Apocalyptic Hoarding Diary

Chapter 516 Fishing

In the eleventh minute, she made her move.

This time, she didn't catch any fish swimming in the water, but rather an unusual whirlpool on the surface.

The whirlpool was different in shape from the surrounding ones, with an irregular trembling characteristic of a fish tail stirring the water.

The net is lowered into the water, and then lifted up to catch the bottom.

The feel has changed; there's something moving at the bottom of the net, heavy and bouncing around.

Xu Xiaoyan's heart raced instantly, and she used all her strength to lift the net out of the water.

Water splashed everywhere.

A large fish was thrashing wildly in the net, its silvery-white scales shimmering in the sunlight.

The fish's tail slapped against the net rope, splashing water all over Xu Xiaoyan's face and body.

She squinted, grinned, pulled the net ashore, and squatted down to look at the big fish she had been waiting for.

It weighed about three pounds, a crucian carp, its belly bulging, I don't know if it ate a lot or if it had roe inside.

The fish's eyes were wide and round, its mouth opened and closed, its gill covers opened and closed, and the whole fish was writhing incessantly in the net, its strength astonishing.

"Finally caught you," Xu Xiaoyan complained to the fish.

The fish continued to wriggle in the net. Xu Xiaoyan was amused. She put the net aside, reached for the fish basket, and prepared to put the fish in.

But then she thought again and stopped herself. Of course, it was fine to put one fish in the fish basket.

But her goal today wasn't just to catch three or five fish, but to put them all into the fish basket one by one. If someone saw her doing that, wouldn't that be blatantly telling others, "I have a lot of fish here, come and grab them!"

She thought for a moment, then opened the ring of the fish basket, unfolded the net, and pretended that the fish had been put in. But in reality, the fish disappeared directly from the net and went into her space.

The fish basket was still empty, just for show. Xu Xiaoyan called this operation "openly repairing the plank road while secretly crossing the Chencang pass".

Over the next hour or so, she used the net more and more frequently, catching more and more fish, and her mood improved.

The fish that were swept down from upstream seemed to be lining up to dive into her ditch.

Big ones, small ones, crucian carp, common carp, whitebait, and even two fish with red fins that she couldn't name, she scooped them all up with net after net.

She carefully controlled the number of fish in the basket, dropping one out of every ten she caught. There were about a dozen fish swimming around in the basket.

From the outside, the green net bag glitters with silver light, and anyone who sees it would say, "You're lucky," but no one would think, "This is impossible."

Xu Xiaoyan became more and more adept at scooping things up, and the more she scooped, the happier she became. She even started humming a song.

She was humming an old song she'd heard at the grocery store a couple of days ago. She couldn't quite remember the tune, so she just hummed the gist of it, and it was terribly off-key.

But it doesn't matter, she's all alone on the riverbank, and no one will hear her singing off-key.

She hummed for a while, then suddenly stopped.

Something seems wrong!

She looked down at the net in her hand, then looked up at the river, and the smile on her face slowly froze.

There were too many fish. It wasn't that she caught a lot of fish, but rather that there were too many fish still flowing downstream in the river.

The fish kept surging down from upstream, one group after another. She fished for almost two hours, and the number of fish in the river not only didn't decrease, but actually increased.

Something's not right!

Even with normal dam releases, there's a limit to how many fish can be washed away.

The number of fish in the reservoir is limited. It's not that they can't be caught, but rather that the fish density should gradually decrease as the water level rises, rather than increase.

The current situation can only mean one thing: the scale of the flooding is much larger than she imagined.

Xu Xiaoyan's heart began to pound.

She took two steps toward the mouth of the ditch and looked toward the main river channel.

Upon seeing this, her expression completely changed.

The main channel is no longer what it was two hours ago.

The river had widened by at least twice its original width, and the current was extremely rapid, with the turbid water rushing downstream at an astonishing speed.

The low-lying areas on both sides of the riverbank have been flooded. The grassy area she had stepped on before has now become a vast expanse of water, with only a few clumps of grass showing above the surface.

The water level is still rising.

It's not rising "little by little," it's rising "step by step."

With each glance she made, the water level rose a little higher.

The earthen embankment between the ditch and the main river channel has been submerged; the ditch is no longer a ditch but has become part of the main river channel.

The riverbank where she was standing was already seeping water at the edges, and the soil under her feet had become soft and slippery, causing her to sink in when she stepped on it.

Xu Xiaoyan's mind went blank. This wasn't releasing water! This was clearly flooding!

She turned around abruptly and looked at her "battleground"—the tent, water cup, fish basket, and landing net—and these things suddenly seemed less important to her.

The important thing isn't the fish, but whether she can leave this place alive.

The water was still rising, the seepage along the edge of the riverbank was expanding, and the depth at which she was standing was increasing.

She looked up and around, confirming a fact that sent chills down her spine: the riverbank where she was was lower than the surrounding area.

Water is pouring in from all directions, and once the water level rises to a certain point, this will be the first place to be flooded.

At that point, let alone catching fish, she herself will be a fish trapped in the water.

Without saying a word, Xu Xiaoyan put everything into her spatial storage and then ran towards the shore.

There is a slope about one meter high separating the riverbed from the bank, which is covered with weeds and thorns.

She slid down from here when she came up; going up was much harder than going down.

The earthen slope was slippery and soft from being soaked in water, and it was easy to slip when you stepped on it. She climbed up by clinging to the grass roots, pulling the grass roots out of the soil and bringing up a large clump of wet mud.

She tried twice, and slipped both times.

The third time, she went all out, gripping the roots of a sturdy-looking shrub tightly with both hands, straightening her back, and pushing off with her legs, flipping herself up the slope.

The moment she reached the top, she looked back.

The riverbank was already mostly submerged, and white waves surged on the turbid river surface, rolling downstream with unstoppable force.

Xu Xiaoyan stood on the earthen slope, her chest heaving violently.

Her sweatpants were covered in mud, her knees were scraped from hitting rocks, and her palms had red marks from grass roots, but she didn't care about any of that at the moment.

She ran uphill for a while until she was completely away from the floodplain and stood on a hard, dry rock before stopping.

In the distance, from the direction of the dam, came a continuous rumbling sound. The sound wasn't loud, but it was very penetrating.

Xu Xiaoyan stood there, looking at the rising river water beneath her feet, and the branches and debris being swept downstream by the current.

Several black dots were running on the riverbank in the distance; those were people who had come to fish like her, and now they were also running away.