Chapter 207: Seeking Fortune in Peril

Wu An was very satisfied with the haul from the longline fishing, proving that longline fishing had great potential.

But there also appeared fish that had been dead for a long time and were already rotten.

There was nothing to be done.

Who let them encounter a school of devil fish yesterday; the fishing boat really had no spare space, and even if they had come to collect yesterday, judging by the current catch, the boat couldn't hold it.

Wu An secretly thought that since he had returned to the dock too late yesterday, today he had to go talk to Boss Li no matter what, and the boat's renovation was already imminent.

The one-kilometer longline had a total of 500 hooks, spaced two meters apart, aimed at big fish, so the spacing was somewhat large.

Fortunately, that was the case.

If the spacing were too small, those eels would thrash about and the line would surely get tangled badly.

A Qing sat down exhausted on the ground; hauling in the longline was hard work, of course, with such a good catch he felt happy even though tired, wiping his sweat he said: "Brother, the catch isn't bad—must be over a hundred fish!"

At first there were still consecutive hooks, later the action weakened a bit—four or five hooks before getting one, and finally it took a dozen hooks to get a single fish.

It was obviously due to the luck value being exhausted.

Solving it is also simple: just stay by the longline, and when the luck value runs out, add more—then the longline's haul will surely be terrifying.

But it wasn't necessary.

Wu An thought this was fine—keeping a low profile, just a little better luck than ordinary professionals who set longlines.

The only regret was not catching the target fish; among the longline catch, the most valuable were the groupers, and now that the fishing season is open, the price is probably even lower than usual.

He had deliberately set the longline farther out, actually hoping to catch valuable fish like red grouper, tiger grouper, and other prized groupers.

If he could catch a large yellow fish, that would be even better.

Who wouldn't like a "Golden Legend"?

Wu An thought to himself, Mai Hangyu said it outright, and A Qing also felt it was a pity, saying: "My luck is bad."

"Let me try next time, brother."

Mai Hangyu nodded; "I think it'll work—next time I'll bring my dad along."

Wu An chuckled: "If you can get him to come, I'll double your wages."

Upon hearing that, Mai Hangyu slapped his chest and made a promise.

Meanwhile.

Lao Mai kept sneezing, rubbing his nose and muttering: "Who's talking about me again?"

A Qing couldn't stay idle; seeing the longline in the pot a bit dirty, he planned to rinse it with seawater, and seeing A Qing busy, Mai Hangyu naturally couldn't just sit and smoke.

Wu An drove the boat to the crab‑pot spot, saw the two stand up, and hurriedly said: "A Qing, Hangyu, don't busy yourselves yet—take a break, take a break; later we'll probably have to haul the pots together."

A Qing nodded and then sat down.

Mai Hangyu passed over a cigarette.

The two of them puffed away contentedly.

Hauling in the longline was already hard work; later the crab pots would surely be tougher to pull, the boat had no special machinery for hauling pots, relying purely on manpower.

If there wasn't much catch it would be fine, but if the catch was too big it would be very tiring.

Fortunately there were only twenty crab pots; even if it was tiring, it wouldn't be too much—just a bit of effort.

Wu An stopped the boat and hauled up the buoys.

A Qing stood by, insisting: "Don't snag the bottom, don't snag the bottom."

The biggest problem with lowering the crab pots is snagging the bottom; if a pot gets caught on a seabed rock, it's essentially ruined and can't be pulled up.

The first shrimp pot came up smoothly.

Very heavy!

A Qing shouted: "Pull together!"

A Qing and Mai Hangyu stood left and right, the three of them chanting a work song as they pulled; the crab pot broke the surface, water sprayed everywhere, and the mantis shrimp inside thrashed violently.

"Brother, there are so many mantis shrimp—this is way too much!"

"We've struck it rich this round!"

"Someone sold them for fifty‑five per catty yesterday."

"This row of crab pots alone must have at least seventy or eighty catties!"

Mai Hangyu rejoiced: "That'll sell for three or four bucks, about the same as my senior's monthly wage!"

"If my senior knew, he'd surely be jealous to death."

A Qing glanced at him: "With your current wage, would your senior still be jealous?"

Mai Hangyu slapped his head: "Hehe, that's true too."

Wu An was equally pleased.

No wonder the crab pots boosted with luck value yielded an astonishing haul.

Most importantly, such high income wasn't tiring at all—just a bit of effort when lifting the pots, far easier than wading and fishing.

The second, third, and fourth crab pots were basically like the first, occasionally a bit poor, containing a lot of miscellaneous fish and such, as well as sea snails.

The luck value only attracts; what kind of seafood it draws in isn't certain.

Even low‑value seafood consumes luck value, and the consumption of luck value relates to the seafood's worth, but it's not a strict equation.

The seafood caught in the crab pots was quite mixed, also including some ghost shrimp and two small blue dragons, which was quite a pleasant surprise.

There were even more crabs—mainly shuttle crabs, plus orchid crabs, some green crabs, while the stone crabs that swarm the shore were hardly found in the pots.

Worth mentioning is that there were also plenty of stone nine public; they came in to eat the buffet, but ended up eating and eating until they found they couldn't get out.

Although these fish aren't valuable, their sheer quantity means they can still fetch a decent sum.

After hauling up the crab pots, that was only the first step; a pile of seafood can't be left unattended—it must be sorted, sorted well, so the deck has space to work; otherwise there'd be no room to deal with the pots.

With no time to rest, the three quickly sorted, separating the shrimp and crabs, tying up the crabs, and besides that, picking out the smaller shrimp, crabs, and fish to throw back into the sea.

The crab pot has a problem: it catches everything, big or small.

After all that busyness, a glance at the clock showed it was already eleven; without realizing it, we'd been busy for another two-plus hours, not unlike hauling in the longline.

Hauling the crab pots isn't troublesome; the main hassle is sorting the catch.

Wu An said, "Let's move to another spot and drop the crab pots."

"Once we're done, we can go home."

Saying that, he went to start the boat.

A Qing and Mai Hangyu also couldn't rest; they hurriedly stuffed bait into the crab pots. Yesterday, when they threw the pots in, the two of them hadn't prepared in advance, and it was quite a scramble.

One setback brings one wisdom.

This time we prepared in advance; by the time we reach the spot, we can just toss the crab pots straight into the sea.

That's how crab pots work: as long as they don't snag the bottom, you basically haul them up, rebait, and drop them again, back and forth, to maximize profit.

The cost is basically just that bit of bait, which can be neglected.

As long as we have Luck Value backing us, we won't lose.

Wu An piloted the boat around to the other side of the island.

Here the reefs are steep, and the seabed situation may be more complex, so the chance of the crab pots snagging is higher.

However, Wu An felt that with Luck Value on his side, the problem shouldn't be too serious.

Fortune favors the bold.

This time he didn't catch any valuable fish, and he was still quite unwilling to accept it.

Actually, this trip's haul was pretty good, but people are greedy—once you have one, you want two; once you have two, you want three…

Today we had a total of 122 Luck Points, and we directly imbued the crab pots with 120 points.

The remaining two Luck Points, he intends to keep for emergencies.

If we happen to encounter a school of fish, we can still cast two nets.

After all the crab pots were set, A Qing clasped his hands together, closed his eyes, faced the sea, and murmured prayers.

Faintly audible were words like 'tiger grouper', 'mouse plate', 'red spotted', 'large yellow fish', and so on.

Wu An smiled, gazing at the buoy on the sea surface, also secretly hopeful; then he gave the throttle a hard turn, and the engine soon roared 'boom—boom—boom', leaving a trail of black smoke as they returned laden.