Super Zoo

With the two cars parked side by side, the Tiguan, which could usually hold its own in terms of appearance, paled in comparison to the very individualistic Wrangler and was completely turned into just another car.

"Each drive our own car, each return to our own home, each find our own mother," Suming said, as if it were obvious.

"No way! Today I have to properly take your car for a spin. Otherwise, I definitely won't be able to sleep tonight, feeling all unbalanced. I'll leave my Tiguan here and come get it tomorrow."

Without further ado, Wang Hao hopped into the driver's seat of the Wrangler. Suming just smiled and said nothing, sitting down in the passenger seat.

As soon as the seatbelt was clicked on and the seat pushed back, the Wrangler surged forward like a wild horse that had broken free of its reins.

Before long, Suming began to regret letting Mr. Wang drive; whenever they passed a pretty girl, the guy would deliberately slow down, drive past her, and then very sassily blow a kiss.

"I think you should seriously find a girlfriend," Suming said.

Wang Hao solemnly replied, "I think, man, I should seriously buy a nice car!"

…

Wang Hao first drove home, and then Suming moved to the driver's seat and leisurely drove back to the animal zoo.

Arriving at the zoo in a Jeep caused a stir, neither huge nor small.

The younger staff thought that since Suming was so rich, why didn't he buy a Mercedes-Benz or BMW. The older folks though, were all thumbs up about it.

After getting back to the park, he purposely drove around Shuijun Lake.

Shuijun Lake had willows shading its banks and a pebble-covered track running alongside it. Every few dozen meters there was a long bench, creating a rather nice environment.

However, circling the lake, he found hardly any tourists; the large man-made lake seemed deserted and chilly.

Whisperwind Pavilion stood by the lake. Its architectural style leaned towards that of the Han and Tang dynasties, and it was six stories tall, about thirty meters high. The ground level had a hundred square meters or so of space selling souvenirs and such, while the top level was off-limits to visitors for safety reasons. The remaining four floors displayed wood carvings for which people could buy tickets to see.

When Suming arrived, it was three o'clock in the afternoon, but not a single tourist was in Whisperwind Pavilion. Zhou, responsible for selling souvenirs, was dozing off on the counter, and only raised his head when he heard the sound of a car outside.

"Yo, Su! My goodness, that's a classy ride. Back in the day, only big bosses and generals could ride in something like that. Did you buy it?" Zhou came out with a cheerful grin.

"At most, I'm just a little security guard, haha." Suming chuckled and then handed over a cigarette, asking, "Mr. Zhou, is this place usually so empty?"

Mr. Zhou looked at the 'Zhonghua' brand on the cigarette, didn't smoke it, but clipped it to his ear, and said with a wry smile, "Who comes here? These souvenirs are all fakes and they're sold at killer prices. They're charging fifteen yuan for a ticket just to see a few pieces of junk wood upstairs, as if people are fools. As for Shuijun Lake, it used to be that people would come here to row boats. Later, a boss took over to breed fish and stopped renting boats. As a result, the fish farming failed because the water quality was said to be too poor."

After chatting with Mr. Zhou and getting an idea of the situation with Shuijun Lake, Suming gave him half a pack of 'Zhonghua' and then went to the edge of Shuijun Lake to do some on-site inspection.

As the saying goes, "To raise fish, first raise water; good water raises good fish." In fact, not just for fish farming, water quality is extremely important for most aquatic life. When the water is good, fish and shrimp grow quickly and have excellent meat quality, whereas otherwise, even surviving can be difficult.

The more valuable the aquaculture product, the higher the water quality it requires, and freshwater fish are no exception. Since Suming had taken on the contract for Shuijun Lake, of course, he also wanted to try his hand at aquaculture.

As he walked around the lake, he found most of the water was a pale green with poor transparency; some corners of the lake were even slightly reddish, accompanied by a faint stench.

Shuijun Lake is a man-made lake with no flowing water. Over the decades, without effective management measures, it gradually became a stagnant pool. Such water quality supports only creatures like crayfish and loaches, or catfish—they aren't picky about cleanliness and love to consume waste and carrion.

Not long ago, a newspaper published a news story: a famous grilled fish restaurant had been using bighead carp that were raised on leftover restaurant food, the feeding scene was disgusting, and the entire pond stank.

This report caused quite a stir, and even the grilled fish restaurant was forced to close down.

Actually, it's precisely because they eat this stuff that bighead carp grow well and fast.

However, Suming had no plans to farm bigheads or catfish on a large scale; not to mention how profitable it would be, if he turned a perfectly good man-made lake into a stinking dump, Mr. Song would be the first to have issues with him.

Though he wasn't going to farm catfish, they could still be put to good use. He drove out to get some and along with alligator snapping turtles, putting them in the lake to carefully search the waters.

The two hard workers roamed the man-made lake all night without uncovering anything unusual.

The lake was teeming with fish but only a smattering of ornamental ones; in contrast, there was an abundance of loaches, eels, small crabs, and crayfish, providing a feast for the snapping turtle and catfish.

"Bighead, you stay here. Snapping turtle, you go back to your guard duty at the pavilion!"

The bighead catfish was overjoyed, diving into the water and flapping its tail contentedly, while the snapping turtle gaped halfway, staring blankly at Suming, looking almost sullen.

Water quality didn't matter to these two; Shuijun Lake had far more space than the pavilion, and the lake was full of tasty treats, so naturally, it was much more enjoyable than the smaller one.

"Oh, come on, if what you say goes, then what do we need me as the boss for!" Suming couldn't be bothered with it.

After returning, Suming took out the honeycomb he had brewed a few days before. It had fermented nicely by now and when mixed with vinegar, it had a sour-sweet taste.

"Hey, Nangong the great reporter, what are you up to?" he texted Nangong Yan.

Soon after, Nangong Yan promptly called back, "Are you free tomorrow? If you're not busy, let's hang out."

"Wow, your TV station is so busy, why do you have time off tomorrow with no holidays or anything?"

"Didn't I tell you last time I've been getting lots of acne lately? It's been getting worse over the days, and make-up can't cover it anymore. The director told me to take some time off and stay off camera for now," Nangong Yan shared, sounding downcast.

"Well, that's perfect. Tomorrow I plan to visit Huating Reservoir to check out aquaculture possibilities; come and have some fun," Suming said.

"Farm what? Do you even know how to do aquaculture?" Nangong Yan asked, curious.

"That's just it; I don't know what to farm, nor do I know how. That's why I need to do a reconnaissance of the reservoir. Also, to relax a bit, I'm planning a barbecue; after the survey, we can go grill some meat by the reservoir!" Suming explained.

"Great! Just the two of us," Nangong Yan said.