I Can Fish Up Everything!

Zhao Jie left the seafood shop, perfectly content with his fish. In addition to an India Marlin, he also took a Blue Star Nine-spine Sea Perch, a Blue-striped Gidai, and a Black-striped Small Stripes Buri.

It wasn’t that he looked down on the other fish; he just wanted to develop new dishes first. After launching them for a period, he would then buy other types of fish.

This way, his restaurant could feature different new dishes throughout the year.

When some of his regular customers heard he was introducing new dishes, they would come back to try them.

Yi Chen took the afternoon off to hang out with Zhao Jiajia.

Her old classmate had brought in over ten thousand in sales today, so she would have felt bad if she didn’t treat her to a meal.

It wouldn’t matter even if she spent her entire commission for the day. In the future, she would have at least sixteen thousand in sales every week anyway. If they added other fish, it wasn’t impossible for that number to exceed twenty thousand.

In a month, she could earn an extra four thousand yuan in wages. It would be a shame not to become best friends with such a great old classmate.

It was a rare occasion for Gu Nan to stay and mind the shop. He used the free time to study theory, hoping to get his driver’s license as soon as possible.

For the next three days, he studied theory at the shop, made time in the afternoons to look at boats at the shipyard, and only went fishing after closing up for the night.

The Dragon Boat Festival fell during this period. He had originally planned to close the shop in the afternoon to go home for a bit, which would also give Yi Chen a holiday.

But business was unexpectedly good, so they both decided to keep the shop open and make more money.

Gu Nan hadn’t been fishing as diligently these past few days, mainly because his body hadn’t fully recovered. He was worried that if he hooked another BOSS India Marlin, he wouldn’t be in the right condition to handle it.

Fortunately, he spent the last few nights at Wang Junhe’s secret spot over by the estuary sluice gates, using the bottom fishing method, and no BOSS took the bait.

Gu Nan had now figured out how to target a BOSS. To put it simply, float fishing and the cast-and-retrieve method both had a chance of hooking a BOSS, but bottom fishing did not.

Over the three days, he had looked at more than a dozen used boats, with prices ranging from a low of 120,000 to a high of two million.

The 120,000-yuan boat fit Gu Nan’s budget, but it was in terrible shape. It had a fishy stench that was very unpleasant.

Even though the shipyard had performed basic repairs and maintenance, they couldn’t get rid of the smell.

If even he—a guy who fished every day and ran a seafood shop—could smell it, then other people definitely would. He’d be too embarrassed to even invite friends out on it.

The remaining cheaper used fishing boats were in the 200,000 to 400,000 range. Even the ones just over 200,000 had all the basic equipment.

They had things like navigation systems and fish finders, but they lacked a portable satellite device. The signal would get very poor three or four nautical miles offshore, and beyond ten nautical miles, there was basically no signal at all, unless you were near Lingdou Island.

With that device, you could basically guarantee a Wi-Fi signal for your phone anywhere in domestic waters.

Gu Nan selected five fishing boats himself. Some were priced in the two hundred thousands, others in the three hundred thousands; he wasn’t considering anything over four hundred thousand.

His current savings had reached over 76,000 yuan. By the time he got his license, he might be able to save up to 150,000. He could borrow the rest from An Jun or Ye Jing.

He didn’t dare ask his parents. If they found out he was using money from the seafood shop to buy a boat to go sea fishing, he was afraid they’d break his legs.

Now that he’d scouted out the boats, the next step was to ask Wang Junhe if he knew any experts.

But there was no rush. After three days of casual fishing, Gu Nan felt it was time to challenge the India Marlin again.

After giving Yi Chen money for food for the day, he set out early in the morning on his three-wheeler, carrying a water tank, an aerator, a fishing rod, a tackle box, and a rolling pin. On the way, he stopped to buy some Antarctic shrimp.

’You can’t always find a rock when you need one, so it’s perfectly reasonable to carry a rolling pin, right?’

He didn’t want to go to the bridge pier anymore; it was too dangerous for fishing India Marlins. The platform was too small, and one wrong move could get him pulled into the water.

There was a place Gu Nan knew that was perfect for fishing.

The spot was in a cove south of Yangjiang Port. It was surrounded by reefs, and one submerged reef extended all the way to the center of the cove, where it emerged from the water to form a small reef island.

As long as there were no strong winds or typhoons, it wouldn’t be submerged by the high tide.

The sky was clear and vast today, so he naturally didn’t have to worry about that.

That reef island wasn’t a typical rocky outcrop. Perhaps because the cove was silty, the island had more sandy patches than protruding rocks.

In the past, people used to go there specifically to camp, pitching tents and sleeping overnight.

However, after the Lingdou Bridge was built, everyone started going to Lingdou Island itself. The environment there was better, and you could even camp on the mountainside.

The only trouble with getting to the reef island was that you needed a boat. Occasionally, anglers who owned boats would go there to fish.

Gu Nan had been there twice before, but he hadn’t gone onto the island itself, instead fishing from the reefs along the edge of the cove.

Those two trips, taken before he was bound to the "game," were some of the rare occasions he had actually caught something.

But the place was a bit far. It took forty to fifty minutes—almost an hour—to get there on his three-wheeler, which was why Gu Nan had only been twice. It was just too far.

Today, however, he had a big plan. Whether he could pull it off depended on if he could find a boat to take him over.

