Chapter 305: Golden Thread Turtle [Part 1]
The smiling student held up his catch and showed it off to Cillin for a moment. After that, their boats passed by each other.
Wheeze was chasing the fishes at the bottom of the lake all over the place, and almost everyone on the shore had noticed the commotion. They had portable scanners after all. Usually, the portable scanners were used to find out the best place to chuck their baits into the water. But since the fishes were positively swarming the lake surface, it made much more sense to just chuck a net and catch everything.
Although most of the anglers were here to relax or waste their time, they weren’t going to turn away good luck. Those who didn’t have a net ran to the robots to buy one. There was also a kid holding a scanner to his eyes and spotting the fishes for his parents.
Cillin didn’t use a net or join in on the fun. He knew that it was pointless to fish a fishing rod when the fishes in the lake were in panic, but that was not the main goal of his excursion, not to mention that Wheeze had probably eaten entire schools of fishes already. No matter how you looked at it, he was the winner through and through.
Cillin’s boat eventually moved to a shallow area. There were a tonne of rocks around here, but no shades and almost no big fishes at all. So it was pretty secluded compared to other places around the lake.
Cillin took one look and spotted a big fellow sunbathing on top of a huge rock immediately. Curious, he put down his fishing rod, took out a net and stopped his boat before it got too close to the creature. He didn’t want to frighten it and cause it to run away.
After adjusting a rope onto the net, he aimed carefully before tossing out the net. The net automatically wrapped around the creature, trapping it before it could escape into the water.
He pressed a button and watched as the rope was pulled back toward his boat. Once the creature was reeled in completely, he hauled it up to eye level and examined his catch. It was almost half a meter long, and it was incredibly heavy.
The creature he caught was a huge turtle with some patterns that looked like golden threads on its shell. It was a rare breed of normal turtles. A lot of people like raising a pet like this because of merchants who spread rumors about a golden thread turtle bringing wealth and good luck.
There were plenty of such genetically modified golden thread turtles, but natural ones were a lot rarer and feisty. They preferred to run away like all normal turtles if they saw a human being, but it they were caught they would glare at you, flail around with all its might and try to bite you with its mutated, curved jaw. They wouldn’t hide their head, limbs and tails inside their shell.
Cillin’s knowledge of golden thread turtles was scarce. Most of what he knew came from the introductions in aquatic pet magazines. He read that its age could be determined by examining the pattern on its shell, but he didn’t know the exact method. He gave the shell a light knock and, yep, natural shells were just harder than the genetically modified ones. Funnily enough, his action infuriated the turtle even more, and it tried to bite through the net around to its curved jaw to no avail. That being said, it might have succeeded if the net was just a normal fishing net.
Cillin stared at the turtle glaring at him and kicking its limbs for a moment before tossing it onto the boat. He didn’t unravel the net, of course. There was a pair of oddly-shaped fishes in his fish bucket; something Wheeze had caught and decided to bring to the surface instead of devouring directly. If he were to put the golden thread turtle in the fish bucket, the fishes would probably vanish into its mouth in less than five seconds.
Although he hadn’t gotten any fishes, this big fellow was a pretty good replacement. According to that pet magazine, a golden thread turtle that was less than half a palm big could be sold for a sum of 5 digits. In other words, this big fellow was worth at least several bucket-full of fishes.
Wheeze swam around the whole lake once before climbing back onto the boat. After it was done shaking the water out of its fur, it immediately spotted the struggling golden thread turtle. Wheeze circled leisurely around the turtle before slapping it occasionally with its claws. Once, the golden thread turtle managed to bite its paw, but Wheeze wasn’t afraid in the slightest. It would be a miracle if it managed to break its skin. Staring at the golden thread turtle that was still holding on to its paw, Wheeze asked curiously, “Did you fish it from somewhere?”
“Yep, over there.” Cillin pointed his chin at the shallow area he caught the turtle earlier.
Wheeze sniffed it once and commented, “It doesn’t look tasty.”
