Chapter 335 - 222: Collecting the Large Yellow Croakers

Chapter 335: Chapter 222: Collecting the Large Yellow Croakers

Members of the dolphin family might seem like menaces of the deep, but most are actually quite friendly toward humans.

Seeing Yi Chen tossing them food, the pod of Chinese white dolphins drew a little closer.

One of them surfaced, a red fish she had just thrown in held in its mouth.

"Whoa, it’s a panda of the sea!" An Jun and Ye Jing had finally reeled in their own fish and had a moment to come over and watch the fun.

"That’s the culprit. It ate a large yellow croaker I had on the line, and I couldn’t do a thing about it!" Gu Nan grumbled, though his smiling face showed he wasn’t really bothered by the lost fish.

Watching the dolphins come right up to the boat after Yi Chen tossed another red fish, an idea struck him.

He picked up a fish to get the dolphins’ attention, then led them to the stern.

He tossed them a few red fish, then tentatively tried to pet one.

Chinese white dolphins are quite friendly. After being fed a few fish, they let him pet them freely.

Yi Chen took the opportunity to stroke one on its head. She found its skin to be supple and bouncy, and she smiled so brightly her eyes curved into crescents.

An Jun and Ye Jing also tossed a few fish, satisfying their urge to join in.

Perhaps sensing they meant no harm, the dolphin with the fishhook in its mouth also drew near. It opened its mouth, and it was hard to tell if it wanted food or wanted help removing the hook.

Gu Nan was actually a little worried it might bite his hand out of pain when he tried to remove the hook.

But the fishing line attached was still very long, complete with a sinker and float. If it got snagged on something, the dolphin’s struggles could make the wound worse.

So he grabbed a hook remover and tried to take the hook out.

Fortunately, the dolphin seemed to know he was trying to help. It remained docile, bobbing at the surface with its mouth open.

Yi Chen held a fish, ready to toss it as a comforting reward once the hook was out.

The hook wasn’t hard to remove. After a careful first attempt confirmed the dolphin wasn’t aggressive, he had it out with a few quick motions.

He even recovered the lost sinker and float. He’d only lost about thirty meters of line, which was negligible on a spool of a thousand meters, so the tackle was still perfectly usable.

The chance to interact with dolphins was rare, so Gu Nan and the others all took a few pictures. Yi Chen was already thinking about posting them online later to share, and maybe she could also see if any of her followers wanted to buy large yellow croakers.

The dolphins didn’t linger for long, though. They were here to hunt, and their bellies weren’t full yet!

Besides, Gu Nan and his friends had no intention of feeding the pod until they were full. In fact, they couldn’t have, not even if they’d given them every fish on the boat.

After the dolphins left, they went back to fishing. They didn’t stop until dawn, when they finally packed up their rods to head back.

As the morning sun rose, Gu Nan took the helm while the other three kept busy instead of resting.

They needed to sort the fish by quality, separating the good-looking ones from the rest, and then sort them again by size.

They would have to do it anyway after getting back, so they might as well get it done now while they had the time.

They were definitely sleepy, but taking a short nap now only to be woken up later would feel even worse.

They hadn’t caught that many large yellow croakers; no one had managed to fill a whole cooler.

The bite had been pretty average for the second half of the night. The high price of large yellow croakers was the main reason they’d kept at it.

Yi Chen first tallied her and Gu Nan’s total catch, which came to sixty-six jin and three liang. It was hard to estimate the exact price.

But even without counting the three-and-a-half-jin one, they could definitely sell it for twenty or thirty thousand.

An Jun and Ye Jing had each caught over twenty jin. Perhaps because of their spot, their haul was a bit smaller.

Even so, Ye Jing couldn’t stop grinning. This wasn’t much less than what he earned in a month.

"Yi Chen, does your shop buy large yellow croakers? If so, I’ll sell them to you for a bit cheaper."

"We do. As for the price... I’ll go ask Ah Nan." Yi Chen was surprised; she hadn’t expected him to offer to sell his fish to her, but after a moment’s thought, she decided to accept.

’He was her boyfriend’s close friend, after all. She didn’t want to buy them at the wholesale price, but the final amount was still up to Gu Nan.’

"Just give me the standard wholesale price. And we need to calculate the cost for the boat trip, too. I can’t take advantage of you guys."

Ye Jing held up a hand to stop her. "I’m thinking about a career change. If I end up becoming a fishing bum like Ah Nan, it’ll be more convenient for me to sell my catch to you. So let’s just go by the market rate."

An Jun’s eyes went wide when he heard that. "Ah Jing, you want to switch careers and become a fisherman?"

Yi Chen was also surprised, but now she understood why he had suddenly offered to sell his fish to her.

Ye Jing laughed. "Well, I see how much Ah Nan is making. I’m just minding a pet shop, and I don’t know how to earn more money."

"Rashly changing careers and investing in something else is too risky, and I can’t afford to fail. I can see with my own eyes that Ah Nan is making money this way, so I want to give it a try with him first."

"The price is still up to Ah Nan. I don’t know the wholesale price!" Yi Chen said in response.

’Actually, she did know the wholesale price for large yellow croakers. She was in the seafood business; how could she not keep up with the daily price fluctuations?’

’The prices were all decided in consultation with the other seafood market bosses. They had a group chat where they discussed everything.’

’But Ye Jing was Gu Nan’s brother, a friend since childhood. Of course, she couldn’t make decisions about pricing and boat fees on her man’s behalf.’

"Alright, fine. I’ll talk to him about it myself." Ye Jing sighed in resignation, then got up and went into the cabin.

