The Fish I Catch Can Level Up-Chapter 208: The Groupers in the Nansha Islands are Huge
"Luoluo, come on, let me take your hand."
"No, it's okay. I want to try swimming on my own for a bit. If I'm good, you can go do your own thing!"
Jiang Luoluo refused Chu Mingcheng's kind offer, mostly because she was afraid of holding up his hunt.
Even though she'd only had one lesson before, with the help of her flippers, she could still glide across the water's surface with ease. She wouldn't have any trouble.
Seeing this, Chu Mingcheng let her be for the time being and started searching the nearby area for suitable prey.
The resources in the Nansha Islands were truly incredible. He had only swum five or six meters out when he spotted what looked like a massive lobster hiding in a crevice between the corals below.
The lobster's body was almost completely concealed in the rock fissure. The only reason Chu Mingcheng knew it was huge was that the antennae sticking out were incredibly thick and long. You could tell at a glance this was no ordinary catch.
He dove into the water, heading for the bottom.
Only when he got close to the crevice could he truly appreciate just how massive the lobster inside was.
In terms of head size, this lobster was easily as big as his own. Its body was a deep red, and at first glance, it looked quite a bit like an Australian lobster.
Chu Mingcheng couldn't identify the exact species. There were simply too many types of lobsters to recognize them all. Besides, a lobster this size would look vastly different from its younger self; it was normal for a non-expert not to recognize it.
By now, Jiang Luoluo had followed him over. When she saw the enormous lobster below, she got so excited that she let out a stream of bubbles, which was a comical sight.
Chu Mingcheng patted her on the shoulder, signaling for her to calm down.
He then swam to the front of the coral crevice, reached in, and grabbed the lobster directly.
But catching the lobster was one thing; controlling it was another.
The moment it was pulled from the crevice, it began to thrash its tail with incredible force.
Caught off guard, Chu Mingcheng actually lost his grip, and it broke free.
The lobster immediately started flapping its tail to escape, but its speed was surprisingly slow. It was nothing like the swift darting of smaller lobsters; it just couldn't run very fast.
Chu Mingcheng immediately went after it. Once a lobster like this was spotted, as long as it didn't vanish from the hunter's sight in an instant, it was destined to be caught.
Jiang Luoluo followed behind with the underwater camera for a short distance, but she ran out of breath and had to return to the surface for air.
She hadn't specifically practiced breath-holding, so she couldn't stay underwater for long.
Chu Mingcheng glanced back at her, confirmed she was okay, then kicked his feet and shot above the lobster.
After a short run, the lobster settled onto a patch of coral and started crawling, as if it thought it could escape that way.
But in the end, it was caught again in Chu Mingcheng's two hands.
And this time, no matter how hard it flapped its tail, it couldn't break free.
Chu Mingcheng swam to the surface, holding the lobster up. He saw Jiang Luoluo swimming toward him and said, "Luoluo, you're in for a treat tonight. We've achieved lobster freedom on our very first day."
"Ah? We're going to eat it? A lobster this big must be worth a lot of money if we take it back, right?"
Jiang Luoluo had just come over, ready to film the lobster up close! She hadn't expected Chu Mingcheng to want to eat it and immediately voiced a different opinion.
"What are you thinking! We're going to be in the Nansha Islands for over twenty days. This lobster won't survive until we get back to shore!"
"Oh... I guess you're right!"
Since it wouldn't make it back to shore alive, the lobster in Jiang Luoluo's eyes instantly transformed from a pile of money into a delicious meal. Only live lobsters were valuable; no one wanted to buy dead ones.
Chu Mingcheng brought the lobster back to the boat, first filling the fish box with some water, then placing the lobster inside and turning on the aerator.
He didn't want it to die before evening.
"Ah Cheng, you go hunt. How about I follow behind and film you?" Jiang Luoluo could tell that Chu Mingcheng was holding back on his hunting because he was worried about her.
On her way over just now, she had not only seen all sorts of brightly colored coral fish but also spotted many top-grade groupers.
It would be a shame to let these fish go. And she felt that as long as she was just floating on the surface, there wouldn't be any problems, so she proactively offered to be his camera operator.
This way, with her right beside him, Chu Mingcheng could also be more at ease.
"Alright, then you can follow me for now. If you get tired, just go back to the boat and rest."
"Mm-hmm, I won't push myself."
Since he would be hunting among the coral reefs, Chu Mingcheng took his carbon fiber speargun from the boat.
Using a wooden speargun in this environment would be overkill. A carbon fiber speargun or even a fish spear was much more suitable.
As for catching live fish, Chu Mingcheng didn't even consider it.
They were going to be at sea for over twenty days—what kind of fish could possibly survive until they got back to shore?
If the boat could stop by a coral reef on the last day, then he might consider catching some live fish to take back.
Holding his speargun, Chu Mingcheng floated on the surface, his head submerged as he searched for suitable prey.
The resources in Nansha were truly abundant. Along the way, he spotted many parrotfish. The prices for these fish varied, and normally, he might have gone after them.
But he had seen several red groupers earlier. Those fish were much more valuable, making the parrotfish suddenly seem less appealing.
After swimming for about twenty meters, they arrived in an area where the water was about ten meters deep.
Soon, Chu Mingcheng spotted several swallowtail groupers at the bottom.
