Catch the sea: start with a sand shovel and take over the entire beach

"Feed him something," Zhao Anguo said, clearly enjoying it as well.

Zhao Qin rolled his eyes. The few fish on the boat were a gift; how were they going to feed them?

Looking at the little guy, the old cat excitedly described what had just happened, how Ah Qin caught the grouper, and how these little guys got up there.

"You saved them?" the old Taoist asked. Seeing Zhao Qin nod, he sighed slightly, "Indeed, every sip and every bite has a cause."

Zhao Qin was taken aback. "Master, doesn't this sound like Buddhist saying?"

"Bullshit! Don't you know that Buddhism is originally Taoism? When Buddhism entered China, it borrowed too much from our Taoism."

Zhao Qin nodded. He couldn't argue with that, because it was the truth, from doctrinal terminology to rituals and lifestyles.

Ahe held the camera and kept taking pictures of the little ones.

Sea otters mostly sleep in the water, adopting a supine position and using seaweed or clustering together to anchor themselves. They do rest on land, but mostly in burrows.

At that moment, the group lay down on the deck and fell asleep, showing how relaxed they were.

No one asked Zhao Qin why the sea otter trusted him; too many incredible things had happened to him.

"Alright, you guys go ahead and get busy. This is making them very uneasy."

Hearing Zhao Qin's explanation, the group reluctantly left. Zhao Qin didn't return the baby to the mother sea otter, but agreed to look after it for two hours.

Old Cat went to play cards, while Ah He took over the reins from Ah Chen, who then began preparing lunch.

After lunch was prepared, the agreed two hours had passed. Zhao Qin returned the child to its mother, and the sea otters began to swim back into the water in an orderly fashion.

Actually, Zhao Qin couldn't remember which one he had rescued; they all looked pretty much the same.

Unlike Tiger, who is significantly different in size and always has Tiger in the lead in the formation, making him easy to distinguish.

"I've been following the ship closely; I need your help."

One of them made two meows that sounded like a cat. Zhao Qin paid close attention to it and said, "Okay, you're the leader, right? Did I give you a name last time? I think I forgot. From now on, your name is Simba."

Being on the ship can be boring, but the occasional arrival of these little guys always adds a bit of color to the otherwise dull time.

For the rest of the day, they would come aboard every few hours to rest and would occasionally interact with Zhao Qin.

On the third day, as the ship passed Sansha, near an island in Zhongsha, Zhao Qin ordered the ships to rest for the night so that the sea otters could have a proper meal.

Although they can catch fish while moving, their preferred food is not fish, but crabs, shellfish, and especially sea urchins.

"Go ahead and find something to eat on the rocks by the island. We're going to have dinner soon too. You can rest by the island after you finish eating. We're not leaving tonight."

After the sea otter army left, everyone started eating dinner. Everyone agreed that he had rested for the night to look after the sea otters; they weren't expecting the sea otters to help with the transport. Once they arrived, it would be helpful if they could locate the shipwreck.

More than a hundred is much more efficient than having our own people go out to sea to find them.

"Want a drink?" Chen Dong asked.

Zhao Qin nodded. Achen helped everyone serve the rice, then sat down and poured himself a glass. Just as he was about to drink it, he heard Zhao Qin exclaim softly, "Brother Qin, it seems the sea otter is back again."

"Hmm." Zhao Qin also heard a sound like a cat's meow. Before he could get up, he saw figures climbing up the ladder again from the opening in the railing. This time, they didn't linger; instead, they put down what they were holding with their forepaws and went back into the water.

Upon closer inspection, Zhao Qin laughed, "Thank you, you can mind your own business."

The sea otters probably thought the fish were starving, so they brought them food—shellfish and abalone, but mostly. These little guys are amazing; humans can't pry abalone off the rocks by hand, but they can.

There were dozens in total, enough for them to have a meal. He patted the last sea otter on the head and called for people to come and help clean it up.

"Brother Qin, should I boil it now?"

"No need, just put it in a net bag and eat it tomorrow. We have enough food for tonight."

Ah He laughed and said, "Brother, if we raise this batch, we won't need to fish anymore. We can just sail the boat to the island and let them help us find seafood."

"Stop talking nonsense, you're just thinking good things."

Dinner was plentiful; before leaving, Aunt Wu had braised a large pot of meat, and they also brought along several fresh chickens and ducks, as well as a basket of eggs—all collected from a local farm. They weren't free-range eggs, but they were even better than free-range eggs.

There were also some phoenix eggs, which the old Taoist priest and Zhao Anguo liked to eat. The undeveloped chicks were boiled, and the fully formed chicks were roasted.

As for fruits and vegetables, they bring even more.

"We should be there by tomorrow night." Old Cat took a sip of his drink and reported on the progress of the trip. "We're about 200 nautical miles from our destination, and it should take about 13 hours."

Let's rest for another night when we get there.

There was no other way but to keep going; sailing at night was too close to the reefs and too dangerous.

"Ah Qin, are you sure there won't be any danger?" Chen's father asked.

"Father, we are in the northwest of the Spratly Islands. No matter how shameless the Philippines is, they wouldn't dare to make any claims there. But we should be careful not to run into our own patrol ships."

Zhao Anguo clinked glasses with the old Taoist priest before speaking, "Once we find the location, we should work on it day and night. The faster we finish, the lower the risk."

The old Taoist priest sensed the wind and said to everyone, "It should rain tonight."

“There are stars here too,” Ahe said.

The weather at sea is unpredictable. Weather forecasts may be able to accurately predict typhoons, but they cannot accurately predict rain at sea. Moreover, they are too far from the shore, and the forecasts will only include wind and nothing else.

After dinner, the group continued playing cards. Zhao Qin took out the scriptures the old Taoist priest had given him and used them to induce sleep. The effect was very good; he fell asleep in no time.

There weren't enough cabins, so he slept at the bow of the ship. As a result, he was actually woken up by the rain in the middle of the night and had to move to the wheelhouse to keep his older brother company. Zhao Ping also gave up his cabin.

The older brother is a very alert sleeper; he sat up as soon as he saw him come in. "What's wrong?"

It's raining outside.

The wheelhouse was too small for two people to lie down on the floor. Zhao Ping got up, put away the straw mat, took Zhao Qin's cigarette and lit it. "Qin, you'll probably be going out to sea less and less in the future."

“Brother, you are six years older than me, 32 years old this year. You can work for another eight years or so.”

Zhao Ping grinned, "Why would I go out to sea? If I went to the fish farm, my dad would scold me every day. It's much more comfortable to drift at sea."

"We'll see when the time comes. Besides going to sea, you also know engineering. There's bound to be a place where you can put your skills to good use."

"I only laid stones at the dock for two days. Does that count as understanding engineering? If I don't do it, how can I manage? I'll owe you more than 200 million soon."

The 1 billion yuan invested in Tiandao Group by their registered Zhengdong Investment Company was mostly borrowed from Zhao Qin. Ahe calculated that he could come up with 25 million yuan, not because that was all he had in his pocket.

Instead, over the years, following Zhao Qin's advice, they bought a lot of gold and shops and left them there.

Originally, Ahe suggested selling all of these items to raise some money, but Zhao Qin disagreed.

Zhao Ping's situation is similar; he can come up with 30 million. Chen Dong is in the best position, able to spare 100 million. Da Yu is in the worst position because his assets are now almost entirely in stocks.

Da Yu had initially considered not lending money but simply giving Zhao Qin 2% of the overseas fishing company's revenue, but Zhao Qin still rejected the idea.

Therefore, of the 1 billion yuan invested by the four people, 800 million yuan belonged to Zhao Qin.