Becoming a Fish

The pale blue sky was incomparably clear. Thick layers of white clouds piled up overhead, while the sun hung at the horizon, casting bright, scorching rays below.

Beneath the sky stretched a deep ocean. The blue waters extended into the distance, and the sea breeze brushed past him, carrying a salty, fishy smell.

Upon the ocean stood a massive island. Far beyond it, a two-masted sailing ship was underway, its sails billowing as they carried the huge vessel into the distance.

Not far from the two-masted ship, beneath the surface of the sea, a pair of eyes watched the vessel.

It was a fish.

It was around thirty centimeters long, with an oval, somewhat flattened body.

Its head was enormous, with a protruding lower jaw and a large mouth full of sharp teeth.

It had smooth gill covers, slightly indented above them, and round scales covering its body.

It had one dorsal fin, a pair of huge pectoral fins, and a pair of pelvic fins. The two tips of its tail fin were long and pointed, with an inward notch in the middle that left a gap, as though the tail fin had been cut in half.

At that moment, the fish had half its head above the water, watching the distant Thriller Bark sail farther and farther away. At last, it voiced a question.

What exactly had happened?

Just moments ago, he had been a twenty-one-year-old junior college student named Xia Qiu, lying in bed and resting. Yet in the next moment, he had become a fish in the sea?

Why had this happened?

Why had he become a fish?

Xia Qiu could not make sense of it no matter how hard he thought. He had no idea what had happened.

And based on what he had been doing in bed before passing out, shouldn't he have turned into a tadpole instead?

Xia Qiu was curious about where he was now.

Just now, he had seen a sailboat powered by sails. Its bow had a huge curve, it had two masts, a wooden structure, square sails, and three cannon ports along one side of the hull.

Such sailboats were relatively rare, because most modern sailboats were racing yachts or small pleasure boats, and most hulls were made of metal. Wooden sailboats were pitifully few in number.

Furthermore, apart from a few antique-style sailing ships used as national memorials, or privately commissioned vessels kept as collectibles and pleasure boats, large wooden sailing ships were rarely seen.

Among large wooden sailing ships, three-masted vessels were far more numerous than two-masted ones. Moreover, most sailboats had pointed bows rather than broad ones.

Not only that, the ship's main mast had only two square sails, while the secondary mast had only one. There were far too few sails.

Compared with the number of sails, the hull was enormous. The sails could catch too little wind, and wind power alone would have struggled to move the vessel. It would have needed ocean currents to assist its voyage.

The hull lines were also far too full, creating considerable wave-making resistance and making forward movement difficult.

A ship like that had never existed before, would never exist in the future, and certainly could not sail safely at sea.

It was rather strange.

Xia Qiu wanted to know where he was, but he could not find an answer for the time being. He would need more time to observe.

He checked his bearings, dove beneath the water, and looked around. The seawater was deep and dark. Other than the sunlight filtering down from above, a deathly stillness filled every direction.

Xia Qiu found it difficult to accept the fact that he had become a fish, but he had no choice. He had to survive first, and so his first priority was to eat.

Xia Qiu swayed his body and paddled with his fins, swimming toward the nearest island.

As he approached the island, Xia Qiu slowly swam down toward the seafloor. The water here was very shallow, less than ten meters deep. The seabed was covered in white sand and mud, with pitted rocks eroded by seawater, while starfish lay half-hidden beneath the sediment.

Most marine fish fed on algae, plankton, sea worms, small fish and shrimp, shellfish, and so on.

But Xia Qiu knew he had teeth. These were not pharyngeal teeth, but teeth in both jaws.

Many fish had teeth, including gobies, pike, striped catfish, sharks, rays, moray eels, snakeheads, viperfish, arowana, piranhas, and the like.

Most of them were carnivorous fish that fed on fish, shrimp, and shellfish.

Xia Qiu noticed that his mouth was large and that he had many teeth. He figured there was a high chance he was carnivorous, so he set his sights on small fish and shrimp.

There.

Xia Qiu approached the seabed and immediately spotted a sea shrimp concealed beneath the sand, most of its body buried in the sediment.

Xia Qiu twisted his fish body from side to side, accelerating toward the shrimp in an instant. He opened his large mouth, and his sharp teeth bit directly into the shrimp hidden in the sand.

