As a Fisherman, My Fish Can Level Up

Chapter 65: Chapter 65: Nighttime Seaside Journey

Back home, he portioned off ten jin of sea earthworms to sell to Zhao Xia and received six hundred yuan.

He also made a quick call to Zhang Wei, asking him to come pick up the fish in the evening.

When the two arrived, they brought beer and some cooked food, clearly planning to have dinner at his place.

Seeing this, Chu Mingcheng brought out the small hairtail he had caught the night before, cut them into pieces, and fried them directly in oil.

The good thing about hairtail is that they don’t have scales. The silver skin on their body is actually a layer of fat they secrete, which is very nutritious. He also cooked another fish, removed its meat, and added it to Xiao Mi’s meal.

“Ah Cheng, how’s the boat looking?” Inside the house, the three of them took a few sips of beer, and Chen Yang asked first.

He had already prepared the money, but Chu Mingcheng hadn’t come to borrow it yet.

“Do you know how much a twelve-meter class three fishing boat costs?” Thinking back to his initial plan to spend over one hundred thousand on a fishing boat, Chu Mingcheng now felt naive.

“How much? Didn’t Brother Zhao Jun say it would be around one hundred thousand?” Zhang Wei asked curiously.

“What Brother Zhao Jun mentioned was probably something similar to his, but a class three fishing boat with decent equipment costs at least five hundred thousand. So, I borrowed some money from my dad and bought one for eight hundred thousand,” Chu Mingcheng explained.

“Yikes,” Zhang Wei gasped at the high price, “Ah Cheng, you put too much chili powder on this fried hairtail!”

“It needs to be spicy to stimulate the appetite to eat more,” Chen Yang laughed, “I didn’t expect you to go for something so high-end. Aren’t you feeling the pressure?”

He knew a bit about boats himself; he had thought Chu Mingcheng just wanted to buy a boat to fish around the island, not go all out like this.

Chu Mingcheng nodded, “There is pressure, so I plan to expand to Xia City. There are more fish resources there, and I also want to learn free diving, so later I can also go hunting for precious fish.”

“Combining fishing and hunting, and if that doesn’t work out, I can add renting out the boat to make a profit on price differences. I think I might be able to make back the eight hundred thousand within a year.”

Regarding renting the boat, Chu Mingcheng considered it as a last resort. If he could make enough money on his own, he definitely wouldn’t choose to go out to sea with others.

“It’s good you have a plan,” Chen Yang said, seeing that he already had a strategy in mind and said no more.

Zhang Wei seemed a bit disappointed, “Ah, I didn’t expect you to develop in Xia City. I was actually hoping to have you take me fishing during my time off!”

“When you have time, just come to Xia City, and I’ll take you out to sea,” Chu Mingcheng offered.

“Deal!”

Since they had been drinking, Chu Mingcheng arranged for them to sleep at his house to save the cost of calling a sober driver.

…

The ten jin of sea earthworms Zhao Xia had taken were gone, and there were still seven jin left at his house, so he needed to dig up thirteen more jin.

With nothing much to do today and still waiting a few more days for his medical report so he couldn’t register for a driving license test, Chu Mingcheng took the opportunity to go and dig up the sea earthworms.

And he asked Chen Qing and the others to come and take them, which meant another twelve hundred yuan in his account.

Then, Chu Mingcheng maintained his fishing rods, waiting for He Zheng to call him to go fishing for yellow croaker.

But after waiting all day for a call that never came, he had no choice but to continue in his search for new aquatic products, hoping to advance to level 1 soon and gain the ability to swim freely.

This way, even without a fishing license, he could still sneakily dive and catch some easy-to-catch creatures.

In the morning, he first dug up some loaches, and then caught some paddy field crabs, earning an experience point of +2.

In the afternoon, he used the net he had used previously for catching river shrimp and stream rockfish to catch prawns and hairy shrimp in the ditch outside the hatchery gate.

When dried, the hairy shrimp become shrimp shells. If not for the marine life guide, he wouldn’t have even known he caught hairy shrimp, because they were so small.

There was also a mudskipper there, and Chu Mingcheng took some effort to catch a small one.

While catching mudskippers, he unexpectedly caught two types of crabs.

These two types of crabs were Red Claw Crab and opponent crab.

Red Claw Crabs are also known as Tidal Crabs, although they are small, they have one particularly large red claw. Previously, some people around Chu Mingcheng specialized in catching these crabs and frying their claws, which were especially delicious when cooked.

Moreover, in some places, these crabs would be used to make drunken crabs or crab paste.

The “Opponent Crab” is a similar type of small crab. The main way to eat it is also drunken crabs and crab paste.

However, this type of crab is a kind of Opponent Crab which differs from those Chu Mingcheng used to catch back then; these could be sold for money, about ten yuan per half kilogram.

Once those eligible for sale were caught, they would be recorded in the seafood atlas, and now, the experience points had reached 42, with only 8 more needed to level up.

But Chu Mingcheng was having trouble, as he could temporarily think of nothing left to catch at the seaside, so he had to return to Yanmen Island and try his luck when the tide went out in the afternoon.

Looking at the time, before he knew it, it was already October 22.

Today was the 27th day of the ninth month of the lunar calendar, which was a mid-tide period, with the tide receding roughly from four in the afternoon until eleven at night.

After dinner, Chu Mingcheng went with a bucket, sea salt, pliers, a headlamp, and a small spade for seaside foraging.

He first went to the beach where he had caught ghost shrimp last time; after so many days, the beach had already returned to its usual calm.

The ghost shrimps that filled the beach back then must have attracted many marine creatures to come and feed.

But it was likely that there had been many people foraging at the sea during that period, and now there wouldn’t be much left for him to catch.

However, Chu Mingcheng was only there to collect species today and was not concerned about the quantity he could catch.

Searching the beach for shellfish, razor clams, and sand-dwelling snails was typical.

By now, it was nearly six o’clock, the tide had gone out, and the sun had set long ago.

Chu Mingcheng put on his headlamp and turned it on to search for any possible life on the beach. @@novelbin@@

Before long, he spotted a vertical small hole with seawater undulating continuously from high to low.

Chu Mingcheng’s eyes lit up; there was definitely something inside, likely a razor clam.

He dug around the surface of the sand with a small spade and then poured some sea salt into the hole.

After a while, something resembling an elephant’s trunk suddenly shot out of the hole.

Chu Mingcheng didn’t rush to catch it. He waited for it to shoot out a bit more, revealing its shell, and then he grabbed it and pulled the razor clam out of the sand.

The clam was about the size of his index finger, but it had a strong suction force; he felt a distinct resistance as he pulled.

Gained a razor clam, experience points +1.

Chu Mingcheng continued to search the beach. Three minutes later, he finally found a second small hole.

But next to this hole was a small lump; this wasn’t a razor clam but likely a clam.

Chu Mingcheng dug deeply with the spade and scooped out what was inside, only to find a conch.

He guessed wrong, which was slightly embarrassing.

For the next five minutes, Chu Mingcheng found nothing else; beach foraging was indeed very inefficient.

However, he planned to look for another hour before going to the rocky area.

Beach foraging required patience. Chu Mingcheng moved to an area still submerged by sea water and immediately found a starfish.

The size was quite good, bigger than the palm of his hand. He picked it up and placed it in the bucket, experience +1.

In the following hour, Chu Mingcheng found three more types of marine life: hairy clams, jellyfish, and sea anemones.

He checked his experience points, which were now at 47, only 3 points away from leveling up; it was time to go to the rocky area.