The Fish I Catch Can Level Up-Chapter 255: Wild River Fishing, Encountering a Crocodile
Back at the pier, Noah was in a state of happy agony. Chu Mingcheng was catching Giant Tasmanian King Crabs so fast that he couldn't sell them quickly enough.
"Cheng, maybe you could take a few days off? Wait until I clear this batch before you head out again."
Chu Mingcheng immediately shook his head. "No way. Those crabbers have been looking for trouble. I'm planning to go out again tomorrow, catch the last three thousand jin or so of my quota, and then get out of here to do some bounty missions."
"Better to leave before they get desperate and do something even more reckless. The sooner we're gone, the safer we'll be. So I suggest you sell the king crabs cheap, then come with me on the bounty missions."
Noah mulled it over, then nodded. "You've got a point. I've actually been asking around these last few days. That big guy you slapped—the most reckless of the bunch—is still recovering. I haven't heard anything about the other crabbers doing anything too extreme, so I thought you were safe for now."
"But it seems I was being careless. Never mind whether that brute will retaliate after he recovers—who's to say someone else won't do something impulsive?"
Noah wasn't particularly worried about his own safety; the main conflict was with Chu Mingcheng. He was just a seafood dealer. Fortunately, Chu Mingcheng didn't live in Melbourne. Once this batch of king crabs was sold, he could leave quickly, and those guys wouldn't be able to find him. The key was to create a time gap, to catch them off guard.
That evening, however, Chu Mingcheng was visited by civil servants and taken in for questioning. The subject, naturally, was the matter of the severed crab cage ropes.
To any normal person, the whole thing was bizarre, and he, of course, played dumb, claiming to know nothing. After the questioning, he was free to go. Even suspects needed evidence, and the two crab boat captains had never suspected Chu Mingcheng in the first place.
Stepping out of the police station, he found Noah waiting for him in his car. As soon as Chu Mingcheng got in, Noah asked with concern, "Are you okay? What happened?"
"Nothing serious. Just a small conflict with the crabbers. They had some questions for me," Chu Mingcheng said, breezing over it. He 'knew nothing' about the severed crab cage ropes and wouldn't be discussing the matter.
His dismissive attitude was completely different from how he'd acted inside, and Noah could tell he was hiding something. But he was sensible enough not to press further. Instead, he decided to sell off the king crabs as quickly and cheaply as possible, then leave Melbourne to lie low for a while.
For Chu Mingcheng, this whole king crab experience had been mentally exhausting. He'd never thought his ability could handle the local fisheries authority, only to have local guys causing all sorts of trouble anyway.
It seemed he'd have to be more careful when using this ability in the future, especially in countries where individuals could legally own firearms. He needed to tread lightly.
Two days later, Chu Mingcheng returned to the pier with over three thousand jin of Giant Tasmanian King Crabs and delivered them to Noah. His Melbourne trip was just about over. On his final crabbing run, the other boats hadn't followed him.
However, a fisheries authority boat had appeared in the waters full of king crabs, seemingly investigating the severed ropes. Chu Mingcheng had spotted it from a distance, passed by in a straight line without stopping, then made a wide turn toward the sperm whale, where he caught a few hundred jin of king crabs.
But that method was too slow, so late that night, he went back to check on the spot with the two hundred sunken crab cages. Fortunately, the fisheries authority had left. He quickly filled his quota and got out of there.
Those crab cages would definitely have to be retrieved. If they were just left there, they'd likely kill a lot of king crabs every year. But that had nothing to do with Chu Mingcheng anymore. Back at the port, he sold all the king crabs to Noah.
After deducting costs and paying the boat rental fee, his account balance just tipped over five hundred thousand Australian dollars, reaching five hundred and twenty thousand. Converted to yuan, that was about two and a half million—probably enough for a down payment on a small villa in Xiamen.
But Chu Mingcheng wasn't sure if he actually wanted to buy a villa. For young people like them, living downtown was more convenient.
Villas were usually in the suburbs, which made commuting a hassle. He wondered if a large flat with an indoor swimming pool would be expensive.
He personally felt that type of property would likely be more expensive than an ordinary villa. After all, there were too many factors to consider when putting a pool in a large flat...
Shaking his head, Chu Mingcheng put the thought aside for now.
He'd discuss it with Jiang Luoluo when he got back. For now, the priority was making money.
Two and a half million might seem like a lot, but if he really wanted to do something big, it was far from enough.
It would take Noah at least three more days to deal with the king crabs.
Chu Mingcheng rested for a day, then decided to head to northern Australia to apply for a hunting permit.
The bounty mission he wanted to take on was hunting saltwater crocodiles.
Saltwater crocodiles were also a type of aquatic product, and with his ability, Chu Mingcheng had no problem applying for a hunting permit.
Australia's natural environment was so good that basically any creature introduced to the country could easily run rampant.
The currently rampant saltwater crocodiles had become a headache for the Australian government.
Originally, saltwater crocodiles had been on the verge of extinction, but after arriving in Australia, their population exploded uncontrollably, rocketing to two hundred and fifty thousand.
Therefore, the Australian government had issued bounties, asking hunters to hunt these ferocious beasts.
Of course, Australia had plenty of professional hunters, and the ones who hunted saltwater crocodiles were naturally crocodile hunters.
