After Yao Xin left, Chu Mingcheng hooked another massive fish, this one pulling even harder than the previous two. But this time, his luck ran out. Halfway through the fight, with a great splash on the surface, the fish threw the hook and escaped.

Chu Mingcheng stood there panting, feeling somewhat helpless. The fish had been too big—even if it hadn't escaped, his line setup might not have held. Hooking three huge fish today made him realize his physical fitness was still lacking. He had already used up the dozen or so charges of Life Conversion he'd accumulated, with the last one spent while digging for sea worms. He could feel that his stamina had improved, but only slightly.

He decided to start jogging the next day to build up his endurance and find a way to earn more charges of Life Conversion. Alligator gar were an invasive species that damaged the aquatic ecosystem, but they weren't the only ones. He could go looking for others tomorrow.

For now, Chu Mingcheng had lost his enthusiasm for fishing. He released the carp, kept the culter for Mimi's dinner, then packed up his gear and drove home.

Back at his house, he showered, opened his laptop, and uploaded the videos he'd shot on his phone that day. He started teaching himself video editing. For the kind of lifestyle videos he was making, the editing requirements weren't very high. He just needed to cut out the boring, poorly shot, or repetitive clips.

It was his first time editing, and the process felt unfamiliar. It took him two hours to trim the original eight-minute video down to three minutes and add a few subtitles. He watched it twice, felt it was good enough, saved it, and sent it to Jiang Luoluo. She didn't reply, which probably meant she was out filming a night scene or practicing her dancing.

Over the past few days, Chu Mingcheng had learned that Jiang Luoluo was incredibly hardworking. A two-or three-minute original dance routine required her to practice for more than ten hours a day for a solid week to master. She didn't have a dedicated team either, just a single photographer. That meant she had to handle the choreography, costumes, makeup, and props all by herself. She was much busier than he was.

The next morning, Chu Mingcheng put on his workout clothes and went out for a run. He jogged to the breakfast shop, slowed to a walk to cool down, and once his breathing returned to normal, he had breakfast before walking back home. As a man, he had the strength for fishing; what he lacked was endurance—a side effect of years spent sitting in an office.

Back at the house, he tossed the culter to Mimi. He was going hunting for invasive species today, so he wouldn't be taking her with him.

When it came to common invasive species, the apple snail definitely ranked first, followed by the two that anglers despised most: the pleco (suckermouth catfish) and the tilapia. Farmed tilapia actually tasted pretty good, but the ones from rivers were another story. Many of China's rivers and lakes were heavily polluted. Wild tilapia from these waters were often full of parasites, and those that grew up in such polluted environments had dangerously high levels of mercury. For that reason, eating wild tilapia was not recommended, but the farmed variety was perfectly fine.

Chu Mingcheng decided to start with apple snails because they were the easiest to find. You could spot them in abandoned ponds, small rivers, and even rice paddies.

He drove along the coastal road, and before long, he came to a desolate area. It was uninhabited wasteland with a large, abandoned pond he remembered playing near as a child. Back then, he hadn't known that the little pink clusters were apple snail eggs; he had just enjoyed knocking them off and stomping on them for fun. Now, over a decade later, the place was unchanged, only more overgrown and desolate.

Apple snails have two peak egg-laying seasons each year: May-June and August-October. Even though it was late October, you could still see their eggs everywhere.

Arriving at the pond, he could immediately see the pink masses clinging to the weeds. He walked over, broke off a weed stalk, and habitually crushed the egg cluster under his foot. Suddenly, a new data panel appeared in his mind.

[Apple Snail (Eggs) (Invasive Species)]

[Ecological Damage Index: 3 Stars]

[Apple Snails Eliminated: 1 (One egg cluster counts as one snail)]

[Tracking: 1/day (When used, automatically helps the host find an area with apple snails)]

[Life Conversion: 0 uses (1/100) (One use per 100 snails eliminated)]

Interesting. This data panel was quite different from the one for the alligator gar. He had to eliminate a hundred apple snails to get a single use of Life Conversion. Thankfully, one whole egg cluster counted as one snail; otherwise, the difficulty would have been much higher. The 'Scan' function had been replaced with 'Tracking,' which meant he no longer had to search for them aimlessly. He could just use the tracking function once a day and spend some time clearing them out.

With a new mission, Chu Mingcheng began collecting the apple snails, starting with their eggs. Most were laid on the stalks of weeds, which he could just pull up. For the ones on rocks, he used his dagger to pry them off. Before long, he had a large pile on an empty patch of ground. He also scooped up a good number of adult snails from the pond's edge.

Once he couldn't see any more pink, he got his landing net from the car and started dredging the pond. The pond was completely overrun with apple snails. With almost every scoop, he brought up one or two, sometimes several. It was a full-blown infestation.

As he was scooping, his net suddenly began struggling violently. Confused, Chu Mingcheng lifted the muck-covered net from the water. A soft-shelled turtle was at the bottom, its short legs scrabbling as it tried to escape.

"Whoa, what's this doing here?" He never expected to catch a turtle while just scooping for snails. The pond looked filthy, but it wasn't industrially polluted, so it was teeming with aquatic life. Finding a turtle wasn't that strange.

However, with so many protected animals in the country now, you had to be careful with any wild catch. Chu Mingcheng immediately checked his data panel.

[Chinese Soft-shelled Turtle (Level 0)]

[Current Experience: 1/10]

[Size: +0%]

[Deliciousness: +0%]

[Capture Chance: +0%]

So it was a Chinese soft-shelled turtle. He quickly pulled out his phone to check if the wild variant was a protected species. He learned that there were three main types of soft-shelled turtles in China. Besides the Chinese soft-shelled turtle, there was the wattle-necked soft-shelled turtle, which was a Class II protected species, and the Yangtze giant soft-shelled turtle, a Class I protected species. He didn't have to worry about the latter, though, because you couldn't find them. There were only three known individuals left in the world. The main one to watch out for was the wattle-necked turtle, which looked very similar to the Chinese one.

So fishing for wild soft-shelled turtles was fine, but you had to be careful. You didn't want to be fishing one minute and find yourself behind bars the next.

Catching a wild soft-shelled turtle put Chu Mingcheng in a great mood. He carried the net back to his car, giddy with excitement. Wild soft-shelled turtles were incredibly expensive, at least two hundred yuan per jin at the market, and extremely rare. Most for sale were farmed.

This one wasn't small either—at least three jin. He was making over five hundred yuan a day from this "improper" line of work. Maybe it was true what they say—your luck really does turn around when you hit thirty!