I Can Fish Up Everything!

Chapter 10: Chapter 10: Stocking Up at the Fish Raft

An Jun brought Sichuan food for lunch, one of their favorite home-style cuisines. The spicy flavor made it all the more appetizing.

However, when Gu Nan counted the boxes of rice An Jun was taking out one by one and saw there were eight, he looked as if he’d seen a ghost. "What are you, a pig? You’re going to eat six boxes of rice?"

"Don’t get the wrong idea. Four of these are for you." An Jun chuckled and placed four of the boxes in front of him. "Last time I only brought two for you and you were still hungry, so I brought some extra today."

Gu Nan facepalmed. He was speechless at this glutton.

...

Half an hour later, the four dishes An Jun brought had been wiped clean, and all eight boxes of rice were empty.

Gu Nan picked up his teacup, took a sip of water, and rubbed his stomach, letting out a satisfied burp.

’When you’re young, a good appetite is a blessing!’

After eating, An Jun didn’t get straight back to work. Instead, with a hand on his lower back, he walked around the shop as if on patrol. He looked a bit surprised when he saw a few fish he didn’t recognize and a tank full of ornamental fish.

"What kind of fish are these? Besides the clownfish, I don’t recognize any of the others."

Since his friend owned a seafood shop and he came over to hang out often, he recognized a lot of aquatic products even though he didn’t fish himself.

"They’re all imported. Business has been much better these past two days because of them." Gu Nan went over and introduced them one by one.

He, for his part, didn’t have his hand on his back. A childhood friend is a childhood friend for a reason—they understand you completely.

"In a couple of days, when I have a moment, I’ll treat you and Ah Jing to a meal."

’This meal is a must. When business at the shop was slow, his two good buddies would bring him food from time to time so they could eat together, helping him cut down on expenses. He remembered all of their kindness.’

An Jun was happy for him when he heard business was picking up, but he put on an arrogant front. "Am I someone who’s hurting for a meal from you?"

"Just focus on making money. Next time, take me to Feiyun Pavilion for a massage. I went to check the place out yesterday. An employee told me they have a 699 yuan spa package that’s ’very special’!"

After saying this, An Jun even wiggled his eyebrows, flashing a smile every man would understand.

Gu Nan swatted him in annoyance. "Careful, or you’ll have another ’dragon-vein-grabbing’ scene in your videos. Besides, Qiaoya works there as a customer service rep. You went yesterday, didn’t you see her?"

"Who?" An Jun’s expression faltered upon hearing the familiar name.

"Our high school classmate. You don’t remember?"

"Oh, now I remember! It’s her! Why would she be working as a customer service rep there? I didn’t run into her yesterday."

"I don’t know either. I ran into her last night on my way back from fishing. She lives in the same building as me. We even added each other on WeChat. Here, look."

Saying this, Gu Nan took out his phone and showed him.

An Jun glanced at it, but his focus was on the profile picture. "Oho, she’s gotten a lot prettier after all these years. Does she look much different from her photo?"

"She looks about the same. Not too much filtering. Her face just looks a little smaller in the photo."

"So why don’t you make a move? The early bird gets the worm, you know."

"Do you even know what I’m lacking?"

"A house, a car, a woman..."

Gu Nan’s face darkened at this answer. "Stop. To sum it up, I’m broke. So I’m not interested in anything else."

An Jun shook his head helplessly. "You, you’re becoming obsessed with money!"

"Alright, enough. You can watch the shop for me this afternoon." Gu Nan couldn’t be bothered to argue about it anymore. ’In this society, you’re nothing without money. If you have money, all that other stuff will follow naturally.’

He told An Jun the prices for the Star Chicken Fish and the others, then prepared to go check out the fish rafts.

Including the nearly eight hundred yuan in revenue from the morning, he now had almost four thousand yuan in savings in his account.

He needed to leave some of it so the game could help him deduct taxes, but it wouldn’t be a problem to buy a few more fish.

The shop was too empty. Right now, relying solely on his own fishing, he couldn’t catch much in a single day.

A well-run seafood shop is basically a small aquarium, with all sorts of aquatic products from around the world.

Dealing in local seafood was just small-time stuff. The money you made running a shop was less than what a seafood peddler made, and the competition was fierce.

