I Can Fish Up Everything!

Chapter 154: Chapter 121: Typhoon Outside, I Go Beachcombing (Part 3)

"Yeah, we’re fine at my place. It’s not like we haven’t been through a typhoon before." Yi Chen was touched by his concern, though she wouldn’t have called him even if a real problem had come up.

It was more dangerous to go out during a typhoon. As long as the house didn’t collapse, she and her grandmother would be perfectly safe.

Although it was an old house, her father had actually hired someone to renovate it just a couple of years prior.

He wasn’t particularly close to his daughter, but she was his daughter nonetheless. It’s not like he could just completely ignore her.

Besides, his own mother was there too, and as a son, he couldn’t possibly neglect her. It’s just that in modern society, supporting a family is enough to drain a man of all his energy, leaving little left for anything else.

After braving the rain to take Yi Chen home, he ran into her grandmother and chatted for a bit before riding his tricycle back to his rented apartment.

’I’ll buy a car after the typhoon. Getting around on rainy days is such a hassle.’

Back home, he took a shower and lay down comfortably on his bed.

He’d let Yi Chen take the computer so she wouldn’t get bored. Gu Nan himself wasn’t worried about boredom; he had something far more entertaining.

’The new feature: Foraging Mode. How could he possibly resist checking it out?’

But it was still early, so Gu Nan messaged Yi Chen and invited her to play a game. They played together until well after ten o’clock that night.

She wanted to get to bed early, just in case the weather cleared up and she had to go to work the next day.

’Nice. Very disciplined of her!’

The time was about right. The wind howled outside, and rain drummed against the window with a loud RAT-A-TAT. In this kind of weather, no one would be asking him to go out and play anyway.

He settled into bed, closed his eyes, opened the game interface, and selected Foraging Mode.

[Ding! Host’s surroundings detected as safe. Enter Foraging Mode?]

"Yes!"

WHOOSH~

Gu Nan felt a moment of vertigo, followed by a sudden, blinding flash of sunlight.

He shielded his eyes with his hand and slowly opened them.

He found himself standing on a seashore. Wave after wave of seawater washed onto the beach, so clear and transparent it looked like glass.

Gu Nan glanced around, and his expression immediately turned to surprise.

He had thought he was on a beach, but he was actually on a small, deserted island.

The island was indeed small, only about the size of a soccer field. There were no hills, just a small patch of grass in the center where the weeds only reached his calves.

The sun in the sky looked fierce, but he felt no heat as it shone down on him. In other words, it was merely a tool for illumination.

Beside him were a large bucket, a small pail, a pair of gloves, and a long row of plastic bottles. Surprisingly, there was only one kind of foraging tool: something that looked like an air pump.

Gu Nan picked it up to take a look, and an idea immediately clicked in his mind.

He knew what this thing was for—catching mantis shrimp. And weren’t the most famous mantis shrimp from Southeast Asia the Peacock Mantis Shrimp and the Spotted Prawn Shrimp?

The big ones could be as long and thick as an adult’s forearm, and cost over three hundred yuan a pound. A female with roe would go for as much as four hundred.

No wonder he was given so many plastic bottles. Peacock Mantis Shrimp were one thing, but Spotted Prawn Shrimp would fight if they were put together.

He figured that by the time he completed a full circuit, the shrimp would have already battled it out and all be dead. With plastic bottles to keep them separated, that wouldn’t be an issue.

He picked up a plastic bottle and saw that, sure enough, a slit had been cut in its side. He would just have to stuff his catch right in.

He wasn’t sure if it was part of the game’s design for foraging, but the tide happened to be low right now, exposing a vast stretch of sand that was normally underwater.

Foraging was on a time limit, so Gu Nan delayed no further. He quickly grabbed the air pump and the string of roped-together plastic bottles and began searching for small holes.

However, he didn’t need to waste any time searching for the little holes. The moment he reached the wet sand ahead, he found it was absolutely riddled with them.

’No wonder the plastic bottles were piled as high as a mountain,’ he thought. ’If I worked my ass off for three hours only to turn around and see a pitiful haul, what would be the damn point of this mode?’

Spotted Prawn Shrimp burrows usually have two openings, and they’re normally easy to find. But the holes here were so numerous and densely packed that Gu Nan couldn’t tell which two were connected.

’No other way,’ he thought. ’It all comes down to how fast my reflexes are.’

Gu Nan aimed the pump at one of the holes and began pumping furiously.

A hole about a meter to his left suddenly spewed out a jet of seawater, and his eyes lit up.

’So that’s how it works. Still too inexperienced,’ he realized. ’I don’t need to figure out which opening is which. I just pump air into one, and whichever hole nearby spouts water has to be the other end.’

Gu Nan focused his attention on the gushing hole and pumped even faster. Perhaps he used too much force, because a black-and-white striped shrimp, easily the size of his forearm, suddenly shot out with a WHOOSH.

His eyes lit up. He rushed over and pinned it down. He was wearing thick gloves, so he wasn’t afraid the mantis shrimp would hurt him.

The mantis shrimp arched its body and struggled, and he had to admit, it was surprisingly strong.

Gu Nan gripped it tightly and stuffed it into a nearby plastic bottle.

’This is pretty efficient,’ he thought. ’If I keep up this pace, I should be able to catch at least forty an hour.’

The holes he’d already used were now marked, so Gu Nan could recognize them even if he circled back. There was no danger of him pumping the same one twice.

He immediately started on a second hole. The Spotted Prawn Shrimp that shot out this time was much smaller; it looked like it wasn’t even twenty centimeters long.

After a moment of thought, Gu Nan packed it away anyway. ’I can keep the small ones to eat myself. No need to waste the fruits of my labor.’

For the next while, Gu Nan moved across the beach, pumping air into one hole after another. One by one, mantis shrimp were flushed out by the gushing seawater, all of them becoming his trophies.

In just over ten minutes, his string of ten plastic bottles was full.

Worried that the mantis shrimp would become less lively if left out of the water for too long, Gu Nan carried them over to drop them into the large bucket.

The next moment, with a WHOOSH, the entire string of plastic bottles vanished from before his eyes and reappeared in his aquarium. The shrimp, which had been looking listless, instantly regained their vitality.

A look of realization dawned on his face. ’So that’s how this works?’

He then picked up another string of plastic bottles, took the air pump, and moved to a different patch of sand.

Just as he reached his new spot, he was surprised to discover a large pit not far ahead. It looked like something was inside.

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