Axolotl Translations

By a stroke of luck, Gu Mengran and Liang Zhao had won the favor of a captain uncle, and from the moment they boarded the ship, life no longer felt like treading on thin ice. Food and water were delivered straight to them, and each of them received two full sets of warm clothing for the cold. On top of that, the crew member in charge of accommodations even put on a flattering smile and offered to upgrade them to a more comfortable single cabin.

Gu Mengran had no reason to turn down the food—after all, you need to eat to work. But when it came to the room upgrade? He politely declined. Captain Ding might be the top dog on the Giant, but the ship wasn’t his alone. With hundreds of people on board, strict rules had long been in place: those who worked more got more.

If he and Liang Zhao started enjoying special treatment the moment they stepped on board, hogging resources that weren’t theirs, it’d be no different from playing favorites. Besides, with so many people on the ship, finding his grandfather wouldn’t happen overnight. Gu Mengran needed to build good relationships, not earn resentment.

But Captain Ding wasn’t just full of talk—he meant every word. Since he couldn’t pamper his old friend’s grandson with living quarters, he shifted gears and pulled strings with “work.” Claiming the two had rich driving experience, he reassigned them from grunt duties in the lower decks straight into the bridge. And the kicker? Gu Mengran couldn’t say no. You didn’t look for ships at sea with your eyes—only radar could help. And only in the bridge could they be directly involved in the search for the Windwing.

So—

Amid the envious stares of the rest of the crew, Gu Mengran and Liang Zhao walked into the bridge, awkward but determined.

Over a month passed in a blur. Temperatures continued to drop. The sea was still the same vast, stormy expanse, but the ship might as well have sailed into the Arctic. A thick layer of ice blanketed the once-clear deck, and everything in sight was buried in white.

Rain had turned to heavy snow. When seawater splashed onto the upper deck and mixed with snowfall, the cold air froze it into thick ice. The deck became sealed, claimed by ice; mechanical arms only just thawed before the railing froze into a forest of icicles again.

From morning to noon, the clanging and scraping of de-icing tools never stopped. The reinforced glass blocked out the cold, but not the sound. Sitting in the bridge, Gu Mengran looked up and saw crew members braving the wind and snow to chip away at the ice.

The cold and waves never relented. The deck iced over every few hours, and if it wasn’t cleared in time, the buildup could sink the ship deeper and affect its stability. Long exposure to freezing temps would also damage the equipment. De-icing had become a daily grind—not just exhausting, but bone-chilling.

The trawl net had been submerged for over twenty-four hours, and the Giant canceled autopilot and began to slow down. Liang Zhao had gone out to help the others haul in the net, leaving the massive bridge almost eerily empty.

Using a supertanker to trawl for fish? Gu Mengran had never even heard of such a thing.

Gu Mengran really wanted to go out and help on the deck. He wanted to see for himself if this bold new attempt would pay off. But thanks to the captain’s special attention, he didn’t even get the chance to leave the bridge. It was like he was some delicate greenhouse plant—kept warm and protected, not allowed even a breeze of cold air.

The captain and first mate were talking at the helm while Gu Mengran lingered nearby, eager to jump in but unable to find the right moment to speak. Just as the first mate walked off with his binoculars, and Gu Mengran finally made to stand, the captain’s radio crackled to life.

“Captain, this is the deck crew. The dragboard is in place, winch is cleared, sailors are ready. We’re good to go!”

Captain Ding Pengyi picked up the radio and replied, “Copy that. Tell the de-icing crew to return to the cabins and clear the area around the winch and mechanical arms. Safety first, always.”

A quick “Roger that!” came through, and with that, Ding tossed the radio aside and shouted with full authority, “All stations ready! On my mark—prepare to haul the net!”

“Copy!”

Gu Mengran: …

He sighed and sank back into his seat.

Unlike traditional fishing nets, a trawl net was more like a flexible, durable mesh barrel. Once released into the water, it would expand with the current, and as the ship moved forward, anything in its path—fish, shrimp, crabs—would naturally be swept inside. Lowering the net was easy.

Hauling it up? Not so much. The Giant was massive, with a considerable gap between its deck and the sea. And the trawl net was even longer—half of it still dangling in midair, the heaviest portion dragging in the water.

With tension pulling from both ends, one mistake could snap the entire net—and lose everything.

Once the dragboard was secured to cushion the load, the winch began to turn. The two towlines gradually tightened, and soon, the net’s side panels emerged from the waves. As the winch kept pulling, the wet ropes stretched taut, the floats bobbed onto the deck, and finally, the green netting appeared from beneath the surface.

As the net rubbed against the slick dragboard, it slowly rose. Crew members, long on standby, rushed forward to untangle ropes, straighten twisted net rings, and make sure the net didn’t snag between the dragboard and the deck.

It was a slow, tense process. No one dared relax until the catch itself came into view. In the stillness of the bridge, you could even hear shallow breathing—until most of the net was safely back on deck, and the captain gave the final command: “Deploy the mechanical arm! Go! Help them!”

In a flash, both the bridge and deck burst into action again. Voices shouted, machines roared to life, the engines rumbled—Giant, which had been so quiet just moments ago, turned into a hive of noise and motion. Heads popped out of every window of the aft cabin—everyone eager to see what the haul would be.

After nearly an hour and a half of hard work, a wave of cheers erupted—at last, a giant, bulging net bag was fully hauled onto the deck.

