Chapter 652: Seemingly Ordinary Scenery

Wu An heard Lao Fu Tou say that this hairy catfish yields one tael of glue per ten catties of fish meat, so he called out to weigh this hairy catfish, and several people carefully lifted it onto the scale.

The scale showed 75 catties.

Fu Yongning said, "If luck is good, we can get about eight taels of fish glue."

"Tsk tsk, amazing."

"Nowadays, hairy catfish glue is basically priceless but unobtainable; you can't buy it even with money."

Wu An asked, "At minimum, how much can it sell for?"

Fu Yongning looked at Lao Fu Tou, who pondered for a moment and said, "This fish of yours is worth at least a hundred thousand."

Wu An was quite satisfied.

In 2012 it could already fetch this price; if we waited until the 2020s, it would likely be worth several hundred thousand or even more.

Future marine resources and environment will be far worse than now.

Rarity makes things valuable.

Although with the maturation of aquaculture technology industry, some seafood through farming appears on the tables of more and more ordinary people.

But there are still many wild seafood that remain expensive, even increasingly outrageous.

For example, yellow-lipped fish.

For example, this hairy catfish.

Everyone hearing Lao Fu Tou's high estimate felt delighted; know that this is only the minimum, and if it were higher, it could be several hundred thousand.

Lao Fu Tou explained, "Actually, this used to be quite common."

"If you're talking about how great its efficacy is, that's not necessarily true."

"After all, at most it's just a medicinal ingredient."

"It's mainly because there's too little of it."

Not to mention fresh fish glue; even fish glue stored for years has been scavenged clean, making it rare to appear on the market.

Once it appears, it will be snatched up.

Lao Fu Tou continued, "When I was young, as soon as we went out to sea, we could easily catch a few of these."

"Sigh."

"I won't say more, I won't say more."

Wu An listened, feeling somewhat ironic, but he couldn't say anything.

What could he say?

Making money comes first!

Lao Fu Tou looked at Fu Yongning and said, "Later put it in the cold storage, find a dedicated area for it, don't press it."

Fu Yongning nodded, greeted the Fan family brothers, and the three of them worked together to place the fish into the cold storage.

A Qing and Mei Wu continued to squat down and sort.

A Qing's luck might indeed be somewhat mystical; after a few pulls, a golden large yellow fish was pulled out by him.

But with the hairy catfish already caught, the appearance of this large yellow fish merely made A Qing happily shout twice.

Because the catch from this net was not large, everyone tidied up quickly; in less than half an hour, the catch was fully sorted and stored, and even the deck was cleaned up.

"If every net yielded such a harvest, that would be great."

"Yeah, that's really comfortable."

"We can rest for about an hour, so lovely."

Everyone sat in the cool shade, blowing in the wind, chatting idly.

After five o'clock, the sun slanted west, shifting from incandescent light to orange-yellow, dyeing the clouds in vibrant splendor; Wu An watched and couldn't help but take several photos with his phone.

Mei Wu saw it and casually said, "What's there to photograph?"

He genuinely didn't think there was anything.

He almost sees such a sunset every day.

Wu An said, "This isn't something everyone can see; some people may never witness it in their lifetime."

Mei Wu blinked: "Really?"

Wu An smiled.

In his previous life.

He wandered in the big city, amidst the steel forest; not to mention such a gorgeous sunset, even doing nothing and quietly enjoying a sunset was a luxury.

Wu An took a moment to check the system, found that his Luck Value was only a single digit, and called out, "Let's haul the net, aiming to process the catch before dark."

Although night allows lighting, it's still not as comfortable as sunlight.

When this net was hauled, its pocket was obviously much fuller than the previous net.

A Qing muttered repeatedly, "Hairy catfish, hairy catfish."

He went to open the net pocket.

With a splash, the golden catch spread across the deck.

They were all spring fish.

Wu An pulled aside a spring fish at his foot, his luck was decent, and he found a large yellow fish, which was also quite good.

This net mainly contained spring fish.

There were also some shrimp crabs; actually every net has some, more means a few fish baskets, less means one or two fish baskets, which counts as breaking even.

Everyone hadn't finished processing when the sky turned completely dark; Lao Fu Tou turned on all the lights, and in the pitch-black sea only this tiny point of light remained.

Wu An helped process this net's catch; just as he rested, he felt hungry.

They ate early in the evening.

This also kept them busy for several hours.

Not bothering with fancy preparations, making do with what was on hand, they grabbed some shrimp and crab, chop chop chop cutting them all in half, boiled a pot of water, and dumped in ten packs of instant noodles.

A pot of casually made seafood instant noodles was ready.

No one among them disliked another; they gathered around the pot picking out food, nobody fought over the seafood, but over the instant noodles A Qing and Mei Wu were scrambling for it anxiously.

This stuff tastes good and also fills you up.

Seafood…

Whoever wants it can eat it.

Wu Anxian having eaten his fill, went to the wheelhouse to relieve Lao Fu Tou, and after Lao Fu Tou finished eating, he called out to haul the net.

When this net came up, there weren't many spring child fish, but instead they'd hauled up a good number of hairtail, the ordinary yellow-eyed hairtail—what is yellow-eyed hairtail? As the name suggests, it's the kind whose eyeballs have white that is yellow.

These yellow-eyed hairtails are common around here; each one is not small, with lengths of about a meter or so.

Under the lights they shimmered silver, quite pretty.

Each weighs two or three catties; although this hairtail isn't expensive, about twenty or so per catty, a single one can still sell for forty or fifty.

This net alone surely caught over a thousand hairtails; the catch was actually not bad.

Moreover, hairtails are relatively easy to handle—just lay them out in fish baskets and send them to the cold storage.

Fu Yongning said, "It's also the season for hairtail; they're quite fatty now, and they can fetch a decent price."

"The colder, the better."

"I especially like catching some hairtail to eat after the winter solstice."

Suddenly a shout came over the walkie-talkie from Lao Fu Tou: "Everyone, look out to sea."

Wu An and the others got up, went to the rail and looked down; the sea surface, shimmering under the lights, was filled with hairtail.

A Qing stared, eyes wide: "Damn, these hairtails don't want to live—they're practically throwing themselves into the net!"

Mei Wu explained with a smile: "They're probably drawn in by the lights."

"A scoop net should be able to catch them."

A Qing shook his head: "Forget it, the catch on the deck isn't cleared up yet; later the trawl might bring up even more—no need to bother with a scoop net."

Mei Wu, hearing that, thought the same.

In the wheelhouse, Lao Fu Tou rubbed his leg, feeling a bit off.

A school of hairtail floated to the surface, possibly attracted by the lights, but there could be other reasons.

This day… might be changing.

He was just guessing; for now he felt nothing particularly obvious, so he didn't say more, lest he invite needless worry.