"What are you doing drying salt fish so late at night?"
Ansheng was perplexed, but before he could ask Lin Hao, he heard a sharp and excited chorus of cats howling, along with frantic "crackling" sounds.
The elevator doors opened.
A three-meter-long blue marlin came into Master Fuli's view.
The blue marlin flopped vigorously on the rooftop, a look of terror tightening its abdominal muscles as it bounced on land, with a group of tabby cats in hot pursuit, meowing loudly.
"You thief fish, thinking you can leave after offending Grandma? We're just doing our job for the cans, don't make it hard for us!"
A tabby cat leaped up suddenly, delivering a double-footed kick to the blue marlin's face. Although not very powerful, it stalled just long enough for the cat mob to swarm around, biting and clawing at the blue marlin's tail.
"Waaaah—"
The blue marlin's gills made bizarre sounds, immediately swiveling its head and bouncing away in another direction.
The paid-off cats turned likewise, continuing to chase the marlin that had offended Grandma Hedgehog.
"???"
Watching as the blue marlin propped itself on its tail and ran past him, Ansheng was left speechless, turning to look at Grandma Hedgehog, who sat on the sofa with an air of authority, enforcing rules and punishing enemies.
"Did this fish... break some heavenly rule? Even fifty cats couldn't finish it," Ansheng muttered incredulously.
"It?"
Grandma Hedgehog shifted her weight, spat out a cherry pit from her mouth, and looked at the blue marlin with a sneer, "Its mistake was in running its filthy mouth!"
"When Grandma was stranded at sea, that stinking salt fish came asking if I was a land creature. I said I was, and it just grinned nastily as it poked my floating board with its snout."
"Today, I'm making it fly a kite on land!"
The golden hedgehog was red with anger, slamming her hand heavily on the armrest of the sofa.
With a short and sharp "squeak," even Lin Hao and the other boat crew members instinctively turned their necks aside, awkwardly averting their eyes, not daring to meet Grandma's gaze.
Though they couldn't understand her words, their skills in reading the room were top-notch.
"Why did you have to be so careless with your words..." Ansheng mumbled, having heard that Grandma Hedgehog, despite her underworld connections, was usually good-natured, always talking about harmonious prosperity and negotiations.
Even when Ah Bai visited twice to provoke, though he nearly got turned into a fool, at least his life wasn't in danger.
The fact that the blue marlin could infuriate Grandma Hedgehog like this marked it, in a sense, as a genius.
"Waaaah—"
Looking at Master Fuli, the blue marlin's face was full of sorrow as it asked, "If I apologize now... can we reconcile?"
The blue marlin was deeply regretful, especially knowing that this land creature was acquainted with the Orca Family. How could it have idly gone to taunt them?
"If you knew those street urchins, why didn't you say so sooner?"
"Come in, everyone!"
Grandma Hedgehog scolded the blue marlin and beckoned Master Fuli and Lin Ying into the office.
Lin Hao put on a mask and sat in the center of the sofa, brewing tea for Grandma and Master sitting at each end of the long table.
"When our Spirit Beast Gang was in trouble, Lin Hao should have told you..."
Grandma Hedgehog raised her head, brought out a marked map while asking the little brothers to serve a fruit platter.
"No one expected the shark to have hands that could even catch bullets barehanded..."
Grandma Hedgehog sighed with a face of bewilderment, pointing to the red circle on the map, "According to our investigation with the Security Bureau, the area where the shark operates is quite regular; it usually stays in the seabed regions of the warm current zone. If we provoke it by competing for territory along the warm current, we should be able to lure it out."
"The only difficulty is figuring out how to take down the predatory super-giant shark at sea."
Predatory creatures are hunters, experts in actively striking or ambushing prey.
After Spiritualization, such creatures aren't necessarily smarter than other spirit beasts, but they are often exceptionally adept at using geographical advantages and traits to ambush prey.
Despite the megalodon having suffered a setback, territory disputes remain essential for evolution among spirit beasts, so its appearance is inevitable.
But...
When the megalodon resurfaces, it will likely bring more than just floating to the surface; it will be armed and ready.
With its attack power, defensive capability, and hunting intelligence maxed out, coupled with occupying all geographical advantages, when thinking of the previous time venturing out to sea with Ah Bai and the Orcas to catch such a big fish, the golden hedgehog felt so tense she could slap herself a few times.
"Hmm?"
Looking at the warm current zone circled on the map and the measurement standard marked at the bottom right of the map, a look of surprise appeared on Ansheng's cheek.
Based on survey data, Jiule City is only about 230 kilometers away from the warm current zone, just across on the eastern coast.
Even the farthest point of the marked warm current zone is within a 700-kilometer straight line from Jiule City's location.
"Lin Ying, send a message to Unos, have him forward it to Li Mengxi, and ask if they're planning to go to sea with Old Lu and the Right Hand now?"
With a pensive look, Ansheng turned to look at Lin Ying, who was providing her thigh as a chair for him to sit on.
Before seeing the map, Ansheng hadn't made any connections.
In the Xia Dong Region with its mountains and seas, Unos and his team might have just ended up there by coincidence, but after hearing Grandma Hedgehog's detailed description of the megalodon case, Ansheng couldn't help but wonder. A giant shark that usually resides at the seafloor might be smart, but smart enough to actively evolve arms for assisting in hunting?
Certainly, it wasn't impossible, but Ansheng had never seen such a spirit beast.
In Grandma Hedgehog's description, the megalodon seemed to have undergone directed evolution tendencies autonomously.
Increasing its size to contain more spiritual particles, evolving tentacled arms to assist its gigantic self in foraging.
Its evolutionary direction was so accurate that it carried no mistakes whatsoever.
You could say it was like riding a shared bike to the bar—saving where it should and spending where it should, without any waste on the hilt.
"Alright."
Lin Ying sent out the message, and within less than five seconds, Unos replied on WeChat, telling him Li Mengxi's whereabouts. They had just arrived at the pier, sold Lin Ying's Mercedes S for a hundred thousand bucks, and were preparing to take a boat across.
"They... sold my car as collateral to a gambling boat, leaving half an hour later in the guise of gambling to sneak across..."
Even the usually composed Lin Ying showed astonishment when reading this line of text.
Quick, indeed very quick.
Considering city speed limits and traffic, it shouldn't have been less than ten minutes for them from the airport to the dock.
In other words, as soon as they reached the dock, they immediately found hidden underground gambling boat owners, sold the car, leaving no trace while crossing from the mainland to the opposite shore.
The route planning and itinerary were as precise as a clockwork machine.
"?"
Hearing this, a large question mark appeared from Ansheng, his face full of black lines as he looked at Lin Ying's phone screen.
"Tell them to redeem the car, send them a photo of the map, and say that they should come back and join us to go out to sea tomorrow instead of stirring up trouble."
"The ones selling the car are going against the heavens, and the ones buying it too; can't they see such a large license plate?"
Ansheng was utterly exasperated.
Lin Ying's car's license plate was a triple number; from the first digit to the last, all were the same number.
Incredibly daring, no one could be that bold, could they?