The Cursed Ship

Chapter 25: Selling Fish

“You caught yellowfin tuna? How big?” Entes asked right away after hearing what Zheng Yang said.

“My grandfather’s birthday is right around the corner,” he continued. “We’re gonna throw a huge feast, and we’re in need of a huge tuna.”

Well, well, what a coincidence.

If he hadn’t already known that Entes was a peculiar fellow to begin with, he’d almost think that Entes was really out to help him.

However, other than to brag, he’d also called Entes for help and to use his connections to sell off the two tunas so he wouldn’t get ripped off too badly.

“Both weigh well over 50 kilograms. I’d say they weigh around 135 kilograms in total, and I’m hauling them back to port. You sure you want the tunas? By the way, yellowfins,” Zheng Yang said.

Entes was so shocked that his voice seemed to go up by 20 decibels. “Two yellowfin tunas? You did this all on your own? This is unbelievable… wait, yellowfins, right? You sure that they’re not bluefins?”

“They’re yellowfins,” Zheng Yang confirmed.

Entes stayed silent for quite a bit before saying, “I’m sorry, Zheng. I’m looking for bluefins, and I need them to be of similar weight class.”

Zheng Yang was speechless. Entes seemed to be saying “why are you talking to me if you don’t have bluefins?”

“That d*mn rich kid really is only after the expensive stuff,” he thought.

Zheng Yang then asked Entes if he knew anyone that would take the two tunas.

Entes went silent for a bit again. Then, he told Zheng Yang that the people his family knew weren’t from this area, so they would have to get a middleman involved to get the tunas from him, and that would cost a lot, or something like that.

Zheng Yang was able to tell from the way Entes talked that the latter had no interest in selling the two yellowfin tunas and that he had no intention of taking them.

“Zheng, will you be coming to my grandfather’s birthday party? It’s on Friday, seven days from now. A lot of upper-class people will be there, and you could meet people and build your own circle and connections.”

“Thanks for the invitation. I’ll let you know the day before if I’m coming, alright?”

“Sure, Zheng. Welcome to Buxton.”

…

After hanging up the phone, Zheng Yang recalled the posts he’d read online, wondering what those people did with the huge tunas they caught.

If they sold the fish to the fish merchants at the port, the layers of the distribution chain meant that the prices they sold the fishes for would vastly differ from retail prices.

If they caught bluefins, they could opt to auction the fish instead.

“Oh, right. Henry likes being a broker of sorts. Let’s just ask him if he knows of any channels better than the fish merchants.”

Zheng Yang made another call on his satellite phone.

Henry was very quick to pick up his calls, figuring that there would b a chance to get some kind of business deal and profit if he made good use of the chance, even if the call on the other end was from an insurance telemarketer.

Henry was very quick to answer his phone. He figured that even if the call on the other end was from an insurance telemarketer, he’d have a good chance of getting some kind of business deal and making some profit, so long as he made good use of the opportunity.

When he heard that Zheng Yang had two huge yellowfin tunas weighing over 50 kilograms each and that he was hauling them to port, he immediately replied, “I know people, Mr. Zheng! Please believe me. I know some lad who owns a high-end restaurant chain. You’d definitely get a good price from him.”

“Sell the tunas to the end consumer, eh? That would definitely be the best way to go about it. I’ll leave you to it, mate. I’ll be reaching port in about two hours. Of course, I hope to get the tunas off my hands as soon as I reach port. I don’t want to spend any money renting cold storage, after all.”

“Don’t you worry. They have refrigerated trucks delivering seafood from here every day. They’ll take care of it, even if that means that the goods need freezing. They have their own quality control procedures from start to finish. You wouldn’t be able to interfere even if you wanted to.”

…

After he was done setting up a buyer, he adjusted the sailboat’s direction and set his course before checking on the two tunas through the boat’s perception.

Tunas were incapable of breathing on their own, and they needed to swim at high speeds at all times so the oxygen in the seawater passed through their gills. They depended entirely on their own motion to get oxygen.

That was why tunas tasted so delicious—they swam without stopping their entire lives.

The two tunas had been thoroughly exhausted when he’d caught them. Even though they had been submerged in the water since then, the sailboat was simply moving at too slow a speed to provide them with adequate oxygen. While they wouldn’t die of asphyxiation for the time being, they were nonetheless finding it very hard to breathe, which meant that they were incapable of regaining their strength.

“Good for me, then,” Zheng Yang thought. “They won’t be able to struggle and wreak havoc after all.”

Dragging two big tunas considerably affected the sailboat’s speed, and the resulting resistance gave the boat quite a hard time.

Half an hour later, Henry then called to tell Zheng Yang that he had contacted the buyer. He guaranteed that the tunas could be sold at 380 pounds per kilograms, while he would only take a small commission of 1000 pounds from what Zheng Yang earned.

Back in Zheng Yang’s past life, huge fish like the ones he’d caught would have easily fetched double of what he would be getting now, yet he agreed to Henry’s offer right away, nonetheless. He would make 90 pounds more than if he sold the fish to fish merchants, after all.

His total earnings from the two tunas would be over 50000 pounds. Even after deducting taxes and Henry’s commission, he would gross about 45000 pounds.

He returned to the harbor at about one in the afternoon. Under Henry’s guidance, he went straight to the fishing boat docks and handed the tunas over to a mid-size deep-sea fishing boat.

The two tunas weighed 140 kilograms in total. After taxes and Henry’s commission were taken out of his profit, he earned a little more than 48000 pounds.

With his bank account refilled, he started to think about renovating his sailboat. He took the boat back to the sailboat docks and took care of lunch before buying all manner of materials and ready-made furniture and equipment online.

He nailed down his rough renovation plans on the first night he reached the harbor. Over the next three days, he browsed the web, doing nothing else, and selected the suppliers of the materials. At the moment, all he needed to do was make his orders.

In the end, however, he still chose to buy three 60V short-axis outboard motors of 10 horsepower each so as to minimize the modifications of the boat’s interior.

Using them in tandem with expandable solar panels and high-efficiency batteries would ensure that his sailboat would meet the power needs of both daily electrical use and the occasional mechanical drive.

“Solar power recharge during the day, spirit power recharge at night. I’ve got both sides taken care of now,” he thought.

“I’ve still got a bit of money left. How about getting a temperature difference shipboard freshwater collector and purifier, then? That way, I won’t need to worry about freshwater from here on out.”

After he clicked and confirmed that one final purchase, the capital in his bank account returned to the single digits.

He bought an expandable solar generator module with an area of 24 square meters and a set of high-efficiency batteries. With the three outboard motors thrown in, the total purchase set him back by 40000 pounds. He also ordered a foldable sofa bed and table, several sets of cabinets, several chairs, an electric stove, an electric kettle, an electric water supply system, reinforced glass windows, curtains, lighting, some necessary hardware, and so on, before adding the set of fresh water collectors.

He had no need for beds, as the foldable sofa bed alone would serve that purpose. He had no shipboard GPS navigation, no satellite television, refrigerator, or air-conditioning, making things very barebone and simple.

His boat was still too small, after all.

By the time he’d spent almost all of his earnings, it was already well past four in the afternoon. He recalled that he had yet to get his checkup at the clinic and that he had promised Viya that he would bring two more fish. As such, he grabbed a netting bag and chucked a chum salmon and a stockfish inside it before leaving the harbor and heading off to the clinic.