"Ooh..."
Seeing Ah Qing and Qiu Lingling reach an agreement and prepare to head out to Changping Mountain, Ah Bai was terrified, desperately nudging Mr. Lucky Tanuki with its snout, hoping the clever Mr. Lucky Tanuki could come up with a plan.
Ah Bai wasn't particularly worried about those firearms and bullets being discovered, as it had no real concept of what they were.
But the Stray Home Service Center had selfies of it, and Granny Hedgehog's new GPU, which she said had just finished engineering samples, brought back to inspect the goods, and decide whether to open up a brand new shipping route.
Granny Hedgehog warned that these things absolutely must not be exposed; otherwise, it would get its legs broken.
Even though it drove a big boat outside and handled firearms,
those activities were simply to earn a living and help ease the revenue pressure on the Spirit Beast Gang.
If its owner were to see its selfies and the photos of it fooling around with its buddies outside, Ah Bai couldn't even imagine how its owner would view it.
"Why'd you leave photos there?" Ansheng asked, looking at Ah Bai speechlessly.
"Ooh ooh..." Ah Bai replied with an obviously justified expression.
Back then, it was just a poor buddy, scavenging along the riverbank to make a living, but now it had gotten rich. It's got luxury tour buses, off-road vehicles, bank cards, and shotguns, and mobile phones—all needing a place to be stored.
Ah Bai simply couldn't bring these things home.
Its mouth was clumsy, only good for eating and cursing; it couldn't do explanations or lies, so it acted like nothing happened.
"Don't panic, it's no big deal." Ansheng raised a small paw, placing it on Ah Bai's shoulder and said, "In a moment, I'll distract Ah Qing and Lingling, then you immediately go inside and clean up."
"Hide all the unreasonable things, everyone tone down their scents, and cooperate a bit with Ah Qing's publicity."
With the "wolf pack effect" boost from Ah Bai, it was entirely possible for the dogs and cats at the Stray Home to be sitting in front of a hundred-inch TV playing on a PS5 or Switch.
Not to mention those Spirit Beast Hall Masters, who could very well be holding illicit parties upstairs.
While it wasn't illegal for Spirit Beasts to hold illicit parties, putting those activities on a livestream would definitely get the account banned!
Ansheng hadn't forgotten that just shaking its butt in the livestream had gotten Ah Qing's account banned for a day.
Livestreaming Spirit Beasts' illicit parties would surely get Ah Qing's channel banned for a month.
"Their relationship is really good..."
Qiu Lingling went to pack things up to leave, while Ah Qing sat at the tea table, turning around to see Ansheng and Ah Bai, the pair of notorious buddies, in the corner of the living room with arms around each other's shoulders, smiling as she looked at this heartwarming scene.
A fox and a hunting dog becoming friends.
It's practically the great reconciliation of the new century.
"Click—" Ah Qing took out her phone and captured the scene in the living room, posting the moment of the fox and hunting dog's great reconciliation with arms around each other's shoulders on her Moments.
But at that moment, Ah Qing absolutely didn't expect that a single photo of hers could take down Wang Ya, who was in distant Chang'an City, preparing for a 'Period Archaeology' professorship.
Furry!
A brand new white fluffy furry!
"Ah Qing, do me a favor and pull out the backseat pet car mat..."
Having packed their travel gear, Qiu Lingling pulled out the pet car mat usually used when taking Ah Bai out, and after setting it up in the backseat of the car with Ah Qing, they headed straight for Changping Village with their mischief-making buddies, planning to first visit Chen Zhiyu.
And on the way there.
Qiu Lingling started talking to Ah Qing about the changes in Sister Zhiyu during this period.
A single fish pond driving the GDP of the entire village, the development speed was simply changing with each passing day.
With the support of 'Lin Ying Loan,' Sister Zhiyu was almost about to go public with financing from the fish pond at her doorstep.
"Hey man, your skin is so pale it's reflective, clearly you've never gone fishing before. Let me just say, the fish here are all big..." As they arrived at the commercial street of Changping Village, an incident in the parking lot made Qiu Lingling slow down.
"I know, I used to fish for shrimp." Said the fisherman, whose skin was so pale it reflected light, brimming with confidence: "And don't be fooled by my slender frame, you have to know I have a five-year history of working out!"
The safety officer, full of doubt, asked, "Can you deadlift 200 kilograms? You need to know..."
