After Reincarnating as the Dragon King, I Made a Fortune with Seafood – CH52

Chapter 52

Lu Ao carefully climbed down from the reef into the water.

The typhoon had not completely passed yet. The wind was still blowing today, stirring up waves. Sand and silt in the shallows were rolled up and drifted through the water with all kinds of plankton, making the water extremely murky. Visibility was less than three meters.

Lu Ao swam underwater, searching carefully. He saw plenty of small fish, but not many large ones.

He specifically went near the reefs to search. After searching for more than two hours, he suddenly noticed the shadow of a big fish flashing past inside a cave beneath the reef.

Its color looked rather pale. It might be the target he was looking for!

His spirits lifted. He brought his feet together, kicked quickly through the water, and moved toward the rocky cave with his speargun raised.

Although today’s goal was to fish from the surface, if he could shoot one directly, he would not mind slowly dragging the giant croaker back to shore.

He quietly approached, raising the speargun to aim.

The next moment, the giant croaker he had locked onto noticed him. With a flick of its tail, it shot away with a whoosh, instantly stirring up a cloud of silt and turning the water muddy.

Lu Ao surged forward in pursuit. The nearby fish were startled and fled swiftly, swinging their tails.

One, two, three… In the blink of an eye, Lu Ao spotted seven or eight giant croakers.

So this place was actually a giant croaker nest. The whole family, big and small, was here!

Lu Ao swam after the fish.

This group of giant croakers was quite large. Even the smallest looked to be seventy or eighty jin. They were definitely not juveniles.

The fish were all very alert, constantly circling near the reefs. As soon as they sensed Lu Ao’s presence, they quickly swam away.

Lu Ao, in human form, was not especially fast in the water. Several times, he had managed to get close to a giant croaker from a distance, but before he could raise his speargun, it fled.

After going back and forth for the whole morning, Lu Ao was exhausted, yet he had not even managed to knock off half a fish scale.

By the time his stamina ran out, Lu Ao could only go ashore and prepare to fish.

Fortunately, after swimming around underwater for half the morning, he had roughly figured out the activity range of this group of giant croakers.

Finding a place to bait a spot was not too difficult.

The chum he used today had also been bought from a fish shop. It was oily and smelled very fragrant.

Lu Ao deliberately chose a place beside the rocks to bait the spot. After throwing in the chum, he waited a while before casting his hook.

For giant croaker fishing, he used a large hook. There was a small iron cage in the middle. The shrimp were not only hooked onto the fishing hook, but also placed inside the small iron cage to lure the fish.

Fishing required a great deal of patience.

Lu Ao began baiting and fishing at 11:37 a.m. At noon, he used the induction cooker to cook half a pot of rice and vegetables. After eating, he continued fishing in the afternoon.

During that time, he caught a large amberjack, but he did not see even the shadow of a giant croaker.

He sat on the deserted island with no one around him.

His phone had full signal, and its battery was also sufficient. Bored, he sat on the deserted island and played Fight the Landlord.

Everyone in the fishing group knew he had gone out today to catch giant croaker.

In the afternoon, after Lin Gongshang finished his work, he came to tease him: Lu Ao @Lu Ao, how’s your giant croaker fishing going?

Not great.

Lin Gongshang: No way. There are fish even you can’t catch?

Lin Qiyan: If there’s no giant croaker, did you catch any other valuable fish?

Caught a large amberjack.

Lin Gongshang asked: Only one large amberjack?

Lu Ao had used a large hook. If the fish was not big enough, it could not bite the hook at all.

Aside from large amberjack, the only fish in this area was probably giant croaker. Lu Ao could do nothing about it.

Annoyed by Lin Gongshang’s question, he replied: What else?

Lin Gongshang sent: Why don’t we just go out to sea and cast nets instead? Feels more reliable than fishing.

Lu Ao: No license. Not going.

Lin Qiyan: Fishing isn’t necessarily unreliable. There are still four or five hours before dark. Maybe you’ll catch one before then.

Lin Gongshang: That’s true. Lu Ao, your skill is good, and your luck is good too. Maybe you’ll catch one in a bit.

