Before dawn, Linhe County's gates creaked open.
The villagers who had long been waiting outside formed a long, orderly line as they passed through the checkpoint.
These people carrying bamboo baskets or burlap sacks had all come for the morning market.
At the same time, many town residents were heading out to work.
Zhang Yuan mingled with the bustling crowd as he left the city, soon arriving at the Dock District.
He boarded his boat and headed down the river.
As usual, he rowed upstream with his oar, reaching the River Bend Area as quickly as possible.
Since Zhang Yuan had arrived early, not another fishing boat could be seen in the vast river bend.
He moored his Black Awning Boat beside the Reed Marshes, then took five eel cages from the cabin.
Eel cages were tools for catching river eels. Woven from bamboo strips, they were pointed at both ends and bulged in the middle like weaving shuttles, with ingeniously designed openings on either side.
Once a river eel wriggled inside, it could not escape.
These five eel cages had been given to Zhang Yuan by Sun Bo!
The Old Fisherman had told Zhang Yuan that eel cages were undoubtedly the best choice for catching White Dragon Loaches.
In all his life, he had seen only two White Dragon Loaches caught by others.
One of them had been captured with an eel cage!
Next, Zhang Yuan scooped pig liver, blood tofu, and other bloody meats from a bucket and stuffed them into the eel cages as bait.
According to Sun Bo, White Dragon Loaches loved blood food most. If he wanted to catch one, he had to be willing to invest.
But whether he succeeded or not depended entirely on luck.
Sun Bo had fished for nearly forty years