Picking up the damaged fish trap, Deng Guang gently bent it. The connections between the grids were completely warped and could no longer be folded. "What a shame."
Qin Ziwen used a stone to smash the viperhead eel's head.
Beside him, Deng Guang looked at the pulverized flesh, feeling somewhat regretful.
He stepped forward, circled around to the back, and lifted the viperhead eel by its tail. This snake was as thick as an adult's arm. Holding his arm level, the snake's head dangled to the ground with length to spare.
"What a waste. The venom glands seem to be smashed. This meat can't be eaten, so it can only serve as fish trap bait."
Qin Ziwen recalled biological knowledge from his past studies: "I remember snake venom is protein-based. Boiling it in water should neutralize the toxicity."
Deng Guang picked up the snake corpse: "Then will you eat it? I can bring it back for you."
Qin Ziwen coughed: "Let's just use it as bait."
Deng Guang placed a small portion of the snake meat into the trap, then returned the fish trap to its original spot, covering the surface with a layer of dead branches and aquatic plants. "It's a shame the other trap is broken. I'll take it back later and see if I can repair it."
Qin Ziwu looked at the damaged fish trap in his hand: "Bro, the gaps in the damaged trap don't seem that big. Shouldn't it still be usable?"
Qin Ziwen shook his head: "What if it catches another snake? If it slips through the gaps and bites you, we don't have any antivenom."
Poisonous snakes were completely different from crocodiles. If a crocodile bit your hand, with good luck you might only lose a hand.
But if a poisonous snake bit you, you could lose more than just a hand.
Qin Ziwu thought about it and felt his older brother made sense: "Alright."
Qin Ziwen heard footsteps from the slope behind him.
Turning around, he saw four people carrying buckets and fishing gear passing by on the path behind them.
One of them turned his head, and their eyes met. Qin Ziwen recognized him as Liu Changgen.
Liu Changgen also seemed surprised to encounter Deng Guang and the others here.
His gaze swept over the people below, finally forcing a slight curve at the corner of his mouth: "Old Deng."
Deng Guang turned his head and, seeing it was Liu Changgen, said with a smile: "Yeah, are you planning to change fishing spots?"
"Yeah, there were too many people over there. Fished all day yesterday with little to show for it. Planning to check downstream." Liu Changgen's eyes fell on the fish trap in Qin Ziwu's hand, his tone tinged with envy: "Is that a fish trap? Old Deng, you actually had such a good thing hidden away. Never saw you bring it out when we fished together before."
"It's mine," Qin Ziwen interjected.
"Yours?" Liu Changgen was very surprised by this answer. How could it be yours? His eyes kept shifting between Qin Ziwen and the fish trap, an inexplicable sense of regret surfacing in his heart.
If he had saved their fishing spot for them a couple days ago, maybe he could be using the fish trap now too.
The man wearing a baseball cap on Liu Changgen's right raised his eyebrows, "Hey, young man, are you selling that fish trap?"
Qin Ziwen lifted the fish trap: "Sure, fifty pounds of fish, and it's yours right away."
Not only the man who asked, but even Liu Changgen's face darkened.
"Fifty pounds? Why don't you just rob someone?" The baseball cap man's tone turned unfriendly as he sneered, "Do you even know what fifty pounds of fish means? Probably not a single household in the entire residential complex could gather that much meat."
Deng Guang, standing beside Qin Ziwen, thought to himself, that might not be true.
Almost everyone who participated in the first crocodile hunt got several dozen pounds of meat.
Liu Changgen thought for a moment and said earnestly, "How about ten pounds of fish? One pound of fish sells for six or seven dollars, and your trap isn't one of those really big ones anyway."
Qin Ziwen lost interest, "Your bargaining is pointless, completely lacking sincerity. Forget it."
Liu Changgen tried bargaining once more, "Fifteen pounds."
Qin Ziwen couldn't be bothered to respond to him anymore.
Liu Changgen took a deep breath, gave a deep look around, memorizing the location, then turned and left.
He comforted himself internally.
A fish trap just adds another hunting method, and traps left outside aren't necessarily safe. They could be destroyed by crocodiles in the river, or they could be stolen by others...
He thought with some malice, you'd better watch your trap twenty-four hours a day, lest it suddenly gets stolen someday.
Liu Changgen's thoughts churned as he memorized the surrounding environment.
Watching the four figures retreating into the distance, Qin Ziwen narrowed his eyes.
Deng Guang warned Qin Ziwen, "Be careful, they might come to steal the trap."
Qin Ziwen thought of the crowned eagle and formed a plan, "Yeah, I know."
Deng Guang blamed himself, "It's all my fault for misjudging people. I shouldn't have gone fishing with those Liu folks back then. Now your fish trap is exposed."
Qin Ziwen comforted him, "It's not your fault. Even without Liu Changgen, there would be Li Changgen or Zhou Changgen. It's normal for others to see it. Don't worry, I have a plan. We'll set it out as usual tonight."
Deng Guang didn't ask what the method was, simply saying, "Good that you have an idea. I'll follow your lead."
Hesitating for a moment, Deng Guang asked, "If he really agreed to give fifty pounds of meat, would you sell the fish trap?"
Qin Ziwen replied without hesitation, "Sell it? Of course I'd sell it."
That was fifty pounds of meat! If someone could produce that much meat, only a fool wouldn't make the trade. He just didn't know if meat traded this way would be included in the daily settlement's scoring. If it counted, then he might have found a little trick to boost his score.
After chatting for a while longer, the two arrived at yesterday's fishing spot. Deng Guang took the repaired fishing rod from his bag and handed it over.
They fished all morning, but perhaps the beginner's luck period had ended. That morning, they only caught one small white fish the size of a palm.
Sitting for so long made his back ache. Qin Ziwen stood up, rubbed his lower back, took a couple of steps, and his peripheral vision caught the leaves of a plant nearby. They looked strangely familiar.
But he couldn't remember where he'd seen them before.
After thinking for a moment, he suddenly slapped his forehead!
This seemed to be the "Gray Sweet Potato" recorded in the plant guide.
Gray Sweet Potato: Also known as "Mud Sweet Potato," a tuber plant that grows in muddy swamp environments. Its leaves are inedible and slightly toxic. Its sweet potato tubers are hidden in the mud below, edible, with a bland taste and strong satiety, harvested twice a year.
Although it shared the character for "potato" with sweet potatoes, this thing's leaves were completely different, and the exposed leaf stalks were also very distinct. The vines and leaves were gray-green, covered in fine dense hairs, and the leaves were pentagram-shaped.
He found a short stick to help dig up the soil. Soon, a large cluster of gray spherical fruits, as if grown from the earth, was pulled up by the roots.
These spherical fruits had rough skin with irregular ring patterns. In appearance, they looked like stones covered in mud.
The plant in his hand had five tubers.
Perhaps because this thing grew underground and few animals ate it, they were quite plump, each the size of an adult's fist.
Just this one plant weighed about two or three pounds.
He calculated internally. If this thing reproduced asexually using tubers like potatoes, it could definitely become a staple food in the future.
But right now, he had too few gray sweet potatoes and no environment to grow them in.
Unless he could use the Level 1 farmland at home, but Level 1 farmland required 400 square meters of open space.
He hoped to obtain a few blank expansion cards as soon as possible.
......