Chapter 19: A 130-Jin Bluefish, Earning a Whopping 487,500 Yuan

Several of them quickly looked over and indeed spotted an angler.

For a moment, all five of them were utterly baffled.

“!!!”

“???"

“……”

“Wait, after all our hardships, exhausted to the brink of collapse just to get in… there’s actually someone fishing here?”

“Captain Zhang! Are we seeing ghosts?!”

The four team members all turned to look at their leader, Zhang Zhidong.

Zhang said nothing; he lit a cigarette to calm himself down.

Not only his team but even he, an experienced explorer, was dumbfounded.

He had been to many places and seen many anglers. He had always thought anglers were everywhere, but never imagined one could be found inside a waterfall curtain cave!

It wasn’t just that this guy had entered so easily—just the fact that he was fishing here so leisurely was something even their expedition team couldn’t manage.

They said anglers were the prodigies of exploration, and Zhang had just witnessed one.

This incident became a vivid chapter in Zhang Zhidong’s exploration career.

As he later wrote in his diary: “Yuan Mountain Town, initial exploration of the Waterfall Curtain Cave… the passage was extremely narrow, barely wide enough for a person, then after several dozen steps, it suddenly opened up… flat and spacious land inside, and there was an angler…”

…

“Did this fish take some kind of stimulant? We’ve been pulling for three hours and it’s not tired at all!”

Jiang Fan was still wrestling with the big fish, unable to reel it in no matter how hard he tried.

Several times, when he tightened the line, he was almost dragged into the water, but he wisely let out some line to let the fish swim away.

Clearly, the lake inside the Waterfall Curtain Cave was vast, unlike the Beimen River where the fish could only swim back and forth — here, if the fish swam across to the opposite shore, Jiang Fan would have to pull for more than ten minutes.

Still, the angler enjoyed playing with the fish, and Jiang Fan felt the same.

“Not coming ashore, huh? I can play with you all day long!”

“Beep beep beep!”

The tension release knob clicked repeatedly as the fish line was pulled out once again.

Jiang Fan tried to keep the fish near the surface while slowly releasing the line.

He had lost count of how many times they had gone back and forth like this.

By now, the sun was gradually sinking, and it was already past four in the afternoon.

But Jiang Fan paid no attention to the time, fully immersed in the battle with the big fish.

“Want to dive to the bottom? No way!”

Jiang Fan lifted his rod, pulling the large fish to the surface.

Suddenly, the fish slapped the water, sending waves scattering, then sank again.

But after more than three hours of struggle, the fish was exhausted and its pull weakened considerably this time.

Before long, Jiang Fan hauled it back to the surface and slowly dragged it toward the shore.

However, the heavy, alternating pulls from the fish rod made the process slow.

But the outcome was already clear; no matter how much the fish struggled, it was a fight for survival.

Soon, a big fish with a rounded body, darker back, and grayish-white belly, mostly dark greenish-black overall, came into view.

Just as Jiang Fan expected, it was a big black carp.

[ Ding ding ding!!! Congratulations, user caught a 130-jin (about 65 kg) black carp! System cash reward multiplied by 250 times! ]

[ Wild black carp: 130 jin; market price: 15 yuan per jin. ]

[ Ding! Congratulations, user earned 130 × 15 × 250 = 487,500 yuan RMB! ]

[ Ding! Congratulations, user gained 2300 emotion points! ]

“Four hundred eighty-seven thousand five hundred yuan?!!!”

Jiang Fan was stunned when he saw the system credited nearly half a million yuan.

Half a million! Back when he was just a nobody, not even in his dreams could he imagine such a sum.

Moreover, the bigger the black carp, the higher the price per jin.

For black carp over 100 jin, 15 yuan per jin was actually quite low.

But the system probably took the average market price.

Regardless, with a 250 times multiplier, earning 487,500 yuan seemed reasonable.

However, this 130-jin big black carp was far too large to fit into Jiang Fan’s small fish basket.

He then opened the system shop to buy a larger fish basket.

[ Two-meter diameter fish basket! (Cost: 50 emotion points) ]

“A two-meter diameter fish basket, that’ll do.”

[ Ding! Congratulations, user obtained 'Two-meter diameter fish basket', emotion points -50! ]

The two-meter diameter sounded extravagant, and it truly was.

What kind of scale was this? Almost the height of Yao Ming.

Not that the basket could fit a fish as long as Yao Ming, but that big fish could fit within a width equal to Yao Ming's height!

In other words, it could hold several Yao Mings side by side.

For such a fish, the only comparable creature in Jiang Fan’s mind was a shark.

After putting the big black carp into the basket, Jiang Fan planned to buy a kayak or some other collapsible, portable boat.

After battling a 130-jin black carp for several hours, he definitely didn’t want to swim all the way out of the cave dragging it.

Just then, he noticed five people approaching.

Huh? What’s going on? My perfect fishing spot’s been discovered by others???

The expedition team leader Zhang Zhidong approached, showing a wide smile with eight gleaming teeth, a square face, stubbly beard, dark skin, about thirty-eight or thirty-nine years old.

“Handsome guy, fishing? How’s the bite here?”

Jiang Fan frowned. “Uh, it’s not good here.”

“……”

The male team members were dumbfounded; the female members were stunned.

They had watched Jiang Fan pull in a hundred-jin black carp for over ten minutes and then saw him take out a two-meter diameter fish basket to put the fish in!

Two meters… If it were just two meters long, that’d be one thing, but it was two meters in diameter! None of them had ever seen such a huge fish basket! Who would carry something that huge if they didn’t catch big fish? And he tells us it’s not good for fishing here?

Was this guy afraid they’d snatch his fishing spot?

Forget it, they weren’t anglers themselves, so it didn’t matter.

What was important was how Jiang Fan got into the Waterfall Curtain Cave to fish in the first place.

Zhang Zhidong lit another cigarette and handed one to Jiang Fan.

He had seen many anglers before, and the way to strike up a conversation with them was simple: offer a cigarette or a betel nut.

Jiang Fan took the specially supplied cigarette and narrowed his eyes.

This kind of cigarette wasn’t sold in the market, only given to officials.

Looking at the five in their expedition gear, he immediately guessed their identity.

Zhang Zhidong smiled, “Handsome guy, actually, the five of us came here for exploration and survey. The Waterfall Curtain Cave is deep in the mountains, and normally no one can get in. How exactly did you get in?”

“Came in from over there.” Jiang Fan pointed toward a cave in the lake.

If the others were anglers trying to compete for his fishing spot, Jiang Fan wouldn’t have answered so readily.

But since this was the national expedition team, some things had to be said.

Zhang Zhidong looked in the direction Jiang Fan indicated, a trace of surprise crossing his face. “You mean that cave? You didn’t swim in, did you?”

Jiang Fan glanced over and asked, “What’s wrong with that?”

“This…” Zhang was once again amazed by Jiang Fan.

That pitch-black cave, where nothing could be seen, measured at least two kilometers in a straight line from outside to inside. For Jiang Fan to swim in alone… he was even more capable than many expedition members—a true budding explorer. It would be a pity not to have him join their team!