The Legend of the Fishermen of Sicily

Chapter 140 There's definitely something fishy about this!

Salvatore's tone softened, and he first added a layer of armor to his voice: "I heard it from a friend in Palermo, so it might not be true."

"You say it," Leo said, gesturing with his chin.

You go first, and I'll judge whether it's true or false.

Salvatore leaned forward, getting closer to Leo, and lowered his voice to a whisper: "Rumors from Palermo say someone found a particularly precious sponge on the east coast, selling for more than gold."

Leo's expression froze for a moment: "Sponge? What sponge?"

Salvatore looked bitter: "I don't know. They say it's a kind of sponge. I've been looking for it in the sea for the past two weeks, but I can't even tell the difference between a sponge, anemone, and seaweed. I'm still clueless."

Leo silently grumbled from the side:

It would be strange if you could tell the difference.

Sponges belong to the phylum Porifera and are among the most primitive and lowest-level multicellular animals in the animal kingdom, with nearly 10,000 species recorded.

There are not many recorded sponges in the Mediterranean, only a few hundred species.

Even I, a little expert on marine animals, can't tell them apart, so you, a half-baked expert, have no chance of figuring it out.

"Are there any other clues?" Leo continued to ask.

Rosalia couldn't hear what the two were whispering about, so she took a step forward. Salvatore told her everything he knew: "I heard that these sponges appear in quite scattered places without any pattern. It's not just one person who has found them, which is why so many fishermen want to try their luck. That's all I know, I swear!"

Leo glared at him: "You wouldn't tell me before, but now you're suddenly being so open about it. Are you lying to me? I don't think this is as simple as it seems."

Torture and forced confessions have been initiated!

Salvatore opened and closed his mouth, babbling on and on: "I only heard these two sentences from the Palermo folks, and he couldn't say anything more after that. But if you want more news, I have a lot more—Catania is building a new aquarium and is looking for fishermen to help salvage marine life; an ancient shipwreck has been discovered 40 kilometers east of the Taormina coastline, and salvage operations are underway; Captain Enosi of Ispica is looking to form a team to hunt winter roe in Liguria; a large fleet in Syracuse is recruiting deep-sea crew members and is short two ships; a mysterious wealthy French businessman has arrived in Sicily, attracting the attention of local entrepreneurs..."

""

Leo looked at Salvatore with a strange expression.

Are you some kind of "village entrance task board"?

Instead of improving your professional skills, how did you manage to gather so much random and unreliable information?

Salvatore kept going on and on, and Leo, getting annoyed, started stroking his chin in thought.

It's actually a sponge...

This is troublesome... Leo isn't very familiar with this kind of marine creature.

That evening, Leo went to Andrei's house to borrow books.

Andrei said he didn't have the teaching materials that the diving organization used for their lectures, but he had many books on the same content, which were definitely more detailed than the lesson plan. He told Leo to go to the study and find them himself, while he went to the kitchen to cook.

The theoretical courses required for obtaining a diving certification include the following three main categories—

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Basic underwater knowledge of the Mediterranean Sea, including ocean currents, water conditions, and reef distribution;

Diving skills;

Identification of Mediterranean marine life.

In Andrei's study, the largest number of books were about Mediterranean marine life, and the content was the most comprehensive.

Leo had always enjoyed reading books about marine animals, and he could recognize most of the fish, shrimp, and crabs in the Mediterranean.

But there are so many kinds of creatures in the ocean... tens of thousands.

The phylum Arthropoda includes crabs, shrimp, barnacles, krill, and marine insects.

The phylum Echinodermata is represented by starfish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, and crinoids.

The phylum Bryophyta consists of larvae and sea worms... and so on.

Some major categories are further divided into many subcategories.

For example, within the phylum Mollusca, the class Gastropoda includes snails, abalone, sea hares, and sea slugs; the class Bivalvia includes oysters, scallops, and mussels; and the class Cephalopoda includes squid, octopus, cuttlefish, and nautilus.

Didn't expect?

The octopus that Leo fears most belongs to the same category as abalone and sea hares, except that Squidward has degenerated from its shell.

Leo has many shortcomings in the identification of marine life.

Taking advantage of this excellent opportunity to get my diving certification, I can finally fill in the gaps in my knowledge in this area.

Without any hesitation, he packed up all the books about Mediterranean biodiversity and took them with him.

He couldn't even wait to bring it home, so he took a copy to the kitchen and flipped to a specific page.

"Sponge, sponge..."

Andrei, who was cooking, reminded him, "Little fox, there are so many kinds of sponges, anemones, and seaweed, and they're hard to remember... You should look at something more useful."

Which diving organization tests students to identify these marine creatures?

The purpose of this lesson is to teach them to identify which organisms can be harvested and which cannot... How did Leo end up looking at the sponges?

Leo laughed and replied, "It's okay, I learn quickly, I can learn everything."

For the next three days, Leo would get up in the morning to do basic training with Bianchi, go out to collect sea urchins during the day, and return in the evening to immerse himself in the marine life of the Mediterranean. In three days, he finished reading seven color-covered picture books and had already made some progress.

That morning, Bianchi helped Leo carry sea urchins.

While Aesop was counting the quantities, Leo pulled a soft, limp piece of seaweed from a net bag in the car and asked Bianchi, "Let me test you, what kind of seaweed is this?"

Bianchi glanced at it twice: "It's just ordinary seaweed."

"I'm asking you its scientific name!" Leo said sternly, like a teacher.

Bianchi yawned: "I'm not going to get a diving certificate, so how would I know the name of this seaweed? Besides, it's all worthless stuff... Our boat can bring back several tons of fish in one net. When sorting, we only pay special attention to the red corals. The rest are discarded immediately because they will rot faster if mixed with the fish."

"Don't you pay special attention to the sponge?" Leo asked.

Leo has been asking about sponges these past few days, and Bianchi has given a rather detailed and serious answer: "There are specialized fleets of boats in Sicily that harvest sponges. Fishing boats like ours don't pay much attention to them. The sponges that can be sold for money grow in special locations, on almost vertical cliffs, which are not easy to bring up with trawl nets. Even if we do bring up a few, they are most likely dead and worthless, so there's no need to waste our time."

Leo started stroking his chin in thought again...

According to Bianchi's logic, fishermen are more concerned with their catch and rarely pay attention to things like sponges, which they would likely discard if caught in the net.

How could someone suddenly become rich by making a fortune from sponges?

Leo felt there was something fishy about the rumor, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was.

After calculating today's catch, Aesop gave Leo 44 lira in banknotes.

Leo was happily counting his money when he heard Aesop across from him say, "Keep an eye on valuable seafood; the asking price in Syracuse has gone up."

"The weather's been nice lately, and it hasn't rained, so why the price suddenly went up?" Leo asked curiously.

Aesop started packing the sea urchins: "Remember the high-end seafood sourcing channels I told you about in Syracuse?"

Leo nodded: "I remember, you've always wanted to work with them."

Aesop carefully packed the sea urchins into the box: "They approached me on their own initiative, saying they wanted to see something good first, as if they were looking for something."