Chapter 2: The Final One—The Scarlet Phoenix-tailed Carp
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In this world, marriages are assigned by the authorities! The purpose is to ensure the survival and propagation of the human race. Any men and women of marrying age who refuse to wed face exorbitant taxes for staying single—or, in the worst cases, even imprisonment.
Love? That’s a joke. Among the fishing buddies around him, eight out of ten had been forced into marriages, raising children with people they barely knew, let alone loved.
Yu Le’s circumstances were even more absurd. His wife had essentially been picked up off the street—more accurately, she had married him to repay a life debt.
That was three years ago, just after Yu Le’s soul had crossed into this world. At the time, the city now called Burning City was not yet known by that name. A monstrous fire had broken out.
Yu Le, whose arrival was marked by disaster, fled with a group of refugees and, along the way, rescued an unconscious woman—his future wife. Or rather, now, his ex-wife.
Her name was Feng Jiu Jiao.
Afterwards, the two of them, muddled and dazed, ended up married. Just when Yu Le thought he’d hit the jackpot, marrying a beauty like a fairy, fate played a cruel trick on him.
Not long after they registered their marriage and moved into government housing, Feng Jiu Jiao’s previously flat belly began to swell visibly by the day.
Three months later, she gave birth to a daughter, whom they named Yu An An.
Yu Le became a father, like it or not!
Don’t ask how he knew the child wasn’t his—Yu Le had never even held Feng Jiu Jiao’s hand after their marriage. They’d always slept in separate beds.
Besides, what woman has a three-month pregnancy cycle?
Did you think a simple “everyone’s body is different” could explain this away?
For the next two years, Feng Jiu Jiao’s health was poor after childbirth and she remained bedridden. She wasn’t some chosen one, either.
The entire burden of supporting the family fell on Yu Le, the hapless husband.
He rose early and returned late every day, fishing to support his wife and earn money for baby formula.
Yu Le hadn’t abandoned them—nor could he. In this society, getting a divorce was anything but simple.
Just when he’d resigned himself to a life of mediocrity, with a wife who didn’t love him and a daughter who wasn’t his own, a turning point arrived six months ago.
Two and a half years after his soul crossed over, the system finally arrived—fashionably late!
It was called the Allworlds Fishing System.
A boon for transmigrators, the ultimate cheat code.
Yet Yu Le had no idea what the system could actually do because, to bind it, he first had to complete the binding task.
Allworlds Fishing System
Status: Unbound
Binding task: Successfully fish one hundred spirit fish
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Current task progress: 99/100
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He was just one fish away from activating his cheat—no, from binding the system!
If only that blood-scaled grass carp earlier had been landed, Yu Le would have completed the task by now.
For the past half year, Yu Le had devoted every ounce of energy to this mission.
He’d used up his entire savings, and his daughter had gone missing half a month ago!
Even though it seemed he’d hauled in a good catch over these months, the truth was that after the system extracted the spirit core from each fish, the money barely covered the daily expenses for three people, plus his fishing costs.
When he left home that morning, Feng Jiu Jiao had given him the divorce certificate with an indifferent look in her eyes.
It reminded Yu Le of those fishing fanatics from his previous life, who ended up losing everything to their obsession.
He hadn’t expected to become one of them.
Now he had nothing. His pockets were emptier than his pride; today’s fishing fee, bait, and groundbait were all borrowed.
If he failed to catch this last fish, he wouldn’t even have dinner tonight!
Beyond the financial crisis, his daughter Yu An An’s disappearance gnawed at his heart.
Even if she wasn’t his biological child, he’d raised her since infancy—her first word had been “Daddy.”
Yu Le had long since regarded Yu An An as his own, cherishing the unique bond of fatherhood he’d never known before.
He felt it was his duty to rescue her, even if her own mother had given up.
The Security Bureau had already opened a case, but for them, charged with safeguarding the city, it was just another “missing person.”
If Yu Le hadn’t overheard talk of a rampant gang of human traffickers operating in Burning City, he might have stupidly waited for the Security Bureau’s news, never realizing his daughter had most likely been taken.
Those officials—so fierce with civilians, but when real trouble came, every last one of them cowered like turtles.
Feng Jiu Jiao had apparently lost hope as well. Yu Le had no idea what strings she’d pulled, but she’d managed to secure the divorce certificate on her own, leaving the search for their daughter solely to him.
Yu Le pinned all his hopes on the system he was about to bind.
Lost in thought, he suddenly felt his Panlong Fishing Rod tremble violently—a tremendous force nearly yanked him into the river.
With a crash, a massive whirlpool formed right where he’d thrown the divorce certificate into the water, sending waves surging and revealing a brilliant fish tail beneath the surface.
“What is that?” The usually unflappable anglers were shocked by the scene.
Yu Le, clutching his Panlong Rod, narrowed his eyes. When he saw the shadow in the water, he cried out hoarsely, “Tier Three Spirit Fish—Phoenix-tailed Scarlet Carp!”
What?
The other anglers were stunned for a split second, then rushed to reel in their lines and flee.
A Tier Three Spirit Fish could easily kill them all.
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“Go call Brother Zhu!”
The only one who could handle such a crisis was the owner of the fishery, a third-tier Stone Realm Chosen.
While the others ran, Yu Le stayed where he was.
His line was caught—he couldn’t retrieve his Panlong Rod, and the sheer power of the fish had bent it into a semicircle.
He could abandon the Tier Three Spirit Fish, but he absolutely couldn’t lose or break his life-weapon.
Though a life-weapon could be repaired, Yu Le no longer had the money for it.
“Yu, are you crazy? Get out of there!” Brother Wang shouted.
Yu Le didn’t hear him. The only sound he registered was the Phoenix-tailed Scarlet Carp thrashing in the water.
His body was being dragged toward the riverbank.
During the fierce struggle, with bloodshot eyes, Yu Le heard the ominous cracking of his rod.
Before it could break, the furious carp, ensnared by hook and line, thrashed violently. Yu Le, refusing to let go, was dragged into the river, rod and all.
“Yu!” someone cried.
The water gradually stilled. On the bank, the only sign of life was the blood billowing up from below.
Two minutes later, Boss Zhu arrived at last. Looking at the water, now stained red, he hesitated, unwilling to dive in.
After more than ten minutes, as the water calmed, Boss Zhu shook his head. “There’s no hope. Yu’s probably fish food by now.”
Though Yu Le was a second-tier Stone Realm, the gap between the second and third tiers was vast—especially when dragged underwater, into the creature’s domain.
“Damn it! How did a Tier Three Spirit Fish appear in a low-level fishery like this?”
No one could explain it. The fishery, connected to outside waters, had every section regularly inspected and leased out. In a typical year, a low-level fishery like this might not see even a single second-tier spirit fish—let alone a third-tier one!
The reason lay in the divorce certificate Yu Le had torn up.
More precisely, in the faint aura that lingered on it.
Just as Boss Zhu was about to close the fishery and wait for the Security Bureau’s investigation, someone shouted, “Look!”
Bubbles rose to the surface. A massive carp, its body a brilliant red with a tail like a phoenix’s, floated up.
A broken fishing rod protruded from its gill, blood gushing from the wound—a mortal blow.
Had Yu Le killed the Tier Three Spirit Fish?
Beneath the carp, Yu Le’s battered body surfaced, gripping the other end of the Panlong Rod, struggling to swim to shore.
“Yu, well done!”