1983Fishing and Farming between Mountains and Seas

Chapter 351: Rescuing the Killer Whale and Getting a Surprise

Anyway, Liang Ziqiang planned to climb up the reef to see if there were any valuable seafood on the island.

Even though the reef island is bare and without any grass, there are many creatures that particularly like to gather in this pure reef area, including many valuable creatures.

The chance of finding valuable goods on a reef island in the deep sea is somewhat higher than in the shallow sea.

He even used a telescope to take a closer look, and found no suspicious dangerous creatures on the ground or on the rocks, at least not like the last time when the island was covered with sea snakes. This made him feel much more at ease.

"Get up at the Internet cafe!"

Liang Ziqiang looked at his watch. It was now past three twenty in the afternoon and the net had been in operation for two and a half hours. Although it had not reached three hours yet, it was not impossible to raise the net half an hour earlier. The only problem was that the catch would be relatively less.

Since we have decided to drop anchor and go to the island, of course we should first raise the net and bring the net bag back to the boat.

As we sailed slowly around the island, the trawl net was lifted up and then dumped out. The catch was still the same as before, but there were more reef-loving fish such as flat snapper and black snapper. The catch was less than the previous one because we didn't have enough time.

After the fish fell to the fish sorting area, Liang Ziqiang started the anchor machine, lifted the anchor and anchor chain out of the anchor house, and slowly lowered them into the water to touch the bottom.

He told Deng Zhaocai and others to stay on the boat to sort out the latest catches, while he and Zhu Tianpeng got off the boat and landed on the rocky island.

Before they took a few steps, the killer whale resting on a pile of large rocks apparently saw them and began flapping its pectoral fins desperately.

"It seems that he really can't move. It's so pitiful. Do you want to think of a way to save him?" Zhu Tianpeng was a kind-hearted person, so he asked immediately.

Liang Ziqiang took a few steps towards that direction.

He had never seen such a huge creature from such a close distance. Now that he was standing close to it, he estimated that it must be five or six tons.

Judging from its size, it is about the same size as the killer whale that was seen hunting a thresher shark on the boat before, which makes Liang Ziqiang believe that it should be the same one.

Of course, the killer whales were all the same panda color, and lacked other features, so he couldn't tell.

Obviously, this color combination of black on top and white on the bottom looks very cartoony and silly.

Obviously, the killer whale was unable to move and could only flap its fins, and its actions did not indicate any malicious intent.

But when Liang Ziqiang faced such a huge object, he still felt his breathing become heavier, as if he was not looking at the other party, but the other party was staring at him.

The killer whale was lying prone on top of a pile of rocks, which was lower than the surrounding area and looked like it was stuck there.

He looked at the ground on the island again. Some places were dry, but some places still had puddles and water stains.

He thought about today and noted the pattern of the high tide on this day.

"I understand. The place where we are standing was flooded by sea water in the morning. Now that the tide has receded, this big guy is stranded and can't go back to the sea!" Liang Ziqiang immediately understood why the killer whale appeared on a pile of rocks.

This is the only explanation. Normally, there is no other external force that is strong enough to push such a huge whale onto the pile of rocks.

Zhu Tianpeng obviously agreed with him and sighed, "Being too big is not necessarily a good thing. You can get stranded on an island just by swimming! What should we do now?"

"Come closer and take a look!"

The two men came right up to the killer whale, and the killer whale flapped its fins even more vigorously, and no one knew what it meant.

Is it begging them for help, or is it afraid that they might suddenly attack it?
Liang Ziqiang naturally wanted to help it. After all, this killer whale now looked very likely to be the one from this morning.

Apart from anything else, Hulu's life was hanging by a thread at the time. If the whale hadn't suddenly appeared, Hulu's life would have been gone long ago. Even if the killer whale didn't intend to rescue Hulu, it objectively saved it.

In addition, without the killer whale killing the thresher shark, the extremely valuable tail fin would not have fallen into his hands. It is not wrong to say that the killer whale gave it to him for free.

But how can I help?

Even if Deng Zhaocai and the others were included, there were only six of them in total. How could the six of them push a creature weighing more than ten thousand kilograms into the sea?
Zhu Tianpeng obviously also realized the insignificance of his strength, and said worriedly: "We can't move this at all?"

