Chapter 1297: Fish in the LakeTranslator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The oasis itself was not that big. The lake was even smaller. Its area was equivalent to half a standard playground, give or take. However, the depth of the lake was somewhat unclear, and it would take some time for Sihwa to find out.
Zhang Zian scooped water from the lake, filtered it, and added disinfecting pills before capping the bottles. He then threw all unnecessary items out of the car. Even the roof rack was removed. Since there were no tents or mats, he might as well do away with it.
After the problem of water was solved, what remained was the fuel problem. There was no solution. He could merely drive forward regardless of what happened. With this in mind, he decided it was best to travel light and simple.
When the next desert traveler accidentally arrived at this oasis, they would find a pile of rubbish beside the palm trees by the lake. He wondered how that would feel.
Of course, an oasis in the desert was often a random occurrence, especially a small one like this. When the groundwater changed course, the spring would dry up. Or if a black storm raged over the area, this oasis would disappear forever.
Richard could no longer hold in his pee, but he did not want to do his business in the lake. He decided to do it under the car. He noticed that there were not only palm trees but also date trees by the lakeside. He urged Zhang Zian to pick the dates and feed him.
The other elfins ran into the shade to cool down. Although there were no blankets or mats, there were thick and dense palm leaves that made the environment cool and comfortable.
Sihwa emerged from the water and exclaimed excitedly, “Look! See what I found at the bottom of the lake!”
If one could look past her unique thoughts, her appearance and body (upper body only) were top-notch. Perhaps her lower body was also top-notch in fish terms. She looked very beautiful when she broke through the water. In this pure and pollution-free lake, her appearance was reminiscent of a fairy.
“It can’t be a curry stick…” Zhang Zian groaned. He had not stopped working since getting here. He looked at her lazily.
Stunned.jpg
Zhang Zian was stunned, and the other elfins were as well.
In Sihwa’s arms was a thick, long…fish.
When they first saw the fish, they thought it was a snake going in the wrong direction. This just went to show how long the fish was.
The big fish continually twisted and struggled in her arms, flicking its tail and trying to escape. It splashed water everywhere.
She laughed, hugged it, and kept it from getting away.
“Haha! Today, I am feeling very kind! Let me treat all of you to fish, free of charge!” she said gleefully as she blatantly betrayed her fish-mates.
As she finished speaking, she slammed her tail hard towards the sh.o.r.e and threw the fish onto the sand. It was still struggling and splashed the sand around with its strong and powerful tail. Soon, it was covered in sand.
Upon closer inspection, the fish was not struggling about mindlessly. It was trying its best to get back into the water—not to mention that it crawled forward at a fast pace, much faster than the average fish.
The fish was at least one meter long measured from its head to tail. It was similar in shape to an octopus, though it was much thicker. The most striking thing was that it had a pair of long beards near its gills and cloaca.
“Eat! Eat! You’re welcome! Let me treat you!” Sihwa pretended to slap her chest. “Choose how you want to cook it—steam or fry!”
No one would have thought that there was such a big fish in this small lake. They didn’t know if the fish was aggressive. Otherwise, Fina’s rus.h.i.+ng in to take a bath in the lake might be a tad dangerous… Of course, even if Zhang Zian himself went in to bathe, he might have his privates bitten as well.
Ordinary fish struggled in the sand for a while because they lacked oxygen and eventually stopped. However, this fish struggled a lot more and was close to re-entering the lake.
Zhang Zian took the aluminum luggage rack that had just been thrown away and pressed it on the fish so that it could not move forward.
He knelt down for a while, pointed to it, and said to Sihwa, “Do you know what fish this is?”
“What fish? This is an edible fis.h.!.+ Cats eat fish, dogs eat meat, and b.u.mpy men eat little monsters! There are fish and meat underneath this lake. You don’t have to be polite. Let’s eat!” Sihwa did not think deeply as to why there were fish in the water. She didn’t consider that a desert surrounded them for more than a thousand miles in all directions. Where had the fish come from? The fish could not be born out of nothing.
Zhang Zian said, “If I didn’t guess wrong, this should be a lungfish—as the name implies, it’s a fish that can breathe with its lungs. This fish is quite rare.”
“Lung…lungfish? Isn’t that the same as me?” Sihwa opened her eyes wide and asked this with amazement. Although she couldn’t understand him, she felt that it sounded extremely astonis.h.i.+ng.
Zhang Zian said, “I don’t know what you use to breathe.”
The lungfish was a very old fish. It could be said that there were six species of living fossils. Four of them lived in Africa, and only four kinds of lungfish in Africa could survive for a long time outside of a body of water. The other two could be found in South America and Australia, but they could only be out of the water for a short period of time.
Aquatic pets were usually small animals, and few people raised lungfish. Moreover, few people had even heard of lungfish. However, this fish had become a new luxury in the ornamental fish market in recent years. There were two types of lungfish that were generally available in the domestic ornamental fish market. They were lungfish that lived in Africa. One was the Victorian lungfish, and the other was the tiger-spotted lungfish.
The former was called the Victorian lungfish, as it had first been discovered in Lake Victoria in Africa. However, its scientific name was actually the stonefish.
As for why China called it the Victorian lungfish… It was probably because the former was a foreign name and sounded more impressive? The latter sounded terrible, and the first impression made it sound like a kind of fish food.
The scientific name of the tiger-spotted lungfish was the African lungfish. However, as it was easy to confuse it with the “lungfish living in Africa,” they were generally referred to based on the patterns seen on their skin.
Victorian lungfish could grow to up to about 1.8 meters long. Since they could be sold as ornamental fish in the aquarium market, it was the most common type of lungfish. However, even the most common lungfish, as long as it reached more than one meter long, could be sold for thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars.
The most expensive lungfish on the market was the Australian lungfish, which was an extremely endangered species. It only survived in Australia and was banned from being exported. There were only about 10,000 left in the world. Those being sold on the market, if any, had likely been born out of artificial insemination by human intervention.
The lungfish that Sihwa had fished out from the lake was neither a Victorian lungfish nor a tiger-spotted lungfish. It was also unlikely to be an Australian lungfish. From the look of the fish, it seemed to be a fine-scale African lungfish. Due to its slender body, it was known as the long-legged lungfish. It was also extremely rare in China’s aquarium market.