Its head is relatively flat and its body is cylindrical. The overall color of its body is gray, and there are spots on its outer skin. The white spots are indeed quite distinctive.
Father Ye's heart trembled when he saw the huge monster that suddenly appeared on the sea. It was really more than ten meters long. He had never seen such a big fish in his life. It was almost catching up with their boat.
Although the oarfish is more than ten meters long, its flat body cannot be compared with this whale shark.
“Ah… Ah… How… How did you float up? It’s… It’s so scary… Hurry, hurry, hurry… Run…”
Father Ye was so frightened that he could hardly speak clearly, and he tried to escape by boat.
Ye Yaodong helped his father up and comforted him, "Don't be afraid, I heard that this whale shark is very docile and will not attack people for no reason."
The development of the ocean was not perfect in that era, and most people didn't know much about such large marine creatures. Ye Yaodong only recognized that this was a whale shark because of his experience in his previous life. Otherwise, he would be as terrified as Ye's father.
It is said that when whale sharks encounter humans approaching, they will treat them gently and politely, and often play with people in the water. They are friendly big guys, but he has never tried it.
"Don't be afraid? It's so big, and if it takes a breath, the boat will shake for half an hour. If its tail hits the boat, we will go straight into the sea to feed the fish. Run quickly..." Ye's father shouted in panic, and rushed to drive the boat.
Ye Yaodong did not stop it. It was better to stay away from this huge creature. No matter how docile it was, it was still the overlord of the ocean. Most importantly, he had never had a close contact with it in his previous life, so safety was the first priority.
Father Ye started the boat quickly and increased the speed to full throttle, wanting to escape from here immediately and stay away from the whale shark.
What they didn't expect was that the whale shark was following them from behind. Suddenly, it caught up with them, with its head parallel to the fishing boat...
The little eye was right next to the fishing boat, and there was a row of tiny teeth exposed, at least several thousand of them. This frightened Ye's father so much that his legs almost went weak and he fell to his knees.
If it opens its mouth, I guess I wouldn't even be enough to fill the gaps between its teeth, right
In a panic, Ye's father instinctively supported his right hand on the diesel engine, but he didn't expect that the diesel engine became very hot when running.
His hand was burned by the diesel engine as soon as it touched it. Even though he quickly pulled it back, three large blisters appeared on his index finger, middle finger and ring finger at the moment of contact.
"Hiss~"
When Ye Yaodong saw that his father's hand was injured, he immediately came to his senses, and immediately went to fetch a bucket of clean water and asked his father to put his hand in it. Then he went to the cabin to get some old tea oil to apply on his father. The all-purpose tea oil was a must-have on their ship.
When he saw the whale shark swimming close to their fishing boat, he widened his eyes in shock, his heart beat uncontrollably and he became nervous. He had never seen a whale shark so close before.
He could clearly see the patterns on its body, and there were many small fish clinging to it.
The small fish on its body is only relative to the size of the whale shark, but it is actually not small, probably about 30 to 50 centimeters in size. It is called a sealfish, a diving fish that is good at "hitchhiking" and is a lazy guy in the fish world.
Really, it’s so huge... It’s almost as big as their boat.
If his father's hand hadn't been injured, he would have been stunned by the huge size.
But the whale shark seemed very excited. It kept waving its fins at them, which made the father and son a little confused.
"This...is this a greeting to us?"
Ye Yaodong said uncertainly: "Should...should be, right?"
The whale shark seemed really happy. It swam a little further away, keeping a distance from their boat.
Then, under the gaze of the father and son, it jumped high out of the water, and when it jumped up and down, it was like a long bridge. Its huge body fell into the water, creating huge waves, like a fountain, and directly submerged the whale shark in the middle.
He and Ye's father were standing on the side of the boat, staring in amazement. The huge splash of water soaked them from head to toe, and water droplets were still dripping from their hair.
Ye Yaodong took off his sun hat when he went into the water, and he didn't put it on again later. Now he was really sprayed all over his face. The surging waves refracted the sun and formed a small rainbow, but it disappeared in a few seconds.
Father Ye swallowed his saliva, wiped the water off his face, and shook his short hair, "If this tail plays with our boat..."
"Let's quickly sail to the reef and say hello to Zheng. There aren't many abalone left anyway, so let's not go into the water. We were originally planning to go one more day and then not go again. We've made a lot of money, so this one trip won't hurt. Let's go back early and consider today's trip a waste."
"The fishing net is broken anyway, so we can't continue hauling the net. Go back and check the holes and fix what needs to be fixed. Then use a needle to heat your hands and pick out the blisters."
"Um."
He asked his father to rest aside and he went to drive the boat.
The fishing boat kept moving forward without stopping, but the whale shark followed them again right after the performance. The father and son looked at each other in confusion.
"What is it doing? Why is it following us? Even though it didn't attack us, it looks scary." Father Ye was not as scared as he was at the beginning, but he still wanted to escape.
