novelraw Chapter 253: Chu Mingcheng's Bamboo Shoots
Chapter 253: Chu Mingcheng's Bamboo Shoots
Chapter 253: Chu Mingcheng's Bamboo ShootsHe'd originally thought the king crab numbers would be low, but after moving them, he found that eight of his ten noticeably smaller crab cages were full. The ninth even had three crabs weighing seven or eight jin each. The overall harvest was unexpectedly good.
After finishing the transfer, Chu Mingcheng swam another lap around the surrounding waters. Finding no more traces of king crabs, he finally gave up and swam back to the boat.
He took a shower, changed into his waterproof work clothes, then turned on the lights and started the fishing yacht, heading toward the crab cages to retrieve them.
The commotion immediately caught the attention of the crab boat, and the crabbers on board started cursing.
It had taken Chu Mingcheng a good amount of time to move the crabs, and it was now past midnight. They had already gone to bed.
Being forcibly woken up, they were naturally in a foul mood.
But the fishing yacht had already pulled away, and they didn't waste any time, immediately starting their boat and giving chase.
A little while later, seeing Chu Mingcheng start to pull up his cages, the group of crabbers gathered on their deck again, watching the show through binoculars.
However, the next moment…
"Shit, impossible—absolutely impossible! Why are there so many king crabs in his cages?""Could this area be a king crab hotspot?"
"Claude, you guys start pulling up the cages. If this yellow-skinned bastard leaves later, we'll follow him."
Evidently, their decision to have two crab boats was well-founded.
One boat would use its cages to intercept the king crabs on the seabed, while the other could stick close to Chu Mingcheng, preventing him from pulling his cages and running.
However, faced with Chu Mingcheng's massive haul, the captain named Claude assigned his crew to their work, only to be completely stunned when they started retrieving their own cages.
The first cage was empty, but he didn't think much of it.
But when the second, third, and even the subsequent cages came up with almost nothing—or at best, a few undersized small king crabs—he was utterly dumbfounded.
"Impossible—this is absolutely impossible!"
The captain of the other boat was also monitoring the situation on both sides. When he saw that nearly all of Chu Mingcheng's cages were full, with only one empty, while his own side was coming up empty, not catching a single regulation-sized king crab, he was just as baffled.
"Fuck, what the hell is going on?"
But Chu Mingcheng gave him no time to investigate. After retrieving all his cages and securing them, he immediately steered the boat away.
Following the crabbing map, he headed for the nearest waters.
He had already caught over four hundred jin of king crabs, and the live well could hold at least another five hundred jin.
As for lobsters, he would have to give up on them for now, unless there happened to be a lobster hotspot near the king crab location.
This time, the journey took three hours, and he stopped at nearly four in the morning.
After dropping his crab cages, Chu Mingcheng didn't go to sleep. Instead, he drove the boat to a shallower area nearby, used a Life Conversion to perk himself up, and pulled an all-nighter playing games.
He kept his speargun and fish spear close by, and he stayed in the pilothouse, ready to start the boat at a moment's notice, clearly on guard against the other party.
The crab boat that had followed him was currently dropping its cages, once again surrounding his own.
The previous boat had only dropped fifty, but the one that followed seemed to be taking things seriously, dropping all one hundred of its cages.
Although for now, the other party only intended to annoy him with this tactic, Chu Mingcheng couldn't be sure they wouldn't harbor other malicious intentions, especially after discovering that surrounding his cages was ineffective.
So he remained vigilant, refusing to give them any opening.
Soaking up the sun and playing games, the daytime passed quickly.
Because his refrigerated hold was full, Chu Mingcheng had no intention of continuing to fish.
When night fell, he changed into his wetsuit and once again dove into the water to start moving crabs.
Holy crap!
This time, after reaching the bottom, he was shocked by the density of the king crabs.
He never expected this crabbing spot he'd found to be so prime. The density of king crabs was no less than at the sperm whale carcass, and the sheer number was incomparably greater.
The outer cages dropped by the crab boat were packed, and there were even more crabs around the cages themselves.
Seeing the scale of it, he estimated that the king crabs gathered here could possibly exceed ten thousand jin.
He didn't start moving them right away but swam a lap to see if there were any exceptionally large ones.
After a full circle of observation, he was a bit disappointed. Perhaps because this area was frequently visited, the largest king crabs were probably only around twenty-something jin, and they were very rare.
The most numerous king crabs here seemed to be under ten jin, and even those around fifteen jin were few and far between. It was a victory of quantity over quality.
Once he had confirmed this, Chu Mingcheng immediately began the transfer.
He first moved the larger king crabs from outside the cages into his own. When all ten of his cages were stuffed full, Chu Mingcheng pulled out his diving knife with a wicked smile.
Since there were so many king crabs here, he might as well leave these cages behind to help keep them from scattering after the bait was gone.
