Old Uncle Seven waited patiently for Cao Mang to get aboard the boat. He always slept in the newly built fish store by the shore, guarding his beautiful boat. The villagers who came to see his boat all thought it was beautiful, and they also all considered it was ill-fated.

And Cao Mang never came. So Old Uncle Seven decided to hang up the seine net for now and go out into the shallow waters with his two sons to set the drift net.

The three of them rowed the boat out to sea.

The water in the shallows was a seductive blue and the ripples were so gentle. When the spray from the oars soaked them it felt wonderful. Strands and strands of seaweed, flock after flock of sea gulls. When the gulls flew over the boat you could see their snowy white bellies. The two sons were very happy, they puffed out their cheeks and greeted the gulls with high-pitched whistles. For Old Uncle Seven, the first time at sea was very important, but he suppressed the excitement at the bottom of his heart. When he saw his sons behaving the way the were he was slightly unhappy.

"Set the net!" he shouted.

His sons cast in the net. He rowed hard, watching the tiny whirlpools created by the tips of the oars, and the strings of small, very white bubbles rising from the brine. The great sea was too still, like someone smiling maliciously. Uncle Seven uttered not a word as he went about his work. He had things on his mind. It had been more than a dozen years since he last was tossed about on the sea and yet today all of his feelings and impressions lacked a sense of the genuine .... His younger son clumsily pulled on the ropes controlling the net. His back was bent over by exertion and his vertebra protruded like some broken old bow. He picked up the floats with his hands and arduously tried to untangle the iron rings on the bottom of the net. His brother came over to help, thrusting his rump in the air with the effort, his small, torn trousers loomed directly before his father's face. No matter how much sun they got his legs were never tanned enough, a greyish hue showed through their whiteness and a purple vein crept down from the top of his thigh. Uncle Seven shouted out; "Give it a little slack, the current'll pull it out." As he called out he thought to himself that he hadn't done well by these two son's of his: They had grown to this age and they still hadn't eaten a good meal of fish! They had been fortunate enough to be born by the sea, but because their father didn't have the guts, they hadn't eaten fish. There was once that he had caught a few loaches off the bank of the Luqing River. He fried them up in the wok and let his son's fight over them ... Uncle Seven's gaze moved from his sons to the fine looking plastic net floats bobbing in a line behind the boat.

After the drift net had been set they set out the small black flags which were required by seafaring rules to mark each section of the net. Then they rowed back.

The tide was going out, so they had to get out and push the boat over the shoals in the shallower places. For a while, after the three of them, father and sons, pushed the boat up onto one shoal, they didn't feel like going to shore. They lay on their backs in the shallow water and let the water sprinkle fine golden sand over them. The sun baked everything hot and, like many pairs of small soft hands, the current flowed warmly over and under their bodies, lightly caressing them as it passed. It had been a long time since Old Uncle Seven had had this kind of sensation. He happily set his beard in motion, letting the breath flowing from his nostrils blow aside the water and sand which slowly flowed over his face.

When he turned to look towards the north his face immediately tensed up. Behind a layer of mist he could vaguely make out a black shadow like two banks of dark clouds failing into the sea. The black shadow grew larger and larger and exposed itself as a dark reef on the face of the tide: It was like a huge shark which had run aground.

Old Uncle Seven closed his eyes and, as if talking to himself, yet at the same time talking to his sons, said: "That's where Cao De died. That's the Black Shark Sea. From ancient times it's been a dangerous place, and the place where the big fish are. A lot of people died that time. They drown, or froze to death, and some were frightened to death .... One day I want to put my seine net down over there."

The two boys stared at their father's face but didn't speak......

As dark began to fall they started to go and bring up the drift net.