The two of them went to the foredeck. The space was a bit cramped, and with their tackle boxes and coolers, there was barely enough room to move around.

Yao Xin clapped Chu Mingcheng on the shoulder. "Ah Cheng, whether or not He-ge treats us to that feast is all up to you!"

"For that meal, I'll need to catch two hundred jin!" Chu Mingcheng said, playing along. Given the fish run, he had set a personal goal of two hundred jin.

Catching that many hairtails wouldn't be easy. It would mean landing three or four hundred fish, which was a tall order even during a fish run. But no matter what, he was determined to give it his all.

Chu Mingcheng took out his jigging rod. Hairtails have sharp teeth, so he was using a steel wire leader, specifically designed to prevent bite-offs from sharp-toothed fish. It seemed fitting to use steel to catch these little "steelfish."

He attached the new, fishy-scented, silvery lure and started by testing the water column. The hairtails were already beginning to move toward the surface. If he could pinpoint their depth, he could maintain a high hook-up rate.

The boat's generator was running, the floodlights were on, illuminating the sea surface, and the underwater luring lights had been deployed. The small fish and squid drawn to the light were all favorite foods of hairtail, creating a natural chum line.

Chu Mingcheng let out his fishing line to about six or seven meters when the rod suddenly dipped. Fish on!

He lifted the rod, reeled in, lifted again, and soon a shimmering silver "steel fish" was pulled to the surface. He hadn't expected to get a bite so quickly on his first cast. The hairtail's dorsal fin was fully extended, fluttering like a transparent silk scarf in the wind as the fish thrashed—a beautiful sight.

A live hairtail was a rare sight, much prettier than a dead one.

This one was about forty or fifty centimeters long, including its small head and tail. Chu Mingcheng measured it with his fingers—exactly three fingers wide. Despite its length, it only weighed about four liang.

"Nice one, Ah Cheng! Three fingers wide on your first catch." Yao Xin was also holding a hairtail, a little smaller than his, probably two and a half fingers wide and weighing about three liang.

He wasn't surprised that she had caught one so quickly. During a fish run, almost everyone could fish effectively. If you couldn't catch anything in this situation, it wasn't the fish's fault.

He unhooked the fish and tossed it into his cooler. The hairtail writhed like a snake a few times, its mouth gaping as if trying to bite something. But soon it lay still, likely to die. You never saw live hairtail at the market; they were impossible to keep alive.

Chu Mingcheng went back to fishing. Getting a bite at six or seven meters meant the fish were in a feeding frenzy. He had to seize the moment.

Sure enough, just as he'd expected, the lure had barely sunk five meters when the second fish hit.

When fishing for hairtail, finding the right depth was key. Once you found it, you just had to keep your lure there, and they would bite ferociously. The fight, however, felt a lot like a moray eel out of its hole. They weren't strong swimmers and wouldn't run with the line; they just felt heavy.

The one he pulled up this time was slightly larger than the last but not quite four fingers wide. Most line-caught hairtail were this size. In nearshore waters, they were mostly around four liang, with a few larger ones occasionally exceeding a jin. Once they reached a certain size, they moved to the deep sea, where they could only be caught with nets. But this size was also when they tasted best. The smaller ones were good for frying, the larger ones for braising.

As for the big hairtail, they weren't great for home cooking. Only a restaurant could prepare them well. Unless, of course, your family had a master chef like Old Chu.

In the next ten minutes, Chu Mingcheng landed seven more hairtails. With the first two, that made nine.

This was the power of a fish run. This wasn't fishing; this was harvesting.

He wasn't the only one. He Zheng and the others on the aft deck were even more efficient because they were using multi-hook rigs. Each line had at least five hooks, and they often pulled up two or three fish at a time.

Seeing this, Chu Mingcheng couldn't resist. No matter how fast his jigging was, it couldn't compete with two or three fish at once.

He took out his #30 boat rod and started tying on a multi-hook rig, using sandworms for bait.

During a feeding frenzy, fishing with a multi-hook rig was incredibly satisfying. On his first cast, Chu Mingcheng felt the fish on the line were much heavier than before.

Sure enough, when he pulled them up, there were three fish on the line. They were all uniform in size—two were three fingers wide, and one was four fingers wide.

The price of higher efficiency was that, after a while, his arms started to ache. Chu Mingcheng checked his Life Conversion count and saw that the apple snails he'd caught today had brought his total uses to six.

With six uses of Life Conversion, was he afraid of a sore arm? He was determined to fish until the boat was sitting on top of an empty patch of sea.

As time passed, Chu Mingcheng was surprised to find he'd run out of the sandworms he'd bought. He'd bought too few. Even though he'd reused the bait many times when it wasn't eaten, it was still all gone.

It was only then that he noticed his arm was so sore he could barely lift it as if he'd developed bursitis. He quickly used one charge of Life Conversion for relief.

His cooler was already full of hairtail, and the fish were piled up on both sides of his fishing spot. He'd been sorting them into three different sizes.

He was surprised to see how many he'd caught. His cooler had a thirty-liter capacity, which could normally hold fifty or sixty jin of fish. The fish piled up on the deck probably weighed another thirty-plus jin. This meant that in nearly four hours, he'd caught close to a hundred jin of hairtail.

He checked his data panel and saw that his hairtail skill had already reached Level 5.

[Hairtail, also known as Ribbonfish (Level 5)]

[Current Experience: 13/60]

[Size +5%]

[Deliciousness +5%]

[Capture Chance +5%]

He hadn't expected to catch 163 hairtails. The 5% increase in size meant that in the last hour, he'd been catching four-finger-wide hairtail much more frequently. In the beginning, he would only get one every few casts, and he often caught two-finger-wide ones. Now, he was barely seeing any of the smaller ones.

It seemed that when facing a school of fish, the codex was truly useful.

"I'm exhausted. I've been fishing for almost four hours, and my arm feels like it's about to fall off." Just then, Yao Xin noticed Chu Mingcheng had stopped. She twisted her arm, stretched her body, and also reeled in her rod.

When she looked over, she saw that piles of hairtails surrounded Chu Mingcheng. She was astonished. "Whoa, that's insane. I only have half a cooler full."

"I switched to a multi-hook rig. I was often getting two or three at a time, so of course it was faster."

"So you were pulling in fish on a multi-hook rig for four hours straight?"

Yao Xin couldn't help but reach out and squeeze his arm, feeling the hard muscle and thinking about his fishing speed. A wave of heat washed over her.

"Not really. I took breaks in between. You were just too focused on fishing to notice."

Chu Mingcheng had been about to admit it, but seeing the fiery glint in Yao Xin's eyes, he felt a sudden chill, though he wasn't sure if it was just the night sea breeze. He quickly changed his story. He couldn't let this she-wolf think he had an arm of steel.

"Is that so?" Yao Xin nodded, letting go of his arm. "I'll go get He-ge to come count the catch first. We can clear this out, and if you want to keep fishing later, you can."

Chu Mingcheng could tell she probably didn't want to continue. "Yao-jie, are you not fishing anymore?"

"Nope, nope. I can't pull an all-nighter. I'll go to bed after we count the catch," Yao Xin said, waving her hand.

Normally, she would stay up past midnight, but fishing with a constant bite was physically demanding. She was already exhausted.