Chapter 218: Chapter 189: Must Restore Father-in-law’s Dignity Chapter 218: Chapter 189: Must Restore Father-in-law’s Dignity As night fell, Chu Mingcheng came to the sea area where he had been fishing for yellow croaker once again.

He didn’t rush to find a school of fish but instead took a yellow croaker that weighed a little over five taels, cooked some rice, and made himself dinner.

There weren’t many yellow croakers caught with Jiang Luoluo the previous night, just over thirty, totaling about twenty pounds.

He wanted to taste them first; if the flavor of the yellow croaker was good, he would keep a few to take home for his parents to try.

If he didn’t like the taste, he would sell them all, as the price of over one hundred yuan each was not cheap.

After cleaning the fish, Chu Mingcheng had initially wanted to steam it.

But having steamed fish recently and getting a bit tired of it, he hesitated with the fish in his hand before deciding to braise it instead.

One characteristic of braised fish is that you fry the skin on both sides until it’s slightly charred, which makes it very fragrant when eaten.

For dinner, he had one braised fish, one stir-fried vegetable dish, and a large bowl of rice, all eaten clean.

How to describe the yellow croaker? The flesh was on the coarser side and indeed not as delicious as the large or small yellow croakers, hence its third place ranking.

It was only because its yield was not as high as that of the small yellow croakers, and the fish were larger, that the price was relatively higher.

However, this comparison was only relative to the large and small yellow croakers; its flavor was still quite good.

Chu Mingcheng personally thought it was acceptable, and likely his parents would enjoy it too.

After all, the tastes of a family don’t differ much, and compared to them, he was the pickier eater.

Chu Mingcheng picked out six yellow croakers, each weighing seven to eight taels, bagged them in a plastic bag, and put them in the fridge to take home later.

Then he drove his boat in search of a good fishing spot. Generally, a turn around a solitary reef would offer a great chance to encounter a school of fish.

However, many people fished for yellow croaker, and many promising spots were already occupied by other boats, so it took him half an hour to find a fairly good fishing spot.

Without Jiang Luoluo, he fished using an iron rod by himself.

There were plenty of Sand Worms left, and hanging two or three could last quite a while.

After setting up the fishing line, he came to the deck to start fishing. The bait plummeted into the water, sinking rapidly. He locked the reel when the fishing line reached a depth of about fifteen meters.

The fish finder showed that schools of fish were around the fifteen-meter layer of water. At night, yellow croakers come out to feed and move to shallower waters.

After a short wait, the tip of the rod trembled slightly; a fish was nibbling at the bait.

Chu Mingcheng focused intently, and when the rod tip bent sharply, he immediately lifted the rod and successfully hooked the fish.

“Hey, it’s a big one.”

The more the rod bent, the happier Chu Mingcheng was. He quickly lifted the rod and reeled in, and soon a glistening form appeared at the surface.

The golden body of the yellow croaker was indeed beautiful under the lights at night.

His luck was quite good that evening; the first catch was already a jin, at least one thousand yuan in his pocket.

Since the yellow croaker was in the shallower area, its bladder hadn’t popped after being caught, and it was still very lively.

So Chu Mingcheng carefully scooped it up with a net. It would be too distressing if the fish thrashed and fell back into the sea when lifted directly.

Using a fish gripper, he found it weighed exactly one jin and two taels, and at the current price of 1,500 yuan per jin, this yellow croaker could be sold for 1,800 yuan.

Fishing for yellow croakers nowadays really felt like prospecting for gold, completely like taking money.

After placing the fish in the fish box and hearing the gurgling sound from inside, Chu Mingcheng just felt extremely pleased.

When he was a child, his grandfather used to say that you could often hear gurgling sounds by the sea, supposedly made by the fish, which he did not believe at the time.

Since at that time he had just watched Ultraman Tiga, he kept arguing with his grandfather that it was a monster called Gatande; thinking back on it now, it was quite amusing.

Coming back to his senses, Chu Mingcheng continued fishing.

In the next half hour, he effortlessly caught five yellow croakers. Although none of them were over a jin, this efficiency was much higher than that of the previous noon, almost comparing to two people fishing together.

However, the Sand Worm bait was falling apart, and it was time for a new one.

Chu Mingcheng removed the remains of the Sand Worms and threw them into the sea before attaching fresh bait.

The intermittent presence of bait, along with the luminous beads placed above the hook, had successfully attracted yellow croakers to gather under the boat.

As his bait sank once again, a yellow croaker immediately moved up intending to bite. But before it could open its mouth, a dark shadow rushed forward and swallowed the Sand Worms before it could.

The sharp pain in its mouth as soon as it clamped down made it realize it had been duped. It started shaking its head furiously to expel the foreign object from its mouth.

But a sudden powerful force made the situation worse, driving the hook in even deeper instead of being expelled.

At that moment, the food-snatching fish was filled with nothing but regret, and alas, no cure for regret was available.

Chu Mingcheng, feeling the heavy tug on the rod, knew the fish was big, which sent his adrenaline soaring; how big of a yellow croaker must it be to cause such a commotion!

Excited, he hurriedly reeled it in, feeling that tonight he was going to strike it rich!

However, when he brought the fish to the surface, he found it was only a sea red spot, which greatly disappointed him.

This sea red spot was not small either, probably around three jin in weight.

If Chu Mingcheng had just started fishing, he would have been thrilled to catch this fish, but compared to yellow croaker, the disappointment was naturally great.

But to be fair, in terms of taste, he personally felt that the sea red spot was more delicious.

After scooping it up with a net, he unhooked the fish and placed it in the live well to keep it fresh.

As time unknowingly reached ten o’clock at night, Chu Mingcheng had no idea how many yellow croakers he had caught, but it was quite a few; the only pity was that the speed of getting bites was slowing down.

