Chapter 1157 — Let Me Tell You a Secret

"This is just too easy. Watch me!" An Jianwen thought. This was a fine chance to show off his courage, so he mustered every ounce of strength and said to the abalone: "Little abalone, here I come!"

Only, An Jianwen's thinking was far too simple. The abalone clung to the reef as though it had been glued there — the suction was enough to give even an ox trouble prying it loose! An Jianwen, however, had no idea. He simply took the abalone for something like a clam, and assumed he could just pick it up.

So the moment An Jianwen gave it a pull, he felt something was off. Why was this abalone so tight, as if it had grown onto the reef?

"Taizao, come and give me a hand! Let's both pull it off together!" An Jianwen ordered Su Taizao.

"Sure, let's pull together!" Su Taizao was afraid of ghosts and afraid of sharks, but a mere little abalone was nothing at all to him. The two of them, one on each side, began to tug at the abalone with all their might.

"Go, Brother Jianwen! Go, Brother Taizao! Sister Yaoyao's watching you!" Shen Yushu cheered them on while she and Feng Xiaoxiao slipped away, leaving just the two fools straining away at the abalone for all they were worth.

Shen Yushu and Feng Xiaoxiao ran over to Gu Mengyao and Tang Yun, and at once doubled over with laughter.

"What's gotten into you two?" Gu Mengyao asked, eyeing them in puzzlement.

"An Jianwen and Su Taizao are over there pulling abalone off with their hands!" Shen Yushu said.

"Pulling abalone off with their hands?" Gu Mengyao was stunned. "Can you even pull those off by hand? Don't you need special tools to get them off? Weren't we watching that episode of Animal World once — the one about abalone?"

"That's right, those two idiots must never have seen it, thinking you can just pull abalone off with your hands!" Shen Yushu said. "Let them pull. At least we don't have to worry about them bothering us."

Gu Mengyao shook her head. This Shen Yushu really was wicked enough.

Wei Zhao had not gone into the sea. He sat quietly on the beach, watching the crowd frolicking in the water. He had to keep them safe.

"Hubby Wei Zhao, can you come into the water and play this time? You lied to me before, saying you couldn't swim, but Xiaoshu says you even rescued her!" Feng Xiaoxiao looked at Wei Zhao on the shore with a touch of grievance. On that seaside outing Zhong Yongliang had organized, Feng Xiaoxiao had wanted Wei Zhao to come into the water and play with her, but Wei Zhao had refused on the excuse that he couldn't swim. Yet as her acquaintance with Shen Yushu deepened, Feng Xiaoxiao learned more and more about Wei Zhao.

"I'm not going. You all play first," Wei Zhao said, shaking his head.

Naturally, Feng Xiaoxiao was not about to let Wei Zhao off so easily. With Feng Xiaoxiao leading the charge, they began splashing water at Wei Zhao on the shore; Shen Yushu quickly joined the fray, and Tang Yun, after a moment's hesitation, joined in the mischief as well.

The young miss was a little conflicted now. With her old temperament, she would never have joined Shen Yushu in such foolishness, but now even Tang Yun had thrown herself in, and if she did not join, she would look rather like an outsider.

So the young miss began splashing water at Wei Zhao too. Wei Zhao did not mind; he smiled slightly. "I've been sitting on the beach getting a bit hot anyway — your splashing cools me down, like a cold rinse."

"Sisters, how about we push Arrow-Brand Bro into the sea?" Shen Yushu was not pleased, and began rallying the troops.

"Yes!" Feng Xiaoxiao was the first to agree.

Tang Yun had actually loosened up as well; it was her first time out to play, and she ought to enjoy it to the fullest, so she answered Shen Yushu's call, and together they ran ashore to drag Wei Zhao toward the water.

Wei Zhao had not expected Tang Yun to hit it off with Shen Yushu too; he was rather surprised, but he gave her face and went along into the sea.

Over there, An Jianwen and Su Taizao were miserably wrestling with the abalone! Hearing the laughter from this side, An Jianwen wanted to weep but had no tears: "Why is this abalone so hard to pull off? Has it grown onto the reef?"

"Who knows, An-ge. I've already put every bit of strength I have into it, and this abalone hasn't budged an inch!" Su Taizao smiled bitterly. "You don't suppose there's something wrong with this abalone? That girl Shen Yushu is always setting people up. How about we switch to a different one?"

An Jianwen figured that made sense — Shen Yushu did always set people up, so this abalone might well be a trick. So he and Su Taizao went to pull at other abalones, but the instant they pulled, it felt exactly like the one before: stuck fast to the reef, not shifting a hairsbreadth!

"Could all the abalone have something wrong with them?" An Jianwen frowned.

"Can't be. These are all wild abalone — they don't look like they've been tampered with either?" Su Taizao was puzzled too.

"Forget it, no more pulling. Doesn't Shen Yushu want to eat abalone? Let's go ashore and call Yang Ganglou, have him buy a few catties of abalone and bring them over. It was her own idea yesterday anyway — you don't have to dive into the sea for seafood!" An Jianwen said.

"True enough!" Su Taizao and An Jianwen went ashore together, abandoning any thought of pulling more abalone, and went back to the tent to phone Yang Ganglou — not only to have him buy a few catties of abalone, but to pick up some shark meat as well.

"Xiaoshu, An Jianwen seems to have given up on the abalone!" Feng Xiaoxiao said, glancing toward the shore.

"How about we mess with him again?" Shen Yushu's eyes flickered, and a scheme came to mind.

"Sure! How?" Feng Xiaoxiao agreed without a second thought.

"All you have to do is this and that..." Shen Yushu and Feng Xiaoxiao began to plot together.

Before long, the two of them went ashore and walked up to An Jianwen.

"Brother Jianwen, come here a moment, I'll tell you a secret..." Shen Yushu beckoned to An Jianwen.

"Oh? What secret?" An Jianwen did not dare treat it lightly. Though he suspected that whatever secret Shen Yushu had to tell was unlikely to be anything good, he still walked over.

"Come, lend me your ear!" Shen Yushu motioned for An Jianwen to bend down — she was not as tall as he was, so naturally she could not reach his ear.

"What is it, exactly?" An Jianwen bent down.

Shen Yushu pressed her mouth close to An Jianwen's ear, and suddenly shrieked: "Waaah—aah!"

An Jianwen leapt a foot in the air, startled by Shen Yushu's sudden scream. His ear rang with a buzzing din — she had nearly deafened him! An Jianwen's temper flared at once. Wasn't Shen Yushu going too far? A bit of joking around was one thing, but this was trying to frighten him to death!

"Look here, little sister Xiaoshu, you're this old and still playing children's games? This is a kindergarten-level prank — you nearly deafened me!" An Jianwen clapped a hand over his ear, his face dark.

For the fastest updates and pop-up-free reading, please.