Afraid that Lu Ao would get angry, the two of them started showering him with exaggerated praise.

Lu Ao switched out of WeChat and continued fishing while suppressing his impatience.

This group of giant croakers was simply too cautious. Countless fishermen knew there were fish here, but no one had managed to catch them.

No matter how capable Lu Ao was, if the giant croakers refused to bite, there was nothing he could do.

Past three in the afternoon, the sky gradually cleared.

The July sun was extremely fierce. Lu Ao sat on the isolated island with nowhere to hide, so he could only endure the sun.

The ultraviolet rays by the sea were very strong. Before long, his skin was sunburned red, and sweat poured out in strings.

Fishing in this kind of weather was torture.

Lu Ao forced himself to endure it and fished for more than another hour. By 4:30 in the afternoon, there was still no movement from the hook.

He lifted the rod and took a look. The shrimp on the hook had been eaten at some point, but the shrimp inside the iron cage were still there, though they were not very lively anymore.

Lu Ao felt irritated just looking at it, so he simply pulled up the iron cage.

He did not cast the bait shrimp back down. He washed them briefly and tossed them into the pot.

The large amberjack he had caught earlier was still flopping around in a tide pool. He grabbed it and killed it on the island, cooking it on the spot.

After cleaning it, he threw the organs, gills, and the like into the sea. He chopped the fish body into large pieces, placed them in the pot, added oyster sauce, cooking wine, salt, and the packet of pickled mustard tuber left over from lunch, then finally poured in a little water and started cooking.

The fish cooked very quickly. After only a short while, the flesh had turned white, and all the shrimp had turned red, arching their backs and curling up in the pot.

Lu Ao was too lazy to get a bowl. He simply picked up the pot and ate the fish piece by piece.

Freshly killed and freshly cooked fish was exceptionally fresh. When the meat entered his mouth, it was extraordinarily sweet and tender.

He ate a piece of fish, then a shrimp, throwing the fish bones and shrimp shells straight into the sea.

Lu Ao washed down more than ten jin of fish and shrimp with mineral water. His stomach was a little full.

He washed the pot clean. Without taking the speargun this time, he packed up his things, then stripped off his clothes and shoes and jumped straight into the water.

The giant croakers would not eat the bait? Fine. He would eat!

He refused to believe he could not get a giant croaker today!

After jumping into the water, heat surged through Lu Ao’s chest. Almost instantly, his slender human body turned into a dragon’s body.

He stretched hard in the water. His long, dark green dragon body unfurled beneath the surface, feeling indescribably comfortable, as if he had just stretched lazily.

Lu Ao turned to look. His dragon form had grown a little bigger again. The scales on his body had shifted from the jade-green of his earlier days into a mysterious, beautiful dark green that was hard to describe.

After stretching his body, he dived directly beneath the sea.

In the morning, he had swum back and forth around this area several times and was very familiar with it. Now that he was back down here, he did not need to scout around. He swam along the familiar route toward the place where he had discovered the giant croakers in the morning.

The surrounding fish sensed his aura and fled in panic.

The giant croakers fled too.

Lu Ao paid no attention to the other fish. His dark green eyes locked directly onto a medium-sized giant croaker.

That giant croaker sensed danger. Its scales almost stood on end as it desperately swung its tail and tried to squeeze into the cracks between the rocks.

Lu Ao’s body was only long, not especially bulky. His cross-section was not even as large as the giant croaker he had chosen.

Anywhere the giant croaker could go, he could go too. He was also far more agile than the giant croaker.

Before long, Lu Ao had closed in within three meters of the giant croaker he had chosen.

Panicking, the giant croaker no longer hid in the gaps between rocks. It shot straight out toward the deep sea.

Lu Ao’s body was relatively long, so when crossing over the rocks, his reactions were slower than they were in open water. Now that the giant croaker had fled toward the open ocean, chasing it was actually more advantageous for him.

Without thinking, Lu Ao lightly slapped his tail against the rock and shot toward the giant croaker like an arrow.

A few seconds later, he had already closed in beside the giant croaker. With just a slight stretch of his head, he could touch it.

