The Fish I Catch Can Level Up

Chapter 226: Customers Are Placing Orders

The two were still changing into their wetsuits when the satellite phone outside started ringing.

Hearing the ring, Chu Mingcheng thought it was an emergency. He didn't even bother finishing putting on his suit, which was only halfway on, and rushed outside to answer the call.

It turned out to be Chen Yang. Nothing major—just that a few seafood restaurant owners in the group wanted to establish long-term partnerships with him.

Since he was out at sea and unreachable, they had contacted Chen Yang directly and asked him to pass on the message.

For the most part, Chu Mingcheng sold fish and seafood with relatively low market availability.

With the fishing ban approaching, five restaurant owners in the group planned to buy from him to stock up on a batch of high-quality seafood in advance.

They had low-temperature freezers, and although they weren't large, storing a batch of higher-priced fish like groupers and sea breams was no problem.

Fish with larger market availability could be bought even during the fishing ban.

Some seafood distributors would stock up in advance, but the freshness would inevitably be lower and the prices higher—it couldn't be helped.

The restaurant owners who dealt in rarer fish had originally sourced from distributors, but now they chose Chu Mingcheng because the quality of his products was consistently superior.The "Deliciousness" attribute on the Aquatic Species Codex's panel had always been inconspicuous, easy to overlook, but its effect was significant.

Because of this attribute, the fish Chu Mingcheng caught were always of better quality within their species.

For two identical fish, differences in fat content and other factors could lead to a huge disparity in taste.

The reason these owners and customers constantly sought after Chu Mingcheng's catches was that they had discovered the quality of his fish was consistently top-grade.

Although the price wasn't cheap, it was still market rate, with shipping costs being the only extra.

For the well-off customers in the group, a mere shipping fee was nothing—what they wanted was quality.

While the restaurant owners hoped for lower prices, they could still make a good profit even at the market rate.

The most important factor was that the higher quality of their seafood would make customers choose their restaurants first. With better business, they naturally earned more.

And Chu Mingcheng had never once sold them a subpar product.

The customers had even discussed it among themselves—not a single person had ever received a poor-quality item from him.

Therefore, his reputation among this group was extremely high, which was also why most of the customers in the group were referred by others.

Hanging up the phone, Chu Mingcheng felt a bit emotional. In less than a year, he had gone from actively seeking customers to having customers proactively place orders and make referrals.

This was clearly a good thing, indicating that his business had officially entered a stable growth phase.

Just then, Jiang Luoluo, having changed into her wetsuit, walked out. "Ah Cheng, who was that?"

"Ah Yang. He said five restaurant owners in the group want to order from me before the fishing ban to stock up on some low-yield reef fish and groupers."

"Oh, I didn't expect owners to be placing orders directly with us now. That's great news! Should we skip the diving practice so you can get to spearfishing?"

"No rush. Your diving practice only takes half an hour—won't cause any delay."

Hearing this, Jiang Luoluo didn't say anything more. Half an hour really wouldn't be much of a delay.

She then went onto the deck to practice the Frenzel maneuver for her ear pressure and stretch her body to avoid cramps in the water.

Chu Mingcheng joined her in warming up. No matter how physically fit he was, he would never skip these basic preparations.

Then, the two entered the water together.

Jiang Luoluo's training wasn't complicated. First, a ten-minute surface swim to build endurance.

For the remaining twenty minutes, Chu Mingcheng would lead her on repeated dives.

Since she was just starting, Jiang Luoluo only needed to dive to fifteen meters, hold for one minute and thirty seconds, then return. They repeated this process.

With each training session, her physical fitness and breath-hold time would improve slightly. Once she reached a certain level, Chu Mingcheng would take her to deeper waters and appropriately increase the breath-hold time.

In terms of training, half an hour passed quickly, but Jiang Luoluo was already breathless, clearly having expended considerable energy.

Training in the sea was different from a pool. Whether swimming on the surface or diving deep, one had to expend extra energy fighting against waves and currents, but this also made the training highly effective.

Back on the boat, Jiang Luoluo handed the speargun to Chu Mingcheng and went to shower.

With her current freediving level, she clearly couldn't join him for spearfishing. So she planned to go line fishing later to help bring in more catch.

Chu Mingcheng took the speargun and swam toward the area where many sweetlips lived.

For spearfishing, this was the area near the deserted island he was most familiar with. He had fished on the other side of the island but had never spearfished there. He could check it out tonight.

