A new bend appeared ahead, and Fang Yun immediately turned. The current in this new stretch was slightly swifter. His expression changed, and he hurriedly corrected his course, only to see the hull scrape past the bank. The Dragon Boat shuddered slightly.
Fang Yun breathed a sigh of relief. This was already the seventh time he had scraped a reef or the bank, leaving marks on the Dragon Boat. Yet as time passed, not only did those marks disappear, but he could clearly sense the boat growing sturdier at a tremendous rate, no slower than it had during the typhoon.
Before he knew it, the Dragon Boat was moving ever more smoothly through the Golden River.
After steadying the Dragon Boat, Fang Yun cast his hook again. The hook and line flew diagonally toward a Literary Heart Fish two feet long. The hook's trajectory looked strange, but in the blink of an eye, it landed an inch and a half away from the fish.
The Literary Heart Fish seemed to have been cut by an invisible blade. Its speed plummeted to sixty percent of its original pace!
Fang Yun's eyes lit up. Within two inches, the hook effectively grazed and wounded the Literary Heart Fish. Previously, it had only slowed the fish to seventy percent of its speed; now, only sixty percent remained. This was an enormous improvement.
Fang Yun cast again, but as the Dragon Boat moved forward and the fish moved backward, it actually evaded the hook.
Instead, Fang Yun nodded slightly, as though he had figured something out. Then he cast toward a silver Literary Heart Fish three feet long, swimming toward him up ahead.
Just as before, the hook and line followed an erratic trajectory, yet the hook landed precisely on the Literary Heart Fish, tearing