Only then did he discover one unfortunate problem with his dragon body—his dragon body was too long, and his dragon claws were too short!

Damn it!

This evolution went completely against biological instinct.

If he did not lower his head to look, he could not see what was near his claws at all, let alone attack the giant croaker swimming ahead with them.

If he wanted to catch the fish with his claws, he had to make a big turn in the water and arch his body.

But that arched-back movement would cause his forward-moving body to come to an abrupt stop. That tiny bit of time was enough for the giant croaker to escape.

Lu Ao tried several times, but each time, the giant croaker narrowly escaped from beneath his claws.

His body twisted in the water until he almost turned into a fried dough twist.

The chase had taken nearly half an hour. If he still could not catch it, he would probably have to rest before he had the strength to keep wrestling with it.

With that amount of time, given how alert these giant croakers were, when he came back down again, he might not necessarily be able to find them.

He blinked and unwillingly tried several more times.

Every time, the giant croaker narrowly slipped away from beneath his claws.

For a while, they were locked in a stalemate, and Lu Ao had no solution.

Another attempt.

Another failure.

The giant croaker slid forward, dodging Lu Ao’s sharp claws.

Lu Ao was furious. Staring at the giant croaker just over a meter ahead, a sudden fierce instinct rose in him. He shot forward, opened his mouth, and with an “aowu,” bit directly into the giant croaker’s thick body.

The giant croaker was suddenly bitten and instantly panicked. Its body thrashed wildly.

A huge fish weighing over a hundred jin struggled with such force that Lu Ao felt his teeth ache from the shaking.

The fish was too big, and his own body was long and narrow. Underwater, he could not maintain his balance at all. Instead, the giant croaker dragged him forward for a stretch.

Lu Ao felt like he was simply the most humiliated dragon in existence.

It was bad enough that he could not catch the giant croaker with his claws. Now that he had bitten it, the giant croaker was escaping even more violently, its tail slapping so hard that he could barely keep his eyes open.

And for the sake of the giant croaker’s appearance, he did not dare clamp his mouth shut and bite the fish in two.

The reason giant croakers were expensive was partly because their meat really was delicious, and partly because the fish maw made from their swim bladder was believed to be highly nourishing.

If someone was ill and weak, eating giant croaker maw a few times was said to restore the body.

If a child was in the middle of growing, eating giant croaker maw a few times would supposedly make them noticeably taller and stronger within half a year.

Lu Ao had reservations about these effects, but he could not stop rich people from believing in them.

As long as rich people believed in it, the fish could sell for a high price. Therefore, Lu Ao could not simply bite it to death in such a brutal manner.

Lu Ao was dragged along by the fish and could not gain the upper hand for a while. He simply stopped wrestling with it, relaxed his body, and let the giant croaker drag him forward. Whenever the giant croaker ran out of strength, he would drag it instead.

The giant croaker’s vitality was far from ordinary. Lu Ao had no idea how long he had been dragged underwater.

Whenever the giant croaker showed signs of tiring, Lu Ao dragged it toward the shore.

And once the giant croaker recovered, it would drag Lu Ao toward the deep sea.

This back-and-forth tug-of-war continued until Lu Ao saw, through the water, the setting sun gradually sinking into the sea.

It was getting late.

He was afraid that Brother Bao and his wife would come to pick him up and happen to see him dragging the giant croaker in dragon form, so he used his strength in advance and swam toward shore.

The giant croaker had been dragged for so long that it did not have much strength left.

Lu Ao’s dragon form was much stronger underwater than his human form, and swimming back was relatively easy.

Before long, the giant croaker was gradually dragged to the side of the reef.

Holding the giant croaker in his mouth, Lu Ao broke through the surface with a splash, planning to quickly turn back into human form, put on his clothes, and deal with the bite marks.

Unexpectedly, the moment he surfaced, he saw a white figure.

Song Zhou had arrived at some point. He was crouching down, looking at the water. His eyes curved as they met Lu Ao’s gaze. “I came to pick you up.”

Lu Ao, who was still holding the giant croaker in his mouth: “……”

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