"Let's go our way..."
Before Ye Yaodong finished speaking, he saw the whale shark swimming to the side of the boat again, and opened its bloody mouth...
This really scared him!
Ye Yaodong couldn't help but tightly grip the steering handle, widened his eyes, and quickly turned the bow of the boat away.
Ye's father was so scared that he took a few steps back.
Could it be that this whale shark has changed its mind
The father and son were only thinking about running away quickly, and didn't think about why it opened its mouth wide, until the whale shark slapped the side of the boat with its fins and opened its mouth wide again.
Ye Yaodong couldn't help but think, "Isn't it hungry?"
"ah?"
"Is this mouth of yours for food?"
"real or fake?"
Ye Yaodong stopped the boat and said, "Try it."
He went to the cabin and brought out the small bucket of bait left over from the night's longline fishing, but he felt that it might not be enough to fill the gaps in his stomach.
"Dongzi, be careful... Or let's just forget it. Let's run!"
"Let's try it, otherwise it will keep following us, which is scary."
"But you have to get closer... and this small bucket of bait is not enough to fill its teeth..."
"It should be fine, otherwise it would have attacked our ship long ago."
He took the bucket and carefully approached the side of the boat, then quickly poured the fish into the gaping bloody mouth. The deep mouth was like a bottomless pit. The bait in the small bucket was poured in and disappeared in an instant, but the boat's mouth was still open.
After Ye Yaodong poured the bait, he quickly stepped back. Although he knew that the whale shark was docile, he was still nervous since he was right next to its mouth.
Seeing it still waiting with its mouth open, he couldn't help but say, "Brother, there's no more. I haven't even opened yet and you came over to eat at the buffet. You ate everything in the fishing net, and you ate all the leftovers too."
He shook the empty bucket, only a few drops of fishy-smelling water dripped out, "Look, it's really gone!"
The whale shark slapped the side of the boat a few more times, and the boat shook violently a few times. The father and son almost fell down, but fortunately they held onto the cabin next to them.
Ye Yaodong said with a sad face, "It's really gone, big brother, just go to the sea and take a few sips of water to fill your stomach first..."
I don’t know if it understood or not. After waiting for a while without any movement, the whale shark closed its mouth, looked at them a few times, and then dived into the water.
The father and son stretched their necks to look at the sea, and there was no movement for a long time.
"Really gone?"
"Maybe?"
The two of them breathed a sigh of relief at the same time.
"It's good to go, it's good to go... Please don't follow me anymore..."
Just as Ye's father finished speaking, the whale shark floated up again, and his heart began to lift again.
His heart kept rising and falling in such a short period of time that Ye's father felt that if it happened twice he would have a heart attack.
But this time it was a little different. Not long after the whale shark surfaced, all the seal fish attached to its body suddenly fell off, and when they fell, it also dived into the sea.
Ye Yaodong's eyes suddenly lit up, and he quickly went into the cabin to get a hand-cast net. Before Ye's father could react, he quickly cast the net down.
"Dongzi?"
"I'll catch the seal fish."
"The fish that fell from that big guy just now?"
"Um."
"Aren't you afraid of catching it again?"
"Give it a try. It should leave, right? These fish should be its payment for the buffet. It ate so much of my fish, so it should compensate me a little, right?"
Anyway, that's how he understood it. It was said that the IQ of this fish was equivalent to that of a seven or eight-year-old child, and it was very friendly to humans. It's just that its size was a little scary.
Seeing it appear around the fishing boat several times and with no intention of harming them, Ye Yaodong became much bolder.
"think too much."
After Ye's father grumbled, he wanted to reach out and help pull the net, but his hands were still painful from the burns, so he could only watch him collect the net.
Ye Yaodong tried to reel in the net and felt very relieved. There was definitely no chance that the whale shark was caught in the net again.
When he pulled up the fishing net bit by bit, he saw three Indian fish struggling inside, as well as several small fish and shrimps.
"There are only three. Why catch them? It's a waste of time. Let's get on with the boat and leave, so that the big one won't catch up with us again."
"Have you ever heard of using fish to catch fish?"
"What the hell?"
"You'll know in a moment. Hurry up and get me a bucket of sea water."
He untied the fishing net quickly and skillfully, and took out the three seal fish inside and put them in the bucket.
It was considered lucky to catch three. There was a delay in the middle and most of them swam away, but three was enough.
Father Ye knew this fish, but he was not familiar with its habits.
"This fish is not valuable, why do you catch these few? What are you doing? Go back early, the trawl net is broken again, and you can't catch any more..."
Ye Yaodong looked at his father's hand, which was still covered with blisters, and hesitated again, "I've already applied old tea oil, it should be okay? Does it still hurt? Forget it, forget it, I won't try it, let's go back first..."
"What are you going to do again?"