It was a specialized profession that required a hunting permit.
The process was strict: apply before hunting, adhere to a kill limit, film the entire process from finding the crocodile to the kill, and no hunting any other animals.
Additionally, any crocodile eggs found could be collected and sold, but there was also an annual limit on those.
When Chu Mingcheng learned about these restrictions, his brow furrowed. He was uncomfortable with the idea of being filmed the whole time.
Then he thought about it—he wouldn't be foolish enough to go diving after a saltwater crocodile, so there was nothing to expose.
The only thing that might be revealed was his strength, but that didn't seem to matter.
Don't be fooled by how fiercely he'd dealt with the six-gill shark; that was mainly because that species wasn't very aggressive, and secondly, it wasn't that agile.
If it had been a three or four-meter great white shark, one would have been manageable, but if there had been even one more, he would have definitely turned and fled.
And a saltwater crocodile was no smaller than an adult great white, capable of growing to four or five meters, with an extreme length of seven meters.
Faced with such a high-defense, high-HP crocodile, with only a small fish spear in hand, how could he dare go diving and provoke it?
However, a four-meter saltwater crocodile could sell for over twenty thousand Australian dollars, which was worth about one hundred thousand yuan.
Secondly, the Australian government also offered some rewards. But after the number of saltwater crocodiles killed in a year reached twelve hundred, hunting was no longer allowed.
It was only the first half of the year, so there was no need to worry about the quota being full. Besides, the crocodile skin could be processed into bags.
His girlfriend, mother, and mother-in-law all seemed to be in need of a crocodile skin bag.
He just didn't know if they wanted the crocodile skin to have a bag custom-made or if they wanted a ready-made one.
After saying goodbye to Noah, Chu Mingcheng first went to Darwin, the capital of Australia's Northern Territory, where he successfully applied for a saltwater crocodile hunting permit.
He also checked the number of saltwater crocodiles killed this year, which was currently only two hundred and thirty-seven.
That was still a long way from the twelve hundred limit.
However, summer and autumn were the peak seasons for hunting saltwater crocodiles, and the quota would basically be filled by mid-autumn.
Secondly, Chu Mingcheng learned that not all saltwater crocodile kills were eligible for a bounty.
Only killing certain saltwater crocodiles that had attacked people came with an extra reward.
The government had already issued specific bounties for these crocodiles. Only after a crocodile hunter accepted a mission would they learn the specific habitat of the saltwater crocodile.
Hunting saltwater crocodiles was clearly very profitable, but many hunters lost their lives to crocodiles every year, making it an extremely dangerous profession.
With Noah not yet arrived, Chu Mingcheng had nothing to do, so he bought a hand pole and planned to go fishing in a river to see if he could catch any freshwater species not found back home, to gain some experience for his Aquatic Species Codex.
The fish box, crab cages, and other things he'd bought in Melbourne had all been sold second-hand.
It was too much trouble to ship them back home.
Currently, he only had an electric reel with him. Therefore, to go fishing today, besides the hand pole, he also had to buy a fish keepnet.
As for other non-essential gear, he wouldn't buy it to save money.
Additionally, although his Melbourne fishing license hadn't expired, it couldn't be used in the northern region, so he had to buy another one.
Fortunately, it wasn't expensive, so he just bought a three-day one.
Renting a car, Chu Mingcheng followed the navigation and drove toward the suburbs. After about an hour, he found a small, wild river with dense vegetation.
Arriving at the riverbank, Chu Mingcheng frowned. The water quality of this river wasn't great today. Perhaps because it had just rained heavily that morning, the river water was very yellow.
In this situation, the fish in the water would have their vision obstructed and would hide instead of coming out to feed, so this wasn't a good place for fishing.
But after thinking for a moment, Chu Mingcheng decided to fish here for a while anyway. He was just planning to kill time, so he didn't care how many fish he caught.
He took out some chum and scattered it about two meters in front of him, baited his hook, and cast it to where he'd chummed.
Normally, you should wait at least half an hour after chumming, usually an hour.
But Chu Mingcheng had nothing else to do, so he started fishing right away. What if a lost little fish took the bait?
However, the commotion he was making had already attracted the attention of a creature resting on the bank not far away.
It slowly sank into the water, barely causing a ripple on the surface. It submerged, approaching Chu Mingcheng at an extremely slow pace.
But as it got closer, it hesitated. As a young saltwater crocodile just starting out, its current diet consisted of river fish and small amphibians.
Normally, it would avoid larger creatures because it knew it wasn't fully grown and couldn't handle them.
Therefore, after getting close and realizing the prey was a bit large, it stopped, not attacking rashly.
Secondly, the prey was a bit far from the bank, and it wasn't confident it could get a bite.
So it hid quietly under the wild grass nearby, its crocodile head exposed to breathe, waiting for the prey to get closer to the water. That would be its time to hunt.
However…
"Holy crap!"
After fishing for a long time with no bites, Chu Mingcheng casually glanced around and saw a crocodile head less than two meters away. He was instantly startled.
Have the saltwater crocodiles in northern Australia really become this rampant? He could just randomly find a small wild river to fish in and run into one?
Chu Mingcheng immediately reeled in his fishing rod, but as he lifted it, he hooked a big fish.
Chapter 255: Wild River Fishing, Encountering a Crocodile
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