Axolotl Translations

In the end, they were still rookie fishermen. Even though they’d been heading out at dawn and returning late every day, the first few days didn’t yield much. Meanwhile, their well-staffed and seasoned neighbors were already hauling in huge catches. The Windwing’s deck only had a thin layer of fish and crab.

Still, Gu Mengran wasn’t discouraged. Everyone has to start somewhere.

Besides, they had fewer people—which meant fewer mouths to feed, too.

This crew of twenty-somethings had both strength and brains. Once the three-day “internship” period passed, their little diesel boat started bringing in more and more fish—larger, fresher, and in greater quantities.

This part of the sea was rich in mackerel and scad. While the fish weren’t huge, they came in massive numbers. Almost every day, they could bring back two to three boatloads. The pile on deck grew larger by the day.

Then there were the blue swimmer crabs. They’d gone from twenty traps to sixty. Drop them in the morning, pull them up the next. After some tinkering, the bait had been perfected. Dumping rotten fish and shrimp into the bait cages worked like a charm—the stench traveled far enough to draw crabs from ten miles out.

Gu Mengran did a rough estimate: on average, each crab trap brought in five to seven crabs per day. After accounting for the missing traps and undersized ones they had to throw back, they were still netting around 200 blue swimmer crabs a day.

That was a stunning number—especially compared to Yongyue, which had way more crew but only pulled in a little over a hundred a day. And since crab fishing wasn’t even their main business, the whole morning operation only took about two hours. High return, low effort—it was a win-win.

Besides the usual fish and crabs, they occasionally netted rare finds—hairtail, octopus, even needleless squid…

Though those were few and far between.

One upside of the cold weather: fish storage was a breeze.

But they’d been so busy and exhausted that they hadn’t had time to process any of it.

It stank too much to keep inside, and there wasn’t enough room in the fridge or freezer. Gu Mengran couldn’t just toss everything into his spatial storage either, so they laid down a waterproof tarp on deck and started piling everything there.

Turns out, nature’s walk-in freezer worked great. Once the fish were rinsed with fresh water to wash off the salty sea brine—high salinity, low freezing point—the next day they’d be frozen solid into little icy lumps. No need to worry about spoilage at all.

When you’re busy, time flies. In the blink of an eye, they were down to the final three days of their two-week limit.

At 9:30 in the morning, a silent snowstorm crept in.

Snowflakes swirled like a tidal wave, and the temperature plummeted five or six degrees in no time. Not wanting to freeze out there, Gu Mengran and the others hurried home right after pulling in the morning’s crab traps.

The wind was brutal. With snow falling and gusts blowing, the cold was bone-deep.

Their coats were soaked through, but the first thing Gu Mengran did once he got on board wasn’t to change clothes—it was to dash into the kitchen, grab a few stainless steel basins, and drag everyone outside to pick out fish.

After more than ten days of hard work, they hadn’t eaten a single bite of their catch. Gu Mengran was dying to taste it. Sure, they weren’t hurting for food, but nothing beat the flavor of fish you caught yourself.

Snow poured down from above, and there was Gu Mengran, squatting on the freezing cold deck, hammer in hand, breaking through the ice.

The four of them spent a good half hour hacking away, and barely managed to scrape together three basins’ worth of ingredients: one filled with mackerel and scad, one with blue swimmer crabs, and the last with a random mix of hairtail, octopus, and other odds and ends.

Once the seafood was brought into the kitchen, everyone went back to their rooms to change out of their wet clothes.

After spending the whole morning freezing outside, Gu Mengran worried they might catch colds. So once they’d all changed, he had Liang Zhao boil a kettle of water and made four cups of cold medicine with disposable paper cups.

It was nearly lunchtime, and the trio in charge of growing vegetables had clearly been so wrapped up in their planting that they hadn’t even started cooking. They hadn’t expected the fishing team to suddenly rush back.

Well, lucky timing then.

Gu Mengran tipped back his dose of cold medicine in one go and led his three helpers straight into the kitchen.

Everyone was a little hungry, but no one suggested tossing everything into one pot and calling it a day. The three helpers quickly divided up the work: Zheng Yijie and Xu Xinghe were in charge of scrubbing the crabs and cleaning the mixed fish, while Liang Zhao handled gutting and filleting the scad.

With more hands, the workload didn’t feel so heavy. By the time Gu Mengran had finished prepping ingredients and seasonings, a whole basin of meaty blue swimmer crabs had already been cleaned.

There were too many crabs for a single pot, so Gu Mengran pulled out a two-tiered steamer from the cupboard. After giving it a good rinse, he poured in water, added sliced ginger and scallion stalks, and splashed in a bit of cooking wine to help cut the fishy smell.

He arranged the crabs belly-up in the steamer trays. Both tiers were packed just right. A rough headcount showed over forty crabs—about five each.

Once the lid was on and the timer set, the crabs were good to go.

Since most of the group had bold palates, Gu Mengran took the chance to mix up two dipping sauces—soy sauce, vinegar, sesame oil, and a few other seasonings.

As for the scad, after gutting and removing the heads and tails, only about half the original amount was left.

Liang Zhao had done a tidy job—washed the fish clean and even scored both sides just like Gu Mengran had asked. Gu Mengran could jump right in and start marinating.

Time was tight, so he only let the fish marinate for about ten minutes before heating oil in a pan. Once it reached the right temperature, he turned the heat to medium-low and started frying the fish, letting each side cook to a golden brown.

