Chapter 139: The Underground River with Fish (Part 2)

Chapter 139: Chapter 139: The Underground River with Fish (Part 2)

Only after walking into the cave did Gu Nuan Nuan realize how unexpectedly large it was inside. It wasn’t damp or dark like she had imagined, either. She marveled silently. Soon, she noticed that in addition to the light from the entrance behind her, a glow was also filtering in from up ahead. This reassured her; the cave wasn’t sealed off. ’I wonder if there’s another exit,’ she thought.

She suppressed her curiosity and walked a bit farther before finally seeing the subterranean river Cao Cao had mentioned. The river wasn’t large—it looked to be no more than five or six square meters in area—but the number of fish inside was shocking. They were packed so tightly, jostling against one another, that they could barely swim.

"A Fish Spring?"

Gu Nuan Nuan was dumbfounded. In her past life, she had seen news reports about people discovering Fish Springs in their homes. She had been so curious that she researched it and even watched videos, only to learn that it was what happened when someone accidentally dug through to a subterranean river, creating what was called a Fish Spring. She never expected to find such a marvelous sight in this life, deep in the mountains.

"What a shame. We’re deep in the mountains with no decent way to transport anything. Even if I’ve found a ’Fish Spring,’ it’s useless. How could I possibly get all these fish out to sell?"

Gu Nuan Nuan shook her head in disappointment, then laughed self-deprecatingly. "Besides, even if I could get all these fish out, the Fish Spring would be exposed. Given our current status and resources, trying to keep this place for ourselves would be a total pipe dream."

"Master, so a place with this many fish is called a ’Fish Spring’?" Cao Cao piped up at the perfect moment.

"Mhm." Gu Nuan Nuan nodded, then casually explained everything she had learned about Fish Springs from her research in her previous life.

"Oh, so you just have to connect to a subterranean river? What’s so hard about that? Master, just say the word, and Cao Cao can make as many Fish Springs as you want!" Cao Cao said, having had a sudden epiphany and now trying to curry favor.

Gu Nuan Nuan rolled her eyes dramatically. "Discovering a single Fish Spring in this day and age is already world-shaking enough, and you want to make *more*? Are you trying to help me or harm me? You want me to become some kind of freak in other people’s eyes? To basically announce to the world that there’s something strange about me?"

Cao Cao: "Ah..." It was clearly stunned into silence.

Ignoring it, Gu Nuan Nuan took the small basket from her back, squatted, and scooped it through the water, instantly filling it with fish. She held the basket up and watched the fish struggle and leap. After a moment’s thought, she poured about half of them back. Seeing that the remaining fish could no longer jump over the rim, she drained the water and picked up the basket. She glanced toward the other end of the cave but decided not to explore further, choosing instead to head back the way she came.

"You’re not staying longer? Master, you still haven’t seen everything."

"Not now. I’ll have to come back in a bit anyway. I’ve been gone for so long; if I don’t head back soon, Grandpa and Mom will get worried when they can’t find me."

Gu Nuan Nuan quickened her pace as she spoke, moving much faster on the way back. Even so, as she approached the pool, she heard her mother and grandfather anxiously calling her name.

"I’m over here!" Gu Nuan Nuan shouted back, not daring to delay as she broke into a trot.

"Where on earth did you run off to? You’ve been gone for so long! I told you to stay close, but you never listen. This isn’t our backyard—what if something had happened to you?" Hearing Gu Nuan Nuan’s voice, Zhang Dazhuang and Zhang Minzhen breathed a collective sigh of relief and rushed toward her. The moment Zhang Minzhen saw her daughter, her anxious expression vanished, replaced by pure frustration. She raised her hand as if to swat her.

"Mom, Grandpa, look what I found!" Gu Nuan Nuan said, sticking her tongue out playfully before quickly offering them her small basket with a grin.

"Fish? How did you get so many? And they’re huge!" Zhang Dazhuang and Zhang Minzhen were both astonished. Zhang Dazhuang in particular took the basket from Gu Nuan Nuan, peering at the fish inside with a baffled expression. "How did this happen? I’ve been coming to this area for years. Other than this pool, I’ve never found another water source nearby, let alone a place with fish this big."

"Exactly. Even if there were fish to catch around here, how could Nuannuan have caught so many so quickly?" Zhang Minzhen counted and saw there were five or six fish in her daughter’s little basket.

"Hehe."

Gu Nuan Nuan grinned triumphantly, suddenly understanding Cao Cao’s earlier eagerness to show off. "I didn’t ’catch’ them. I just dipped my basket in the water and scooped them up. The basket was completely full!" She mimed the scooping motion as she spoke. "I saw the fish kept trying to jump out, so I poured most of them back, leaving just these to show you."

"You’re saying you just scooped these up? And one scoop filled the entire basket? Just how many fish could there be in this place you found?" It wasn’t that Zhang Minzhen refused to believe her—she simply *couldn’t*. She shook her head and reached out to feel Gu Nuan Nuan’s forehead, a helpless look on her face. "You don’t have a fever, so why are you talking such nonsense? I’m guessing the fish just haven’t seen people before, so they weren’t on guard. That’s probably why you caught them so easily, right?"

"I’d say so," Zhang Dazhuang said, clearly agreeing with his daughter.

"If you don’t believe me, why don’t you come see for yourselves? It’s not far," Gu Nuan Nuan said with a casual laugh. She wasn’t offended; anyone who hadn’t witnessed a real Fish Spring couldn’t possibly imagine such a mind-boggling sight. "Once you see it with your own eyes, you’ll know I’m not lying."

"Hang on. Let’s pack up our things and the rabbit meat first, then we’ll go." The idea of a place with lots of big fish was too tempting to ignore, and Gu Nuan Nuan’s suggestion was exactly what Zhang Dazhuang wanted to hear. He figured that where there were fish, there must be water, so they could just move their cooking spot.

Even though Zhang Dazhuang had visited this area many times without ever running into dangerous animals, it was still a forest, and potential dangers always lurked. He wasn’t about to do something as foolish as leaving the dressed rabbit and bloody fish out in the open for an extended time, attracting predators.

"Okay." Gu Nuan Nuan obediently followed the two of them back to the pool. She watched her grandfather tell her mother to pack their things while he kicked over the makeshift stone stove they had built. She ran over and said, "Mom, we need to empty a basket for branches. We don’t have enough here; we’ll need to gather more."

"Is the place far from here? How long will it take to walk?"