Kicked Out After the Family Split, I Made a Living Gathering Seafood by the Shore

Song Beichuan was reborn in 1982, on the summer day his father forced him to split from the family.

In his previous life, he had left with nothing after the split. He took his pregnant wife and two daughters to a ramshackle seaside shack, where the whole village mocked them for "trying to live off the sea breeze."

To prove himself, he worked himself to the bone in the city. In the end, his health gave out, and his wife remarried, taking their daughters with her.

This time, Song Beichuan wasn't going anywhere.

So what if the shack was falling apart? The sea was right outside the door.

Other people saw barren hills and harsh waters. He saw a shore full of treasure.

The keen eye he'd developed over twenty years working his way up in the seafood market in his previous life had become instinct in this one.

On the day of the family split, the Song family gave him a battered cooking pot and two tattered quilts.

His wife, Chen Xiaoman, asked with red-rimmed eyes what they should do. Song Beichuan smiled and said, "Tomorrow, we're going to gather seafood. I'll take care of you three."

The next day, while others spent all morning searching the shore and came back with half a bucket of snails, he dug up thirty pounds of sea cucumbers in two hours.

The Song family stared in disbelief.

The village chief came by, then the owner of the town's restaurant, and then a truck from the county purchasing station.

Song Beichuan put an arm around his wife and watched his three daughters rolling around on the beach. He smiled. This time, no one would ever make his family suffer again.