Chapter 774: Snake Island
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
Li Du was unsure whether breadfruits were considered vegetables or fruits. Nonetheless, they were delicious when eaten raw or after being roasted.
Between the two, he felt that breadfruits tasted better when roasted. It brought out their fragrance and gave them a fluffy and soft texture, which was similar to their texture raw.
As the large number of small seeds found in breadfruits could not be directly eaten, Brother Wolf got everyone to collect the seeds before throwing the seeds into a pan and stir-frying them.
Stir-fried breadfruit seeds, which smelled like sesame seeds, could be pressed to yield oil or be crushed and eaten.
After finishing his meal, Li Du was ready to dive back into the sea to harvest black gold abalone.
Before entering the sea, Li Du first released the little bug to search for black gold abalones. This time around, he spotted a lot of cord-like shadows wriggling near a reef in the sea.
Thinking that the shadows belonged to aquatic plants such as seaweeds and seagrass, which he’d seen a lot of when diving during the last few days, he paid no attention to them.
Every diver knew that contact with seaweeds and seagrass must be avoided when underwater. Once a person became entangled in the aquatic plants, they would be in danger as the aquatic plants were extremely tough and there were no suitable tools that could help them. Even if they had a partner with them, they would still be in danger if they became entangled.
Despite that, as there might be more black gold abalones near the reef, Li Du had to go over to take a look. If there were quite a number of black gold abalones here, Li Du would have to risk it.
This was why the harvesting job was so difficult. When working in the sea, it was inevitable that risks had to be taken.
After the little bug flew closer and took a look, Li Du shuddered involuntarily.
Li Du was not a timid person. Having seen a poisonous snake, large centipede, and giant frog after coming to the island, he felt that he was already very brave.
However, the sight before him still managed to frighten him. All that he could see was a large number of sea snakes living near the reef. At first glance, there were probably hundreds—possibly thousands—of them.
The sight of the brightly colored sea snakes wriggling around in the sea was overwhelming for Li Du!
After seeing these snakes, Li Du understood the meaning of the phrase “groups of snakes dancing wildly!”
As Li Du was not very scared of snakes, hadn’t panicked after noticing a poisonous snake on the grapevine earlier. However, after seeing a few hundred to upwards of a few thousand poisonous snakes at once, he was really frightened.
All sea snakes were poisonous snakes.
As he hadn’t noticed any sea snakes in the sea earlier, he thought that only the island had snakes and that there was none in the sea. Little did he know there were plenty of snakes in the sea. Nonetheless, he had no idea why they were all gathered together here.
When the little bug circled around the reef, avoiding the groups of snakes, Li Du noticed that the snakes only swam near the reef, with many of the snakes circling above it.
Other than the reef, there were no sea snakes in the sea.
Nonetheless, as the groups of sea snakes had made Li Du cautious, he returned to the others and warned them, “Don’t carelessly go into the sea. There are a lot of sea snakes in this area.”
Not taking Li Du’s warning seriously, Big Quinn said, “Boss, compared to the snakes on land, sea snakes are the least aggressive. So long as we don’t provoke them, they’ll definitely not bite us.”
This was one of the unique characteristics of sea snakes: they would not attack animals that were bigger in size than them.
There was a very simple reasoning behind this unique characteristic of sea snakes. Like the poisonous snakes on land, rather than biting their prey, sea snakes swallowed their prey whole.
Sea snakes would only attack when hunting for food to survive and would not attack indiscriminately unless when provoked or threatened.
Furthermore, as sea snakes were limited by the size of their bodies. They preyed on small fish, prawns, and insects. For animals that were too large for them, such as humans, they would not be able to swallow them even if given an arm.
As such, divers were not afraid of sea snakes. After a person spotted one, if they didn’t move or provoke it, it would not launch an attack and would at most glance curiously at them.
Although Li Du also understood this common knowledge, he was still worried that an accident would occur. As such, he did not allow the others to enter the sea, especially the children, when there was no need to.
Brother Wolf and Big Quinn were more worried about the situation on the island.
In the afternoon, while Li Du and Hans were harvesting black gold abalone in the sea, Brother Wolf and Big Quinn explored the outer regions of the island and found out that the island had a lot of snakes. The island was literally a snake island.
Fortunately, unlike wolves, snakes would not launch an attack if they did not feel threatened. Even though both Brother Wolf and Big Quinn had many encounters with the snakes on the island, they were unharmed.
As it was most likely already evening, they were unable to leave the island. However, they couldn’t possibly spend the night on the yacht, right? The yacht was unable to accommodate so many people.
Even though Li Du did find a few snakes when he released the little bug to survey the surroundings, most of the snakes were resting on the grapevines or other plants and very rarely came to the beach or the reef.
When the little bug continued going deeper into the island, another sight that made Li Du’s hair stand appeared: at the center of the island was a hill with an uneven surface and rocks everywhere, and at the center of a few pieces of rocks was another group of snakes!
The number of snakes in this area was a lot more than the number of snakes on the reef. The sight of the group of snakes struck terror into Li Du’s heart.
However, after briefly observing the group of snakes, Li Du realized that they did not have the intention of moving to other places. Even though some of the snakes would leave the group and enter the sea from time to time, those snakes mainly took a fixed route.
Like people going to a market, there was an unceasing line of sea snakes along the fixed route, and the number of sea snakes on the fixed route was very astonishing.
Furthermore, as though they were regulated by some rule, they did not slither all over the place.
After instructing Brother Wolf and a few others to keep watch at night, Li Du found some dry branches and used them to set up a campfire near the campsite.
Being cold-blooded animals, snakes hated fire. As such, so long as the campfire did not go out, they would not get close to the campsite.
Throughout the night, Li Du was unable to sleep soundly and woke up a few times to check on the situation.
As scenes from horror movies such as “Anaconda” and “Serpent” kept appearing in Li Du’s head, he was extremely afraid that the sea snakes would group together and attack them.
Since the island was the sea snakes’ territory, after all, both parties could very easily clash if the sea snakes became displeased with their sudden intrusion.
Fortunately, reality proved that Li Du was overthinking. Throughout the entire night, not a single snake was spotted near the beach. Due to the presence of the campfire, even insects, such as the poisonous centipede that was seen in the morning, did not appear.
In the morning, the group of them ate breadfruits again. After which, Li Du complemented their meal with a pot of vegetable soup that was cooked using breadfruit leaves. As vegetable soups that were cooked using breadfruit leaves were very tasty, all Li Du had to add was some meat and salt to make the soup more flavorful.
After having breakfast, Li Du and Hans went into the sea. Like what Li Du had seen yesterday, the groups of snakes were only found in a few areas. Due to the high temperature in the day, the snakes were more inactive.
As such, there was no conflict between the two parties, and so long as Li Du and Hans took precautions to avoid the groups of snakes, they were able to freely harvest black gold abalones.
While harvesting black gold abalone, Li Du and Hans had several encounters with the sea snakes. Just like what was commonly known about sea snakes, the reptiles were completely uninterested in them. They didn’t even get close to them.
There was a huge quantity of black gold abalones in the waters surrounding the island. Possibly due to no one else, other than those people on Cape Barren Island, knowing about the quantity of black gold abalone here, no one had come over to harvest them before and so the waters surrounding the island were filled with them.
Li Du and Hans harvested an unprecedented amount of black gold abalones from the island’s waters. In one day, they were able to easily harvest hundreds of them.
Other than the large number of sea snakes, Li Du gradually began to like to the island. With an easier time harvesting, beautiful sceneries, and a plentiful supply of food, the island was more like an otherworldly paradise than Cape Barren Island was.
