and Yun Linhe went to different boats, and the group split up between them.

"Hold on tight! Here we go."

Watching the sculling made Chu An and Yun Jiao’s two cousins eager to try. After a little while, they asked to have a go.

Yun Linhe and Yun Linhai let them have a try.

And then...

"You’re going sideways! No, wait, why are we going backward?!"

"Stop spinning in circles! I’m getting dizzy!"

It was complete chaos.

’This was a classic case of something that looked easy when someone else did it. Your brain thinks it understands, but the moment you try it yourself, you realize you have no idea what you’re doing!’

Chu An said sheepishly, "I guess there’s more of a trick to this than I thought, huh."

Yun Linhe laughed heartily. "It’s normal to be clumsy the first time. When we were first learning, all sorts of things went wrong for us too."

"Here, let me take over."

"Daddy, Daddy! Let me do it! You take a rest."

From the other boat, Yun Jiao’s high, childlike voice rang out.

Everyone looked over at her.

Then they saw Yun Jiao grab the sculling oar and start working it with furious speed, her movements even faster than Yun Linhai’s. With a WHOOSH, the boat shot forward.

Chu An: ...

The two Shen brothers: ...

Wang Hongfei: ...

’Seriously? This makes us look completely useless. We can’t even compare to a four-year-old.’

Yun Chen Nan patted Chu An’s shoulder. "Don’t be fooled by Jiaojiao’s size. She’s incredibly strong, and this isn’t the first time she’s helped scull the boat."

Chu An gave a dry laugh. "Jiaojiao really is... multi-talented, huh."

Yun Linhe resumed sculling and followed after them.

Soon, Chu An was shocked to find that even after all this time, Yun Jiao was still the one sculling the boat up ahead. She looked incredibly energetic and cheerful, not tired in the slightest.

’Wait, is this even possible?’

’Such a little kid, sculling for so long!’

He turned his head to ask Yun Chen Nan, only to find the guy looking completely unfazed, as if this was normal.

Even the two Shen brothers were perfectly calm.

The only exception was Wang Hongfei, who also looked a bit surprised. After all, he hadn’t spent that much time with Yun Jiao, and she hadn’t really shown off her incredible strength in front of him.

Yun Jiao sculled for over half an hour before Yun Linhai took over for her.

She sat back down in the boat and pulled a large white steamed bun from her little pouch. Just as she was about to stuff it in her mouth, she noticed that on the boat catching up behind them, Chu An and her cousins were staring at her as if they had seen a ghost.

Yun Jiao: ???

Her little face was a picture of bewilderment.

A smile played on Yun Chen Nan’s lips. "They’re just surprised by your strength."

Yun Jiao said, "Oh." In that case, it was fine. She was used to it.

’Besides, this is nothing.’

Yun Jiao went back to eating her bun.

Halfway through her snack, a noise came from beneath the boat.

’That sound is a little familiar.’

She leaned over the side of the boat and, sure enough, saw two large sea turtles swimming alongside them.

Yun Jiao waved at them.

"Gui Yi! Turtle Two!"

She broke off a piece of her steamed bun and tossed it into the water. The two sea turtles unceremoniously snatched it up, ate it slowly, and then resumed following the boat.

Chu An looked astonished. "You know the sea turtles here?"

Yun Chen Nan said, "Yep. Those two get along really well with Jiaojiao."

This time, Wang Hongfei looked completely composed. "That’s nothing. Jiaojiao is on good terms with a whole pod of killer whales."

"You’ve never seen someone ride a killer whale in the ocean, have you? Let me tell you, it’s a real thrill..."

Chu An’s jaw dropped. "A k-killer whale?!"

’What? Are you serious? Not only does she know killer whales, she can ride them for fun in the ocean?’

Wang Hongfei gave him a look that screamed, ’What a country bumpkin.’

"Yep. Jiaojiao is pretty popular with the big fish in the sea."

He had completely forgotten that the first time he’d witnessed it, he had been just as shocked as Chu An.

"There’s an island up ahead. Let’s go there."

It was an island they hadn’t explored before.

The two boats pulled up to the island. After the group disembarked, those who were foraging on an island for the first time looked at everything with wide-eyed wonder.

"There are so many sea snails on this reef, and they’re pretty big!"

Chu An pointed to a patch of reef densely covered in mussels.

"What are these? Can you eat them?"

It was obvious he knew nothing about the sea.

"Mussels. Of course you can eat them. They’re not worth much, though. Be careful when you’re gathering them; the edges of the shells are very sharp."

"Okay, okay, okay..."

He didn’t care whether they were valuable or not—as long as they were edible, he was happy. He eagerly ran off to start prying them off.

Yun Linhai scanned the area. "There are a lot of mussels here, and they look pretty plump. Let’s gather a bunch to take back."

Yun Jiao announced, "I’m going to go look somewhere else."

"Go ahead, but be careful not to fall."

Yun Jiao picked up her little bucket and burlap sack and headed off in another direction.

She wasn’t in any rush to find anything, humming a tune and bobbing her head as she walked.

SCREECH!

A bird’s cry echoed from the sky. The moment Yun Jiao looked up, she saw something tumbling erratically down toward her.

’Dodge!’

The instant she dodged, the object landed with a flurry of feathers right where she had been standing.

’Huh? That looks familiar.’

"Oh, it’s you, you big dumb bird."

Staring at the floundering creature clutched in its talons, Yun Jiao was left speechless.

"You’ve got to be kidding me. Did you grab something too heavy and fall out of the sky again?"