I Can Fish Up Everything!

Of the three, however, neither Ye Jing nor Gu Nan were drinkers, and An Jun saw no point in drinking by himself. So, unlike the surrounding tables, they didn’t order any alcohol.

”This pot of lamb is delicious, and the soup is great too. All the nutrients are in the soup; we can’t let it go to waste.”

After eating for nearly an hour, their stomachs were starting to feel stuffed. Seeing half a pot of lamb soup left on the table, Gu Nan personally took the ladle and served them some, pouring it over the last of their rice.

An Jun clutched his stomach and leaned back in his chair, his eyes glazed over.

Ye Jing was in a similar state. He glanced at the soup-soaked rice and felt like the food was about to come right back up his throat.

Only Qu Fujun, sitting not far away, watched with a nostalgic expression. He remembered being able to eat just as much when he was in his twenties. Back then, his mother would call him a glutton every day.

There were eight dishes, all in generous portions. In the end, the three of them didn’t touch the lamb soup again—they simply couldn’t drink another drop.

Gu Nan went to pay. The eight meat dishes and one cold appetizer came to only 620 yuan, which really wasn’t expensive.

If this had been at the Yummy Restaurant last time, it would have cost at least four thousand.

”Why don’t we go for a walk by the sea to burn this off?” Gu Nan suggested.

Being hungry is awful, but being stuffed is just as bad. All three had come on their electric scooters and didn’t feel like heading straight home.

An Jun said, ”A walk? Forget that. Let’s go get a foot massage.”

Ye Jing looked at him with disdain. ”Can you have some class?”

Gu Nan thought, ’Even though I haven’t found a suitable location yet, I can always try my luck.’ He suggested again, ”How about I take the boat out? We can go out on the water and catch the sea breeze.”

”Hey, that’s a great idea!” Ye Jing immediately agreed.

An Jun was a little reluctant, but since his two buddies both wanted to go, he had no choice but to tag along.

If he went back now, he wouldn’t know what to do with himself anyway.

So, the three of them rode their electric scooters to the pier, boarded the boat, and headed out to sea.

The fishing boat sped across the open sea. The moon was reasonably bright tonight, so visibility was decent.

As Ye Jing admired the night scenery, he said, ”Speaking of which, those red sea bream we caught last time were excellent. I took some home, and Nana brought a few back to her place. Everyone in the family said they were delicious. Let’s try our luck and catch a few more later.”

”Then let’s head to Tail Island, where we were last time!” Hearing this, Gu Nan directly set the navigation and switched on cruise mode.

Tail Island’s terrain was very different from Seven-Star Rock in the game, but he decided to try activating it anyway to see the similarity percentage. That would at least give him a baseline.

「About an hour later」

The fishing boat arrived at Tail Island.

Even this late at night, there were quite a few other fishing boats around, with at least a dozen points of light glowing in the dark.

”There are a lot of people out fishing tonight.” The group came out onto the deck, and An Jun commented as he looked around.

”Well, what do you expect with this great weather? People will almost always go out when the weather’s good. There aren’t that many days in a month you can actually go out to sea,” Gu Nan explained, then opened the game to activate the map.

[This terrain’s similarity to Seven-Star Rock has been detected at 77%. As this exceeds 60%, would the host like to activate it?]

[Note: The lower the similarity, the poorer the bite rate. The probability of high-star aquatic products appearing will also be significantly reduced. It is recommended that the host choose a location with a similarity greater than 80%.]

’77%... a bit lackluster.’

Gu Nan’s standards weren’t too high; anything over 80% would be fine.

After all, the Fengqi Coast only had a similarity in the low eighties, but when he fished there, the bite rate at night was excellent, and the morning was decent too. Only the afternoons were a little lacking.

For him, it was enough to have fish biting in the morning and evening. When the sun was out, even a die-hard angler wouldn’t want to bake under the afternoon sun.

Anglers are people too; they don’t like the heat any more than they like the cold.

Still, Gu Nan was genuinely surprised that Tail Island had a similarity of 77%.

The visible terrain above the water was vastly different, so he suspected the underwater reef formations must be what was similar.

”Are we fishing or what?” Ye Jing asked, seeing the other two just standing there in the wind.

”Of course! We’re already here!” An Jun immediately ran into the cabin to find a fishing rod.

Seeing this, Gu Nan had no choice but to take out the Fengqi set’s lures to share. ”We’re relying on luck today. I wasn’t planning on night fishing, so I didn’t prepare any Antarctic krill for chum.”

”No problem. The worst that can happen is we get skunked.” An Jun and Ye Jing didn’t mind; they were just fishing for fun.

Hearing them say that, Gu Nan remembered they could probably find plenty of bait on the reef. ”In that case, why don’t we head over to the reef? There are oysters there we can use for bait.”

An Jun’s eyes lit up. ”Hey, you’re right! We can live off the land!”

Ye Jing chimed in, ”Then, Ah Nan, take us over there. We’ll get some oysters first.”

”Alright.” Gu Nan handed them the foraging shovel and small bucket he kept on the boat, then drove them over to the reef.

He himself took a small detour back to the spot opposite the little beach, took out his inflatable raft, pumped it up, and paddled to the island, climbing from the beach to the reef area.

But when his flashlight beam landed on An Jun and Ye Jing, he saw they weren’t prying open any oysters. They were busy poking around in the rock crevices, clearly foraging for seafood.

”What are you guys doing?”

”Foraging! I caught a big swimming crab, look!” An Jun said, slightly excited as he passed the bucket over.

