Cave Refuge

Even though he saw the excitement on Evelyn's face, Skelton couldn't figure out what she saw under water: "You seem very thrilled. Did you discover mermaid down there?"

"I didn't see a mermaid, but I saw fish under the water!"

"Is that true, did you really see fish?"

Looking at Skelton's disbelief, Evelyn firmly repeated, "I'm not lying to you, I really saw fish."

As the old saying goes: Where there is water, there will be fish.

Even though the Cold Catastrophe had covered the earth, and it seemed to have frozen every plant and animal, the survivors started to hope for fish in the water after the flood.

Especially when water algae and grass began to appear, all survivors' expectation of fish were at their peak.

But neither the officials nor private salvage teams discovered the presence of fish in any underwater operation area.

More than a year had passed since the flood, and the salvaged food was almost depleted. Just when everyone was feeling desperate, fish appeared in the water.

In fact, they didn't know that the large ship informed the officials when it arrived in Pengcheng that they had seen fish in the water near the coastal cities.

Those fish might have hidden in the deep sea during the Cold Catastrophe, and as the temperature started to rise and the flood covered the earth, the scope of the fish activities expanded from just the deep sea to all over the world.

In order to expand the activity range of these fish faster, allowing more fish to appear within the borders of the Great Xia, these ship fleets would scatter fish bait along the way, leading some fish to spread in the direction the ships were headed.

Officials only began to ease up on food supply limitations after confirming this situation was real.

The appearance of fish in the water eased the tension of all the survivors. Although the officials issued a decree prohibiting fishing within Pengcheng for five days to allow some fish to follow the fleet and continue their route, everyone was still overjoyed.

The emergence of fish in the water thrilled the fishers. Initially, they knew there were no fish, but many fishers, out of boredom, still stood by the water with their fishing rods. It wasn't they really expected to catch any fish, but they enjoyed the process of fishing. After all, even in the past when there were fish in the water, they often came up empty-handed.

No one knew whether the plethora of fish were attracted by the bait thrown by the ship fleet, or there was another reason, but the once lifeless water under Pengcheng was now teeming with fish.

Many salvage teams were converted into fishing teams, and some people dug out their fishing nets from piles of rubbish, ready for a big catch.

But before they could start casting their nets, the officials arranged for a large number of people to patrol the waters to prevent these teams from fishing with nets.

Because the fish population was just starting to grow and was still limited, the officials knew that a complete ban on fishing would be impossible at this time, as it might lead to a revolt among the survivors.

But for the sake of sustainability, the officials directly prohibited the use of fishing nets and other fishing tools, allowing only angling or spearfishing as a method of catching fish.

As the number of fish underwater kept increasing, many survivors' dining tables gradually had a new dish. Some talented chefs even unlocked many more fish recipes.

However, no one noticed that from the first fish that appeared to having so many fish now that you could catch ten or eight pounds of them easily anywhere, all of that happened in just a few days.

Maybe the emergence of the fish was occurring too quickly.

Mr. Thompson and his second brother's biggest hobby before the catastrophe was fishing. They used to have a fishing group sharing their daily catches from the Wild River.

They would not only tell each other where to catch the fish in the Wild River but also about some related cautions, such as what length of fishing rod would be suitable, what fish appear in which part of the river, and which location is easier for fishing, and so on.

So although Mr. Thompson was not a fish expert, he had some understanding of the underwater situation based on his experience.

When Dong Tianyu came home to visit his parents, his father suddenly sighed and said to him during their dinner: "Don't go too far, don't go too far. Zachary, is the flood about to recede?"

Hearing his father ask such a question, Dong Tianyu was taken aback. He was not sure why his father asked that and how he could guess so accurately.

Looking at his startled son, Mr. Thompson sighed: "Are you wondering how I could ask such a question? While I don't know where you got the news from, you shouldn't treat everyone else as fools.

There are still many smart people in Pengcheng, especially at the higher levels in the Officials. While you're not at home, your mom sings with retired cadres, and I play cards with some retired important figures.

As for recent developments, I'm not sure whether those elders deliberately hinted at it, or accidentally let it slip, but they have subtly reminded me to pack up our stuff at home and prepare for a sudden evacuation at any time.

At first, I didn't understand and felt that they were joking with me. However, when I thought about the lowest temperature of the Cold Catastrophe that rose rapidly and that the flood has been going on for so long, our food supplies in Pengcheng are almost gone, but now fish have suddenly appeared in the water, and their population is rapidly growing.

This situation is obviously abnormal. Although according to the Officials, the ship fleet guided the fish from other regions over here, but such a claim could only fool fools.

If they are capable of guiding such a large number of fish, why would they kindly lead the fish to us? Don't tell me this is the Officials' plan, that's just a joke.

Don't forget that your second uncle and I went fishing in the Wild River every day after our retirement. Although we are not as professional as those researchers studying these things, we are very familiar with the general situation of the fish underwater.

The current speed of growth of the fish population in the water is obviously abnormal. The last abnormal incident was when incessant rain fell from the sky before the flood.

Thinking of the warning from those elders, I may be old, but I haven't got senile dementia. I can understand these things."

Hearing his father's explanation, Dong Tianyu felt a bit helpless, it seemed that the previous acts were not kept from his father.

"Dad, you guessed it right. According to the speculation of our organization, the flood will recede sometime after the appearance of the fish, but new disasters will occur."