Fang Shiyu felt too shy to sleep alone, so he urged him to also sleep and rest for a while.
They chatted for barely two words after lying down on the bed before falling fast asleep, sleeping straight through until three in the afternoon.
It was Li Zhengwen and the others who came to look for him to go fishing, and ended up waking him up!
He got up, splashed some water on his face, said goodbye to Fang Shiyu, grabbed his newly bought fishing rod and bucket, and went with them to fish by the sea.
Li Zhengwen and his group still planned to go to the exact fishing spot where he had caught the Bahaba fish that day, to see if they could catch another one.
However, he was not very keen on going, because he knew that most of the bigger fish at that spot had already been caught by him, and it would need to rest and recover for a while before any fish showed up again.
Yet there was no way to explain this to them, so with no alternative, he simply followed along as they headed that way.
Upon arriving, they discovered the place was packed with fellow anglers, leaving absolutely no room for them to cast their lines.
After asking around, they learned that people had heard about someone catching a Bahaba fish here that sold for 500 yuan, so everyone wanted to come and try their luck to see if they had a chance to reel one in too.
With no other choice, they had to look for a new fishing spot, leading them to an area of reefs where each person picked a spot they deemed favorable.
Wang Chu'an chose a location quite far away from the others.
First, so they couldn't clearly see what he was doing, and second, so that if there were no fish nearby, it would be easy for him to change locations and search for them.
He assembled his fishing rod, activated the scan to start looking for fish, and whether due to bad luck or not, the spot he chose lacked any large fish; the biggest one he could make out in the scan image looked to be under three catties.
Naturally, he still wanted to catch a big fish. With a brand-new fishing rod, he naturally hoped for a triumphant start on his very first try.
Furthermore, big fish offered better value—regardless of whether the unit price was high, with that kind of weight right there, it would fetch quite a bit more money.
There was nothing to be done about bad luck; even without big fish, he couldn't just stop fishing.
After all, every scan used up one of its limited uses, so while the scanning duration was still active, he quickly triggered the skill and cast his rod toward that direction, the fishhook flying instantly into the sea.
"Plop!"
The hook caught hold, and before that fish even had time to react, he pulled off a miracle through sheer brute force, hauling and dragging it in raw.
The fish: You play without any martial ethics! Do you fish without even using bait? You just hook me right in the mouth...
The fish had no room for much struggle before being dragged right up in front of him.
Seeing that it was entirely red with a few spots on its body, he recognized it immediately as a red-spotted grouper.
A smile touched the corners of his mouth, even though this red-spotted grouper probably weighed only around two and a half catties.
Still, the unit price for red-spotted grouper was quite decent at nine yuan per catty, and this fish weighed over two catties, making it worth roughly twenty-odd yuan.
Perhaps because the commotion just now had not been loud enough to draw their attention, he hurriedly stored the fish inside the Space, fearing it might die and lose its value.
He originally intended to just switch locations, since his scan earlier hadn't revealed any big fish around here.
On second thought, though, he decided against it. He had just caught a red-spotted grouper, so there might still be more of them around.
This time he didn't use the scan, opting instead for blind casting based on the location from his previous scan.
Perhaps because the disturbance earlier had been relatively minor and hadn't startled the other fish, he actually managed to hook one.
It was another red-spotted grouper, weighing around one and a half catties. Within two or three minutes, he dragged the fish in and once again stored it inside the Space.
Next, Wang Chu'an tried a few more times, only to pull up a single sea carp, feeling that continuing like this was simply a waste of time.
With that, he picked up his bucket and walked toward the unoccupied area on his left hand.
After walking about 200 meters or so, he discovered a flat stretch of reef with no obstacles nearby—a fine fishing spot.
He stepped up onto it, stood atop the rock, and activated the scan once again.
The results of this scan were rather gratifying; there were quite a few fish nearby, and their sizes were all pretty decent.
However, the largest fish among them was stuck inside a rock crevice, leaving Wang Chu'an helpless against it, so he had no choice but to start with the other fish first.
Selecting his target, he activated the skill "Dredge the Channel".
Feeling the pain, the fish instantly began exerting force, pulling out over ten meters of fishing line. He locked the reel and started tugging back and forth against the fish.
They were locked in a stalemate for more than ten minutes before the fish was finally worn out of all its energy.
He reeled the fish straight up; with the skill's enhancement, he had no fear of it throwing the hook.
Seeing that the catch was a wolfish, he felt no great surprise, since the market price for this fish was ordinary, so he didn't bother putting it into the Space.
He dropped the fish into his bucket and resumed blind casting, resulting in a total catch of two wolfish and one coral grouper over a dozen tries.
Because the wolfish struggled with exceptional ferocity, it left him thoroughly exhausted.
The only reason he hadn't used Retribution the entire time was simply to indulge his craving for the thrill of fishing.
He used the scan again, intending to see whether the commotion just now had scared that large fish out into the open.
The image displayed that the big fish was still right there, motionless, looking as though it had fallen asleep.
With no other choice since it refused to give even the slightest opening, he had to resort to other methods to see if he could hook it.
First, he switched to a large-sized fishhook, baited it with sandworms, and activated his skill aiming at the rocks around the big fish's head.
"Plop!"
The hook hit the water and crashed directly into the rocks, landing right at the entrance of the big fish's hiding cave, and the impact startled the creature.
The big fish: Did someone just come looking for a fight right on my doorstep?
Possessing a fiery temper, the big fish charged straight out, only to find no enemy—turns out food was being delivered right to its doorstep.
It would be foolish not to eat what came right to you, so the big fish lunged fiercely toward the sandworm and swallowed it in a single gulp.
Feeling the pull transmitted through the rod, he hurriedly lifted the rod to set the hook.
The moment the hook-set succeeded and the big fish felt the pain and began to struggle, he promptly used Retribution, causing the big fish to instantly lose 30% of its vitality.
Immediately following up with the passive effect, he exerted force to yank the big fish out from among the rocks over there, making sure it couldn't retreat back into its cave, otherwise it would fray and snap the fishing line.
Discovering that it could no longer return home, the big fish exerted its strength and swam toward the distance.
Standing atop the reef, Wang Chu'an watched as the fishing line was instantly pulled out over 100 meters, after which the speed of the line running out finally slowed down.
He hurriedly began reeling it back in, retrieving ten meters or so, but perhaps the strain caused pain to the fish, prompting it to struggle anew and bolt off another dozens of meters.
By this time, the cooldown of his passive skill had expired, and borrowing the passive effect, he reeled back another several tens of meters.
Once the passive effect ended, the big fish exerted itself once more, dragging the line he had just recovered right back out again.
Tug-of-warring back and forth with the big fish like this, relying on the passive effect, it took him close to an hour just to recover the line until only about ten meters remained.
Just as he thought the big fish had given up its struggle, the creature suddenly breached the sea surface and began a frenzied head-shake. Seeing this, Wang hastily lifted his fishing rod upward while tightening the line.
After another dozen minutes or so of this stalemate, the big fish finally gave up struggling and was hauled right up in front of him.
Seeing this giant grouper—worn out to the point of exhaustion, floating on the surface of the sea and continuously opening and closing its gills—his heart blossomed with joy.
Though he didn't recognize this specific fish, he knew it belonged to the grouper family.
Even without knowing its exact price, as long as it was a grouper, the price wouldn't be cheap.
Moreover, with that kind of weight right there, even though it hadn't been weighed on a scale yet, he estimated that this giant grouper wouldn't be under 100 catties.