Culinary God in Wilderness

Chapter 392: Chapter 245: Seafood Hot Pot (Part 2)

He stared at it for a few more moments, and information surfaced in his mind.

"Tarpon. Listed as a major game fish by the International Game Fish Association due to its powerful struggles, it is highly favored by anglers. However, its flesh is loose and filled with dense intermuscular bones, giving it very little value when eaten fresh. It is typically prepared as salted fish or fish balls."

The moment he saw it had little edible value, Lin Chen lost all interest. He turned and swam toward the large hole in the bottom of the hull, wanting to see if any new tenants had moved in.

After a few quick glances, he saw no sign of the tentacles he was hoping for. He had no choice but to turn his attention to the nearby reef.

He spent over ten minutes swimming around the area, but all he found were clownfish, angelfish, wrasse, and other such creatures with little edible value.

Nearly half an hour with nothing to show for it made him start to doubt his luck again.

PFHAA—

He clung to the side of the bamboo raft, removed the snorkel’s mouthpiece, and took huge gulps of fresh air. His mouth felt faintly sore and numb.

"What is with today? How come I can’t even spot one big fish?"

He knew that fishing was all about luck, but ’can a guy really be this unlucky all the time?’

"Maybe this spot has bad mojo. I mean, a ship did sink here. Come on, let’s try a different place."

He wasn’t one to be stubborn. Seeing no results, he immediately switched locations. He swam about a hundred meters away before putting the mouthpiece back in and diving into the sea.

There were noticeably fewer reefs in this area. Instead, he could see vast stretches of yellow, sandy seabed and many kinds of unknown seagrass.

Colorful angelfish and clownfish cruised freely along the seabed, and every now and then, a moray eel would dart out to randomly carry off a lucky winner.

Seeing this lively scene, Lin Chen finally relaxed a little. His eyes began to scan the area.

Soon enough, he spotted a blue crab strolling leisurely across the seabed.

’Too bad I didn’t bring the bamboo basket with me today. Catching it would mean having to swim over to the fish trap to drop it off, which is a bit of a hassle.’

’Oh well, I’ll let you off the hook this time, little guy.’

Just as he was about to look away, the blue crab suddenly stopped, as if it were spacing out.

Before he knew it, the sand beneath the crab suddenly stirred!

A fan-shaped ray shot out, using its large body to completely envelop the blue crab and quickly pin it against the sandy seabed.

He didn’t see it make any specific movements—just a slight undulation of its body—and a severed crab leg drifted up with the current.

Lin Chen’s eyes lit up. He pointed the speargun in his right hand, aiming at the ray from a distance. With gentle kicks of his legs, he began to approach it with extreme slowness.

When he judged the distance to be right, his tightly clenched hand released the spear.

The spear shot out like a bolt of lightning. THWIP! It pierced the ray’s body, pinning it firmly to the sand.

The sudden attack caught the ray completely off guard. It thrashed its body wildly in an attempt to escape, sending clouds of crimson blood billowing into the water.

But it was no use. The spear had pierced straight through it, and all its struggles were futile.

Lin Chen gave the rubber line a gentle pull, retrieving both the spear and the impaled ray.

The ray looked a size smaller than the stingray Erica had caught before, but it was still large—at least enough for two or three meals for him.

A ray’s tail has no venomous barb, so there was nothing to worry about. He immediately pulled out his combat knife and gutted the creature on the spot. As he swam toward the fish trap, he pulled out the inedible organs and tail and stuffed them inside the trap, then tossed the cleaned ray onto the bamboo raft.

With a successful catch under his belt, the smile on Lin Chen’s face grew noticeably brighter. Full of renewed confidence, he slipped back into the water.

By the time he returned to shore, his fish trap held two more groupers and over a dozen white prawns.

White prawns are the most common variety served at the dinner table and the most widely farmed species of prawn in the world.

Prawns move too quickly. Without a net, catching them is nearly impossible, so he usually ignored them whenever he saw them.

He hadn’t expected that upon his return from catching the two groupers, he would find a whole swarm of them had snuck into his fish trap and were busy feasting on the fresh ray organs he’d left as bait.

