NOVEL WEB Chapter 768 Victory
Did the shark break free?
It did not.
Above the sea, the small boat bobbed with the waves.
Facing such an explanation, the audience was puzzled, but following the direction of Bi Fang's index finger, everyone saw a piece of wood.
It was a log, about a dozen centimeters thick, bobbing up and down and spinning non-stop, like a fishing float that had taken a bite.
Bi Fang returned to Viking, reinforcing the rope tied to the bow for the second time. As he did this, the audience noticed that there was a line connected to the floating log, with the other end tied to the protruding bow.
With the bobbing log in mind, everyone suddenly understood.
Even though the mouse shark had returned to the sea, the rope that Bi Fang initially looped around it had not been shaken off!
Furthermore, because of the way the knot was tied, the more the shark struggled, the tighter the constraint became.
"Many people must have thought the moment they saw me tie the fish head to the spear that I would immediately take action and attack with the spear, but that wasn't the case," Bi Fang said, raising the spear in his hand—the fish head that had been on it was long gone. Had he not retracted it quickly, the spear might have been bitten off.
"Using a spear, unless it kills with one strike, the shark will definitely escape. With our speed and ability, we could never catch up, and we don't have the time to do so."
Bi Fang didn't need to waste a lot of energy on this one shark; there were others to catch. Engaging in a chase could last for days and nights.
The situation in 'The Old Man and the Sea' was quite realistic.
By that time, not only might Bi Fang unwittingly have drifted far from the island, but he could also possibly have delayed the time to set out to sea.
Since throwing a spear made it more likely for the mouse shark to escape, it was natural to switch to another method, using a lasso, much like cowboys capturing prey with ropes. This trick also worked on sharks.
"So compared to spearing, which had a higher chance of failure, using a rope lasso was more secure. Of course, because it required close contact with the shark, it demanded higher skills and was riskier, but the benefits it brought were equally significant."
"A piece of wood tied to the rope, the buoyancy of the wood would prevent the shark from diving to deeper waters. As long as it couldn't break free from the lasso, it would be forced to fight against buoyancy forever. Maybe it could dive temporarily, but a shark's energy is not infinite."
"As a result, the shark could only wander near the surface of the sea. Since the other end of the rope was tied to the boat, it meant that the shark not only couldn't dive but also couldn't flee into the distance, completely falling into the hunter's trap, unable to extricate itself."
"For sharks that need to keep moving to obtain oxygen, being lassoed has already sealed their fate."
[Master Fang is already a mature broadcaster; you should learn to make it clearer for the audience who knows nothing.]
[Don't hesitate to make it clearer.]
"Don't rush, I'm about to explain," Bi Fang said.
Bi Fang stood on one foot at the bow, elbow propped on his knee, watching the rope stretch taut, constantly changing direction.
"Sharks don't have swim bladders and their body density is greater than water, so most of them must keep moving to stay within a certain water layer, or they will sink to the bottom."
"Only a few species, like the nurse shark, can stay at the bottom to live, and the Pacific rat shark is not one of these."
"Moreover, sharks breathe differently from other fish. Their biological structure dictates that they must swim fast at all times. Or rather, their evolutionary path demands them to swim swiftly, which is easy to understand since being a qualified predator requires it."
"This evolutionary result is that a shark's gills are covered with gill filaments, which are feather-like, and each filament has lamellae, called gill slits."
"The blood vessels in the lamellae can absorb oxygen. From water that only contains 1% oxygen, sharks can extract up to 80% of the oxygen, allowing them unmatched speed in the ocean."
"But this structure prevents the shark from sucking in seawater through its mouth and can only 'collide' with the water to get it into its mouth, before relying on the blood vessels on the gills to absorb the oxygen from the water, with the excess water being expelled through the gill slits."
"If the shark stops moving, or swims too slowly, water can't filter through its gills, and the shark will suffocate from lack of oxygen."
"It's for these reasons, many experienced masters in dealing with sharks commonly use a rope snare, waiting for it to exhaust itself from lack of oxygen, before it ends up as meat on the chopping board."
Using a spear, no matter what, you're always at a spear's distance away, but to tie a shark with a rope, that requires using your hands, and one careless move could get you bitten.
Therefore, using a rope snare is often a trick reserved for the veterans.
What, you ask about the novices?
Sorry, novices don't have hands.
Bi Fang stood up, at this moment the driftwood on the surface of the sea was still bobbing, the rope connected to the bow was taut, and the immense force could even drag the small boat forward.
The sky was somewhat gloomy, as if it was going to rain.
But Bi Fang wasn't nervous; although the skies had darkened above him, the air wasn't stuffy, and there was no howling wind. The darkness was also quite limited, indicating that the layer of rain was thin and it wouldn't be a heavy downpour.
More than twenty minutes later, even Bi Fang marveled at the stamina of the mouse shark, when the rope at the bow finally slackened, only to quickly become taut again. If people weren't watching closely, they might even think it was an illusion.
[Damn, it's slackening, it's really slackening]
[Grandma's, I've been watching for almost half an hour, finally it's giving in]
[This shark is ridiculously enduring]
[That's normal, bro you haven't gone deep-sea fishing off a boat, half an hour is nothing, I bet if it weren't for suffocating speeding up the energy drain, it could last for hours, towing your boat around]
"This shark is close to suffocating."
Bi Fang knew the main act was here, in the next five minutes, the frequency of the slack in the rope increased.
Even with the oxygen running low, the mouse shark was still trying to fight back, but Bi Fang wasn't going to let that happen. At the sixth minute, he grabbed the rope and started to pull the shark in.
This time the mouse shark no longer had the strength to resist, and the resistance felt by Bi Fang on the rope was easily half what it had been at the start!
After another ten minutes of tugging, the shark was finally dragged out of the sea surface, breaking free from the water. The mmouse shark struggled more violently, but Bi Fang wouldn't give it another chance now, picking up a stick lying nearby he delivered a heavy blow to its head.
A dull thud, heavy and powerful, knocked all sense out of the shark, allowing Bi Fang to pull it easily onto the boat, never again to escape the hunter's grasp.
In this struggle between man and shark in the ocean, it was still Bi Fang who came out victorious in the end.
The sky began to drizzle, and the calm sea surface rippled with countless tiny circles.
Sitting on the edge of the boat, Bi Fang lifted his head to gaze at the somber sky.
This was his first rain since he had come to Easter Island.
Looking at the huge catch on the deck of the carrier, Bi Fang entered the Viking and after rummaging around, pulled out a large conch and blew into it as a horn.
Above the desolate sea, the sound of the conch was crystalline and far-reaching.