Chapter 148: Whale Gang

The river wind was vast, and clothes fluttered.

Liang Qu sat cross-legged in the boat, repeatedly observing the map, his brow twisted into an "eight" shape.

Looking around again, it was a vast river, occasionally interspersed with a few floating islands, with only one sun hanging above his head.

About to break through the blood barrier, Liang Qu had already brought the Blood-Changing Pill, Coagulation Pill, and Blood-Activating Pill made with the horns of the ox-horn pomfret given by Master Yang a few days ago, just in case.

As a result, after all calculations, he missed the most important thing.

"Didn't bring the compass..."

First time going on a long journey, it was sloppy.

In this era, there was no navigation, the roads weren't good, and coupled with household registration restrictions, people's range of activity was extremely small. Those who could come and go freely in the territory of several counties were all capable experts.

If they could come and go between several prefectures, it was even more remarkable; large merchant associations would fight for them, and they wouldn't have to worry about food and drink wherever they went.

"Stop!"

The fat catfish and Cannot-Move unloaded their strength, and the water marks behind the boat quickly healed.

"Lean towards the shore..."

At the bow, Liang Qu reached out to protect a small puddle, in which a leaf was floating, with an iron needle stuck on the leaf vein. Under the action of the magnetized iron needle, the leaf tip slowly pointed north.

Not having a compass couldn't stump Liang Qu at all.

Leaning towards the shore and finding a small village, he couldn't buy high-end things like a compass, but men farming and women weaving, buying an iron needle was more than enough. Rubbing it on his hair to bring a little magnetism was enough to use as a compass.

"Off, off, A-Fei, you go left a bit!"

The fat catfish used three parts more strength on the right side to hit the water, the bow turned slightly, and continued to gallop.

It was no different from a compass, just needing to stop moving every once in a while to reconfirm the orientation.

Taking the land route between Pingyang County and Fengbu County required going around a circle, but if taking the waterway, it was a straight line, reducing the distance by nearly thirty percent.

Without a compass for real-time positioning, the goal of arriving in a straight line couldn't be completed, mostly becoming a broken line with little ups and downs, estimated to be late by half a day, but still faster than the land route.

Hey.

First time going on a long journey, and with no one to lead, there were too many things to pay attention to.

Liang Qu grew another heart.

Starlight radiance.

More than ten small boats spread out on the river surface, extending for a full two miles, almost to the edge of the deep water area.

When Pingyang County was still Pingyang Town, large ships between the two places all took this waterway, and it was impossible not to be discovered if anyone came and went between the two places.

Slap!

A big hand slapped on his face, and the mosquito that had sucked its fill exploded, turning into a blood stain.

Several rough men sat on a small boat, bored, none of them were martial artists, and they could only feed mosquitoes when they came to the river surface.

"Why are there so many damn mosquitoes? Has anyone come?"

"Not even a fish, where would people come from?"

"It's been several days, and they haven't come yet?"

"Only a few days. According to the speed, the news is estimated to have passed yesterday or the day before, how could it be at least another day or two."

"Why are we waiting so early?"

"Better to kill wrong than let go. It's us feeding mosquitoes, not the gang leader. We'll wait for half a month, it won't delay the gang leader from marrying a new concubine."

Silence for a while.

"Damn it, it's all the trouble caused by Lin Laoer, didn't stop that dog-fucking thing, let the people above know, otherwise we wouldn't have come to the river to suffer feeding mosquitoes. It didn't happen before."

"Who managed water affairs before? As long as those mud-legged people paid taxes on time, no one cared if you lived or died. Now the River-Dredging Office has come, and it's right next door, we definitely aren't as comfortable doing things as before. Didn't the Second Gang Leader say a few days ago that our Whale Gang should restrain itself now, and life won't be as good as before, preparing to cut personnel?"

Another man interrupted: "You say, if that so-called River-Dredging Office really manages this matter and sends people over, are we really going to kill officials?"

"Kill officials? What are you thinking? Don't want your life? Can you kill officials with your small arms and legs? The words the Second Gang Leader said, you didn't hear a single bit. Just send them away with some money, don't cause trouble."

"Can they be sent away?"

"Have you ever seen a cat that doesn't steal fish? If you are an official and don't fish for money, what kind of official are you?"

"Endure it, the Third Gang Leader said, when the wind passes, he will take us to the Tianxiang Building to play with women, play to your heart's content!"

"Makes me itchy."

"Itchy what, you rotten dog, you didn't get a disease, did you?"

"Dog-fucking thing! Get the fuck out!"

The boat galloped, Liang Qu leaned on the boat side to practice, suddenly his heart moved.