The thick, briny scent of the sea instantly filled the air. The moment the knots were loosened, it was like a crashing wave had been unleashed—whoosh, whoosh, whoosh—tens of thousands of fish, shrimp, and crabs came flooding out of the net like a living tide.

Though the aft cabin was still a distance away and people couldn’t quite see what exactly had been caught, the gleaming silvery-white mass told everyone all they needed to know: today was a major haul.

Even the crew inside the bridge couldn’t sit still anymore. One by one, heads popped up, necks craned—the entire room boiling over with excitement like a pot coming to a furious boil.

“Holy crap! That’s insane! How much do you think that weighs?”

“Weight? Buddy, we’re talking tons here.”

“It’s packed solid—I can’t even tell what I’m looking at! Think we’ll see any king crabs in there?”

“Hey, it’s possible. The East Sea’s known to have them.”

“I’ve lived for decades and never seen this many fish in one place. That’s gotta feed us for half a year, right?”

“Half a year? Come on—with all of us here? More like three months, tops!”

“Hahahaha…”

Their bodies were still in the bridge, but their hearts had long since drifted to the deck. No one was thinking about work anymore.

Seeing this, Ding Pengyi waved his hand and gave in. “Go on, go, go! If you’re so eager to see the action, get down there already. Just don’t forget to bring the gear—we need to start sorting that catch!”

Some stayed behind, not wanting to brave the cold, but others didn’t care one bit—too fired up to miss the moment. Gu Mengran was one of the latter. He rushed out of the bridge with the crowd.

The biting chill of the wind couldn’t cool their excitement. People grabbed every container they could get their hands on—pots, bowls, buckets, anything—and swarmed out of the aft cabin in a chaotic stampede toward the deck.

Gu Mengran thought he was pretty quick, but he was still too late. The crowd was already packed three layers deep around the bow deck. He couldn’t see a single fish—only smell the pungent fishy scent hanging in the air.

No chance to join the fun, and frozen half to death in the process.

He was just about ready to give up, rubbing his hands together to warm up, when suddenly the tightly packed crowd began to scatter. The mountain of seafood was being spread out across the deck with tools to make it easier to sort.

He thought he’d just gotten lucky with his timing—until, across the shifting crowd, his eyes met a familiar pair looking back at him with a half-smile, half-smirk. Only then did Gu Mengran realize that Liang Zhao—who had been on deck the whole time—had spotted him ages ago.

Thanks to that “connection,” Gu Mengran finally got to see the day’s epic harvest for himself.

The seafood was piled high in layers—so much that even after being spread out, it still looked like a towering “mountain of the sea.”

Jumping mackerel, strange-looking slipper lobsters, thick and snakelike seven-star eels, wriggling octopuses with flailing tentacles… There were all kinds of species in astonishing numbers, including a few deep-sea fish Gu Mengran couldn’t even name. The most abundant, though, were shrimp ding-dang—a small, sweet East Sea shrimp also nicknamed “dog shrimp.”

It was so much that Gu Mengran’s eyes couldn’t keep up. He couldn’t help but echo what one of the crew had said earlier: “I’ve been alive over twenty years and I’ve never seen this much seafood.”

Sorting them was a simple but soul-crushing task. At first, it felt fresh and exciting—everyone was full of energy, working fast and hard, trying to outdo each other. But once the sea wind started to blow, and they had to pick up frozen-stiff seafood that felt more like ice cubes than living things, the novelty wore off fast. They ended up half-frozen, looking more like miserable grandkids than young, healthy adults.

As dusk fell, the final big tub of shrimp ding-dang was hauled into the cabin and stored. Gu Mengran, Liang Zhao, and two other crew members emerged from the storage room drenched in sweat. Their clothes were soaked and dried more than once, reeking of sweat.

Gu Mengran was just about to ask Liang Zhao to go hit the communal showers with him when a loud voice suddenly echoed from the end of the hallway—

“Dinner’s ready! Seafood feast is on!”

Gu Mengran stopped in his tracks and immediately dragged Liang Zhao to the supply room they used as their quarters to grab bowls and chopsticks.

If you’re not enthusiastic about food, there’s something wrong with your thinking. And after a harvest like today, dinner was naturally more lavish than usual. Unfortunately, the ship’s seasoning options were limited. The chef had only prepared one real dish—mackerel with black bean sauce. As for the shrimp ding-dang and blue swimmer crabs, he’d gone with the simplest, most unadorned method: steamed.

After standing in line for ten minutes, Gu Mengran finally got his long-awaited dinner. Once Liang Zhao came out of the line with his own bowl, the two found a quiet corner table in the dining hall. They’d spent all afternoon doing manual labor, and both were starving.

Gu Mengran wasted no time—he grabbed his chopsticks and dove straight for the fish belly, carefully picking out a piece of tender, boneless meat. The rich aroma of fermented black beans filled the air, and Gu Mengran was already savoring the imagined taste in his mind.

But just as he was about to put the silky, fragrant fish into his mouth, the chief engineer at the next table suddenly pulled out his walkie-talkie—crackling and hissing with static.

“Chief! You in the mess hall?” It was the first mate’s voice.

This originally had nothing to do with Gu Mengran. But right after the chief engineer responded through the walkie-talkie, the first mate’s excited voice blared out again: “Check if Gu Mengran’s in the mess hall! Hurry—this is urgent!”

They were only separated by a single table—Gu Mengran heard everything loud and clear.

“Chief, did you hear me? If you see him, tell him to come to the bridge right away. The radar’s picked up what might be the Yongyue and Windwing! Ships spotted!”

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