"Big Fish Eat Little Fish. Does this mean that after I transform into a fish, I can grow and evolve without limits?"
Chu Xian’s expression(1) kept changing as he thought about the implications.
Chu Xian approached the big fish tank at the back of the room. The tank was filled with ornamental fish: Zebra Fish, Koi Fish, Ray-finned Fish, Black Banjo Fish, Little Goldfish, Mickey Fish, Bucktooth Tetra and many others.
All these were cheap, small-sized fish bought from the seaside market for 10 RMB at most, with the largest being only 10 cm in size.
After observing these fish, Chu Xian pulled out a small net and placed some of the fish into a separate, smaller tank. Then he placed his finger into the tank and willed himself into a fish.
"Pa!" With a sound of falling into water, Chu Xian transformed into a small fish. As he swished his tail, he felt comfortable and free. He swam quickly and naturally as if he had been a fish since birth.
The little fish he turned into was an indistinguishable species and had no special features except a sharp row of teeth in its mouth.
As he swam next to a Bucktooth Tetra, a message appeared in Chu Xian’s mind.
Bucktooth Tetra: Level 0.
Combat Power: 0
Passive Talent: None
Chu Xian was excited by this discovery; knowing the status of other fish was a big help for his own safety. After hesitating for a moment, Chu Xian steeled himself and bit at this Bucktooth Tetra.
This 4cm, tiny Bucktooth Tetra swam along minding its own business, with no idea what was in store for it.
"Ka Cha!" Chu Xian heard the sound of breaking bones (sic), and the subtle taste of blood filling his mouth didn’t faze him at all as he used his sharp teeth to tear a chunk off the Bucktooth Tetra’s body.
Chu Xian quickly swallowed this piece and bit at the Bucktooth Tetra a second time, and within a few short seconds, he devoured the entire fish.
After eating this slightly smaller Bucktooth Tetra, Chu Xian felt the power in his body gradually growing, his speed improving, and a sense of comfort filling his body. He turned his increasingly intense stare towards the remaining dozen or so fish.
With a flash of his tail, Chu Xian appeared next to another fish. Gaping his small mouth, Chu Xian took a bite out of the little fish’s tail and began devouring it with big bites.
"Right, I also a special control power." After recalling that he had this ability, Chu Xian concentrated his mind and a mysterious scene appeared. It was as if he had an omnipresent view of everything and could see everything within a one-meter radius of himself, including the table outside the tank.
These dozen or so fish in the tank were like slaves, and he could arbitrarily rule over all of them. With a slight movement of his mind, all the Bucktooth Tetra (2) fish swam towards him. Chu Xian opened his mouth and cruelly swallowed all of them down, bite by bite.
"Even after devouring twenty fish my body only strengthened a little, and I haven’t even evolved yet. Am I supposed to just keep eating?" Chu Xian thought to himself after all the fish in the tank were eaten.
"I’ll just eat them all!" Chu Xian thought to himself and immediately turned back into a human, reappearing at the spot where he had been standing.
Chu Xian walked toward the big tank and dipped his hand in, reappearing in the tank. He immediately began using his powers. The hundred plus fish all swam to his side, and Chu Xian gaped his mouth and began eating them all one bite at a time.
Chu Xian continued to open his mouth and devoured them down bite after bite.
"Ding. Congratulations. Host leveled up (10 cm size). The four attributes strength, speed, toughness, and bite-force have been upgraded. Additionally, you may choose one attribute to power up."
"Finally, I upgraded!" Chu Xian said, swimming excitedly.
His body had grown from 5 cm directly to 10 and now appeared a cyan color; his scales were now closely knit, and his thin, long tail was very powerful; several rows of teeth could be seen, and they looked slightly intimidating.
"Strength, speed, toughness, bite force – of these four attributes: strength probably means impact, speed should be swimming speed, toughness should be body hardness, and bite force is just the strength of my teeth."
Chu Xian thought for a little, then decided to power up bite force.
Bite force could improve his devouring speed and all he needed now was to keep eating and evolving.
After the system powered him up, Chu Xian felt that his mouth was more powerful – his teeth were sharper, and he could imagine that if he became a twenty-something meter long fish, even a shark couldn’t stand in his way.
After turning back into his human form, Chu Xian looked at his information, and a big change had taken place.
Name: Chu Xian
Status: Human (Can Transform into a Fish)
Level: 2 (New-Born Little Fish, 10cm!)
Combat Power: 2
Passive Talent: Devour – can evolve from eating smaller fish
Control – can control lower leveled fish.
Big Fish Eat Little Fish System Ability:
Remold – can change the shape of self or fish under your control. (Every transformation will lower your level and the level of the fish you control)
His transformation excited him, but when he realized that there were only a dozen or so fish left in the tank, Chu Xian’s face froze and he shook his head bitterly.