Since they had set out so late today, they were obviously planning to spend the night.

Since the customers needed to stock up for the fishing ban, the hunted fish didn't need to be kept alive, making spearfishing more suitable than line fishing.

Chu Mingcheng soon arrived at the familiar waters. Perhaps because no one came here to fish and the sea lion was gone, he found that the number of sweetlips was even greater than before, and the number of large fish had also noticeably increased.

Of course, the fish couldn't reproduce to this extent in just a few months. He figured that after schools of fish arrived here, they found the environment suitable for survival and stayed. This was good news for Chu Mingcheng.

Because there were so many fish, he didn't activate the Fish Gathering function for the time being.

Sweetlips were clearly premium fish. Activating the function would attract a large school to surround him, which wouldn't be very helpful for spearfishing.

Once he hit a target, the other fish would scatter and flee.

Furthermore, the 13% chance might not attract the largest fish in the school and would instead obstruct his view and hinder him.

He positioned himself on a giant reef—an excellent spot for an ambush.

Chu Mingcheng loaded the speargun and chose his target.

There were many fish, but the large ones were always conspicuous.

There were at least several sweetlips over ten jin. He chose the one closest to him, which looked easiest to hunt.

He pulled the trigger, and the spear instantly pierced the fish's body, hitting a vital spot.

The speared sweetlips swam in circles with the spear, then came to rest against a reef. The other sweetlips, startled, scattered in all directions.

Chu Mingcheng released the speargun and grabbed the line. Gauging the fish's resistance, he pulled it in bit by bit.

When the fish struggled hard, he would ease up, just holding the line.

When the fish's resistance weakened, he would reel it in quickly.

This ensured the wound wouldn't widen from the fish's struggling. Having sold fish for so long, Chu Mingcheng now subconsciously cared about his catch's appearance.

If the wound accidentally enlarged, causing a large tear in the flesh, the fish's value would drop accordingly—not worth it.

In less than three minutes of diving, the ten-plus-jin sweetlips had almost stopped moving, and he pulled it toward him.

Chu Mingcheng took out his dive knife to bleed the fish. The sweetlips' tail flapped rapidly once more—its final struggle.

He hung the fish on his fish stringer, reloaded the speargun, and swam toward where the fish had scattered.

The school hadn't fled far, just to the middle of the adjacent reefs, about ten meters away, evidently thinking they were safe there.

But moments later, a sharp spear pierced one of their companions, letting them know this place wasn't safe either.

In just half an hour, Chu Mingcheng had harvested twelve sweetlips.

Five of them were over ten jin, and the rest were around seven or eight jin, with the total weight definitely exceeding one hundred jin.

Previously, carrying over a hundred jin of fish would have been a noticeable burden for Chu Mingcheng.

But now, with his enhanced physical fitness, he felt completely at ease carrying the same weight.

Based on this, it seemed he could carry an extra fish stringer.

Returning to the boat, he saw that Jiang Luoluo had just hooked a fish. Not wanting to disturb her, he climbed aboard himself and placed the fish in a foam box.

Looking at the fish, he thought he should buy a vacuum sealer to better preserve his catch.

As for ultra-low temperature freezing, he couldn't do anything about that for now.

Although a low-temperature freezer wasn't very expensive, a small one would be useless, and a large one wouldn't fit in his cockpit.

Just then, Jiang Luoluo also landed her fish, which turned out to be a small, golden yellow fish.

She stared at the fish for a moment, then excitedly carried it over to Chu Mingcheng. "Ah Cheng, Ah Cheng, look! There are large yellow croakers here!"

"That's a small yellow croaker. Look at the scales on its back—aren't they much coarser than a large yellow croaker's?"

Seeing the fish, Chu Mingcheng couldn't help but smile as he explained the difference.

Jiang Luoluo recalled what a large yellow croaker looked like and realized it was indeed quite different from this one. Her excitement immediately deflated. "Oh, so it's a small yellow croaker. I got excited for nothing."

Clearly, she knew about the vast price difference between large and small yellow croakers.

"Small yellow croakers are good too. It's the season when they're at their plumpest and most delicious. If you catch more, the customers will definitely be willing to buy them. And we can keep some to give as gifts or eat ourselves."

"Okay, I'll go back to fishing then."

Reassured, Jiang Luoluo didn't feel so disappointed anymore. Her spirits restored, she stored the fish and went back to her spot.

Chu Mingcheng closed the lid and returned to the water to continue hunting sweetlips.