He went back to the cabin to check the situation, expecting the fish had gone back down to the bottom. But it turned out that he had fished almost all the fish, with only two or three small ones left, no wonder the bites had become slower.

It was still early for night fishing, and Chu Mingcheng was preparing to continue searching for schools of fish when the satellite phone rang.

He instantly remembered he hadn’t told Jiang Luoluo about his fishing plans, so he hurriedly answered the call.

As expected, her crisp voice came through the phone.

“Hello, Ah Cheng, haven’t you gotten home yet?”

“Yeah, I was about to head home. But then I thought I should bring some yellow croaker back, so I changed course and kept fishing.”

“I was wondering why I couldn’t reach you on the phone.”

At this moment, Jiang Luoluo, who had finished washing up and was lying in her room, displayed an “I thought as much” expression.

“Hehe, sorry, I forgot to tell you this afternoon!”

“It’s okay, I won’t bother you while you’re fishing. Remember to go to bed early tonight.”

Jiang Luoluo had wanted to tell him that her parents had tentatively accepted their relationship and now just needed to set a time for him to come over and meet them.

However, since Chu Mingcheng was fishing, she didn’t want to disturb him further.

She planned to tell him tomorrow, but Chu Mingcheng hadn’t forgotten about this matter and quickly asked, “Luoluo, have you talked about our thing yet?”

“I’ve already talked about it.”

“What did your parents say?”

Chu Mingcheng’s heart began to beat faster, obviously a bit nervous.

Jiang Luoluo seemed to sense his emotion and immediately encouraged him, “Of course they agreed! You’re so outstanding, how could they not be satisfied? So when do you plan to come over for the visit?”

Upon hearing her say this, Chu Mingcheng immediately breathed a sigh of relief.

His mood soared along with Jiang Luoluo’s encouragement, and a smile involuntarily appeared on his face.

“Then remember to send me what your future in-laws like. I still have to buy some suitable gifts.”

“Yeah, I’ll send it to you later. Don’t forget to send me what your uncle and aunt like too. After you’ve met my parents, I also need to visit your home.”

“Also, my parents both really liked the yellow croaker you sent. Last year, my dad made a blunder…”

Jiang Luoluo by now noted that the future in-laws no longer had much of a reaction, effectively giving their tacit approval.

She also recounted the embarrassing incident her father experienced last year with the yellow croaker.

Chu Mingcheng was a little surprised to hear about this. It wouldn’t do for his future father-in-law to lose face over such a thing.

“Then I’ll have to make some extra rounds at sea during this period. I have to get a yellow croaker weighing at least five taels for my future father-in-law, to help him save face.”

“It’s okay, the box of yellow croakers you gave this year will be enough to earn their respect!”

Jiang Luoluo said sweetly, obviously happy that Chu Mingcheng cared so much about her family.

“That won’t do, I must regain the respect. By the way, about the box of yellow croaker I sent, tell your in-laws they can give them away as gifts. Keeping them until the end of the year is too long, and they won’t be fresh.”

“And I’ll have enough fish when I get home anyway, as I originally planned to come out for yellow croaker, so there will definitely be no shortage.”

“If you’re going to host the New Year’s Eve dinner, I’ll pick some that are about the same size and send them over to you later, to avoid them looking unseemly on the dinner table due to uneven size.”

“Okay, I got it.” Jiang Luoluo cleverly didn’t refuse Chu Mingcheng’s kindness.

These were all means to increase her parents’ favorable impression of her boyfriend. Although it might be expensive, it would bring him closer to her family, which was quite meaningful.

The two then discussed the details of the visit before finally hanging up the phone.

“YES!” As soon as Chu Mingcheng put down the phone, he clenched his fist and waved it, his expression extremely excited.

The most difficult step was now dealt with, and everything else was expected to go smoothly.

Humming a tune, he continued to steer the boat in search of fish schools.

He had planned to fish until midnight before going to sleep, but now he had changed his mind. He would use his stamina as a stimulant and fish all night long.

Luck was on his side this time. It took him only about fifteen minutes to find a large school of fish.

He tried fishing for a bit, and as he suspected, they were yellow croakers. There was no need to look elsewhere for the night.

He had plenty of stamina to spare, having used it only once until the sun rose. He needed to be alert for the boat trip back home.

As for how many yellow croakers he had caught, Chu Mingcheng himself wasn’t sure.

He had used up all the crushed ice. Two large foam boxes were filled with fish, and the third foam box contained about twenty to thirty taels worth of fish, probably valued at around one hundred thousand yuan.

It was a pity that he hadn’t caught any larger ones. The heaviest one he caught at night weighed only two and a half taels, and there was only this one that was over two taels. A shame, really.

There were quite a few that weighed one tael, about twenty of them, and the rest were all under one tael.

Chu Mingcheng packed up his fishing rod, washed his face in the restroom, ate two pieces of bread, and then came out to sort the yellow croakers.

The appearance and weight of the yellow croakers would affect their price, so they needed to be carefully selected.

After more than two hours of busy work, as the sun hung high in the sky, he finally sorted all the yellow croakers.

Thirteen of them with poorer appearance were set aside for him to eat.

The remaining one hundred seventeen taels could all be sold at the price of premium quality.

However, he was still unaware of any price fluctuations today; he would need to check once he was ashore and had a signal.

So, Chu Mingcheng first docked to refuel and took the opportunity to send photos of the two boxes of yellow croakers to the group chat.

“I’m currently back from Xia City, and I’ll arrive in Wen City around three in the afternoon. Anyone who wants to buy yellow croakers, remember to come to the port. They were all caught by me overnight.”

As soon as this message was sent, the group, which had been quiet for a long time, suddenly buzzed with excitement.