Within those few minutes, he had already devoured a hundred plus small fish. All these were ornamental fish and he had just eaten 500 – 600 RMB's worth of fish, enough for him to eat for two days.
As he looked at the fish in the tank, each of them worth several RMB, Chu Xian decided against eating any more and dove back under his blanket to continue sleeping.
That night was his happiest sleep. He dreamed of roaming the seas with an entourage of sharks, whales, gigantic octopuses, and in his wake wherever he went were majestic waves, as if he were the dragon king (3)!
The next day when he woke up, Chu Xian immediately checked his system. He was afraid that everything was just a beautiful dream, but after checking, he quickly let out the breath he was holding and smiled happily.
After collecting his mat and blanket, Chu Xian opened the door of his shop, letting in a bright beam of sunshine that warmed up his whole body; the sky was an after-rain blue, and the sun was brilliant in the passing wind (4).
Chu Xian walked out, closing the door behind him. He bought a couple stuffed steam buns from Lady Wang next door, and after withdrawing a thousand RMB, he rode his moped to the outskirts of the city.
After half an hour, Chu Xian began to hear the crashing waves of the sea.
Hai Qing City was a seaside city, and the city tourism and fish industry were fully developed. In the Qing Ning district, there was a huge fishing area and fish market with hundreds of varieties of fish; all of Chu Xian’s ornamental fish were from here.
As soon as he entered the market, noise and foul fish smells welcomed him, but Chu Xian was used to it.
He did not go to the ornamental fish section. Instead, he walked around the sea products. It was the fishing season, and the market was currently at its busiest time of the year.
Every fish shop had a gigantic pool with tons of fish swimming inside, and in front of each of the pools was the fish type and price.
Chu Xian came here in order to buy fish for his system so that he could grow big by eating smaller fish.
At this point, his size was only 10cm, so he needed to buy fish smaller than 10 cm. After walking around for half an hour, Chu Xian finally decided on a type of fish called Scomber Japonicus, a very cheap type of ocean mackerel which was typically 20-40 cm long, with some shorter than 10cm.
"Boss, give me 120 of these small under 10cm mackerel; you can give me the net, and I’ll scoop them." Chu Xian said from the side of the pond, pointing at the small Scomber Japonicus.
"120?" asked the owner absent-mindedly. Even though this young man made a strange request, he did not question it any further and simply handed him a net.
Chu Xian took the net and tried to control it skillfully; to his glee, he could use his power even while human.
In order to not arouse suspicion, Chu Xian did not make the fish swim directly into the net but just controlled them a little so that they did not resist being scooped.
(1)- 脸色 Face color
(2)- This is Bucktooth discrimination!
(3)- The dragon king lives under water cause he a baws
(4)- This sentence is intellectual copyright kappa
120 Scomber Japonicus was about 15 kg, and since few people bought this type of fish, the price was only 1 RMB for half a kg. Altogether, Chu Xian only paid around 30 RMB.
Chu Xian loaded the fish onto his moped, drove back to his shop, locked the door and poured the fish into a tank.
"Ka ba ka ba(1)!"
Fish Chu Xian was already inside the tank, eating fish like mad. Due to the nature of the system, no matter how much he ate, he would never feel full. It was as if his stomach was a bottomless hole.
"Ding. Congratulations. Host has leveled up (20cm). Strength, speed, toughness, and bite force has been upgraded. Host can choose an additional attribute to power up."
After around 10 minutes, as Chu Xian was eating the hundred and fifth fish, the system sounded out again.
Chu Xian was delighted and quickly finished eating the rest of the fish. He chose to power up his bite force again.
"A hundred plus 10cm fish is enough to level up once, increasing my body size to 20cm and combat power to 4. If I’m not wrong, I will also need a hundred plus fish just under 20cm to increase my size another 10cm," Chu Xian thought, as he rode back to the same shop at the market. In front of the confused shop owner, Chu Xian scooped out 240 fish, 120 each of fish under 20cm and under 30cm.
This purchase cost him 500+ RMB—not too expensive, well within his range. If it weren't for the inability of his moped to load any more fish, he would’ve bought another 120 of the 40cm range fish. As he jumped on his moped and prepared to leave, a group of excited people came down the street, the leading two holding an iron bucket.
"Chinese Bahaha, it’s actually the Chinese Bahaha. It’s at least 50kg!"
exclaimed a shocked middle-aged passerby as he looked at the big fish in the iron bucket.
"Chinese Bahaha?" Chu Xian said, stunned.
"Heavens, it really is a Chinese Bahaha! This size is at least 60000 RMB(2)!"
yelled a shop owner who heard the middle-aged man’s shout. This shop owner looked over and shouted excitedly as well.
One voice after another exclaimed, and more and more people were drawn by the noise and came to investigate.
"Come, come. Everybody move aside. We are going to the Yu Bao (3) Yard to hold an auction. Anyone interested can come and look!" shouted a young man.