However, he had miscalculated one thing. The ropes tied to the cages were thick, and his diving knife wasn't good for cutting them.
After two slashes, the rope was only superficially nicked. Chu Mingcheng gave up.
If cutting one rope was this hard, cutting a hundred would kill him.
So instead, he simply opened the cages that contained king crabs, lifted them, and dumped the crabs out before locking them again.
He emptied every single cage that had king crabs. After making sure he wasn't leaving anything for the other party, he returned to his fishing yacht and began to pull up his cages.
Seeing him start to work, the crab boat immediately began to retrieve its own cages.
They weren't actually afraid of Chu Mingcheng taking their cages—that would just give them a better reason to cause trouble.
But the other party had been playing by the rules, which left them temporarily unable to escalate things.
This time, as they retrieved their cages, they were once again met with a strange and frustrating situation.
Every single one of Chu Mingcheng's cages, which had been surrounded in the very center, was overflowing.
And the cages they pulled up were basically empty. Only a few had one or two king crabs inside, which had clearly crawled in after Chu Mingcheng had left.
The captains of both boats were at a complete loss. They couldn't possibly imagine someone could freedive to a depth of over a hundred meters to cause trouble.
"Could it be the bait?" one of the captains wondered.
The captain named Claude shook his head in frustration. "What kind of bait could fill his cages to bursting while our hundred cages catch barely a few crabs?"
"Then can you explain it?"
"...I can't imagine how he's doing it. Maybe next time, we can just secretly pull up his cages and see what's going on?"
"I think that's a good idea."
It didn't take long for Chu Mingcheng to retrieve all ten of his cages.
He didn't bother waiting for daylight, immediately starting the boat and heading back to the pier. The other crab boat, which hadn't dropped its cages, immediately followed, afraid he might go to another spot to catch king crabs.
After discovering the massive school of king crabs below, Chu Mingcheng had immediately saved the coordinates.
He had no intention of going to other waters. This time, after dropping off his cargo, he would come straight back here.
As for returning at night, it was naturally because he wanted to get back to Noah's house early for a good night's sleep. Constantly using Life Conversion to stay awake wasn't a long-term solution.
"Cheng, you're amazing!"
When Noah saw the haul on the boat, he immediately gave Chu Mingcheng a thumbs-up.
He knew about the group of crabbers who had followed him out to sea to cause trouble. He had even considered that he might not get any stock for the next few days and had started freezing some of the king crabs to preserve them longer.
He had even been prepared for his quota to be taken back.
Who would have thought Chu Mingcheng would be so incredible? Although this trip had taken longer than the previous two and he had been obstructed by two crab boats, he had still managed to catch over a thousand jin of king crabs.
This put Noah at ease. He could continue to sell the king crabs quickly, make his money, and get out.
"Those crabbers haven't gotten too out of hand yet. I should be able to bring back even more king crabs next time. You need to get ready."
"OK, I'll move the stock quickly on my end."
After handing over the cargo, Chu Mingcheng earned sixty-eight thousand Australian dollars.
The king crabs accounted for fifty-eight thousand, mainly because the individual sizes weren't as large as the previous two times, which lowered the average price.
Secondly, the red seabream and southern hake were cheaper than he had expected. The red seabream sold for only twelve Australian dollars, and the southern hake for only ten.
If it weren't for the large quantity, the two types of fish might not have even sold for ten thousand Australian dollars.
Before heading back, Chu Mingcheng suddenly remembered something. He quickly called out to Noah, who was about to leave, pointed to the rope tied to the crab cages, and asked, "By the way, Noah, what kind of clippers can easily cut this kind of rope?"
"This... I'll go ask around," Noah replied after a moment's hesitation.
He couldn't immediately think of a good tool, but he thought that the tools used for cutting mooring lines might work and planned to ask about it.
Chu Mingcheng nodded, then drove back to get some sleep, leaving this small matter to him.
While he was feeling relaxed and happy, the crab boat captains who had returned to port were not.
The two had originally planned to secretly pull up Chu Mingcheng's cages, but he had returned to port directly.
That plan would have to wait until next time, and they decided to be even more shameless, dropping their cages even more densely.
Little did they know that next time, they would pay a heavy price.
After returning home, Chu Mingcheng slept soundly and woke up to find it was already past four in the afternoon.
Noah had already returned and had brought him a pizza.
"Noah, did you get the tools?" Chu Mingcheng asked after heating the pizza in the microwave.
"See if these two will work?" Noah was a smart man. When he heard him ask for a tool to cut crab cage ropes, he knew what he was planning.
He knew his friend's diving skills were impressive, so he was happy to cooperate.
Chu Mingcheng looked at a manual bolt cutter and a saw, raising his eyebrows.
The bolt cutter was within his expectations, but he hadn't expected him to also buy a saw. He was very well-prepared.
He was very satisfied with these two tools. Now it all depended on how many cages those two boats were willing to drop.