Chapter 186 - 132: Addictive Beachcombing (2)

Chapter 186: Chapter 132: Addictive Beachcombing (2)

After shoveling away two layers of sand, a siphon rolled to the side with it. Gu Nan froze. ’This Clam King is so shallow! I’ve already dug its siphon clean off.’

But a disturbed clam like this would immediately burrow deeper into its hole. Gu Nan quickly shoveled a few more times, confirming the burrow angled to the left.

He started digging rapidly about twenty centimeters to the left of the original hole. After going down twenty-some centimeters, he successfully cut off the fleeing Clam King’s escape route.

He quickly dug a little deeper. Once he was sure the Clam King had no way to escape, he set his shovel aside and pulled it out with his bare hands.

It was about the same size as the previous Clam King. This beachcombing session was turning out to be unbelievably rewarding.

After digging up thirteen Clam Kings in a row, along with a ton of yellow clams, Gu Nan had moved about ten meters or so when he suddenly spotted two large mounds in the sand ahead.

’Mounds mean there’s something good inside.’ Gu Nan used his shovel to pry one open and take a look. It was a large tiger-head crab.

Wild Chinese tiger-head crabs were becoming increasingly rare, which made them exceptionally expensive.

They grew so slowly that it took three to four years for one to reach just 250 grams. Consequently, even one weighing around 150 to 200 grams could sell for over 140 yuan on the market.

Those weighing over 250 grams could sell for 180 yuan, and he’d heard rumors of some going for several hundred yuan per 500 grams, though Gu Nan had never seen one himself.

The seafood within the game map had one shared characteristic: they were all enormous.

The Clam Kings he had just caught varied in size, but even the smallest was twenty centimeters long. It stood to reason, then, that this tiger-head crab was also exceptionally large.

Gu Nan picked it up, testing its weight in his hand. It felt like it weighed a good seven or eight liang (350-400g).

One of this size... you could probably search the entire market at Yangjiang Port and not find a single one. It just went to show how rare tiger-head crabs had become.

This thing was incredibly delicious. It didn’t need any fancy preparation—simply being Steamed was best. Any other cooking method would be an absolute waste of such a delicacy.

After tossing the tiger-head crab into his bucket, Gu Nan quickly pried open the other mound.

This one was just a hair smaller. He picked it up and glanced at it—a female.

’Nice, very nice. So you two were busy being all lovey-dovey? Well, look at you now, both caught!’

There was an incredible amount of life hiding in the sand. Gu Nan ended up digging up many more Clam Kings, tiger-head crabs, and clams. He even caught two octopuses scrambling across the sand.

Moreover, some of the larger mounds had cracks in them. With a single flip of his shovel, he could unearth the swimming crabs hiding inside. Each one was incredibly plump, weighing over a jin (500g).

’This haul...’ he mused. ’If those beachcombing vloggers saw this, they’d weep tears of envy. We’re all doing the same thing, so how come they have to buy their own seafood and bury it in the sand for their videos?’

Without realizing it, Gu Nan had slowly made his way to the rocky reef area at the edge of the beach.

He had already transferred the contents of his bucket out twice, so it currently only held two Clam Kings.

As he drew near, he spotted three dark, elongated shapes under a rock. At first, he thought they were some kind of fish, but when he got a closer look... ’Holy crap! Three black sea cucumbers, and none of them were small.’

They felt substantial when he picked them up; he estimated each one was a little over a jin (500g). A wild sea cucumber weighing over a jin was considered exceptionally large.

He didn’t need any tools for these things. He simply picked them up by hand and tossed them into the bucket.

The moment his hand touched them, the creatures began to contract and expand before expelling their own internal organs. The sight was, to put it mildly, not for kids.

However, they would be transferred to the aquarium shortly, so he didn’t have to worry about whether they’d live or die.

Gu Nan continued his search. ’Knowing the way this game map works,’ he figured, ’now that I’ve found sea cucumbers, there’s no way there’ll only be a few.’

Sure enough, on the other side of the rock, he discovered two more sea cucumbers.

’Looks like if I really put in the effort tonight, I could raise a whole soccer team.’

Gu Nan continued searching in the crevices between the rocks and in other damp spots. He found that the area had nothing... except for an abundance of sea cucumbers.

Wild sea cucumbers were definitely a luxury good; this was no different from picking up cash off the ground. The only issue was his lack of knowledge about their specific value. He would have to check online tomorrow to figure out how to price them.

Unlike unlocking entries in the game’s codex, beachcombing didn’t come with helpful pop-ups about cooking methods or market prices. He’d have to do that research on his own.

After collecting three half-full buckets of sea cucumbers, he walked out of the narrow, five- or six-meter-wide reef area and arrived in a different zone.

He then realized he was in a U-shaped inlet, high on the sides and low in the middle.

Gu Nan’s eyes lit up. ’In a place shaped like this, you could find just about anything.’ It was basically a supersized fish trap.

The tide would surge into the low-lying center, and as it receded, it would not only deposit sand and silt but also strand countless fish and other creatures swept in by the waves.

Gu Nan remembered Lingdou Island not having any terrain like this. ’Could this be part of the 10% that’s different from the real island?’

As soon as he approached, he saw countless small mounds. Judging by their shape, they had to be from tiger-head crabs.

Gu Nan sucked in a sharp breath. ’Just how many tiger-head crabs are there?’ Tonight’s beachcombing was turning out to be a real thrill.

He strode forward quickly, but instead of going straight to the low-lying center, he decided to start at the periphery and clear out all the mounds there first.

He stabbed his shovel into the sand, hit something hard, and with a flick of his wrist, a tiger-head crab weighing seven or eight liang was flipped onto its back. Its large claws and legs waved menacingly, but it was powerless to right itself.

Gu Nan "helped" it flip over with his hand, picking it up in the process and tossing it into his bucket.

He had no time to waste. Time inside the map flowed at a one-to-one ratio with the outside world, and staying in for long periods was incredibly tiring.

Fortunately, he could check the time just by opening the game interface, which allowed him to keep track of how long he had been busy inside the map.