Inside was not only a swimming crab that looked to be at least three-quarters of a pound, but also two large whelks.

He raised an eyebrow. ’Their luck is this good?’

That swimming crab was a decent size; he just didn’t know if it was meaty or not.

Gu Nan picked up the swimming crab and shone his flashlight on it. It was actually quite plump.

It was July, and by this time of year, swimming crabs were already plentiful. That’s why every year after the fishing season opened in August, returning fishing boats would unload basket after basket of them—there were simply that many.

The tide hadn’t come in yet, so Gu Nan decided to join them and forage for a while.

”Ah Nan, come quick! There’s a big mud crab in this crevice, but I can’t get it out,” An Jun suddenly called out happily, jabbing his foraging shovel into the crevice.

”Let me see, let me see.” Gu Nan immediately went over. The other two made way for him, and when he bent down and peered in, he saw there really was a mud crab, and it looked even bigger than the swimming crab in the bucket.

The other end of the foraging shovel was a hook, designed specifically to pull things out of rock crevices.

Because of their presence, the mud crab inside opened its large pincers in a defensive posture.

Gu Nan offered the hook to the crab’s pincer, letting it clamp down, and then tried to pull it out.

But the crab wasn’t stupid. As soon as it felt its body being dragged, it immediately released its pincer.

In that case, he had no choice but to try hooking the crab’s body. Luckily, the crevice wasn’t deep. Gu Nan used the hook to snag one of its legs and, after a bit of effort, finally managed to pull it out.

The mud crab was still aggressive after coming out, raising its large pincers high.

Gu Nan used the foraging shovel to distract it, while his other hand slowly approached. Seizing a moment of inattention, he suddenly pressed down hard on the lower part of its back.

If you pressed down too close to its eyes, you could easily get pinched by its large claws.

”Amazing! You handled that big mud crab so easily!” Ye Jing exclaimed in admiration. He would never dare to touch the thing himself.

”If you’re going to be an angler, you have to be able to handle a mud crab,” Gu Nan said with a laugh, tossing the crab into the bucket.

It was dark out, so the crab couldn’t see well and wouldn’t just bite randomly.

”Too bad we haven’t seen any sea cucumbers or abalone,” An Jun muttered, his hands on his hips.

Gu Nan rolled his eyes. ”Even if there were any, they would’ve been picked clean by now. You think they’d still be here waiting for you?”

After that, the three of them continued gathering various shellfish and sea snails, and even found two purple sea urchins.

Finding a mud crab in a place like this was a truly rare encounter. The chances of finding a swimming crab were much higher.

But their luck wasn’t that great tonight, and they didn’t find a second one.

Gu Nan noticed the tide seemed to be rising, with the waves crashing against the reef growing larger. ”Come on,” he said, ”let’s find a good spot. The tide’s coming in now, so we should have some luck fishing. We should at least be able to catch some black sea bream.”

Hearing this, Ye Jing and An Jun immediately followed his instructions. They pried open a few oysters first, then found a relatively high spot to prepare for fishing.

They weren’t standing too close to each other, maybe five or six meters apart, but they could still talk.

Both of them knew how to fish now, so Gu Nan let them be. He first smashed some oysters with a rock and tossed them into the water in front of him as chum. Then, he took out a small knife, opened an oyster, scooped out the meat, baited his hook, and cast his line.

All three of them were float fishing to avoid getting their hooks snagged on the bottom.

Unfortunately, he had only brought two of his glow-in-the-dark slip floats, so he gave them to his friends. Gu Nan himself would have to rely on the feel of his rod to know if he had a bite, since he couldn’t keep his headlamp on constantly.

After a short while, his rod twitched, and he felt a light tug.

Gu Nan quickly lifted the rod to set the hook, then rapidly turned the handle, quickly reeling the small fish right out of the water.

The small fish thrashed its tail in mid-air, making the rod tremble, but Gu Nan quickly had it in his grasp.

It was a rather pretty fish, pale gold with a few black spots. It was a small spotted scat.

Its dorsal fins were all erect and fanned out. Gu Nan handled it very carefully to avoid being stung.

If he was careless, he could get stung even with his gloves on. The dorsal fin of a spotted scat, like a scorpionfish, is venomous, and getting stung is absolute agony.

Gu Nan tossed the fish onto the reef beside him. It would die, but there was no helping it. The bucket was full of their foraged seafood, and the livewell was too big to place here.

There wasn’t much of a price difference between a live one and a dead one for this type of fish, so he didn’t care.

He glanced to his sides and saw that An Jun and Ye Jing had also caught something. With that, Gu Nan focused on his own fishing.

During the rising tide, the good bite window would only last for about an hour. He had to make the most of it.

The previous oyster bait had been mangled, so Gu Nan baited his hook with a new piece and cast it out.

About thirty seconds after the bait hit the water, his rod dipped. Another fish was on.

The pull was a bit stronger this time, but not by much.

Just like before, Gu Nan set the hook and reeled the fish straight out of the water.

He thought it was another spotted scat, but this time, he was in for a huge surprise.

”Haha, a Spotted Rockfish!”

An Jun, who was in the middle of baiting his hook, heard him and immediately came closer. ”What? What is it?”

”An angler’s dream fish! A Spotted Rockfish! This thing sells for at least two hundred yuan a pound right now. We’ve hit the jackpot!”

”Holy shit, that expensive?!” An Jun let out a curse, his envy palpable. ”No way, I’ve got to get back to my spot. I need to catch a Spotted Rockfish too.”