This time, he brought two fish stringers, allowing him to hunt more fish.

After spearing another fifteen sweetlips, the school in this area had mostly scattered, all moving far away from this spot.

Given the situation, it was clear that continuing to hunt quickly and easily was no longer possible—he would need to repeatedly search for prey.

Therefore, Chu Mingcheng activated the Fish Gathering function and swam slowly through the water, waiting for the attracted fish to come to him.

As it turned out, before any fish arrived, two spiny lobsters appeared.

They weren't large, probably around seven or eight liang each.

Chu Mingcheng let go of his speargun, planning to grab them with his hands when they got closer.

But just then, a moray eel also came into view, slithering over like a water snake.

A parrotfish that happened to be within his range of influence also swam over to join the gathering.

Chu Mingcheng suddenly had trouble choosing. He had been right not to use the Fish Gathering function before.

He hadn't seen any valuable seafood around, but after activating it, they all started appearing. If he had turned it on earlier, he probably wouldn't have known which fish to choose.

Fortunately, the function only attracted premium seafood. If it could also attract common seafood, he would be even more overwhelmed.

In the end, Chu Mingcheng decided to catch the lobsters first. As he grabbed the two lobsters with his hands, he startled the other creatures that had gathered.

The parrotfish shot off with a whoosh, but he didn't mind.

Mainly because the parrotfish was too small, at most just over a jin—its value was less than the two lobsters.

Placing the lobsters in the mesh bag he carried, Chu Mingcheng grabbed his speargun and immediately chased after the moray eel, which wasn't swimming very fast.

However, although the moray eel was slow, the seabed was full of crevices where it could hide.

But this moray eel didn't dart into a crevice. Instead, it found a sandy patch and buried itself in the sand.

Its head and tail were still exposed, which looked very obvious to Chu Mingcheng.

He planned to sell the moray eel directly in Xiamen, so he intended to catch it alive.

Letting go of the speargun, Chu Mingcheng located its neck and went to grab it with both hands.

But the moray eel was extremely fierce, suddenly turning its head to bite his hand.

Thanks to his enhanced physique, Chu Mingcheng's reflexes had also been significantly strengthened, and his reaction speed was very fast.

He released his hands just before the moray eel could bite him, causing it to bite itself instead.

Terrifyingly, it didn't even let go after biting itself.

Taking this opportunity, Chu Mingcheng quickly grabbed it, put it in the mesh bag, and then picked up his speargun to head back.

If he put the moray eel and the lobsters together, the eel would likely be torn apart by the lobsters, so he had to separate them quickly.

This moray eel was a premium catch and not cheap. It would be a shame if it got mangled.

Arriving back at the boat again, Jiang Luoluo saw him return before she had even hooked another fish, so she was already waiting for him at the boarding ladder on the aft deck.

Chu Mingcheng handed her the mesh bag. "There are two lobsters and a moray eel inside. Separate them so they don't fight."

Jiang Luoluo immediately took the bag, separated the contents, and then returned the bag to him. "Is this moray eel valuable? It's all spotty—looks like it's not cheap."

"It's a short-bodied moray, also called a flower-bone eel. It also has the nickname 'earth dragon.' It's not common in the market, so the price should be around two hundred per jin—not as valuable as the local earth dragons."

"Two hundred per jin isn't cheap either. Too bad this one's so thin—looks like it's only two or three jin."

"A catch is a catch. We can't expect every haul to be worth thousands or tens of thousands, can we?"

"That's true," Jiang Luoluo giggled, then added, "Are you tired? Why don't you come up and rest for a bit? I'll go cut some fruit."

Chu Mingcheng looked at his watch. Seeing that it was 4:30 in the afternoon, he said, "No rush. While there's still sunlight, I'll work for another half hour."

Jiang Luoluo nodded. "Alright then. I'll go prepare dinner. You be safe."

After handing her the fifteen sweetlips to store, Chu Mingcheng set off again, feeling a bit emotional.

Whether it was line fishing or spearfishing at sea, it was indeed much more convenient to have someone with him.

With Jiang Luoluo around, she could handle the logistics, allowing him to devote more time and energy to his work.

Because of the Fish Gathering function, Chu Mingcheng didn't search for fish in the upper water column first but dived directly to the bottom.

He hadn't encountered any groupers today, so his luck wasn't great. Next time he wanted to catch groupers, he would have to go to places like coral reefs.

At that moment, he was unaware that a few hundred meters behind him, a cute little creature was rapidly approaching.