Some seafood shops, for example, specialize in just a few types of imported seafood, which actually makes them easier to run.

But that wasn’t Gu Nan’s goal. He still wanted to open a larger shop with a rich and diverse selection of aquatic products.

Opening a shop like that wasn’t actually difficult—as long as you had the money.

But managing it well enough to turn a profit was a different story entirely; it was incredibly difficult.

At that point, he wouldn’t need the walk-in customers from the seafood market, but rather regular customers who bought in bulk, and in decent quantities.

There was an area of fish rafts on the southeast side of Yangjiang Port. Quite a few people were involved in aquaculture there, and many small-scale fishermen would sell their catch to them after returning from sea for the sake of convenience.

You could certainly get a much higher price selling it yourself, but without a regular customer base, seafood wasn’t that easy to sell.

If it died, the price was cut in half. If it went bad, you couldn’t sell it at all. All of that was your own loss.

Gu Nan quickly arrived on his electric scooter. Looking at the small wooden huts on the fish rafts ahead, he parked, grabbed the live fish container he’d brought, and headed for the nearest hut.

The farm owners likely needed to be at the rafts often, so there were many small wooden huts here.

He had come here to stock up before, but because the profit margins were low, the fish were hard to sell, and the price dropped if they died—plus his shop was losing money every day—he eventually stopped coming as often.

Most locals knew to come to the fish rafts to buy farmed fish. Even if the retail price was the same, they would choose to buy here first.

"Sir, I’d like to buy some Bao Gong fish and sea bass." As Gu Nan got closer, he saw a man in his fifties or sixties walk out of a wooden hut and hurried over to speak to him.

The man looked at him, finding him a bit familiar, and asked, "Don’t you run a seafood shop yourself?"

"That’s right, I have my own shop."

"Oh, how much do you need?" the man asked, understanding.

"I’ll take ten jin each of the Bao Gong fish and sea bass, the ones that are around a jin each. I’ll be back for more once these are sold!" For such a small order, they wouldn’t deliver, so Gu Nan had to bring his own container. If the fish died on the way, it was his problem.

Fortunately, he was familiar with the process. He filled his live fish container with some seawater and waited for the farm owner to bring the fish.

After a short while, the owner came over with a landing net, inside which several Bao Gong fish were struggling.

The owner tipped the fish into the live fish container and went to catch more.

Meanwhile, Gu Nan checked each fish to see if there were any problems.

The fish had to look good, with no blemishes on their bodies, otherwise customers would reject them.

They also needed to be lively. If they were listless, they wouldn’t survive long after he got them back to the shop, and a dead fish sold for half price.

He was satisfied with the ten Bao Gong fish. After they were scooped up and weighed, the total came to 13.7 jin—a bit more than the ten jin Gu Nan had asked for, but that was normal. It was impossible to find exactly ten one-jin fish.

Even if it were possible, the owner wasn’t an idiot. Why wouldn’t he want to make a little extra money?

Next came ten sea bass, totaling 12.6 jin.

The wholesale price for the Bao Gong fish was thirty-two yuan per jin, and the sea bass was eighteen per jin. The total came to 665 yuan.

Gu Nan paid, lifted the live fish container onto his electric scooter, took out a small aerator to keep the fish alive, and hurried back.

When he got back to the shop, he moved all the fish into a tank. He breathed a sigh of relief seeing they were all still alive and kicking.

When he first started buying fish, he’d been ripped off twice. The first time, more than half the fish were dead by the time he got back to the shop. The second time, the fish went belly-up within two hours.

Later, when he restocked, he found the place he’d just bought from. The owner was more honest and didn’t rip him off.

But he still checked them over and over again every time. After all, even if the owner wasn’t trying to scam him, a few subpar fish could still get mixed in.

"Seriously? You were gone for a while and only came back with this little bit of stock?" An Jun looked at the twenty fish, a little exasperated.

Gu Nan sighed. "The Bao Gong fish cost me thirty-two per jin, and they sell for forty. The sea bass cost eighteen and sell for twenty-five. I only make seven or eight yuan per jin, and it’s not like they fly off the shelves. Why would I stock so many?"