"None of that, what I'm trying to tell you is, I'm super loud when calling for help, thanks to conscientiously training by being pinned under barbells for years." The self-proclaimed fitness fisherman said, full of pride.
Before they came, they had done their homework, and knew very well that the fishing resort at Changping Mountain was full of big monsters.
No need for the safety officer to explain the rules here; they understood and wouldn't randomly jump into the river to fight.
"...." The fishing ground safety officer was exasperated, handing the parking card to the fisherman in front of him.
But you can't deny, what this fisherman was saying was kind of reasonable.....
Fitness → trapped by equipment → call for help → reflection upon being rescued → accrue survival experience, this logic chain was insanely smooth, showing a strong instinct for self-preservation.
"Hmm? Sister Qing is here?"
Watching the fishermen leave, the safety officer was about to hand a parking card to Qiu Lingling and explain the safety rules of the fishing ground to customers, to prevent the incidents of last week, when some customers couldn't reel in any fish and resorted to ramming their car into the pond.
But upon seeing Ah Qing, the safety officer was immediately amazed, beaming as he greeted her.
"Huh? You... know me?" The safety officer was a complete stranger, and after a brief moment of thought, Ah Qing was sure she did not know the fishing ground safety officer in front of her.
"Our whole village knows you! Your photo and that bent rebar fishing rod are framed and hanging in our fishing ground's exhibit!" The safety officer said with a face full of amusement: "To this day, no fisherman has beaten your record."
Ah Qing had set a record at the Changping Mountain Fishing Resort, catching a total of 500 pounds of fish with two rods.
One of them was a Xia Country sturgeon, a Category One fish, for which she received a cash incentive of four thousand from the Forestry Bureau afterward.
Now, that Xia Country sturgeon, equipped with a tracker, was still in the fishing ground, and its fins were almost mutating into muscular arms from its battles with fishermen.
Don't be fooled by the fact that the sturgeon was only 190 pounds.
Currently, besides Ah Qing, literally no fisherman could outfight it in the pond.
The fishermen weren't interested in it anymore.
They couldn't reel it in, nor outfight it, and even if they could bring it to shore, they wouldn't get the cash incentive because it had previously been caught by Ah Qing and tagged by the Forestry Bureau as a "claimed" famous fish, a "beloved wife."
"... Cash incentive?" New to this term, both Ah Qing and Qiu Lingling were stunned.
Isn't rescuing and protecting animals a civic duty?
The reward given by the Forestry Bureau is meant for citizens who rescue national protected animals and turn them over; it's not an encouragement for people to catch wild animals.
In essence, the logic behind this cash reward is to prevent plain folks from taking protected animals home to cook or braise them...
But did the safety officer say cash incentive?
"Huh? Didn't you follow our resort's official account?" The safety officer paused, then explained: "Using the term 'incentive' here might not be appropriate, but we've organized a long-term fishing resource survey activity with the Ecological Resource Institute under the Forestry Bureau."
"Anyone who catches a nationally protected species from the pond can get a cash incentive."
"Of course, previously caught ones don't count. We'll determine this based on the chip. Like the sturgeon Sister Qing caught, the maximum reward is five thousand, and our incentives have no ceiling."
"After all... it's for charity!" the safety officer said.
The current river fishing resource surveys mainly utilize sonar scanning and the mark-recapture method.
The purpose of the fishing ground and the Ecological Resource Institute's charity activity is to use the mark-recapture method on those protected animals, tagging them and installing trackers, to investigate their populations.
"Whew..."
Perched on Ah Qing's shoulder, Ansheng, having listened to the safety officer's introduction, gasped:
"What is this ultra-realistic version two tour developed for fishermen? It's all shady and gambling-related, knowing the circumstances here, wouldn't fishermen be itching like ants crawling on them?"
Fishermen's obsession with catching big ones is no less intense than men's obsession with tonics. Seeing big catches is akin to watching AV, making them all excited.
Now, there's even a cash incentive round, isn't this just a natural black hole fixed point?
Combine the two.
And fishermen wouldn't go crazy.
"A pure bait and switch for fishermen, no wonder Lingling said earlier that the fishermen at Changping Mountain had turned into silkworm babies cocooning here; aren't they cocooning? Outright hammering their climax points."
"If He Qiang comes, he'll probably hug a sleeping bag and a fishing rod here by the pond."
"It's hard not to strike it rich, huh," Ansheng quipped.