My fishing raft will ask for help.

Chapter 121 I've struck it rich

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Surprisingly, the mandarin fish became wary.

As soon as Zhou Miao got close, it darted away in a flash.

He quickly chased after it; it would be such a waste for such a big mandarin fish to get away.

Fortunately, the mandarin fish only sprinted a short distance, and Zhou Miao quickly caught up and watched it hide in the water plants.

He slowly approached again, raising his harpoon to search for the mandarin fish hiding among the water plants.

However, Zhou Miao looked left and right but couldn't find any trace of it.

This is a patch of aquatic plants nestled against the mountainside; fish can only escape in three directions.

But Zhou Miao couldn't find it anywhere. How come it just disappeared?

He curiously used his harpoon to pry open the seaweed, and vaguely discovered that there seemed to be something wrong behind the seaweed.

Zhou Miao swam forward a little and parted the water plants, revealing a small cave that was about a third of the way covered by silt.

Okay, okay, you've hidden it so well, haven't you?

If he hadn't been chasing this mandarin fish, he wouldn't have found the cave even if he had swum the entire side of the mountain.

Zhou Miao shone the light into the cave, but to his surprise, the cave was so deep that he did not find the so-called box in the area illuminated by the light.

At the same time, he hesitated and dared not go in.

It felt like encountering a cave in a horror movie, filled with unpredictable creatures—it was terrifying.

Zhou Miao is actually quite brave, but when faced with the unknown, he will always have some defensiveness.

He used his harpoon to tap the rocks in the cave, making some noise to see what would appear inside.

His biggest worry is snakes; if there's a python, he'll be in real trouble.

However, after a short while, the familiar mandarin fish suddenly surfaced, which made Zhou Miao's eyes light up.

The fact that the fish went in safely and without incident suggests that there shouldn't be any danger inside.

Zhou Miao's courage grew considerably. The cave wasn't large, but it could easily accommodate him.

As he approached, the mandarin fish swam away in fear.

Zhou Miao swam slowly forward, and after swimming about seven or eight meters, he saw the deepest part of the cave.

There was a dead end ahead, and the mandarin fish was hiding about five or six meters ahead, in the deepest part of the road.

But Zhou Miao's attention wasn't on it at all at that moment; instead, he was drawn to several wooden boxes that were obscuring the mandarin fish.

There were seven wooden crates in total, some of which were quite large, estimated to be about one cubic meter.

Some boxes are very small, no more than 0.25 cubic meters.

However, the large box did block the small cave, allowing Zhou Miao to barely see the deepest part of the cave, but he couldn't get through.

These seven wooden crates had been submerged in water for decades and were already rotten.

However, because there was no external force, the box could still barely maintain its shape.

Zhou Miao still didn't approach; who knew what was inside the box?

There might be water snakes or something lurking in the crevice; wouldn't it be dangerous to get close?

So he tried to touch the box with a harpoon, but the wooden planks were like soft mud and crumbled at the slightest touch.

Zhou Miao was not surprised by this, but as he used his spear to remove all the wooden planks on one side of the box, some brocade boxes fell out.

Compared to the wooden boards on the outside, these brocade boxes are in remarkably good condition.

Zhou Miao's heart began to pound. These brocade boxes looked so familiar, just like the jewelry boxes of rich ladies in TV dramas. Could they contain jewelry or something similar?

These boxes were all sealed very well, so he didn't open them.

Zhou Miao then proceeded to inspect the next wooden crate.

Inside this wooden box are eight small boxes, about the same size as the jewelry box from before, but they look rather ordinary and are not locked.

Zhou Miao stepped forward and opened one of them.

The blinding golden light made him gasp.

Although he expected that there would be gold where there was jewelry, seeing so much gold still made his heart startle.

This was the first time in his life that he had truly seen what the so-called "small yellow croaker" of that era was like.

Zhou Miao counted them and found that there were a full twenty small yellow croakers in one box.

If all eight boxes contain exactly twenty coins, wouldn't that weigh five kilograms?

Gold prices are ridiculously high right now, over a thousand yuan per gram.

Even if he melts them down and sells them at a low price, he could still make a fortune of five million at a thousand per gram.

However, selling this batch of gold won't be easy, and it's not suitable to release a large amount at once.

To reduce risk, the first step is to melt it down and store it.

Once your career has gradually developed, it will be reasonable to sell your gold then.

However, if Zhou Miao hadn't been short of funds at that time, he probably wouldn't have made the move.

It's not worthwhile to exchange this gold directly for money, but it can be used in emergencies.

After a long while, Zhou Miao finally calmed down and continued opening the blind boxes.

The next two were large boxes, which Zhou Miao opened directly.

I thought there would be more gold later, but both boxes contained only things carefully wrapped in oil paper.

From the outside, it was clear that some of them were porcelain. The value of antiques was hard to say, and besides, Zhou Miao didn't know much about them, so he wasn't as excited as when he saw the gold.

Moreover, these things are not something you can take out in the short term; they are things you can keep as treasures, but cannot be exchanged for money in the short term.

He carefully moved all the items to the side to make sure he could pass before unpacking the remaining three boxes.

When he opened it, all he saw was a dark, murky substance. Zhou Miao was taken aback, but when he picked it up, he noticed a silvery-white metal strip underneath.

He suddenly realized, "Oh, it's silver!"

The items in front were carefully preserved, but the silver was stored rather carelessly; it was simply stuffed into the box, which caused the silver to oxidize and turn black.

It's not a big problem, it's just that recently some people have bought silver, and I don't know how many of them will jump off the bank.

Even if silver were cheap, these three boxes would still be worth a lot of money. However, Zhou Miao didn't know their exact weight, so he couldn't estimate their value.

But he remained agitated; anyone who discovered such a treasure would be unable to remain calm.

However, considering that it was daytime and there were three fishermen outside, Zhou Miao had to suppress the urge to leave with a box of gold right now and aimed his harpoon at the mandarin fish that had nowhere to hide in the deepest part of the cave.

We still need to bring a fish as a cover; we can't just dive down and come back empty-handed.

But when Zhou Miao was about to catch the mandarin fish, he gave up.

It wasn't that he was soft-hearted, but rather that he suddenly thought that a ten-pound mandarin fish might be too eye-catching.

What if a few air force pilots can't catch any fish, and instead try to dive and discover a cave?

With that in mind, Zhou Miao withdrew his spear and slowly retreated from the cave.

Once outside, he caught two large crucian carp hiding at the bottom of the water, then stopped and prepared to go back.

Two crucian carp—not too conspicuous, not too empty-handed, and unlikely to arouse the jealousy of the short sellers; just right.

As soon as Zhou Miao returned to the shore, the three fishermen turned to look at him in unison.

Upon discovering that he only had two large crucian carp weighing about one pound each, one of the anglers scoffed, "Making such a big show, and all you get are two crucian carp."

"He probably ate it himself, but it does look funny."

"His two crucian carp were quite big, they looked to weigh over a pound each."

But none of the three fishermen noticed the excitement hidden beneath Zhou Miao's calm exterior.