He steered the boat to the deepest waters near the isolated island. According to the fish finder, this was where most of the fish were concentrated.

He first chummed the area with a shrimp brick and chopped squid, but that would take time to take effect.

So Chu Mingcheng opted for his jigging rod first, attached a jig lure, and started working the bottom while he waited.

Although the fish finder showed plenty of fish, it was the afternoon. The fish were numerous, but whether they would bite remained uncertain.

If they weren't taking the lure, he'd have to resort to spearfishing to bring them up.

Chu Mingcheng's main line was a size 4 PE line with a size 12 carbon leader.

He dropped the jig into the water. It didn't sink particularly fast. When about thirty-five meters of line had played out, it finally hit bottom.

The jig striking the seabed gave him clear feedback through the rod.

Chu Mingcheng quickly reeled in five turns, making the jig jump sharply upward, then let it sink naturally.

He slowly lifted and lowered the rod while reeling in line, making the jig move naturally in the water to attract fish.

After a few repetitions, as he lifted the rod again and the jig paused, he suddenly felt a distinct strike.

He lowered the rod, but the jig didn't sink.

Chu Mingcheng knew a fish was about to set the hook. Just as he prepared himself, the rod tip plunged sharply downward.

The rod was soft, and the line wasn't thick. He could feel the fish's pull was strong.

He lifted the rod with a sharp jerk, then started turning the reel handle. It was quite a struggle, so he occasionally used his right hand to help lift the rod, putting additional pressure on the fish.

From the resistance, he estimated the fish weighed over five jin but less than ten.

After fishing for so long, Chu Mingcheng had become quite experienced.

The rod creaked under the strain. Every time the fish made a run, he had to give it some line. It took him ten minutes to bring the fish up from the bottom.

It looked like a type of bream. In the sunlight, he could make out fine yellow spots on its body.

This fish wasn't common. Chu Mingcheng had to think for a moment before remembering it was a spotted sweetlips.

It was a valuable fish. A live one could sell for 120 yuan per jin; iced, it would only fetch 70.

He netted it, removed the jig, and weighed it—seven jin and six liang. He'd already earned back a tenth of today's fuel cost.

Placing the fish in the live well, Chu Mingcheng took out his boat rod, rigged it with a strip of squid for bait, and placed it in the rod holder.

Fishing with two rods simultaneously could increase his chances. He continued working the bottom with the jig.

After a short while, the jigging rod remained still, but the boat rod had a fish on.

Chu Mingcheng quickly secured the jigging rod in a holder, picked up the boat rod, and lifted. The weight wasn't heavy—not a big fish.

But that didn't matter. As long as there was action, it was promising.

He gripped the handle and reeled quickly. The fish at the bottom was darting back and forth, the feel on the line alternating between light and heavy.

He couldn't identify the type of fish it was, as it was moving in such a strange pattern. It felt somewhat like the lobster he'd caught in the Xisha Islands.

Hmm... a lobster?

Chu Mingcheng's eyes lit up. He'd wanted to catch some lobsters today. If one was hooked now, that would be perfect.

Soon, a familiar shape appeared at the surface.

It was indeed a lobster, and not a small one—about the size of the two-jin hairy lobster from before. But Chu Mingcheng's expression turned to disappointment.

It was an ornate spiny lobster.

Farmed ornate spiny lobsters could be eaten, but wild ones were a Class II protected species in China.

In reality, if he secretly ate it on the boat, no one would know. But Chu Mingcheng had his own principles.

Since it was protected, he wouldn't touch it.

China classified the ornate spiny lobster as a protected animal, but that didn't mean other countries did the same. He would get to taste it someday.

"Off you go!" He removed the hook, moved to the other side of the boat, and tossed it back.

Don't come back. If you do, I might not be so generous next time.

As the chum began to work, the bite rate on the baited boat rod increased significantly. Chu Mingcheng put away the jigging rod and focused on the boat rod.

Perhaps because the bottom was a reef structure, all the fish he caught today were bream species.

Besides the spotted sweetlips, there were also red seabream, yellowfin seabream, silver seabream, and the most numerous—black seabream.

He fished until three o'clock. Chu Mingcheng roughly counted his catch—twenty-one fish total.

The smallest were just over a jin, like the two silver seabream and three yellowfin seabream.

The larger ones were five or six jin, including both black seabream and red seabream. He'd only caught that one spotted sweetlips with the jig earlier; none had appeared since.

Stowing his rod, Chu Mingcheng changed into his wetsuit and slung his fish spear across his back.

He didn't put on any other gear, including the speargun.

Oh, and he grabbed the underwater camera.

In areas with coral or reefs, fish usually hid in crevices, making a fish spear more effective than a speargun.

Chu Mingcheng first dove into the water below the boat. He was quite curious about the underwater environment here, given the abundance of fish.

When he reached the bottom, visibility was poor—only about five or six meters.

But the reefs were numerous, with plenty of hiding places. No wonder there were so many bream.

Also, Chu Mingcheng felt lucky not to have snagged the bottom in this environment.

He took his fish spear, preparing to hunt a few fish here.

But before he could find any fish, he discovered something else valuable.

On the side of a reef, he found a huge sea snail. He tried to lift it with both hands, but it wouldn't budge.

He braced his feet against the reef and pulled with all his might. The snail was so large he had to cradle it with both arms.

What a discovery! A coconut snail that might weigh over twenty jin.

Chu Mingcheng was thrilled—not because a coconut snail could sell for forty yuan per jin, meaning this one could fetch over eight hundred yuan.

It was because there was a very small chance of finding a Melo pearl inside a coconut snail.

A coconut snail this large was a rare sight even in the national market. He felt the probability of finding a Melo pearl would be very high.