This fish had a tail like a swallow's and was covered in small spots, much like a leopard coral grouper, which was why it was also called a swallowtail leopard coral grouper.
Wild swallowtail groupers were much cheaper than imported wild leopard coral groupers. After being flash-frozen, they sold for about two hundred and twenty yuan per jin.
Chu Mingcheng got to within five meters, and seeing that the fish still weren't wary, he continued to approach slowly.
It wasn't until he was within three meters that they finally sensed a hint of danger and began to move away.
Chu Mingcheng stopped on a large piece of coral, locked onto his target, and began to aim his speargun.
He was aiming for the largest swallowtail grouper. It looked to be over sixty centimeters long, possibly weighing as much as ten jin.
When the swallowtail grouper turned its side toward him, Chu Mingcheng aimed for a second, then immediately pulled the trigger.
With a "thump," the spear pierced the fish right behind its gills.
The other swallowtail groupers scattered in all directions, leaving only the largest one struggling in the water. Blood quickly stained the surrounding area.
Chu Mingcheng let go of the speargun and, holding the line, swam toward the surface.
Once he broke the surface, he didn't stop. He slowly pulled on the line, reeling in the still-struggling fish.
Once fatally wounded, no matter how large the fish, it was difficult to escape the hunter.
Five minutes later, the swallowtail grouper hung motionless as Chu Mingcheng pulled it to the surface.
But don't think it was dead just like that. As Chu Mingcheng reached out to grab the fish and use his diving knife to bleed it, it suddenly thrashed its tail and broke free in an instant.
But it was too late. Its nerves had already been severed, and blood was pouring from its gill cover like a faucet.
Basically, any fish caught spearfishing would be bled immediately.
This kept the meat fresh for longer and prevented it from being tainted by the blood.
Jiang Luoluo captured the entire scene on camera. This was also the first time Chu Mingcheng's spearfishing had been filmed from a third-person perspective.
He clipped the fish to his stringer and continued to pursue the school of swallowtail groupers.
But this time, something unexpected happened during the chase. A large fish, its body a pale blue with fine spots, appeared in his line of sight.
Chu Mingcheng recognized the fish at once—a beautiful blue-spotted grouper, also known as a camouflage grouper.
He had seen this fish in a seafood market before. A live wild one could sell for three hundred yuan per jin, but the wild ones were never larger than five jin, usually only one or two.
Of course, farmed ones generally didn't get too large either. After all, fish farming was a business, and raising them too big wasn't cost-effective.
And the reason this blue-spotted grouper had caught Chu Mingcheng's attention was that it was huge.
It was a whole size larger than the swallowtail grouper he had just hunted. It was probably just shy of a meter long.
It would be a real shame not to go after a fish this big.
He aimed his speargun, and in an instant, the spear pierced the fish's belly.
To preserve the fish's appearance, Chu Mingcheng generally avoided aiming for the head, so it wouldn't have an obvious hole in it, which would look bad.
This fish struggled much more fiercely than the swallowtail grouper from before. In a short time, its thrashing had stirred up all the sand from the bottom.
Unable to see the fish for a moment, Chu Mingcheng had no choice but to swim to the surface and slowly pull on the line.
He saw Jiang Luoluo swim over and temporarily put down her camera, so he offered the line to her. "Want to give it a try?"
"I'd better not. What if the fish gets away!" Jiang Luoluo hesitated for a moment, then shook her head and refused.
"It's fine, the spear has already gone through its body. It can't escape."
"Oh, really? Then I'll try!"
Hearing that the fish couldn't get away, Jiang Luoluo confidently handed the camera to Chu Mingcheng and took the line.
The moment the line was in her hand, she was caught off guard, and her whole body was pulled down.
The fish had been forcefully pulled up a little, but when she took over, there was a moment of slack, which made the fish think it had a chance to escape. So it suddenly pulled with all its might, dragging Jiang Luoluo down with it.
Startled, she quickly tightened her grip, trying her best to pull the fish back.
It was only in that moment that she realized just how difficult it was for Chu Mingcheng to so easily pull fish in.
A person has no leverage in the water. When you pull a fish from the surface, you're relying on your own buoyancy and weight to wear down the fish's stamina.
If you tried to match a fish in a pure contest of strength, even a twenty-something-jin fish could easily overpower an ordinary person.
Fortunately, Chu Mingcheng had already worn down some of this blue-spotted grouper's stamina, and it was seriously injured. It only struggled for a short while before Jiang Luoluo was able to slowly pull it toward her.
"I never realized spearfishing was so exhausting!"
Jiang Luoluo handed the line back to Chu Mingcheng, spat out her snorkel, and gasped for breath.
"Of course it is. Otherwise, this sport wouldn't be classified as an extreme sport," Chu Mingcheng said with a laugh as he took out his diving knife to bleed the fish.
This fish was quite large, probably about eighty-something centimeters long. It wasn't very convenient to carry around.
It was a shame it wasn't as fat as a tiger grouper; otherwise, it would have weighed at least twenty or thirty jin.
The two swam back to the boat and moved the fish into another fish box filled with a layer of crushed ice.
Then Chu Mingcheng handed the fish spear from his back to Jiang Luoluo and suggested, "Luoluo, with such a great opportunity, why don't you try hunting too?"
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Chapter 208: The Groupers in the Nansha Islands are Huge
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