Chapter 2: Silver-Back and Silver-Stripe!

A line of pale gold characters composed of small seal script materialized across his retinas.

Simultaneously, as his eyes tracked around, they locked onto four distant points of light.

The points glowed a faint gold, each bearing a line of small text.

【Intelligence ①: One li south, at the Xiaojing Bay shallows, a "treasure fish — silver-backed fish" has been spotted.】

【Intelligence ②: Three li north, inside a hole concealed by dry grass atop the largest dead tree in the Withered Woods, the golden-tailed rat has stashed food for winter.】

【Intelligence ③: Three li southeast, in the rear courtyard of Changyun County's inner-city Tongbei Martial Hall, the original copy of the Transforming Strength-grade stance art "Tongbei Stance" is stored.】

【Intelligence ④: Six kilometers southwest, in the depths of Yunshui Lake, the relics and legacy of a true disciple of the "Diaohailou" await...】

This was...

A cheat code?

Shen Xiuhan's heart hammered wildly.

Originally, he'd planned to head down to the lake and try his luck, banking on his fishing experience from a previous life.

But honestly, he hadn't been confident.

Fishing was a mystical beast of its own.

If it were that easy, he wouldn't have gone dark in the face every time he heard the word "skunked" in his old life.

But now that he had a system, things were a different story entirely!

"Gege? Gege, whatsa matter?"

Beside him, Shen Momo tugged at his hem, her small face etched with worry.

Shen Xiuhan snapped back to his senses, tamped down his surging thoughts, and ruffled her dry, yellowed hair:

"Nothing... just thinking about where to catch a big fish for Momo."

"Really?!"

The little girl's eyes lit up at once. She bounced with excitement, but quickly shrank back:

"But it's so cold outside, and the snow's so thick... Gege only just got better..."

"That's why Momo needs to wait at home like a good girl. Your big brother will be back in no time."

Shen Xiuhan grabbed the fishing rod, then rummaged through the corner and dug out a dusty, battered old bamboo creel with visible patches on its bottom.

It had belonged to Shen Sanhuai.

Last year, Madam Zheng had woven a new one, so the old one sat idle here.

Unfortunately... the new creel had gone down with Shen Sanhuai, never to return.

He took the rod and creel.

Then made a stop at the kitchen.

Inside the rice crock...

Only a thin layer of millet remained — roughly half a dou. A pound at the very most.

Shen Xiuhan bent down, scooped up a small handful, and tucked it inside his jacket.

At the doorway, a biting wind laced with snow hit him full in the face, scraping across his skin like a blade.

Shen Xiuhan tightened his collar, exhaled a plume of white breath, and strode out.

"Gege!"

He'd barely taken a few steps when a shout came from behind.

Shen Xiuhan turned to see Shen Momo plowing through the snow with clumsy, uneven steps, clutching a scrap of grayish cloth in her hands.

Up close, he realized it was a tiny pouch stitched from gray fabric, its needlework crooked and uneven — clearly her own handiwork.

"Gege, this is the money Daddy gave Momo. Momo saved it all up..."

The little girl's cheeks were flushed red from the cold, but her eyes sparkled as she held out her palms like she was presenting a treasure.

Inside the pouch sat five or six copper coins.

"Daddy said before — when you go to the fish market to sell fishy-wishies, you have to pay a stall fee..."

Opening day at the fish exchange meant a cut per stall.

The inner-city fish market had long been controlled by a gang called the Golden Dragon Gang.

Behind the Golden Dragon Gang stood the Bai clan.

Any fisherman wanting to set up a stall and sell fish had to fork over five copper coins as a "stall fee."

Warmth flooded Shen Xiuhan's chest. He crouched down, took the little pouch, and said softly:

"Momo's so clever. Now hurry back and wait for me — tonight, you're eating fish for sure."

"Mm! Momo wants fishy-wishies. Gege, you have to catch lots and lots, okay!"

The little girl nodded vigorously, then turned and hopped back toward the doorway — but refused to go inside. She just stood there beyond the fence, watching him with longing eyes.

Shen Xiuhan gently squeezed the pouch, drew a deep breath, and headed south.

...

The cold wind dragged across the Xiaojing Bay shoreline of Yunshui Lake like a blunt knife.

"Bay" was generous — it was really just a stretch of rocky shallows.

In summer, children might have splashed around here, but now in the depths of winter, a thin layer of ice sealed the lake's surface, snow blanketed the mudflats, and dead silence reigned in every direction.

The only people who lived nearby were laborers and tenant farmers bound to the inner-city Bai family.

The Shen household was no different.

To earn any kind of living, you had to rent one of the Bai family's boats to get out on the lake.

And Great Qi had long since enacted an ironclad decree:

The four lowest registries — farmers, tenants, fishermen, and the lowborn — were strictly forbidden from constructing any boats, bamboo rafts, or sampans of their own!

