Chapter 578: Han Yichen is Missing

"What about the rest?" Han Ruochen asked with a raise of her brow. She knew the reason, but at the same time she wanted to hear it with her own ears. In case those men were to return in the future to work at her docks, she could always refuse them on the pretext that they were the ones who had refused to work with her in the first place. Who asked them to look down at her just because she was a woman?

Old Man Long hesitated; in the end, it was Li Qiufang who spoke up, "They said they don’t want to be unlucky. Women are not allowed at the sea and they are not allowed to climb up on the boat either. When they found out that you were the one who had taken over, they immediately refused to work on these docks and wanted to look for some other docks."

"Say a little less," said Old Man Long as he tugged at the sleeves of the young man’s shirt.

Li Qiufang shrugged off his grip and said in an unfriendly tone, "I did not say anything wrong. They were the ones who said all this nonsense. Miss Han brings in all kinds of treasures whenever she goes to the sea, and she was able to break through such a difficult path. Yet she is being called unlucky by those bastards. It’s clear that they are jealous. They want to be as skilled as her but they cannot even reach touch her basic skills and they are upset over that."

Liu Qiufang was a young man who believed in skills rather than stupid superstitions. He knew that those men were just worried about being suppressed by Han Ruochen, who was more skilled than them. They knew that they were not as good as her and were worried that if they followed her then a girl younger than them would step on their heads. Thus, they refused from the start.

But Liu Qiufang was not the same.

He only cared about the skills. As long as Han Ruochen was more skilled than he was and could teach him new skills, he did not care that she was a woman. For him, a person’s skills were better and more important than their gender. So what if Han Ruochen was a woman? So what if she was young? She was the only one who could do something that everyone said was impossible. She turned impossible into possible. If he did not follow her, whom would he follow?

His train of thought was interrupted by a bunch of loud claps. He raised his head and looked at Han Ruochen in surprise. "Miss Han?"

"I am really impressed. One has to admit that not many are able to say such words." There were not many men in this era who respected women on the basis of their skills. She waved her hands and then said to the three men, "Go and take down the boxes that I have brought from the sea."

Liu Qiufang nodded along with his brothers. Even Old Man Long moved. Even though it was a bit weird for him to listen to the commands of a woman, he felt that what Liu Qiufang said was correct. The three men worked hard to take the boxes down the boat. Once they had settled the boxes down on the docks, Han Ruochen said to them, "Open them."

Her command was weird, which made the three men pause, but they still did as she asked. The three boxes were opened and Old Man Liu, along with the two young men, gasped in surprise. Inside the boxes were sea cucumbers, abalones and rare sea bass. The sight was something that they rarely saw.

"This is the map that I drew. There are three channels drawn on it," explained Han Ruochen. "It works just fine for you three. You can divide these channels between the three of you according to your expertise and catch these things for me. I will give you the base price so you don’t need to worry about being cheated. As long as you follow me, if I eat meat, I will make sure that you all have enough soup to drink."

Though Han Ruochen knew that this was unfair somewhere after all, they were the ones going to the sea and catching seafood, but in the end, it was her who had developed the channels, so it was not that unfair.

Liu Qiufang and the rest also thought the same; in fact, they were quite surprised when they saw Han Ruochen handing them the map. They never thought that Han Ruochen would actually give them a map! And that too with three channels mapped on it.

"Miss Han—"

"Ruochen!" Han Xuehan came running down the docks. Her face was covered in sweat as she came to a stop in front of Han Ruochen. "Ruochen, did you see Dad? He left the house with Ziyan earlier this morning and did not return home till now. I am really worried." In fact, when she saw Dad leaving with Han Ziyan, she asked him to stay at home but Han Ziyan started sobbing and making a fuss, saying why she was targeting her.

In the middle of her crying, she even claimed that her stomach was hurting. Even though Han Ziyan was carrying a bastard, the truth was that if something happened to her, then she would be the one getting into trouble; thus, even though Han Ziyan was acting like a little douchebag, she had no other choice but to let her leave with their father.

But it had been quite some time, and she could not find their father. What was more, it had been three hours and there was no sighting of Han Yichen. Now even if Han Xuehan did not want to worry, she had no choice but to worry about their father. What was going on, and where was their father?