Once all the fish were crispy and golden, he took them out and set them aside. Then he rinsed the pan, reheated oil, and tossed in ginger, garlic, Sichuan peppercorns, and dried chili peppers to bring out their aroma. Finally, he added the fried scad back into the pan.

He seasoned the dish with salt, chicken powder, and a splash of cooking wine, giving everything a good toss. Then he poured in just enough water, brought it to a boil, and reduced the heat to a slow simmer.

After an hour and a half of work, the hot dishes were finally brought out one by one: braised scad, steamed blue swimmer crab, crispy-fried mackerel, and a dry pot seafood medley…

Four hearty dishes plus dipping sauces nearly filled the whole table. Steam rose in curls above the dining room, the briny sweetness of fresh seafood mingling with savory seasonings, creating a mouthwatering aroma that hung thick in the air.

As bowls and chopsticks were set out, Gu Mengran finished washing up and came out of the kitchen. His stomach was growling, but Grandpa and the others still hadn’t returned. Just as he was about to head downstairs to call them, the living room door suddenly opened from outside.

“What’s that amazing smell?” Meng Gaoyang stood in the doorway for a second, then sniffed the air hard, twice in a row.

The front door lined up perfectly with the dining room, and when he spotted the spread from a distance, his eyes lit up. He charged toward the table with a loud, “Whoa! What’s the occasion? This feast looks incredible.”

“Why does there have to be a special occasion to eat well?” Gu Mengran replied cheekily, pulling out the chair next to him for Grandpa. “Let’s just say today’s a good day! It’s almost two—why are you guys just getting back? Is this your usual lunchtime?”

Because there weren’t many fish near shore, they usually had to sail out an hour or two to find good spots. The time it took to go back and forth meant they brought dry rations and rarely came home for lunch.

The old man shook his head. “Normally? No way. People need food like a machine needs fuel—you skip a meal, you run out of steam. We just figured since there weren’t many boxes left today, we’d push through and finish it all at once. Now we can rest for the afternoon.”

“You finished planting already? That fast?” Gu Mengran blinked in surprise.

The old man’s face lit up with pride. “Pretty efficient, aren’t we?”

“Efficient? You three are unstoppable!” Gu Mengran gave him a thumbs-up, full of genuine praise.

The old man chuckled happily, then glanced back at the table, unconsciously licking his lips. “And you guys? When did you sneak back? You made all this yourselves?”

“Of course, Grandpa Meng,” Zheng Yijie laughed, practically drooling. “What, you think we could still order takeout out here?”

“Alright, alright, let’s sit and eat while it’s hot,” he said quickly, pulling out all the chairs from under the table and waving at Xu Xingran. “Come on, Xingran, sit here.”

But Xu Xingran calmly dodged the offer: “You sit. I’m going with Xu Yuan to wash our hands first.”

“Oh right, I need to wash up too.” Grandpa reluctantly tore his eyes away from the feast and followed the sisters into the kitchen.

Everyone was starving. As soon as the hand-washers sat back down, the chopsticks came out in unison. Politeness? Formalities? Those didn’t exist here. This was home—no need for any of that.

The braised scad was tender and full of flavor, melting in the mouth with the lightest press of the tongue. The blue swimmer crab was plump and sweet, its roe rich and bursting with umami. The fried mackerel? Perfectly crisp—each bite gave a satisfying crunch, bones and all, easily chewed and swallowed.

The Xu siblings had been busy lately, and this was their first time tasting Gu Mengran’s cooking.

After devouring an entire braised fish, Xu Xinghe looked at Gu Mengran like he’d just found treasure, his eyes practically glowing. “Brother Gu, you’re amazing! I was already impressed you knew how to cook, but I didn’t expect it to be this good!”

“Seriously,” Xu Xingran chimed in while cracking open a crab leg. “You’ve been hiding some serious skills. You could open your own restaurant.”

All the praise made Gu Mengran’s ears turn red. He waved his hands in protest. “Come on now, don’t exaggerate. It’s just home-style cooking. Good enough to fill the stomach.”

“This is you making do? Your cooking’s leveled up again!”

“Exactly, don’t be so humble!”

Gu Mengran: …

It wasn’t humility—he knew exactly how good his cooking was.

The reason today’s meal tasted this good had less to do with his skills and more with the ingredients.

It wasn’t his imagination or wishful thinking—the fish and crab he’d gone out of his way to catch were genuinely more delicious. Fresh from the sea, they were as good as ingredients got.

Everyone ate with the speed of a storm sweeping through. In no time, most of the food had disappeared.

Having already filled up on the smell of oil and steam while cooking, Gu Mengran put his chopsticks down early and just watched the others eat. One of the great joys of being the cook was watching people enjoy your food—and the more they devoured it, the better.

But as he watched… his gaze slowly drifted from the table to the window. Outside, thick snowflakes swirled through the air like feathers.

His thoughts wandered.

It wasn’t like his past life at all. Not even close.

Now it was the dead of winter, and he was sitting in a warm room with air conditioning, with his grandfather, with Liang Zhao, and with four new faces around the table. The whole family, enjoying a hot, hearty meal. No worries about school. No stress about work. No pressure to buy a house or a car—So what if it was the apocalypse?

They were still living well. Living with joy. Living with peace in their hearts.

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