Chapter 165 - 158: A 10-Minute Chat
The haul was pretty good. Xu An, who had originally planned to make a plate of pan-fried Jumping Fish, changed his mind and decided to add a clear-stewed Jumping Fish dish as well.
Jumping Fish have very clean innards, so most people in Hai City just wash them and cook them whole. However, Xu An wasn’t comfortable with that method, so he gutted and cleaned every single fish. He then marinated them in coarse salt for ten minutes before rinsing them clean, a step that would ensure the fish remained intact during frying.
He heated oil in a pan and fried the Jumping Fish on both sides until they were golden brown, as if they were wearing little golden coats. He then added seasonings, ginger, scallions, and garlic before removing them from the heat. And just like that, the pan-fried Jumping Fish were ready—aromatic, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside, with bones so soft you could crunch them right up and swallow them.
The clear stew was very simple. He placed the Jumping Fish he had just fried and set aside into a pot, added boiling water, and cooked them for two minutes. Then he added tofu and let it all simmer on low heat for thirty minutes. After a sprinkle of chopped scallions, a pot of fragrant, milky-white Jumping Fish and tofu soup was ready.
The grand Jumping Fish feast left everyone—Xu An, Granny Xu, Xu Kang, and Xu Le—thoroughly satisfied. But if there was a next time, Xu An decided he would just buy them from the market instead of catching them himself. It wasn’t just time-consuming; it was back-breaking work!
「Hai City Hotel.」
After returning to the hotel, washing up, and changing into a fresh set of clothes, Professor Yu planned to take his students out to try some of Hai City’s local specialties. But just as he reached the lobby, he was stopped by a pot-bellied man.
"Professor Yu, would you mind sparing ten minutes to discuss a collaboration on the mudflat development?" The man spoke very politely, his smile seemingly sincere. As the saying goes, you don’t hit a smiling face. ’Since he came all this way to find me,’ Professor Yu thought, ’I might as well hear what kind of collaboration he has in mind.’
Professor Yu nodded in agreement. He told his four students to head to the restaurant and order first, and that he would be along shortly. Then, he followed the man to a table in the hotel lobby’s coffee area.
"Professor Yu, I’ve heard so much about you!" The man didn’t get straight to the point, instead launching into a long-winded story. "A couple of years ago, I started out under a master and got into the fishmonger business, buying the fishermen’s catch from the mudflats and selling it to the major hotels and restaurants in Hai City. It’s a win-win for everyone, you could say. In all these years, the product I’ve handled most is the Jumping Fish. Can you believe it? These fish are ugly, small, and hard to catch, yet they’re known as the ’ginseng of the sea.’ Even at their cheapest, they go for thirty-eight yuan a jin, and when prices are high, they can sell for over a hundred."
As he spoke, a waiter brought their coffees. The man paused his story, lifted his cup, and took a small sip to wet his throat before continuing.
"That year, I saw the price of these fish shoot up to over a hundred yuan, and I just knew it was a golden opportunity to make money! But nobody knew how long that price would last or when it would drop back to normal. So I grabbed a megaphone and went all over town, telling everyone, ’The price of Jumping Fish is through the roof this year! If you’ve got free time, get out there and start catching! I’ll buy everything you’ve got, big or small!’ That year, every single mudflat in Qianhai Town, big or small, was packed with fishermen, all of them out there catching these Jumping Fish."
The man let out a long sigh, his expression full of regret.
"No matter how many Jumping Fish there are on the mudflats, the supply is still finite. On the first day, I bought a full thousand jin of fish and made a killing. The second day, it was only six hundred jin. The third day, maybe because more people were out there, it went up to eight hundred jin. But on the fourth day, I met my Waterloo; I only managed to buy two hundred jin in total. After that, the daily haul got smaller and smaller, and the fish did too. That high price lasted for half a month, but by the end, I was getting less than a hundred jin a day. Some of the Jumping Fish I bought weren’t even half the size of my pinky. I just had to stand by and watch a fortune slip right through my fingers..."
The man was lost in his reminiscence and didn’t notice that Professor Yu, sitting across from him, had furrowed his brow slightly. The professor’s lips were pressed into a thin line, a trace of displeasure in his eyes.
"...After that, I started thinking. Shrimp can be farmed, other fish can be farmed, even soft-shelled turtles can be farmed. So what about Jumping Fish? Could they be farmed, too? I began to research the topic relentlessly, consulting every source I could find, and that’s what eventually led me to you, Professor Yu." The man’s gaze returned from some distant point, landing on Professor Yu’s face. However, the steam rising from the professor’s coffee was too thick, and the man couldn’t make out his expression.
"After all these years of research, I’ve learned that Jumping Fish can, in fact, be farmed. Ever since I found that out, I’ve been waiting—waiting for the chance to start a Jumping Fish farm right here in Qianhai Town. I never thought the day would actually come, and that I’d be waiting for you, Professor Yu!"
His trip down memory lane over, the man’s tone shifted as he finally got to the point.
"So, Professor Yu, what do you think? Is my idea realistic? Is there any possibility of us collaborating? I can figure out how to handle the funding. All you’d need to do, Professor, is provide the technical support and just drop by to check on things occasionally. Would you be open to something like that?"
Professor Yu calmly gripped the handle of his coffee cup. He raised it to his lips but did not drink. The steam drifted straight upward, coating his glasses in a thin layer of white mist.
"It sounds plausible," Professor Yu said, his tone perfectly calm and without the slightest fluctuation, as if he were an AI robot. "But a matter of this scale cannot be decided in a day or two. It requires careful consideration."
"Hahahaha, of course, of course! I’m getting ahead of myself. You’re right, Professor Yu, it does require careful consideration, haha!" The man laughed, finding a way to save face. He then pulled a business card from his jacket pocket and handed it to the professor. "Here’s my card. Please think it over, Professor. Feel free to contact me whenever you’re ready."
As he set his coffee cup down, the mist on his glasses began to clear. Professor Yu focused his gaze on the business card in his hand: Yongmao Fisheries Company, Yan Yongmao, Phone: 158-xxxx-xxxx.
"Understood," Professor Yu said, glancing at his watch. "And thank you for the coffee. It was very good. It’s been twelve minutes. I have other matters to attend to, so I must be going."
With that, Professor Yu politely rose and departed. Yan Yongmao’s gaze fell upon the coffee cup at the professor’s empty seat. It was untouched.
There wasn’t the slightest hint of discouragement on Yan Yongmao’s face. He propped his chin on his left hand, his right index finger tracing circles on the tabletop. ’For a professor, I guess my offer just isn’t attractive enough. I wonder what kind of deal Xu Family Village offered to lure Professor Yu all the way out to Qianhai Town? Or maybe... it’s not that my offer is unattractive, but that my approach is all wrong?’
The circles Yan Yongmao was tracing with his finger grew slowly larger...