Liang Ziqiang had never touched a killer whale before, so he reached out and tried to touch the top of the killer whale's head.

Not only did the killer whale show no signs of resistance, but the flapping of its pectoral fins slowed down, and it flapped gently as if to express comfort.

The killer whale has a pair of white eye circles on its head, which look like a pair of eyes from a distance, but they are not actually its eyes.

Above the white spots, there was a pair of small black eyeballs. Those were real eyes. At this moment, they blinked and then narrowed slightly.

There is actually an expression? This is still very vivid, and it clearly means that he is willing to accept it.

At this moment Liang Ziqiang was stunned. A huge monster, enjoying his "head-patting"?
But when he rubbed his palms on its head for a few times, he felt how hot his palms were!
He looked up at the sky. It was around 3:30 and the sunlight was still quite strong and scorching. Both he and Zhu Tianpeng could not help but break out in beads of sweat. They didn't know how long this killer whale had been stranded here. Was it an hour, two hours, or even longer?
In fact, returning to the sea is a natural thing. Liang Ziqiang had already thought about it. As long as the tide rises again, the killer whale will naturally float up and swim into the sea.

But the problem is, it has to last until the tide rises again!
The biggest threat to this killer whale is obviously the scorching sun above its head.

If the sun continues to shine like this until dusk, the killer whale will probably be dying...

Thinking of this, Liang Ziqiang gradually made a decision.

"Acai, A'song, we'll stop for a while to sort the fish, and you all come down the boat." Liang Ziqiang called out to the boat, "Oh, and look for empty buckets and shoulder poles, and carry all the buckets down, a total of six large buckets!"

After hearing this, Deng Zhaocai and the others went to look for buckets.

There were many tools on the big ship, including shoulder poles and buckets. After a while, a few people actually gathered six shoulder poles and twelve buckets and took the boat.

"Oh my god, it looks familiar. This is the killer whale that saved Hulu this morning. Look, the color, the appearance..." Deng Zhaocai shouted as he got closer.

This caused several people to laugh:

"Acai, if you say so, all the killer whales in the entire ocean are familiar with you, because they all look the same!"

The six people worked together, carrying buckets of water from the sea near the island and coming to the killer whale.

Liang Ziqiang picked up a full bucket of water and poured it on the middle of the killer whale, then poured it over the dark and shiny skin on its back.

Compared to the killer whale's skin under the scorching sun, the sea water is extremely cool and flows along the killer whale's skin.

As it was being showered, the orca's pectoral fins began to flap again and again, this time at a frequency similar to clapping. At the same time, its tail fin also moved twice.

Not only that, it also made relatively gentle sounds from its mouth, but Liang Ziqiang and the others couldn't understand what it meant.

Liang Ziqiang picked up another bucket of water, this time walked to the front, and slowly poured it over its head.

After pouring, this time the killer whale lowered its head a little, and after the water drained away, it opened its eyes and looked over here.

I don’t know about other things, but I can see that it’s very comfortable, the kind of comfort that comes from a long drought followed by a downpour, or from eating popsicles in the dog days of summer.

Several other people also picked up buckets and poured water on different parts of the killer whale.

"Wait, Acai, what the hell jumped out of your bucket?!" Lu Song suddenly shouted at Deng Zhaocai.

"What? You didn't notice it?" Deng Zhaocai looked out of the bucket blankly.

Liang Ziqiang looked over and noticed it.

An extremely bright color flowed down from Deng Zhaocai's bucket as the seawater poured down from it. At that moment, it was as if a small piece of rainbow fell from a high altitude.

"Acai, your eyesight is so bad. When you were filling a bucket with water at the island, such a beautiful fish went into your bucket along with the sea water, and you didn't even notice it?" Lin Liming complained about Deng Zhaocai.

"Just fetch water, why should I think so much? Who would lie over the bucket to look? Would you?!" Deng Zhaocai retorted.

Liang Ziqiang ignored their habitual quarrels and saw the extremely colorful little fish sliding on the ground with the water flow, jumping twice and then stopping not far from his feet, so he bent down and picked it up.