Chu Mingcheng didn't care about anything else now. He simply hugged the coconut snail and returned to the boat.

He first weighed it on the scale. The snail's weight exceeded his expectations—twenty-six jin. This was a treasure.

He added some seawater to a fish box, turned on the oxygen, and carefully placed it inside for protection.

Whether he could get rich overnight depended on this.

Then Chu Mingcheng went back into the water, continuing to search for coconut snails. With one this large, there were unlikely to be others on the seabed!

There was indeed more than one coconut snail on the bottom. In just ten minutes, he found three more.

But their size couldn't compare to the first one; each probably weighed only seven or eight jin.

His mesh bag could just fit them, so he placed them inside for now.

Unfortunately, he didn't find any more coconut snails after that, and as he swam around, the fish hiding here had almost all fled.

With no targets for spearfishing, Chu Mingcheng had no choice but to swim toward the coral reef not far away.

He didn't swim at the surface. Since no one was around, he simply swam along the seabed.

After swimming five or six meters, he suddenly stopped.

A strange-looking creature was crawling in front of him. It was a slipper lobster—not very expensive, but its taste was no worse than a regular lobster's.

Its size was also good, about the size of his palm.

This creature moved even slower than a lobster. Chu Mingcheng approached, pressed it down, then picked it up and put it in his mesh bag.

Then he quickly encountered another one. Had he entered a slipper lobster colony?

Chen Yang and Zhang Wei were coming tonight. He'd originally planned to catch lobsters, but this was even better.

The taste was excellent, and the price was reasonable. It wouldn't hurt so much to treat them to this!

Swimming all the way to the coral reef area, he caught three slipper lobsters in total.

Unfortunately, unlike regular lobsters, these weren't premium aquatic products. If he wanted to catch them by hand for experience points, who knew how long it would take to level up.

He hadn't checked his Aquatic Species Codex in a long time. Thinking of it now, he took a look.

[Aquatic Species Codex (Level 1)]

[Current Experience: (33/60)]

[Unlocked Capture Tools: Hand, Fishing Gear, Speargun]

[Max Aquatic Species Level: 50]

[Unlocked Species: 1. Mantis Shrimp, 2. Crucian Carp...]

[Special Ability: Effortless Swim]

He hadn't realized he'd already caught thirty-three species. It seemed he'd be able to level up to rank two soon!

He was somewhat expectant about what ability the next level would provide.

As for premium aquatic products, he'd sold quite a lot of his recent catch for good prices, but they were all large individuals, so his experience points hadn't increased much.

It was still level 2, with 167 experience points—still 133 points short of leveling up.

After checking, Chu Mingcheng began sweeping through the coral reef area.

His location was between the open sea and nearshore waters. Coral reef areas in such places were still very rich in resources.

After all, fishermen wouldn't just dive for no reason. Their main targets remained fish.

Therefore, Chu Mingcheng found many flower urchins here. This type of sea urchin had a very wide distribution.

They could survive from shoreline areas to depths of five thousand meters, but were mainly concentrated in shallow seas.

However, this type of sea urchin didn't gather in colonies but was scattered around.

After picking up two, they were no longer in his field of vision.

But he didn't leave to continue searching for sea urchins, because he was attracted by a small hole ahead of him.

A particularly large mantis shrimp was crawling outside the small burrow, about the size of his forearm.

A mantis shrimp this large—he'd only seen them in videos, and it made his mouth water. It was too tempting.

But this wasn't the commonly mentioned peacock mantis shrimp. The stripes on its back were yellow and black. It was a harlequin mantis shrimp.

It was valuable, but he couldn't catch it with his bare hands.

Even if he could, he'd easily get injured. It seemed he could only use the snare.

Fortunately, his mesh bag was full of items, and it was almost at capacity. A trip back wouldn't be wasted time.

Chu Mingcheng temporarily retreated, returned to the boat, transferred his mesh bag's contents to the fish box, then took the snare and some squid meat before setting off again.

Returning to where he'd found the harlequin mantis shrimp, it had already disappeared.

Chu Mingcheng wasn't surprised. It had probably retreated into its burrow.

He took out a piece of squid meat, swam to the side of the burrow, looped the snare around the entrance, then placed the squid meat beside the snare rope and weighted it down with a small stone.

After waiting patiently for a while, sure enough, the harlequin mantis shrimp was attracted by the squid meat at the burrow entrance.

When its body had emerged halfway, Chu Mingcheng immediately pressed the trigger, and the snare tightened sharply, catching it.

By the time the harlequin mantis shrimp reacted, it was too late. No matter how much it struggled, it couldn't escape.

Chu Mingcheng opened his mesh bag, placed both the snare and the harlequin mantis shrimp inside, and held the bag's opening closed.

The snare was released, and the harlequin mantis shrimp thrashed around inside for a while before calming down.

Chu Mingcheng carefully extracted the snare and continued looking for the next target. There were many valuable things here. If he caught more, he could keep some for himself.

At the same time, he didn't carry the mesh bag on his body like before. He was also somewhat afraid the harlequin mantis shrimp might strike him through the mesh.

This creature's raptorial claws were extremely powerful, typically used to smash shells.

After finding two more flower urchins, achieving one per person, Chu Mingcheng discovered another mantis shrimp burrow.

Still the same routine. As a result, under his amazed gaze, the burrow's owner returned from outside with a small sea snail clutched in its raptorial claws.

This looked like it had gone out foraging and returned home to find its burrow had been booby-trapped.

This harlequin mantis shrimp was smaller, but still about twenty centimeters long.

As it ignored the squid meat and began backing into the burrow, Chu Mingcheng pressed the snare's trigger and successfully captured another one.