Gu Nan, who was steering the boat, was also surprised when he heard what Ye Jing had in mind. When he heard that Ye Jing planned to leave the pet shop to Xu Zhina and have her quit her dead-end job that paid thirty-five hundred a month, Gu Nan didn’t know what to say.

’Being a professional angler could indeed make good money, but it was incredibly hard work.’

’Exposed to the wind and sun... how could that compare to the comfort of air conditioning in a pet shop?’

But his childhood friend had made up his mind, so Gu Nan couldn’t really say much to dissuade him.

After all, he himself had certainly given off the impression that fishing was a very profitable venture.

Never mind the imported goods; even before the fishing season opened, he had brought plenty of fish to the shop, not to mention the hundreds of thousands he’d earned from that lucky batch of Yellowbacks he’d stumbled upon.

"Alright, we’ll take them at wholesale price. You can just tell Yi Chen. As for the boat fee, let’s forget about it this time. An Jun is here too, so if I don’t charge one, I don’t charge either. If I charged you, I’d have to charge him too."

"But if you’re serious about becoming a professional angler, you’ll inevitably have to buy a boat. A single boat costs hundreds of thousands, at least. You need to be mentally prepared for that."

"Didn’t you already buy a big boat for deep-sea fishing? You’ll have to do something with this little one eventually, right? Why not transfer it to me?" Ye Jing said with a grin, slinging his arm around Gu Nan’s shoulder.

Gu Nan was taken aback. He hadn’t realized Ye Jing had thought so far ahead, to the point of setting his sights on his little boat.

Once he got the big boat, he naturally wouldn’t need the smaller one.

"It seems you’ve really thought this through. But this little boat of mine is only good for coastal waters. You know what the resources are like near the coast—it’s not easy to make big money. Most of the schools of fish I’ve encountered before were in the deep sea."

Ye Jing shrugged. "Can’t be helped. I don’t have that much in savings right now. Enough to buy this small boat from you, but I couldn’t even afford the down payment on a big one."

"And when I want to go to the deep sea, I’ll just pay you the boat fee and you can take me with you. Problem solved."

’That could work,’ Gu Nan thought. He couldn’t go out to sea alone all the time. How boring would that be!

’Humans are social animals, after all. They prefer a bit of company.’

’Just like tonight. Even though they hadn’t talked much, he didn’t feel bored or lonely at all.’

"That could work. By the way, when you have time, come by my shop. I’ll take you to my fishing club to get your boat license."

Now it was Ye Jing’s turn to be stunned. "Wait, your club can issue boat licenses?"

"Yep, they offer a lot of services. One of the main shareholders is a shipyard owner, so he provides the club with boat rentals and license testing services."

"I’m on good terms with the shareholders. If you get your license there, you can get it faster."

It was just that Wang Junhe and Guo Xiao’s club was established a bit too late. Otherwise, Gu Nan wouldn’t have had to pay extra for his license back then—it was a perk for internal members and diamond members.

Unfortunately, the internal members were all well-connected people, and the diamond membership fee was insanely high—enough to buy his small boat. Ye Jing couldn’t afford that, and it wasn’t necessary just to get a license.

They returned to the dock at 6:30 AM.

Wang Junhe and Guo Xiao hadn’t returned with them, as they were headed to a different dock.

The four of them cleaned the fishing boat, loaded the catch into the pickup truck, and then headed to the new shop together.

The new shop opened early today. Gu Dacheng knew his son and future daughter-in-law had been out night fishing all night, so he had come over to watch the shop without them even having to ask.

"Ah Nan, you guys watch the shop for a bit. I need to go deliver these orders." Seeing them return, Gu Dacheng didn’t even have time to look at their catch before he started hurriedly loading the morning’s packaged seafood into his vehicle.

He mainly wanted to hurry back so that Gu Nan and Yi Chen could go home and rest sooner.

"Oh, right, I bought breakfast. It’s on the counter. You guys eat first."

Old Gu had prepared everything. Gu Nan and the other guys, An Jun included, helped load up the vehicle. Then they ate breakfast before starting to tally Ye Jing’s catch.

His total came to twenty-six jin and eight liang. However, the price for large yellow croakers changed every two liang, so they had to weigh each fish individually and calculate the price based on its size.

After a short while of busy work, they finished tallying everything up.

The price was set thirty to fifty yuan cheaper than the market rate, but still a bit higher than the fishmonger’s wholesale price.

The main thing was that Gu Nan wasn’t looking to profit from the price difference; he was just helping out his childhood friend.

Ye Jing had often brought him food two months ago, and he hadn’t forgotten it.

Most of Ye Jing’s fish were between five and seven liang. When all was said and done, the total value was surprisingly over eighty-eight hundred yuan.

He was surprised himself to see it was close to ten thousand.

Such a high income from a single night’s work convinced Ye Jing that his decision to change careers was absolutely correct.

Even though he knew not every trip would yield this much, he also understood that he’d gotten a great deal since Gu Nan hadn’t charged him a boat fee.

’But as long as he followed the master, how could he not make money?’

No matter how you looked at it, his monthly income would be much higher than at the pet shop. If he combined both incomes, he and his girlfriend could enter a high-income bracket. They wouldn’t have to worry about money for their engagement in the second half of the year.

An Jun looked at his own catch. He’d just given away some large yellow croakers a few days ago, so it seemed unnecessary to give this cooler away as well.

So he picked out a few of the larger ones and said to Gu Nan, "Ah Nan, how about you buy mine too?"