Chapter 179: The Public Seas

Translator: Aristophaneso Editor: Caron_

Chu Xian swam around, using his claws to dig at the ground and rocky protrusion. After a while, he was sure of his suspicions – he had found a huge gold mine.

“If I can mine this gold, this will be worth a hundred times more than the red corals.” Chu Xian’s heart was beating with a fiery passion. An hour later, he brought the red coral and blue marlin back to the ship.

After putting aside the blue marlin and the red corals, Chu Xian took out his phone and looked up information on the internet.

“F***!” Very quickly, Chu Xian’s face turned black.

According to the information on the internet, if he wanted to buy a drilling platform, he would need to pay at least a couple billion RMB. Billions! At present, including the red corals he had just found, Chu Xian only had a little over a hundred million RMB—not even a tenth of the cost!

This didn’t include labor and maintenance costs. No ordinary person… no that’s not right, no ordinary company could afford this.

Even if you looked at the entire world, there weren’t that many drilling platforms.

Moreover, even if you owned the platform, could you mine out the ocean? Definitely not. The country wouldn’t allow some private enterprise to stake such a large claim on national waters; the Chinese seas belonged to the country.

But if he reported this gold mine to the country, maybe the government would award him a couple hundred thousand RMB.

“Ay!” Chu Xian shook his head helplessly. If he couldn’t use the drilling platform, he could only manually mine with the mermen, but if he wanted to use mermen, he would need thousands!

“Forget it, forget it. Let’s not think about the gold mine anymore!” Chu Xian shook his head speechlessly.

“Old Mu! Record the coordinates!” Chu Xian called out. Maybe in a few years, when he had a large group of mermen, he could come back and have them mine out the gold!

“Yes!” Old Mu nodded.

“I should start remolding the merman!” Chu Xian looked at the blue marlin he set aside and walked into the cabin.

Half an hour later, an over-two-meter-tall strongman walked out with him. His shiny bald head and explosive muscles were topped by a proud and tough face.

“These sailfish mermen are really so strong and tyrannical!” Chu Xian laughed contentedly.

“Red Corals!” Chu Xian sat down in his chair and took out the three red corals, carefully washing away the detritus and examining his find.

“How beautiful. If these were made into jewelry or necklaces, they would be absolutely stunning!” Chu Xian brought the red corals to his eyes.

The corals shone brightly under the sun like deep red drops of water, pure and flawless!

Red corals had a long history, symbolizing wealth and luxury. They were also one of the seven treasures of Buddhism.

“I’ll sell two and keep one for myself and find someone to make it into a decoration, hee hee!” Chu Xian laughed then carefully stored them away in a small box in his cabin.

“Boss, we’re in international waters!” Not long afterward, Old Mu called out to Chu Xian.

“En!” Chu Xian nodded.

International waters were a term used to describe all the sea areas outside exclusive economic zones, territorial waters, and inland waters of a country or the archipelagic waters of any archipelago state. In other words, they were waters that didn’t belong to any country.

The only thing Chu Xian knew about these international waters was what the movies said—that it wasn’t unlawful to kill someone.

Actually, this was wrong. The international waters weren’t without laws.

In the open sea, you could sail freely, build freely, fish freely, and also conduct scientific research, but there were constraints on the ships.

Every ship sailing on the high seas had to present a country’s flag, and when they displayed that flag, they were subject to that country’s laws in addition to international laws.

If someone on a Chinese-flag-bearing ship murdered another person, then only China had the right to arrest them. It didn’t matter if they were an American or a British subject; only China had the right to arrest them, and no other country.

But, out on international waters, it was okay to gamble or do drugs without consequences, and many cruise ships sailed out to international waters to practice the sex trade, gamble or do drugs!

The destination of Sky Travel Cruise was also these international waters.

According to what Ma Zhigang told him, the area in international waters was a place where cruise ships gathered. There were gambling cruises, drug cruises, pornographic cruises, and leisure cruises coming together to form a prosperous entertainment district in the water.

Chu Xian was also interested in the leisure cruises, but he didn’t have an opportunity or the time to enjoy them.

“The fish resources in international waters are much more abundant than where we were before!” As soon as they entered the international sea, Chu Xian stretched out his senses and happily noticed that compared to their previous location, there were a lot more fish in these waters.

And if you thought about it, it made sense. Although there were no restrictions on fishing in international waters, how many fishing ships could sail out this far? At least 95% of Chinese fishing ships didn’t have that capability, and it was much the same for the neighboring countries.

And gradually over time, the resources in the public seas became more abundant than those in the Chinese seas.

“Two kilometers ahead, there’s a small school of fish. Let’s speed up!” At that moment, Chu Xian called out to Old Mu.

“Yes, boss!” Old Mu replied, nodding and accelerating the ship.

“This should be a school of salmon; there’s at least a couple thousand!” Chu Xian was surprised and happy. As soon as they entered these international waters, they found a small school of fish. It looked like their luck was quite good.

The fishing ship quickly sailed to a location not far from the school of fish and Chu Xian checked again; indeed, it was a salmon school.

Salmon were flat with high backs and sharp teeth. Their small scales were silver-grey, and their eggs had orange stripes. Salmon meat was dense and delicious, and their pink meat had a very nice texture.

Salmon were famous worldwide for their high economic value but weren’t often seen in the seas around China. They usually gathered near Canada, Russia and America, and sometimes near Japan. Their value was quite high—worth fifty to sixty RMB per catty.

Chu Xian looked at the school of fish and immediately jumped into the sea, leading the tuna away from the fishing ship and swimming quickly over to the school of salmon.

The speed of the salmon was slower than Chu Xian, so he wasn’t worried that they would escape. After catching up to them, he instantly used Rule.

“Just eat them!” A couple thousand salmon came out to a couple thousand catties and were worth more than a hundred thousand RMB, but after some thought, Chu Xian still decided to eat them.

Very quickly, the three to four tons of salmon went into his stomach and Chu Xian’s Rule capacity increased by one, reaching 16, and his energy rose to 2300.

“If I can find more schools of fish like this, my energy will increase very quickly!” Chu Xian thought to himself and smiled as he looked out at the endless international waters.

Since it was like this, Chu Xian didn’t return to the boat and just stayed in his fish form, wandering around with the tunas, Ruling any of the fish he found and devouring them.

In the rich international waters, Chu Xian devoured five to six hundred catties of fish in a little over an hour’s time, and his energy level quickly grew.