Probably under the influence of Wang Qian and Li Kun’s remarks, when Zhang Zian drove, he was always looking to the sides of the road and subconsciously searching for the sewer. However, it was obvious that there would be no sewer in the city unless it was a trench for construction.
The pet shop in the Dongcheng District was close to the sea and, because it was during work hours, there were no vehicles on the road. It almost felt like you could smell the sea breeze the moment you stepped outside.
Zhang Zian found a place to park, and when he got out of the car, the sea breeze messed up his carefully combed hairstyle.
The beach he came to had the shortest straight line distance from the pet shop. He felt that, if the marine creatures were attracted to Sihwa just like a magnet, they would most likely gather around there.
The beach had a rugged terrain. There were very few sandy beaches and all of them were rough in quality. There were quite a number of reefs, however, so they weren’t a tourist destination. On usual days, very few foreigners came to the beach he was at, and it was also not tourist season. So at the most, only a few locals living nearby would come to the beach to walk their dog or to take a walk themselves. He made a mental note to be careful to not step on any dog waste.
Bringing along the underwater speaker, Zian crossed over the sea wall and walked towards the seashore that was covered with reef rocks.
Splash!
Getting closer to the seashore, the sounds of the surging sea waves filled his ears.
The horizon was grayish in color where the sky met the sea and the sea met the sky. The sky and sea were of one color, making it almost impossible to differentiate between the two.
There were no fishing boats as far as the eye could see.
For quite some time, there weren’t any fish in the vicinity of the seashore because all of them had already been caught––unless it was a man-made fish farm. Fishermen would not waste their time at the seashore; the moment they left port, they would drive their boat straight out to the deeper sea.
The off-season for fishing begun the first of May, so fishermen were making use of the last month they had to make some more money.
There was no one on the seacoast, but there were the occasional vehicles driving along the seawall. People were either in school, in work, or sleeping in.
When crossing over a pool of water, Zhang Zian’s eyelids jumped. A red light shot itself to the corner of his eyes, like something was just illuminated by the sunlight.
With his experience on the beach of Germany, he immediately stopped and walked closer to the pool of water.
There were more than a dozen small fish swimming in the pool of water and they had neat, conspicuous orange, red, white, and black stripes on their body. The black stripes especially almost looked like they had been drawn on with a marker. He recognized them at a glance––they were Clownfish.
Clownfish were small and could be raised in small fish tanks. They were also not picky about bait and were easy to raise. They were the introduction fish for many saltwater tank hobbyists, starting from Clownfish as their first step into the bottomless pit of saltwater fish.
Generally, Clownfish were cheap, as they were practice fish and could be easily purchased in any aquarium or fish market.
However, Clownfish also had a variety of types: the most common and popular Clownfish in the country was the Percula Clownfish. But, although the dozens of small fish in the pool of water looked really similar, they were not the Percula Clownfish.
No matter what kind of Clownfish, there would be a pure white band on their neck–– just like a scarf––and most Clownfish would have a second and third band on their body and tail. Only a small number of Clownfish would have the white band just on their neck.
The difference between the Clownfish in the pool of water and the Percula Clownfish was that their second white band had a larger, sharp triangle that extended out in the direction of its head.
Zhang Zian recalled that the ones in front of him were not a common Clownfish species; instead, they were a relatively rare variant.
Since he had seen them, he couldn’t just let them go––corruption and wastage were very heinous crimes!
He looked around to see that there was no one around before he ran back to his Wuling Hong Guang MPV.
When the car was used to transport the sand and live rocks earlier, there were some containers such as storage boxes––as well as buckets and the likes––left in the car. Wang Qian and Li Kun had no time to clean up, but now the boxes were going to come in handy.
Zian ran back to the pool of water with a bucket and scooped up the water and fish. He then returned to the car with the heavy bucket, pouring the water and fish into the container slowly.
After he finished, Zian then brought along the empty bucket and started searching along the seashore.
Like what Jiang Feifei had mentioned, there was an abundant variety of creatures on the beach. Just by flipping over a piece of reef rock, a common or uncommon crab could be found underneath.
In a short while, the several large and small containers in the car were all stuffed. He had over ten different kinds of crabs alone, such as Spider Crabs, Red Egg Crabs, Asian Paddle Crabs, Macrophthalmus Banzai, etc. Some were valuable, while some were worthless––but even if they weren’t valuable, they could still be used to stew a hot pot or something…
He had also seen some different kinds of snails, but he did not pick them up because they were hard to sell and he still had to take care of them.
There were also many shrimps, but there were more types of fish.
Occasionally, he would encounter poisonous marine creatures which he would take a detour to avoid. But he decided to bring back those that weren’t very poisonous.
He picked up animals here and there and he just couldn’t stop. He hated that there was no space left in the car, though. If he had known, he would have just bought a truck…
Although Sea Angels and Edwardsiella Andrillaes were creatures of a higher grade, they could only be displayed as an attraction to attract customers. Even if someone were to buy them, it would be hard to keep them alive if the person wasn’t a high-end aquatic hobbyist. Zhang Zian had also been pondering on where to bring in a batch of common saltwater fish.
There was nothing Zian could do about having Sihwa sing to drive away the marine creatures near Binhai City. If she didn’t, it was going to be chaotic.
A thought suddenly flashed in his head; he suddenly thought of an idea.
The underwater speaker had a built-in battery, so he could buy a few more and place them along the coast, then write down the location and periodically change their batteries. That way, he was able to get the marine creatures to stay away from the coast.
When necessary, he could temporarily take the speaker out from the water at a specific location and let a small number of marine creatures gather before putting the speaker back into the water after he’d caught enough. Wasn’t that killing two birds with one stone?
The more he thought about it, the more the method seemed feasible. He could also connect large-capacity power banks with a waterproof function to the underwater speaker, eliminating the trouble of frequent charging.
The speaker was placed under the water, so no one would know that there was such a thing there except for himself. He would select their placement positions according to uninhabited locations, then record their coordinates by GPS; he would also use their nearby landmarks as a reference so he would definitely not make a mistake.
The Amazing Fate Pet Shop was very close to the sea, so driving down every morning to charge the batteries and to catch some fish wasn’t going to take much time.
But… what if he had something to do and had to be away for a long time? For example, when he went to Egypt, he would have to leave the country for ten and a half days. Who would take care of the underwater speakers? Wang Qian and Li Kun?
Unless it was really necessary, then letting them know would be his last resort.
He gave it some thought; maybe he could connect the underwater speaker to a solar charging board… The solar charging board would then be tied to a small air cushion that would float on the surface of the sea to receive sunlight, while the speaker would sink to the bottom of the water with a wire in the middle to transmit power, and the power bank would be used as a backup power source.
Even if someone were to pick it up by chance, who would know what it was for?
Let’s do this then!
As for the aquarium creatures in the car, Zian could just claim that he had received them through some connections, or he could also say that he had picked them up… Anyway, it was a wild harvest.