“I have no idea if it’s tasty or not, but I do know that it’s worth at least five bucket-full of fishes.”
Wheeze’s mood immediately improved when it heard that it was worth that much money.
“Awesome!”
Wheeze decided to forego jumping back into the lake and spent the next period of time teasing the golden thread turtle.
“Eh? look, Cillin! The pattern on its shell is glowing!”
Cillin turned around to look at the turtle. He didn’t notice it earlier, but the golden threads were flashing from time to time. At its brightest, it looked like rays of sunlight.
“It’s absorbing sunlight energy,” Wheeze said after examining them closely for a moment.
“This sure is an unusual breed of turtles.”
Cillin set the boat to return after fooling around for a bit longer. Many people got to catch a lot of fishes today, and smiling faces were all over the place. Everyone be it the anglers or the owners that sold fishing equipment were chuckling and talking about today’s unexpected fortune.
When Cillin returned to the shop he rented his equipment, a lot of people were doing the same thing. There were those who took off after making their payment, and there were those who gathered around to have a chat with each other.
Some people spotted the two oddly-shaped fishes in Cillin’s bucket. A local would know that the fishes were a ferocious but tasty, but that wasn’t the point here. The point was how on earth did Cillin catch only two fishes on a lucky day where everyone went home with a cart load of fishes??
At first, these people stared at Cillin with disdainful looks on their faces. That lasted until Wheeze dragged the huge golden thread turtle out into view, and everyone—even those who were talking to each other up till that moment—ran over to check out the golden thread turtle at close range. Wheeze immediately started growling intimidatingly at the growing crowd. Anyone who comes after the turtle will die by scratching!
But no one was paying attention to the gray cat. After confirming that the turtle was indeed a golden thread turtle, someone said, “Fuck me! This is a hundred-year-old golden thread turtle, it has to be! I heard that the lake has a golden thread turtle since a long time ago, but I had no idea that the rumors were true until now!”
There were also a couple of fearless people who tried to touch the turtle and got a bloody hand thanks to Wheeze. They paid the injury no heed, however. Knowing that Wheeze was Cillin’s pet, they surrounded Cillin as if they were afraid that he would foolishly sell it to the wicked rental shop owners for a pittance.
“Is this your golden thread turtle, young lad?”
“Hey, I’m the one who saw it first, so stop trying to squeeze into my space!”
“I would like to buy it off your hands. How does one hundred thousand MB sound?”
“Fuck off! Lad, I’ll give you 150K if you sell it to me!”
“…”
From the way these people offered a hundred thousand MB like it was ten MB, it was clear that these were very wealthy. In fact, they would’ve looked scholarly if not for their concern for the turtle turning them as rowdy as middle-aged hooligans. Everyone was tutting and trying to outdo one another, afraid that the golden thread turtle would fall into a pair of hands that wasn’t their own.
That wasn’t even the end of it. At a distance, a couple of senior gentlemen were striding toward Cillin as they argued. They had unusually steady footsteps for their age.
The moment the group of senior gentlemen hit the crowd, one of them immediately flailed his walking stick around and declared imperiously, “Out. Out. Out of the way!”
It was an amusing sight. The old man’s swing had force behind it, but obviously he wasn’t trying to beat the daylights out of the people in his way. A couple of them were rubbing their arms and complaining in an exaggerated fashion, but they all obediently moved out of the old man’s path. Clearly, everyone here knew each other to a degree. Speaking of which, the age group of the crowd surrounding him was incredibly old. Even the youngest among them was middle-aged at best.
The argument was friendly, and Cillin could see that they weren’t planning to rob him by force. They clearly loved the golden thread turtle very much, and they definitely wanted to buy the golden thread turtle off his hands if he was willing.
“It’s senior Sun!” Someone said.
“Professor White!”
“Aw man, you two haven’t left yet?” A couple of people in the crowd complained.
“Hmph! You want us gone so you can keep it all to yourself? No dice!” Senior Sun hit the guy who complained about their presence with his walking stick, but judging from the casual expressions on everyone’s faces this was probably a daily occurence.
