Chapter 816: Ali’s Retaliation
Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio
The miner"s description piqued Li Du"s interest. Li Du asked, "What are the small monsters? Do you know their name?"
Seeing that Li Du was curious, the miner gave a crafty smile and replied, "Let me see the journal Bob gave you, and I will give you information about those monsters."
Li Du was speechless.
Did the miner think he was stupid?
As Li Du could not be bothered to continue talking to the miner, he picked up a fis.h.i.+ng rod, waved at Sophie, and said, "Dear, let"s go to Darling River and take a look. Let"s see just what monsters are there. Could they be water monsters?"
Another miner said, "Not water monsters, it"s small lobsters. Peters was talking about small lobsters."
Thinking that the miner who wanted to extort Li Du earlier was very stupid, the other miner looked at him in a scornful manner and thought, What value is there in this kind of information? Might as well honestly tell Li Du and get a small favor in return.
Sure enough, after hearing his words, Li Du raised his rod to signal to him and said, "Many thanks. I will treat you to a beer at the bar when I see you again."
"Anytime." The miner hurriedly smiled and said, "I"m Frye, Cole Frye."
After Li Du nodded at the miner, the boss asked, "I"ll be gossipy and ask a question. I heard that you used to harvest black gold abalone in Tasmania. In that case, you would surely have a fis.h.i.+ng license, right?"
The question that the boss had asked was an important one. Li Du replied awkwardly, "I don"t have a fis.h.i.+ng license. You"ll have to help me get one."
In order to protect the fis.h.i.+ng industry"s resources, Australia required all fishermen to apply for a fis.h.i.+ng license. The application process was very easy and could be done in a fis.h.i.+ng equipment store.
The boss asked, "What kind would you like to apply for? There are four kinds in total. Three days for seven dollars, one month for 14 dollars, one year for 35 dollars, and three years for 85 dollars. You don"t need to tell me, I know the answer. The longer the duration, the better, right?"
As small sums of money were insignificant to Li Du, he took out 70 dollars and applied for two one-year fis.h.i.+ng licenses. Since he would be not be staying in Lightning Ridge for long, his main consideration was that he might want to fish when harvesting black gold abalone in the future, and having a fis.h.i.+ng license in hand would enable him to fish conveniently.
The boss asked Li Du the time he would be fis.h.i.+ng and wrote it down on his fis.h.i.+ng license. With that, Li Du was able to fish legally.
After bidding farewell to Frye, Li Du and his group drove off towards the north.
With the widest area being over ten meters wide, the section of Darling River that was located in Lightning Ridge was relatively large. As it had been raining heavily for the last few days, the river"s flow was unceasing and swift.
Due to there being lots of mines nearby, there would be large amounts of rock dust deposited in the river every day, so it was inevitable that the Darling River would be somewhat muddy.
Despite that, when looking at the river as a whole, the conservation efforts that had been carried out were still very effective. Lush green watergra.s.s was growing on the river banks, and the few pebbles that were being tumbled along the river banks by the water currents were very clean.
After spotting a small patch of elevated ground, Li Du walked over to it, found a thin pebble, and threw it with a swing of his arm.
With several splash sounds, the pebble skipped four to five times across the surface of the river before sinking into the water.
Seeing this, Li Du turned to face Sophie, raised his fist, and said, "Yeah, a beautiful home run!"
Amused by his playfulness, Sophie smiled and said, "Again."
Li Du went to search for a suitable pebble. As the previous pebble had been a little too thick, it was not very apt for skipping and sank into the river after only a few skips along the river"s surface.
When Li Du lifted a large piece of rock, two small, fully armored creatures raised their large pincers at him.
Small lobsters!
Earlier, after arriving at the river, Li Du first went to take a look at the river banks. As he did not see any small lobsters, he thought that the miners" words were a little bit of an exaggeration, and that even though there might be small lobsters in Lightning Ridge, the quant.i.ty was very low.
Now, with two small lobsters emerging after just having lifted a piece of rock, Li Du"s views had changed, and he now believed the miners.