Water waves flowed, a wave half a meter high surged out of the water surface three feet, moving side by side with the boat. Through the moonlight, one could clearly see a large fish two feet long residing in the center of the water wave.

The whole body was green-skinned without scales, the nose was like a cow's nose, the head was huge and square, different from ordinary fish heads, and the eyes were round and huge.

Ox-head fish!

Another treasure fish!

The ox-head fish floated out of the water surface out of thin air, terrified, trying its best to swim forward, but no matter how it struggled, it was always wrapped in the wave.

Didn't expect to have an unexpected harvest just by rushing on the road.

Liang Qu reached out, his five fingers like an eagle's claw, pinched the fish back, and took the ox-head fish out of the wave.

The wave collapsed on the river surface, leaving churning white foam.

The biggest characteristic of the ox-head fish was that it was infinitely powerful. The strength burst by a one-jin ox-head fish swinging its tail could drag ordinary fishermen into the water. If it were an ordinary fish, it would take twenty jin to do that.

For this reason, this kind of fish couldn't be seen on the market at all. For smaller ones, fishermen could only fish out a broken net.

If it grows a little bigger, weighing three or four jin, ordinary people wouldn't necessarily be able to fight it face to face. If they were accidentally whipped by its tail and fainted, they would drown on the spot.

The ox-head fish in front of him was a full twelve or thirteen jin, and several adults couldn't hold it down, but it was difficult for it to even move in Liang Qu's hands.

"Okay, take a break, eat first!"

Liang Qu controlled the water flow, took off the rope sets on the three beasts.

The fat catfish and Cannot-Move had been pulling the boat for most of the day without rest, and their stomachs were already empty.

Fist had been pulled along, but it wasn't tired, just a bit dizzy.

Awei crawled down from his wrist, lay beside the ox-head fish, and stuck its mouthparts in. Within a few breaths, it sucked all the fresh blood from the ox-head fish, and the fish body slightly shriveled.

Without blood, Liang Qu took out the Green Wolf, chopped off the fish head with one knife, cleaned the black membrane and internal organs in the treasure fish, sliced the fish meat, and let the three beasts share the fish bones and internal organs.

The fish meat went into the pot, quickly turning white and floating.

Liang Qu had only seen the ox-head fish in books and had never eaten it. He didn't know how the effect would be, whether it would be stronger than the ox-horn pomfret.

【Water Marsh Essence +2.4】

【Water Marsh Essence +2】

The whole ox-head fish went into his stomach, contributing 42 points of Water Marsh Essence, and the fusion rate rose by another half point.

The fish meat in his stomach turned into pure tonic, Qi and blood surged around his body, Liang Qu gathered all Qi and blood to merge into the marrow pulp, blood like a sea tide, endless.

Really hot.

Having refined the blood barrier three times, Liang Qu took off his upper clothes and jumped into the water to help his body dissipate heat.

Didn't expect an ox-head fish to have such a good nourishing effect, even stronger than the ox-horn pomfret by half a percent, one day closer to the breakthrough of the four barriers.

Liang Qu had always thought that treasure fish were the juvenile stage of spirit monsters, but later he read more books and knew it wasn't the same thing.

Treasure fish were treasure fish, spirit monsters were spirit monsters, the two didn't match.

Any fish could possibly eat heavenly materials and earthly treasures by mistake, break through its own limits, and turn into a spirit monster.

But treasure fish were spiritual objects born of heaven and earth.

Individual rare and precious treasure fish could contribute blood energy that could only be obtained by eating a whole spirit monster.

Some were treasures all over, like the ox-horn pomfret, a pair of fish horns could be ground into medicine, stimulating the martial artist's entire body's Qi and blood, used to make Blood-Bursting Pill and Blood-Activating Pill.

The Water Marsh Essence contained in one jin of fish meat was several times that of ordinary spirit monsters, and the meat quality was much better.

Many spirit monsters tasted like raw beef, old and hard, with a fishy smell that couldn't be dissipated.

It was a pity that spirit monsters were everywhere, walking into the depths of the water marsh, killing four or five in one night, and even thinking it was too much to eat as a meal, but treasure fish weren't so easy to encounter.

So far, the treasure fish catching level of the fat catfish and them was on the baseline of one every two days.

Splash!

Full and satisfied, the three beasts floated to the water surface, full of spirit.

Liang Qu cleaned the cabin, put the pots and bowls into the water-tight compartment, put the rope sets on them, and continued on his way.

According to the current speed, he would arrive at Fengbu County tomorrow morning. ===== CHAPTER 149 =====