The fish is indeed small, thin and long, only slightly longer than the palm of your hand. But the color of the fish really makes you marvel at the wonders of creation.

Except for the bright yellow tail fin, all other fins of this fish are transparent like films and colorless.

What is truly eye-catching is that the front half of the fish is a very bright and pure purple, while the back half is a bright yellow, with no transition in between.

Purple and yellow contrast with each other, and the two parts are clearly separated as if they were forcibly spliced ​​together. The collision of colors is so stunning and eye-catching!
Several people kept praising the little fish for its beauty, but no one knew what kind of fish it was.

Only Liang Ziqiang could recognize it as an ornamental fish, which is quite well-known among ornamental fish.

Two-color strawberry fish, Jiang Wenang once specifically mentioned the name of this fish to him!

"This fish looks so fancy, doesn't it? What kind of fish is this, Brother Qiang? Why are you holding it and looking at it?" Deng Zhaocai asked Liang Ziqiang when he saw him picking up the fish to look at it.

"The name is also very cool, two-color strawberry fish!" Liang Ziqiang said.

Deng Zhaocai said "Oh" and understood clearly: "Then it should be delicious?"

"..."

Liang Ziqiang didn’t know how he judged that such a thin and small fish could be delicious. Could it be that it was edible just because its name contained the word “strawberry”?

"This thing is bad for your stomach." Liang Ziqiang said seriously, "Once Jiang Wenang tells you the price, I'm afraid you'll regret it!"

Deng Zhaocai finally figured out what was going on: "Jiang Wenang? Boss Jiang who bought the cat shark last time? Damn, that's right. He specializes in fish that look good but don't taste good. The price seems to be quite high. So, this is all money! Brother Qiang, do you want to do it? If so, let's go to the waterside and look for it. There might be quite a few of these fishy fish!"

"I'll look for it later! Let's finish this killer whale thing first."

Liang Ziqiang thought about it and decided that carrying buckets of sea water to water the killer whale's body didn't seem like a big deal.

This is inefficient, as the sea water can only bring a cool feeling for a few seconds. Once the sea water flows down, the sun will directly shine on the killer whale's body, making it impossible to help it achieve sustained cooling.

Besides, rescuing the killer whale was just a matter of convenience. Liang Ziqiang's main purpose of going to the island was to see if there were any valuable seafood here. Therefore, it was impossible for him to watch over the killer whale all the time and waste all his time on fetching water and watering the plants.

After thinking for a while, he came up with an idea.

"Acai, come with me to the boat to find something. You guys continue to carry a few loads of water."

He called Deng Zhaocai, got back on board, and began to remove the two large rags hanging above the deck.

This is a real rag.

As I saved more money recently, I not only bought some new clothes for myself and my wife, but also bought several sets of new summer clothes for my parents and Lizhi. The family replaced the clothes that were so worn out that they were no longer in good shape, but they were reluctant to throw them away.

Liang Ziqiang felt that he needed to put up two awnings on his ship and prop them up on the deck next to the fish handling area. In the middle of the day, the crew could sit under the awnings to keep cool while handling the fish.

So, his mother and wife sewed these rags together stitch by stitch and made a rag tent to block the sun.

Now, he and Deng Zhaocai worked together and quickly removed the two large pieces of cloth with a strong mosaic style, and then took down the boat together.

"Are you going to use this to build a shed for it? The cloth isn't big enough, right?" Lu Song asked as he saw the two of them coming over with pieces of cloth in their arms.

As a result, Liang Ziqiang did not bother to build a shed. He simply draped a large piece of cloth on the killer whale's back.

Actually, the area of ​​the cloth is not small, but the killer whale is too big. It is obvious that two large pieces of cloth cannot cover its whole body, but fortunately it covers a considerable part of its skin.

"Now pour more water, just soak the cloth thoroughly!"

Liang Ziqiang said this as he picked up a bucket of water and poured it on the large piece of cloth.

"This method seems to really work? The cloth absorbs the water and keeps covering it. At least this body of skin won't be dried out, right?!"

Zhu Tianpeng saw the cloth gradually absorb water and stick to the whale, and he immediately realized that this method was much better than simply pouring water.

