The fish the soldiers had caught were handed over to them as well. Ye Yaodong's haul that day was decent too, selling for over forty yuan.
Early the next morning, they boarded the boat again in high spirits and spent another day fishing in excitement.
If they hadn't been on assignment, they would have stayed there enjoying themselves for ten days or half a month.
Unfortunately, happy, relaxing times were always wonderful but brief. After two cheerful days of fishing, the much-talked-about salvage team arrived.
Early on the fourth morning, they had only been fishing at sea for a short while when Lin Aotian got lucky again and landed a black drummer fish.
None of them recognized it at first. Seeing its dark body, they thought it was a Baogong fish, which they had also caught over the past two days. All those dark fish looked the same to them anyway, so nobody thought anything of it.
Ye Yaodong happened to catch a fish too. Just after putting it in his bucket, he saw Lin Aotian removing his hook at the same time. He recognized the fish at a glance and immediately blurted out a curse.
"Ah! A black drummer! Holy shit, what kind of dumb luck do you have? You actually caught one of these?"
Lin Aotian stared at him blankly. Why had he suddenly gotten so excited?
Watching Ye Yaodong squat down to scoop the fish out of the bucket left him utterly baffled.
"What are you doing?"
"Do you know what fish you caught?"
"A Baogong. Didn't you say Baogong fish were dark like this?"
The others also turned to look at Ye Yaodong in puzzlement. They had all seen the fish Lin Aotian had just caught. A dark fish like that was a Baogong, wasn't it?