"Let’s go, let’s go. Let’s watch." The group of noisy people made way and followed behind; Chu Xian hesitated for a second and also decided to follow.
Yu Bao Yard was a place in the fish market catered to high-end sea products. They had three-head and even two-head Abalones (4), Australian lobsters, Chinese Three-striped Box Turtle, Sea Cucumbers, Red Arowana, Flowerhorn Fish, and all kinds of precious fish and seafood.
Anyone who came here was either wealthy or a buyer from a big restaurant; any normal person definitely couldn’t afford anything here. The auction platform was a high platform at the center of the yard, used to introduce new products and accept bids. Only products with a value higher than 10,000 RMB were allowed.
Very quickly, news that someone caught a Chinese Bahaha spread and more and more people came. Chu Xian followed the flow of people walking to Yu Bao Yard.
This was the first time he came to the Yu Bao Yard. The environment here was much better than the other markets that had only twenty or so sellers and fewer products. Here, the price of each fish or seafood was in the hundreds or thousands for half a kg.
All the bosses who were inside buying things saw the flood of people coming in and watched expectantly – they could all guess that good stuff was coming.
"Oh? An auction?" said a boss in an expensive suit, as he watched the people carrying the bucket walking towards the platform. The boss followed with interest.
Everyone who had already been in the yard selling and buying also gathered around, and very quickly the platform was surrounded by two to three hundred people.
"Ladies and gentlemen, please quiet down. Today us brothers caught a precious, 49kg Chinese Bahaha. I won’t say more about the price; if there is any boss here who's interested in buying, the highest bidder will win."
The two brothers took out the Chinese Bahaha and turned it towards the spectators.
Chu Xian looked curiously at the long body, flat side, and the long and thin tail of this one-meter long Chinese Bahaha. An approximately 50 kg fish could be sold for a couple hundred thousand? That’s crazy!
"One million!"
Just as Chu Xian marveled at the price of a couple hundred thousand, a sound from the crowd amazed him.
"One million? A f**king million? Ten thousand for half a kg? Are you kidding me, is he insane?"
Chu Xian turned to look at the middle-aged man who placed the bid with shock and amazement.
"A million and fifty! This fish is mine!"
Immediately after the first bid came another shout. The bystanders all gathered around excitedly – one million and fifty thousand for a fish; this was too exciting.
The two brothers on the platform were also excited and loudly yelled, "Is there any bid higher than one million and fifty thousand? Anyone?
"One million and a hundred thousand!" shouted an old man some tens of seconds later.
Chu Xian’s heart was beating through his chest. 1.1 million RMB – he probably couldn’t earn this much money in his entire life, yet a mere fish could be sold for this price.
In the end, this fish was sold to the old man to the price of one million and two hundred thousand. The old man excitedly touched the fish and immediately called for the two young men at his side.
"Chinese Bahaha, ah. In all these years, this is only the second time I’ve seen one. Ah, more than ten thousand RMB for half a kilo—when can I catch one?"
"Yeah, if we catch one it’d be worth years of income."
Chu Xian listened to these two fishermen’s jealousy and felt the same. When he thought of the Big Fish Eat Little Fish system inside of him, his blood started boiling.
"One day I’ll turn into a huge fish and roam the entire ocean, catching precious fish, and then I’ll become a rich man with expensive cars and fancy houses!(5)"
Chu Xian yearned and dreamed, but he still had a long way to go before he could see that day. He was now only 20 cm long; he had to be careful of big rivers lest he face tragedy and get eaten by other fish, not to mention the conditions of the sea.
Obviously, Chu Xian decided, he would not go out to the sea before he was two or three meters long.
But, growing to two or three meters would be difficult. It was easy for him to level up right now, but if he wanted to level up once he reached one meter, his need for food would be terrifying.
One 4 to 6 kg fish’s price was at least three to four hundred, possibly up to five or six hundred. A hundred of these would be worth thirty to forty thousand, and if he wanted to use the money to grow his size to two or three meters, he would need at least five million or even more.
"Let’s just take it one step at a time. There will definitely be a way," Chu Xian said while shaking his head.
(1)- Similar to ka cha ka cha, no kappa
(2)- So with an approx. 6 RMB – 1 USD conversion rate, this estimate is around 10,000 USD. Given that the average cost of living is also lower in China compared to the US, if this situation was transplanted to NA would the estimate be much more? I have no idea if the fishing market in China is similar to the US or if fish are actually this expensive.
(3)- 鱼宝 – fish treasure. Your ubiquitous hundred treasure pavilion etc. would be the same character.
(4)- Huge Abalones. Head is a measurement unit in Chinese for abalones. Three Heads abalone simply means three of these abalones weight half a kilo. Consequently, Two Heads abalone means two of these abalones weight half a kilo.
(5)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBHZFYpQ6nc
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