HLM – Chapter 1060 Undersea Peculiar Rock Deposits

For the rest of the afternoon, the Fat Cat brothers were completely blissed out.

Wang Bo looked on enviously as the two of them lived their utterly shameless little lives inside. If humans played around like that and got exposed to the public eye, the internet would explode instantly.

By the time they finally came out, the Fat Cat brothers’ short legs were completely weak. Their big round eyes were narrowed into tiny slits. Eva only reached out a hand, and the two little guys flipped right over onto the ground, exposing their soft, fluffy bellies, their stomachs gurgling loudly.

This whole affair was a win–win. Da Pang and Er Pang had their fun and avoided becoming hormone-fried idiots, while the zoo’s female animals received a batch of vigorous genetic carriers.

When they left, the zoo’s Feline Pavilion director personally handed them a VIP membership card as thanks for providing such strong male manuls for breeding. The card could be used for the whole family, allowing them to buy zoo tickets at half price from now on.

Wang Bo flipped the golden card over in his hand, then glanced at the Fat Cat brothers. The two no longer had their previous tigerish swagger—now they were lazily sprawled over Eva’s lap, one on each side, dozing off.

“Does this count as selling our kids?” Dale asked curiously. “And the payment is just this card?”

Wang Bo was shocked. “How do you know everything?”

Dale rolled her bright eyes at him. “I told you already—our school has physiology classes.”

After a few years, Dale was no longer that porcelain doll with the little sky-high ponytail. Even her eye-rolls now carried a hint of coquettish charm. Wang Bo knew that if this girl continued growing according to her current trajectory and didn’t suddenly turn awkward-looking, then in another five or six years, she would definitely drive all the single teenagers of Sunset Town insane.

But for now, she was still just a kid. When they drove home, she ran inside with the Princess, hopping all the way, waving her hand like a fan and shouting, “Uncle, Auntie, it’s so hot—so hot! Melting!”

Father Bo had already prepared ice cream and chilled melons—watermelon, sweet melons, Hami melons. When Wang Bo walked in, he saw Zhong Dabao sitting at the table happily munching on half a watermelon.

“You jerk, this is how you welcome me back?” Wang Bo said irritably.

Zhong Dabao grinned. “These melons were brought by me, okay? Your parents just got back from the sea.”

“Went out to sea?” Wang Bo was surprised. “What for? Isn’t the fishing season closed?”

Every year from June to August, many Chinese coastal regions enter a closed fishing season. Fishing boats aren’t allowed to go out so fish, shrimp, and crabs get a chance to reproduce.

New Zealand doesn’t follow that model. Its coastline is long, its waters vast, and it has rich natural fishing grounds. The Marine Department and the Ministry of Agriculture work with aquatic experts from major universities to designate different closed seasons based on each species’ breeding cycle.

Undoubtedly, the latter is the more scientific and standardized approach. But China finds it harder to implement—development in this field was slower, and the sea territory is too vast to manage effectively. New Zealand is a small country, making such policies easier to enforce.

Zhong Dabao said, “Yeah, the season is closed. But we didn’t go fishing—we went treasure hunting.”

As he spoke, he crossed his arms and struck a mysterious pose, clearly waiting for Wang Bo to beg him for details.

But Wang Bo knew this goofy friend too well. He pretended not to care. “Oh, treasure hunting, sure. Eva, come eat some fruit. Dale, don’t rush for the ice cream—drink a glass of warm water first…”

Seeing Wang Bo ignore him completely, Zhong Dabao grew anxious. “Hey! Wang Bo! Aren’t you curious? There’s treasure under the sea!”

Wang Bo shrugged. “So what? You think you can actually fish it up? And even if you do, what’s the point? The state gives you five hundred yuan and a pennant. Not interested.”

Hearing that, Zhong Dabao blinked, then slumped down in defeat. “Why do you think like that? The treasure under the sea is weirdly shaped rocks. The state didn’t confiscate anything.”

Just like that, Wang Bo got the information he wanted. “Ah, so it’s seafloor stones? People are collecting those again?”

As the name implies, seafloor stones are rocks from the seabed. With undercurrents constantly washing and eroding them, over long periods they become sculpted into all sorts of bizarre shapes.

Years ago, Lanhai City had a craze for seafloor stones. Some pieces were extremely valuable. In the 90s, someone found a chicken-shaped stone underwater—its outline resembled the map of China. A boss bought it, trading for an apartment and a steel fishing boat.

But stones like that are like gold—they require finding a mineral belt. Otherwise, valuable ones are hard to come by.

Four conditions are required to form such a seafloor rock belt:

1. At least two undercurrents converge in that area, creating the necessary force to sculpt stones.
2. There must be plenty of stones at the convergence point—otherwise, no amount of current will help.
3. The seabed terrain in that region must be complex.
4. Most importantly: it must be in shallow waters. Many deep-sea rock belts exist but are impossible to retrieve.

Finding such a rock belt is difficult. Wang Bo remembered that when he was young, people briefly obsessed over searching for them, but the belt was quickly exhausted and the craze faded.

Zhong Dabao gnawed on his watermelon and said, “This time there’s tons of seafloor stones. I dove down to look—my God, the huge rocks down there! Their shapes were so… what’s that idiom again? Something about ghosts and gods…”

Dale asked, “Ghostly craftsmanship?”

“Yeah! That one!” Zhong Dabao jumped in quickly.

Wang Bo glared at him. “Shameless. Even Dale, a primary schooler in New Zealand, knows that idiom.”

Zhong Dabao was baffled. “Shameless in martial arts? What martial arts? Where did that come from? You planning to open a kung fu school in New Zealand now?”

Wang Bo blinked. Actually… that was a pretty good idea. Sunset Town had lots of kids. Maybe opening a martial arts school would be too much, but adding a Chinese kung fu course to the curriculum wouldn’t be bad.

Chinese kung fu was one of China’s most successful cultural exports. Even in faraway New Zealand, when people thought of Chinese folks, kung fu was often their first association.

Father Bo and Mother Bo changed clothes and came to join them for chilled fruit. They also talked about the undersea rock belt. Having something like this during the closed fishing season clearly added a lot of fun to the lives of local fishermen.

In truth, the appearance of seafloor stones brought not only amusement—but also another source of income.