Sand and mud flowed out through the gaps in his teeth. Xia Qiu ignored the shrimp's struggling body as his sharp teeth closed, crushing its shell and cutting through its flesh.

The shrimp was fifteen or sixteen centimeters long, roughly half Xia Qiu's body length. Xia Qiu had to bite it into pieces before he could eat it.

As Xia Qiu tore into it, the shrimp stopped struggling. A hollow appeared where it had been bitten, and the shrimp meat there was swallowed into Xia Qiu's belly.

Then Xia Qiu continued biting, gradually swallowing the shrimp, leaving only its head, tail, and part of its rostrum behind.

Still a little hungry.

The hunger in Xia Qiu's belly had eased considerably, but he was not full. So he searched again, found another sea shrimp hidden beneath the sand, swayed his body, and rushed toward it. He clamped it in his jaws, then swam upward.

Once the sand and mud had flowed from between his teeth, Xia Qiu swallowed this shrimp into his belly as well.

This time, Xia Qiu felt full.

I'm full.

Xia Qiu was very satisfied, though he was somewhat surprised by his appetite. He had actually eaten two shrimp in one go.

Shrimp fifteen or sixteen centimeters long weighed around thirty grams. Two shrimp weighed sixty grams, and after excluding the heads, tails, and rostrums, about half remained—roughly thirty grams.

For a fish like Xia Qiu, that was an enormous amount.

By pressing his body into the sand and leaving an imprint, then observing its length and shape, Xia Qiu discovered that he was around thirty centimeters long.

At that length, depending on the species, a fish could weigh anywhere between 350 and 600 grams. He probably weighed around 500 grams.

A fish's daily food intake varied depending on its size, weight, and species.

The smaller the fish, the greater its food intake relative to its body weight. As weight increased, the proportion of food intake decreased.

For example, Carp consumed anywhere from one-fifteenth to one-thirtieth of their body weight.

Among sharks, warm-blooded great white sharks consumed about 1.6 percent of their body weight per day, while cold-blooded Blue Sharks and Sandbar Sharks consumed only around 0.4 to 0.6 percent.

Among whales, Blue whales ate two to five tons a day, roughly 2 to 3 percent of their body weight.

Adult sperm whales ate more than one ton of food a day, around 3 percent of their body weight.

He weighed roughly 500 grams, and his food intake should be around one-twentieth of his body weight, or twenty-five grams.

But that was the amount of food eaten in an entire day. It should have been divided into two or three meals, with intervals of at least four hours between each.

In other words, a fish his size should eat no more than fifteen grams at a time.

Yet he had directly eaten thirty grams. That was far too much, but he did not feel particularly bloated.

That was strange.

I should move around and speed up digestion.

With that thought, Xia Qiu began swaying his body and slowly swimming into the distance.

But after swimming only a few meters, Xia Qiu felt a warmth arise in his body. Streams of heat spread through every part of him. Not only that, but his body began to ache and swell.

What was going on?

Xia Qiu did not understand. He swam faster, but the heat grew more obvious, and the swelling pain in his body became increasingly intense.

With no other choice, he stopped, hid himself in the sand, and endured the pain as he waited.

Crack, crack, crack.

Xia Qiu could even hear faint sounds coming from the bones in his body.

What exactly was happening? Was there something wrong with the food?

Xia Qiu could not figure it out. He could only pray that he would survive this crisis.

Half an hour later, the swelling pain vanished.

Splash, splash.

Xia Qiu defecated.

So soon?

Fish had different digestive cycles. The fastest could defecate in around two hours, while the average digestion time for adult fish could reach five to nine hours. Yet he had defecated after only half an hour.

Hungry.

Xia Qiu suddenly felt hunger rising from within his body.

I'm hungry again so soon?

Xia Qiu felt that something was wrong. His food intake had been far too high, roughly two to three times the normal amount.

A hot current had appeared and caused pain.

His digestion speed was incredibly fast. After only half an hour, he felt hungry and needed to eat again.

If only one thing had been abnormal, it could have been a coincidence. But everything had exceeded the norm, leaving Xia Qiu worried.

Was there something wrong with his body?

Or was there another reason?

Xia Qiu did not know, but hunger made him need to eat again.