Following Yaya as she carried a bucket through the houses of the fishermen, Xiao Yu noticed that each household had fish and some sea snail and shellfish meat hung out to dry. There was plenty of kelp as well, but strangely, she didn't see any seaweed. "Shouldn't there be seaweed in this season? Why can't I see any?"
Seaweed typically grows on the rocks of the shallow intertidal zone, a place that one could only reach by boat.
Of course, these local coastal reefs had some too, but mostly they were harvested before you could get to them, picked clean by others.
"Yaya, shouldn't we be setting some fish cages?" Xiao Yu asked.
Yaya's face turned red as she replied, "Sister, our fish cages are so broken they can't be used anymore."
That explained it. It made sense why others were heading toward the perilous rocks with their fish cages while they had to carry buckets toward the sandy beach.