He arrived at a pier near the cove. It was the closed season for commercial fishing, but a few people would still go out to sea for recreational fishing.

Gu Nan parked his three-wheeler to the side and walked up to a boat. "Hello, is the captain here?" he asked.

Five anglers on the boat all turned to look at him. Then, a man walked out of the cabin. Judging by his skin tone—the darkest of them all—he had to be the captain.

"I’m the captain. What can I do for you? Looking to charter a boat for some sea fishing?"

"Well, I’d like to go fishing on that reef island in the cove. Could you possibly take me there? I’ll pay for the trip."

One of the anglers laughed when he heard this. "Buddy, if you want to fish, just come out with us. A spot on the boat isn’t too expensive. It’s only eight hundred yuan per person to go out now and come back at four in the afternoon."

’Eight hundred yuan? You can’t even make that back fishing inshore!’

Gu Nan complained inwardly. Seeing the captain look impatient, as if he had no intention of taking him, he quickly said, "I’m planning to stay on the reef island overnight. Captain, how about you take me there, then pick me up tomorrow afternoon around four or five? I’ll give you two hundred."

Such a generous offer surprised everyone nearby who overheard it. The captain, hearing such an easy offer, was about to agree immediately.

But unexpectedly, someone nearby decided to play dirty and swoop in on the deal.

"Buddy, come to my boat! I’ll take you. I guarantee I’ll pick you up on time tomorrow. If you need anything brought over, I can bring it for you when I get back tonight."

"Screw you! Who the hell steals business like that? Believe it or not, I’ll sneak over and poison your fish pens!" After snapping at the guy who’d stolen his customer, the captain’s face changed in an instant, and he beamed at Gu Nan. "Buddy, where’s your stuff? I’ll help you bring it over."

"Let’s add each other on WeChat. If you need anything this evening, like some food brought over, just send me a message."

"Alright. I still have a few things to buy. How soon are you leaving?" Gu Nan asked, taking out his phone to add him on WeChat.

"We’re leaving in about half an hour."

"Oh, that’s enough time." Gu Nan didn’t pay right away. Instead, he went back, got on his three-wheeler, and drove to a nearby outdoor supply store.

Inside, he bought a tent and all the necessary accessories, including a lamp for nighttime use, a small electric fan, and so on.

Then he went to a supermarket and bought mosquito coils, several boxes of self-heating rice, bread, and water. He was clearly preparing to spend the night there.

In the past three days combined, he had only caught about 150 fish from the Fengqi Coast. He was still a long way from Level 10.

Now that he was staying on the reef island, it would be unacceptable not to pull an all-nighter and catch at least three hundred fish.

After buying everything he needed, he moved it all onto the boat. But when the boat owner saw the rolling pin, his expression immediately turned very strange.

’What’s he planning to do with that thing? Self-defense?’

Gu Nan, oblivious to the man’s thoughts, went to park his three-wheeler in a spot at the pier before finally boarding the boat to wait for departure.

Money makes the world go ’round, and it worked just as well on people.

That two hundred yuan was easy, effortless money. No boat owner would refuse it.

He might have even gotten a free ride if he had run into someone particularly good-natured.

But people like that were rare, so being able to solve the problem with money wasn’t bad either.

The few anglers who had chartered the boat started chatting with him. They mostly talked about how great the fishing was offshore, and how, while the cove’s resources were decent, they couldn’t compare to the open sea. They thought he was a sucker for spending two hundred yuan.

In Gu Nan’s eyes, however, *they* were the suckers. It was hard to break even in a single day of inshore fishing. If you spent several thousand to go deep-sea fishing, you could almost always break even and might even turn a profit, unless your luck was terrible.

But deep-sea fishing was exhausting, and it usually took a long time to recover from a single trip.

The fishing boat reached the reef island quickly; after all, it was only about a thousand meters away.

The boat circled around to the inner side, and its bow slowly approached a reef before stopping.

This was the landing spot for fishing boats. The water was deep enough to avoid hitting the reef, and it wasn’t possible to land anywhere else.

A smaller, five- or six-meter boat would have more flexibility and could land almost anywhere.

There was no one on the island today. Perhaps it was too early, or maybe everyone had gone to better fishing spots.

However, there were two anglers in the reef area along the shore, quite a distance away. Gu Nan couldn’t even clearly see the fishing rods in their hands.

After watching the fishing boat leave, Gu Nan moved his things off the reef and began to pitch his tent.

The reef island wasn’t large, only a little bigger than a basketball court.

The terrain was lower on the east side and higher on the west. Gu Nan was on the southwest side, and he needed to take his tent to the higher ground on the west to set it up.

The tent wasn’t hard to set up. It was a small model that could sleep two people at most.

It could keep the rain out, but a strong gust of wind could easily blow it away. It wasn’t the type that could be securely anchored.

Gu Nan had checked the weather report and knew it would be calm and sunny for the next two days, which is why he bought such a convenient model.

Once the tent was pitched, he tossed all the food and drinks inside—everything except the water tank and aerator. He zipped it up, put on his baseball cap, and moved all his fishing gear to the lower ground on the east side.

This side faced the open water, so he couldn’t be seen from either shore. Only fishing boats passing directly to the east would be able to spot him.

But fishing boats generally didn’t enter the cove anyway. If a boat did approach, he could just cut his line and close the map.