Ye Jie and Yao Yingzhe watched the drone broadcast, their eyes already reddened, feeling uneasy.
The farther they walked towards the center of the lake, the more dangerous the ice surface beca, and the ice layer thinned.
In this uncertain ice condition, Xu Ying perford a textbook demonstration.
She lay her body flat on the ice like a seal, distributing her weight, and then crawled slowly as the most reliable thod.
While crawling on the ice, sharp body parts like elbows and knees shouldn’t exert force on the ice.
[So terrifying, even though it’s Little Xu Station Chief moving on the ice, I’m breaking out in a cold sweat.]
[This Ice Lake is really big, my fear of colossal things kicked in, what if a mythical creature suddenly appears and takes Xu Ying away?]
[As a polar expedition mber, I’ll say Little Xu Station Chief’s demonstration on ice is really professional!]
Finally, Xu Ying cautiously "crawled" to a large fissure in the ice lake.
The water surface at the fissure was tranquil.
Xu Ying took out fish food from her pocket to lure small fish, scattering it into the lake.
She scattered another handful of fish food, patiently waiting, her nose twitching, sensing the presence of fish.
About six to seven minutes later, the serene water surface began to ripple.
Just as Xu Ying wondered what kind of fish her bait had attracted, her eyes suddenly widened as a huge creature over a ter long surfaced from the bottom!
It opened its large mouth and swallowed the fish food Xu Ying scattered in one gulp. This fish had teeth and made sounds while chewing the food, sending chills down one’s spine.
Xu Ying recognized this big fish as the Zheluo Fish, known as the "Northeastern Tiger in Water"!
Carnivorous fish!
Zheluo Fish are the top predators in cold water regions like West Mountain and Altai Mountain, dubbed "Freshwater Wolves," known for their fierce appetite for at and extre adaptability.
During the coldest seasons, when the lake surface is entirely frozen, they can even feast on the corpses of large animals that sank to the lake bottom in other seasons. In high-cold mountain areas, other small freshwater fish live in their shadow.
Zheluo Fish can produce low-frequency sounds by rubbing bones and teeth, inaudible to the average human ear, but Xu Ying, who had enhanced the Beast Language Skill, could hear the sounds made by the Zheluo Fish.
She heard this Zheluo Fish say:
[Where did this tasty stuff co from? It’s so delicious and crunchy~]
[I’ve been in the lake for sixty-three years and never had such good food!]
[Delicious!]
The tension in Xu Ying’s heart dissipated significantly; turns out this Zheluo Fish was quite the chatterbox.
Feeling sowhat assured, after the Zheluo Fish gobbled up all the fish food, Xu Ying scattered another small handful and released a few small fish.
The Zheluo Fish, swift and agile, quickly swallowed the small fish.
After eating, it felt sothing was off: [How can there be sumr fish in this season? Have I lived too long and started hallucinating?]
"Why don’t you look up?" Xu Ying said suddenly.
The Zheluo Fish heard the human voice and shuddered, lifting its head, glancing sideways, finally seeing Xu Ying.
Turns out the fish was so large, with eyes so widely spaced, that it had to look at an angle to see people.
[Oh my, humans! Better make a quick escape!]
Just as the Zheluo Fish was about to make a hasty retreat, Xu Ying scattered so enticing fish food above its head: "Don’t run away, I’m not here to catch you; I need your help!"
"I dropped sothing into the water!"
"If you can help find it, there’ll be plenty of this fish food for you! If you want fresh live fish, they’re available too!"
Upon hearing Xu Ying’s words, the Zheluo Fish made a quick turn and swam back. Xu Ying deftly sidestepped the splashes it created as it turned.
[Really?]
[Wait, how co I understand human speech so clearly?]
The Zheluo Fish’s small eyes were filled with big question marks.
It had lived for sixty-three years and encountered several humans, but their speech sounded like a garbled murmur, as if covered by mist.
But the string of words from the person before it, it imdiately understood her anings.
Xu Ying replied earnestly: "Because I’m a Beast Speaker, I have an affinity with animals, and small creatures easily understand my words and emotions."
In the drone broadcast, netizens seeing Xu Ying conversing with the Zheluo Fish let out a sigh of relief.
[Wait a minute, isn’t it said that fish have only seven seconds of mory? Little Xu Station Chief is getting familiar with this fish now; won’t it reset every seven seconds and trap her on the ice lake?]
[Haha, what a cyclical predicant.]
[Actually, the idea that fish only have seven seconds of mory is a misconception! It’s a misunderstanding by humans about goldfish.]
[Experints prove that goldfish can rember the locations of food, sound signals, and even retain complex maze mory for months.]
[Yes, yes, many fish species rember their spawning sites and territory ranges, their spatial mory is quite strong, not as dumb as so think.]
[The notion about seven-second fish mory might be due to behavioral limitations leading to dullness and degradation in artificially raised fish.]
[Now that’s interesting, I always found this idea a bit far-fetched, such a large fish, with a bigger brain, should be more intelligent, right?]
Upon hearing Xu Ying’s explanation, the Zheluo Fish was imnsely pleased, grinding its teeth more frequently: [Oh! You can communicate with !]
[Wonderful, young lady, co chat with grandma, I’m so curious about the human world.]
Xu Ying twitched her mouth at hearing the Zheluo Fish call itself grandma, but indeed, it wasn’t wrong.
Zheluo Fish are long-lived species, with a maximum age of up to eighty-three years; just from this fish’s words, it was already sixty-three.
"Well... grandma, I’m not as free as you fishes in the water."
Xu Ying pointed to the ice layer she was lying on: "My body heat will thin this ice layer, I can’t stay here too long. If the ice breaks and I fall into the water, I might freeze to death, and you’ll miss out on such delicious fish food."
Though tethered to a safety line attached to the drone, getting soaked in such icy water could be particularly harmful to the body, let alone if the clothes absorb water, which would increase rescue difficulty.
[It’s not a problem; if the sky falls, grandma will hold it up for you!]
The Zheluo Fish spoke with a calm tone, like an otherworldly sage: [By the way, what does the thing you’re looking for look like?]
Xu Ying quickly gestured: "Cylindrical, bright orange shell, weighs about as much as two or three Zheluo Fish combined, this long."
The Zheluo Fish swayed, causing the water around it to ripple: [Stay here and don’t move; I’ll call my children and grandchildren over!]
The muscle-induced water current can be detected by fellow fishes.
After sending out a signal, one after another, Zheluo Fish began appearing from various directions at the lake bottom.
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