Without a second thought, he stuffed the groupers in as well, compressing the space inside the trap while also blocking the entrance to prevent any lucky escapees from slipping back out the narrow opening.

"Fish broth and prawn broth... hehe, this is gonna be amazing!"

Walking back with the heavy fish trap in his arms, he couldn’t suppress the grin spreading across his face.

He’d discovered last time he ate stingray that the flesh was very gelatinous. This meant it would produce a rich, milky-white broth. Plus, it was a fish with almost no bones—all meat. It was practically his dream fish.

Grouper was also an incredibly savory fish. Combining the two, making a broth by stir-frying the prawn heads first, and then swishing some boneless fish fillets and prawn meat in it...

GULP.

Just the thought of it made him swallow hard.

’Can’t let such rare ingredients go to waste. Tomorrow morning, I’ll take a stroll through the Mangrove Forest, see if I can find any young Spiny Lobsters, and maybe dig up some oysters and Green Mussels while I’m there.’

He didn’t know if it was because he’d just gotten out of the ocean in the middle of the night, but he felt absolutely ravenous and wanted to eat right this second.

Huh.

Wait a minute!

’Why can’t I eat right now?’

’It’s not like I’m on a diet. On the contrary, I need to pack on some pounds.’

He suddenly froze. Without a second thought, he turned and headed down the beach toward the Mangrove Forest.

There were definitely Lobsters in the Mangrove Forest. They were just small, all juveniles that would move out to sea once they got bigger.

When his cravings took over, he couldn’t be bothered with such thoughts. Every little bit counts, after all.

The Mangrove Forest was more lively at night than he’d imagined. Just by standing at the water’s edge and shining his light, he could see countless dark shapes darting about beneath the surface.

Lobsters love to hide in rock crevices or other covered places, and the aerial roots of the Mangrove Forest served as a natural shelter for the young ones.

During breeding season, you could find large, adult Lobsters all over the Mangrove Forest.

’Luckily, this place must have laws protecting marine resources,’ he thought. ’Otherwise, it would’ve been fished clean long ago.’

He had just stepped into the Mangrove Forest when he immediately spotted his target.

Two small, palm-sized Spiny Lobsters.

The water here was shallow, so they couldn’t move as fast as they would in the open sea, and the dense network of roots hindered their escape. After a few failed attempts, he quickly got the hang of it.

"Lin, is that you?"

Just as he was grabbing a Lobster and fantasizing about how to prepare it, Erica’s voice suddenly called out from behind, scaring him so badly he almost screamed.

"Holy shit!"

"Are you part cat or something? You don’t make a sound when you walk! What are you doing out here scaring people in the middle of the night instead of sleeping?"

"I called your name a few times, you just didn’t hear me," Erica said, playfully sticking out her tongue. Her eyes fell to the heavy fish trap on his back, then scanned his dripping wetsuit.

"Wow, that’s a huge fish! Did you just get back from a dive?"

"Oh, that reminds me. I found a woman’s wetsuit, too. Do you want it?"

"Yes! Of course, I’ll take it. I could even wear it for sun protection."

Erica nodded without a second’s hesitation, but after a two-second pause, her realization dawned and her eyes went wide.

"Wait a minute! That’s not right... where did you get *your* wetsuit??"

"I found it when I was salvaging a sunken speedboat on the seafloor."

He didn’t dwell on the topic, casually stuffing the Lobster into his creel.

"I’m about to make some seafood hot pot. Are you interested?"

"Hot pot?"

"It’s a style of cooking from my homeland, Great Xia. You have a pot of seasoned broth simmering on the table, and you bring out different ingredients based on what people like. Guests cook the ingredients themselves by swishing them in the broth, then eat them with a dipping sauce of their choice."

"Ohhh, so *that’s* hot pot! I’ve heard tourists talk about it before, they even showed me pictures. I hear it’s really popular now. I was hoping I’d get a chance to try it someday, but I don’t have any friends from Great Xia, so I wouldn’t know which restaurants are any good."

"Well, why don’t you go catch some ingredients you’d like to eat? Tonight, I’ll give you a taste of a simple seafood hot pot."