Chapter 290 - 175: This Luck is Something Else

Chapter 290: Chapter 175: This Luck is Something Else

West Island’s Reef Beach!

By the time Su Chen and his group arrived at their destination, the reef beach was already flickering with specks of light.

Du Furong led them through a winding path to a less crowded part of the beach, where only a few lights dotted the darkness.

"There are fewer reefs over here, so there isn’t much of a catch left behind after the tide goes out. That’s why not many people come to this spot, which makes it safer."

Su Chen didn’t say anything. After all, his family was just here for the novelty of it, not expecting to haul in a huge catch.

After she went over some precautions, the four of them split into three groups. Su Chen and Su Zhuyun, of course, decided that ’real men go it alone,’ while Chen Shufen and Du Furong took a more leisurely, go-with-the-flow approach to their foraging.

"Hey Dad, how about we compete to see who gets the biggest haul tonight!" Su Chen called out just as Su Zhuyun was picking up his bucket to leave.

Su Zhuyun shot Su Chen a glance and said smugly, "Is that even a question? It’ll be me, obviously. Back in my day, your old man here was the number one fish-catcher in the village river. Everyone who saw me gave me a thumbs-up!"

Su Chen had no desire to listen to his dad’s stories from his youth. He’d heard them so many times growing up, his ears had practically grown calluses.

He quickly cut Su Zhuyun off. "Alright, alright! Dad, don’t drag out all those old, dusty stories. Tonight, whoever loses the foraging competition has to carry the bags for the next few days!"

"Deal! Victory will be mine!" Su Zhuyun declared, full of confidence.

Seeing this, Su Chen couldn’t help but jab back, "Tch. Don’t be so cocky, Dad. When you lose, don’t go making excuses!"

After a brief war of words, they each chose a direction, grabbed their buckets and tongs, and quickly walked off.

Watching the two of them depart, Chen Shufen and Du Furong burst into laughter.

Su Chen scanned the surroundings with the dim light from his headlamp and saw that Du Furong was right—there weren’t many reefs on this part of the beach.

This meant a lower chance of a good catch being left behind by the tide. After a quick look around, Su Chen decided to walk along the shoreline first to see if any big catches were stranded among the rocks.

The greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment. Su Chen walked up and down the shoreline, searching every spot meticulously. He even peeked into the crevices between the rocks.

The result... was just two or three palm-sized crabs and a few small fish.

’What’s going on? Didn’t Auntie Furong say there was still stuff to catch here? That other people had found some big ones before? How come I’m about to get skunked? Is my luck just that bad today?’ Su Chen grumbled under his breath.

But just as he finished grumbling, he stepped on something sharp, and a piercing pain shot through the sole of his foot.

"Shit! What the hell was that!" Su Chen quickly looked down, wondering if he’d stepped on some piece of ocean trash.

But what he saw was a small, sharp, pale-yellow tip sticking out of the sand. It looked like the end of some kind of sea snail shell.

Su Chen crouched down and tried to pull it out with his hands a couple of times, but it wouldn’t budge at all. Just as he was about to give up and leave, he noticed the little tip sink slightly deeper into the sand. It was so subtle he almost missed it.

’Huh? Is this...’ Su Chen understood instantly. There was definitely a snail under the sand; he just didn’t know what kind or how big it was.

He took the tongs out of his bucket, gripped them a third of the way down, and started to dig.

’I should’ve brought a small shovel!’ He dug a few times but found it wasn’t very effective. The wet sand quickly flowed back in to fill the hole.

"I refuse to believe I can’t dig this thing out today!" With that, Su Chen’s hands moved a little faster.

After digging for a minute or two, part of the snail’s body hidden in the sand was finally revealed.

"A yellow snail! How is it so big!" Su Chen estimated it was about the size of a bowl—one of those big bowls used for soup.

Su Chen dug and pulled, putting in a lot of effort before he finally managed to get it out of the sand.

"Is... is this a melon shell?"

Although the waters around West Island were a national coral reef protection zone teeming with marine life, making melon shells a normal sight, finding one this big and in such good condition right on the shore while foraging was just incredible luck.

He held it in his hand to gauge its weight. It had to be at least five or six *jin*. After removing the shell and innards, there would probably only be one or two *jin* of edible meat left.

’Did all my luck for tonight get used up on this thing?’ Su Chen wondered briefly before tossing the melon shell into his bucket. He really hoped this wasn’t all the luck he had.

For the next hour or so, Su Chen caught nothing but crabs. By the time he returned to the meeting point with his bucket, it was filled with nearly thirty of them.

"Yo, you’re back! Judging by the looks of it, you must’ve found plenty of good stuff!" Su Zhuyun couldn’t resist teasing when he saw Su Chen’s long face.

Su Zhuyun had been back for a while. The reason... was simple. His luck had been astonishingly good. After wandering along the beach for just a bit, he’d found a tide pool with three or four decent-sized fish in it.

After foraging for over an hour, his entire bucket was full. When he returned, even Du Furong, a regular forager, was completely shocked.

In all her experience, no one had ever been lucky enough to fill an entire bucket before.

The praise from Du Furong and Chen Shufen had left him feeling quite smug.