Chapter 204: Never seen so many earth dragons

Xiao Hu's strength exceeded Ye Cheng's; this time he deliberately added force and pulled the whole earth dragon out in one go.

Holy shit! That's long!

It's about a meter long, right?

The Chen brothers cried out in surprise; this earth dragon was obviously not in the same league as theirs, its meter-long body thrashing about.

Ye Cheng hurried over and grabbed it, but it was too strong for him to hold.

Then Chen Zhanglong rushed over; the two of them, one at the head and one at the tail, lifted the earth dragon.

"Brother Cheng, I'd say it's about three jin," Chen Zhanglong said, weighing it.

"Probably; this thing is really quite big."

Getting such a big catch, Ye Cheng was also pleased.

Now we're good: each of the four got one, together about five or six jin of earth dragon, which works out to over a thousand in price.

Ye Cheng set the earth dragon down and was heading toward his own burrow when he saw a slightly flattened hole on the mudflat bubbling.

Glub-glub.

That means there's a catch; maybe it's still in the hole.

Without thinking, he thrust his hand in, a 'gulping' sound as his whole forearm sank into the mud.

The hole wasn't deep; Ye Cheng quickly reached the bottom and felt a slick, round, plump thing—not an earth dragon.

Ye Cheng grabbed its body and pulled it out—a black fish.

It was a crab tiger fish; we'd just seen a couple days ago, and didn't expect to see it again.

The crab tiger fish flopped on the ground a few times before Ye Cheng caught it and tossed it into the water tank.

Ye Cheng straightened up and shouted to the others, "Watch out—there are crab tiger fish too; sift every hole, and if you can't, use a shovel—don't miss any."

Although they're all holes, earth dragon burrows tend to be round while crab tiger fish holes are flatter; with careful observation you can still tell them apart.

Since crab tiger fish aren't as valuable as earth dragons, the four first kept watch over the earth dragon holes.

Of the remaining four holes, two more earth dragons emerged, while the other two showed no movement—likely empty.

From the eight holes we got six earth dragons in a row, making the Chen brothers overjoyed.

"Brother Cheng, I've never seen so many earth dragons."

"We've only just begun; keep going—there are still crab tiger fish, and after catching a few more earth dragons there's surely more; spread out and look."

After finishing this round, the holes in this area were mostly worked over, and the group split up to search the surroundings.

Those little shellfish and mussels—today the Chen brothers couldn't be bothered to pick them up; they're not worth the effort.

Following Ye Cheng, it felt like our spirits rose all at once.

"Brother Cheng, there's a patch of crab tiger fish holes over here," Chen Zhangfu called from the left; Ye Cheng stepped onto the mudflat and walked over—about seven or eight holes, fairly clustered, though we didn't know how many would yield.

"Xiao Hu, bring the shovel over; let's all dig together and see how many there are."

Last time, when it was just him and Xiao Hu digging the sludge, it was really painful, but now we have more people.

Moreover, the Chen brothers, while not as fierce as Xiao Hu, are more than capable.

The four of them started digging straight into the holes, no need for technique—just brute force.

The first hole dug to about thirty centimeters, and the opening began to bubble.

Chen Zhangfu couldn't wait; he thrust his hand in, felt around, and his face lit up.

Ye Cheng was about to say there was a catch when he saw Chen Zhangfu's expression shift instantly to a grimace of pain.

He cried out in pain and jerked his hand back.

"What happened?" Ye Cheng asked.

"A crab," Chen Zhangfu said, shaking his finger; the skin was broken, a faint red mark.

"No crabs, I'll handle it," Chen Zhanglong said, ignoring whether there were crabs inside; he shoved his hand in and, in a few motions, pulled out a large blue crab, unscathed.

In the Three Kingdoms era, he'd be a figure like Xu Zhu—utterly unflappable.

This blue crab is fairly large, almost two jin, and I don't know how it grew so big.

"Brother Cheng, such a big blue crab—I'll dig around some more."

Chen Zhanglong's face was smeared with mud, but his excitement shone through; he didn't care how dirty he was, lay back down, reached deep in, and Ye Cheng watched in admiration.

Ye Cheng's hole was nearly bottomed out; having learned from Ah Fu's mishap, he didn't dare plunge straight in, preferring to dig a bit more.

With the final shovel strike, he opened not a hole but a cavern, where a nest of crab tiger fish crowded together, staring panicked at Ye Cheng.

Ye Cheng pulled them out one by one—five in total, of various sizes.

Ah Fu was still examining his finger for damage when he heard Ah Long burst out laughing, then pull another, slightly smaller blue crab from the hole.

"I said it—such a big male crab couldn't possibly lack a female companion." Ah Long held up the blue crab for everyone to see; sure enough, it was a male-female pair.

In Xiao Hu's holes were all crab tiger fish; he pulled out four, plus a larger one weighing over five taels.

In this patch of burrows we got over a dozen crab tiger fish, plus two blue crabs—one large, one small, a male and a female.

"Brother, the wind's picking up," Xiao Hu said, pointing at the sea.

Ye Cheng looked; the formerly calm sea surface now had a breeze, with small waves slowly rolling toward the shore.

"Just a light wind; we can ignore it for now."

"Let's walk over that way and see if there are any earth dragons."

Ye Cheng pointed to the other side.

However, though the wind is light now, if it picks up, judging by the condition of this mudflat, it will soon be flooded.

The group walked a stretch ahead; before them lay a relatively flat mudflat with few pits.

On the mudflat, a tiny black dot would occasionally jump, land in the mud, then leap up again.

"Brother, look—I told you there were jumping fish," Xiao Hu said proudly.

What's the point of having it anyway? I can't catch it.

Ye Cheng shook his head. Damn, watching it on TV I didn't feel anything, but seeing it in person I immediately got a feel for it.

It's really just like when people talk about shooting a handgun at 50 meters.

Those who have never fired a gun always think 50 meters is close, that you'll hit every shot; but anyone who has actually fired a gun knows otherwise.

At 50 meters, with just one target and a few rings drawn, if your eyesight is bad you'll only see a blur—good luck hitting anything.

These jumping fish are just like that: on TV they look a few centimeters long, and grabbing them doesn't seem that hard.

But when put on the mudflat for comparison, the difference is instantly clear; to Ye Cheng, it's hardly distinguishable from a tiny dot.

Besides, you need to control the rod to swing it over and hook the fish back—he could never manage that.

After taking two looks, Ye Cheng said, "Let's handle the earth dragon first; we'll worry about this thing if we can't find an earth dragon—it's too scattered."