After discovering the two small lobsters, Li Du ran excitedly back to the car, took out the net bag that he had purchased from the fis.h.i.+ng equipment shop, and stuffed the two small lobsters into the net bag.
As the two small lobsters were very plump, they felt heavy and st.u.r.dy in his hands. Evidently, the meat that was under the lobsters" sh.e.l.ls was thick and firm.
To Li Du, small lobsters were much more appealing than freshwater fish. As such, he waved to Sophie and asked her to come over to search for small lobsters with him.
Due to the swift river currents, finding small lobsters in the river was pretty difficult. Not only did Li Du and Sophie not have any alternative but to search for small lobsters along the river bank by moving rocks aside, the number of small lobsters living under rocks was low.
Seeing Li Du and Sophie lifting rocks to search for small lobsters, Ah Ow and Ah Meow went over to join them.
Such an activity was very easy for the ocelot. After using his claws to lift up the rocks, he would grab the small lobsters that he found in one fell swoop.
Even though the small lobsters" large pincers were very potent weapons, the speed of their attacks was too slow to be able to get Ah Meow.
Ali was learning how to search for small lobsters. Although the forelimbs of kangaroos were relatively weak, they possessed the rarest type of nimble front claws in the animal kingdom. As their claws had long, sharp nails, they were able to pick things up with them.
This type of claw was apt for lifting up rocks. Having finally found a small lobster after lifting up a few rocks, Ali happily picked it up.
When the small lobster was picked up by Ali"s claws, it wasted no time in raising its large pincers and pinching Ali"s claws.
With long nails that were also hard, the claws of kangaroos were great. However, this description only applied to adult kangaroos. For joeys like Ali, their claws were as tender as a scallion.
Having been pinched by the small lobster, Ali screamed in pain and speedily hopped over to Li Du as though there were springs under its feet.
Purposefully blocking Ali, Ah Ow stood in front of it.
As Ali had been modified by the little bug and had also become extraordinarily intelligent, it raised its claws and slammed the small lobster onto Ah Ow"s mouth.
Like dogs, wolves" lips were one of the softest parts of their bodies.
After slamming against Ah Ow"s face, the small lobster viciously pinched her soft lips with the other large pincer.
"Ahwoo!" This time around, it was Ah Ow who was howling in pain.
Originally, Ali only wanted to push Ah Ow out of the way. Little did it know, there would be another payoff from doing so. The small lobster released its grip on Ali after pinching Ah Ow"s lips.
With that, Ali sidestepped and hopped to one side. Having come to a sudden realization that its claws were not hurting as much and that the small lobster had disappeared, Ali began hopping happily on the spot.
Ah Ow, who was in pain, forcefully shook her head. As the small lobster"s pincer was very strong and her lips were soft, Ah Ow was unable to shake the small lobster off no matter how hard she tried. Instead, due to the tugging, Ah Ow"s mouth became more and more painful.
Li Du, who was next to her, grabbed hold of her head and tried to forcefully pull the small lobster off.
However, as the small lobster"s grip was very tight, Li Du was unable to pull it off no matter how hard he tried. On the contrary, the pulling caused the small lobster to become more anxious and pinch Ah Ow"s lips with more force.
Not having experienced such pain before, Ah Ow"s eyes became teary, and she was howling at the top of her voice.
After coming over, Sophie decisively severed the small lobster"s large pincer before carefully pulling it off. Although this made Ah Ow feel much better, there was still a burning, painful sensation throughout her mouth.
Having gotten free of the small lobster"s attack, Ah Ow stomped off to find the culprit.
Seeing that the situation had turned sour, Ali speedily hopped towards the river bank.
With a cold gaze, Ah Ow followed behind Ali at neither a fast nor slow pace in order to stress Ali out.
Since Ali was still young, it would not be able to lose Ah Ow even if it were to hop faster. Before long, Ah Ow caught up to Ali.
Using the old method that she was best at, Ah Ow leaped into the air and tackled Ali to the ground.
After being tackled to the ground, Ali rolled once on the ground, turned around, and gave Ah Ow a slap on her mouth.
With another small lobster pinching Ah Ow on her lips, she continued to howl in pain, "Ahwoo woo!"