Every vessel permitted on the water was monopolized by the noble families and gentry of the inner city.

Beyond class oppression, there was another reason fishermen avoided the Xiaojing Bay shore.

The water here was too shallow, the lakebed a maze of jagged rocks that shredded nets with ease.

On a normal day, you'd be lucky to scoop up a few minnows and shrimp — nothing worth selling.

Once winter set in, even those scraps fled toward the warmer depths at the lake's center, making the pickings slimmer still.

That was precisely why, on this snow-smothered day, the Xiaojing Bay shallows were utterly deserted. Not a ghost in sight.

If not for the pale gold coordinates guiding him, Shen Xiuhan would never have come here either.

Reaching the shallows, he stepped carefully onto the ice and tested it with his weight.

Frozen rock-solid. No problem.

And so, braving the bone-cutting wind, he inched his way out deeper, step by step.

After roughly two hundred paces, he pushed through frost-crusted dead reeds and stopped at a pool where the ice was noticeably thinner.

"This is the spot!"

Shen Xiuhan scanned his surroundings.

He found a rock nearby and smashed a hole through the ice directly above the coordinates.

Then he snapped off a dry reed stalk to use as a float.

He pinched a few grains of millet onto the iron hook and flicked the line into the ice hole.

The reed float sat on the water's surface, trembling faintly.

Shen Xiuhan stared at it without moving, his exhaled breath crystallizing into frost.

Truth be told, even now, a drumbeat of doubt still tapped at the back of his mind.

His inherited memories told him the silver-backed fish was no ordinary catch.

Because this was a treasure fish!

Legend had it that its flesh was translucent, incomparably delicious, and melted on the tongue — and that within it coursed a vast, pure, and gentle reserve of vital blood energy!

For a martial artist in the midst of nourishing qi and blood, tempering sinew and forging bone, this thing was practically a miracle tonic straight from the heavens.

Its potency even surpassed the expensive medicinal salves sold at the inner-city martial halls.

A single fish was worth months of grueling training!

His father, Shen Sanhuai, had fished for years and caught a silver-backed fish only once by pure chance out on Yunshui Lake — and the moment he reached shore, a Bai family steward snatched it up for one tael of silver!

Shen Sanhuai had ridden that high for the better part of a year.

Time and again he'd cast his nets across the same stretch of water, praying lightning would strike twice.

But right up until the day the lake claimed his life, he never landed a second one.

Most of the time, he only pulled up "silver-striped fish."

These were a type of silver carp with two to six silvery stripes running along their backs.

Their flesh was delicious and quite popular.

But for a martial artist's purposes, they naturally couldn't hold a candle to the silver-back.

Still, a saying circulated among fishermen: the silver-backed fish was very likely an evolved form of a silver-striped fish — one that had accumulated enough stripes to undergo a transformation.

So the more stripes a silver-striped fish bore, the more it was worth.

And now, the intelligence system was telling him a silver-backed fish lurked right here...

Until he actually had a fish on the line, Shen Xiuhan couldn't quite shake that thread of unease, even with faith in the system.

Time trickled by.

The frigid wind off the water bored through his thin shoe soles and trouser hems like fine needles, piercing into the cracks between his bones.

Shen Xiuhan's hands and feet went gradually numb, nearly losing all sensation.

He set down the rod, cupped his hands to his mouth, blew a warm breath, and rubbed them vigorously.

After waiting a beat longer and seeing the reed float still motionless, he prepared to stand and move around to stave off frostbite.

Right then!

The reed float, which had been bobbing gently with the current, dipped sharply without warning!

Then — whoosh — it was yanked under and vanished into the deep. A full blackout bite!

"Here we go!"

A jolt surged through Shen Xiuhan's entire body, and his eyes blazed with fierce light!

Ignoring the biting ice beneath him, he dropped to both knees on the frozen surface with a heavy thud.

Hands clamped the rod. Waist and legs braced as one. His wrist snapped upward!

CREAK!

The thin bamboo rod bent into a drawn bow on the spot, groaning in a way that set teeth on edge!

"Up you come!"

SPLASH!

Water erupted like shattered jade, spraying in every direction!

Dragged by a tremendous thrashing force, a long, sleek silver-white form was wrenched bodily from the water, bursting through the ice in a shower of frigid lake water!

SLAP — the shape crashed onto the ice and thrashed furiously!

Shen Xiuhan, panting hard, lunged forward and pinned it down.

The fish was a full chopstick-length long, its scales snow-white, with five silver stripes of varying thickness running along both sides of its spine.

A silver-striped fish!

"Yes!"

Too excited to dwell on it, Shen Xiuhan scrambled to cram the fish into the creel.