Several people picked up buckets and soaked the cloth thoroughly.

The killer whale was covered in a large piece of cloth of different colors and full of patches. It looked extremely destitute, like a poor man. If you gave it a stick, it would start begging.

But it was also obvious that the killer whale was comfortable. The killer whale waved its pectoral fins again and made sounds from its mouth.

They couldn't understand the killer whales' "whale sentences", but judging from the soothing frequency of the sounds, they must be very happy.

With this method, they no longer have to stay here watering the plants endlessly. They can just focus on their own work and come over every once in a while to sprinkle some water on the cloth to moisten it.

It can definitely reduce the evaporation of water under the scorching sun and also have a cooling effect. As for whether it can help the killer whale survive the entire afternoon until the high tide in the evening, Liang Ziqiang is not sure. This is already the best he can do.

After putting down the bucket, Deng Zhaocai and others went back to the boat to sort out the trawl catch, while Liang Ziqiang and Zhu Tianpeng began to search around the reef island.

Since there are two-color strawberry fish in the bucket when fetching water, it means there must be many similar fish here. However, this kind of reef-loving fish often likes to hide in the cracks of the reef and does not come out.

After searching for only a dozen meters, the two stopped at the shallow water and couldn't help but sigh.

There are fish indeed!

Not only that, there are a lot more.

I saw a group of two-colored strawberry fish swimming out from a wide recessed gap, like streams of colored ink.

At a glance, there are probably hundreds of them!
The bicolor strawberry fish are relatively small, but at this moment they are swimming very densely, crowded together like flowers blooming, or like the Milky Way washing meteors. It is a very densely woven beauty, which is quite a test of the pupil's acceptance.

Last year on Moss Spring Island, Liang Ziqiang also encountered a group of blue-mouthed bride fish, but their number was far less than that of the strawberry fish in front of him, and the colorful feeling presented to his eyes was also very different.

The abundance and scale of the deep sea's resources are simply incomparable to those of the shallow sea. It's like the difference between a short video on a mobile phone and a movie theater.

How could he remain indifferent when faced with such a school of "money"-class fish? Liang Ziqiang immediately raised his tried-and-tested magic weapon - the hand-scooped net.

When he brought the rags off the boat, he also brought the hand-held net down to the boat. Now there is no more suitable tool to catch strawberry fish.

He also carried two buckets half filled with water by his side. Speed ​​was of the essence at this time. Liang Ziqiang took advantage of the most crowded time, stood in the most suitable position, and scooped up a big net.

I don't know how much I caught, and I didn't have time to take a closer look. After pouring it into the bucket, I immediately stretched the hand net towards the water surface again.

The small school of fish were suddenly attacked and became frightened in an instant. Some of them immediately turned back and drilled into the cracks in the rocks, while the others fled to the farther sea.

Whether escaping back to the reef or escaping to the sea surface, it would become more difficult for Liang Ziqiang to do so, so at this moment he could only rely on his hand speed.

Unfortunately, there was only this one hand-scoop net on the boat. Zhu Tianpeng was anxious with empty hands, but there was nothing he could do to help him.

He cast three more scoop nets before the school of fish completely dispersed. Although the number of fish in the last three nets was limited, together with the first net, if he looked closely in the bucket now, there seemed to be about a hundred of them.

Last year on Moss Spring Island, the blue-mouthed bride fish were larger than this one, but Liang Ziqiang only caught eleven of them. This time, he caught a hundred bicolor strawberry fish in the blink of an eye. It's a completely different concept!

Most importantly, he felt that he could still gain something from this island! This was very different from Moss Spring Island.

The overall environment of Moss Spring Island is not particularly suitable for large-scale habitat of ornamental fish. At that time, those fish were most likely just running away from the deep sea and accidentally staying on Moss Spring Island.

The sudden appearance of so many strawberry fish on this deep-sea island indicates that a large number of ornamental fish have taken root and grown here for a long time.

"Let's go and search further!" The two picked up the buckets and continued searching along the edge.

This reef island is not very big, but it is quite long. We discovered a wave of fish not long after we came here. I believe there will be new discoveries ahead!

(End of this chapter)